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Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH)

sickboy

Member
could anyone tell me where a european can safely buy a 250 watt CMH bulb? i cant seem to find it anywhere...
thx in advance
sick
 
True, I run am putting together a 1x1x2'h Cab. I wanna try a verticle grow with this light; with the words that I will be able to cool it, I am going to have to order this week I assume.
 

mjg132

Member
simba will just tell you to order from here since they ship internationally:
250 & 400 Watt Uses HPS Ballast, 20-150 watt on other pages

I'm gonna keep a look out for some in the UK though,if they ever reach these shores and last but not least,i've seen conflicting opinions on heat and flower potential from these bulbs and wonder if they're worth the import.
 
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simba

Sleeping Dragon
Colorado, My bad i thought it was 1x2.. a 1x1x2 i wouldn't go any thing over 100 pref 70 especially if vertical.. Id personally go for some LR or Other Good Auto flower and it will give you good results with just 1 baby in there (id go 2 from seed and chop whichever is male or even keep the 2 if female) (keepuhm both centered and kinda keep them apart or at least enough apart when if time to chop or Separate it can be done)
another option on the 100 is sperate the lamp area from the grow (with the air from the grow coming into the lamp area and being sucked out.. or have fans pushing air from bottom of cab in and forcing it threw the whole thing from bottom up..
Look at some of the Micro grows and copy them for the cmh..
 

simba

Sleeping Dragon
No, It will shorten Life and Produce Hotter Arc Tube,
Although the CMH will handle 25% Over Spec'ed Wattage..
The arc tube length is sized to the wattage a 430 would be a few mm longer.
I remember talking to someone who did run it and the ballast ran hotter than it would from the son agro 430.. so it leads me to believe the arc tube length affects Draw to.
 
C

CTSV

1600 watts of Ceramic Metal Halide, running STRONG! Follow the link in my sig, to watch the show. Should be fun!

:joint:
 
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darippa

Member
thanks for the quick reply simba. Looks like I'll just sell this ballast and build another kit. The 250 cmh in the mother/clone cab is doing great.
 

HairlessCaveApe

Active member
Mine just got here! I pulled it outta the box and screwed it in! It did the "lightning" thing for a li'l longer then Im used to but other then that, it lit rite up. I dont think its up to full intencity yet but Im gonna go look at it! I just got it 3 minits ago! Whee Doggy! Im gonna go look at it for a while and Il be back to give a li'l criteek! I got the 400!
 

paperchaser825

Active member
Glass Light Filter

Glass Light Filter

Don't know if this has been covered yet....but....what if you had a glass insert for an air cooled hood and that glass insert was filtering out most of that green (some green, though very little, is needed for photosynthesis) spectrum in this fine lamp....what then? any info? anyone???? :bashhead:
 

HairlessCaveApe

Active member
Well I shure do like it. Only time will tell what my mom thinks of it but I like it. Its a nice white light, but its commin outta my hps ballast. Trikky! I like it. Just by the look of the light this bulb is puttinout I think my mom'l like it too.
 

thal

Member
I'm not real confident in my ability to wire up a ballast. If I wanted to use a CMH would it be better to buy a 400w HPS ballast and then get a CMH bulb? Or should I just man up and just order the wiring kit?
 

darippa

Member
man up and wire it yourself. Its not that hard, there are some good links to wiring them up on this site. I'll post the ones I used later today.
 

hoosierdaddy

Active member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Nothing manly about it. The peace of mind that comes with knowing your equipment is ready to roll, laboratory tested and approved, is worth lots.
 
So this is a repost from a thread I started, thinking it's better suited for here, so here goes:

I've currently got 2x 400 watt aircooled super sun reflectors, sun system ballasts, with 2x 400 watt CMH bulbs. Cooling is not an issue, have a 8" vortex on a variable speed controller.

So I've done 1 grow so far, and harvested. Now I'm 1 week into 12/12 of my next run. A couple Big Bang clones, and about 7 Satori clones, veg'd and LST'd for ~2 mo, and put into SCROG ~10 days ago after trimming all shoots that didn't reach the screen. My room is 2.5ft wide by 6 ft long by 6 ft tall, SCROG is really helping this time around. Handwatering using canna coco, canna nutes, and assorted additives.

With numerous bumps in the road, I got 13 oz off my last run, and I really want to demolish that in this 2nd run (.45g per watt).


One bulb looks dimmer than the other (I've been running it for a bit longer than the other, 6 months vs. 4 mo.), less bright, and more bluish light, whereas the other is more "natural" reddish and brighter (being younger).

So my question is this:

Since I need to replace one bulb, should I just grab another 400 watt CMH?

Should I run one half of the room with CMH and one with HPS?

Should I run both with HPS?

If I should switch to HPS, what bulbs should I get? (so many kinds)

I've got about 50 watts per sq ft. as it is.

I'm also thinking about adding a 250 watt bulb side mounted (as opposed to vertical), if it was to increase yield by a decent bit. (Should this be the same bulb type as the other two?)

I've heard having two different light spectrums is slightly bad for yield, as it messes with the plants, but I don't know if this is true.

Please give me the skinny on this as I really want to max out my yield this time around!

I'm hoping for .75 grams per watt this time around, any help is appreciated.

Need to place an order ASAP, could be just me, but I swear the plants on the "dim" bulb side are stretching a solid bit more.

What I would like to do is at least run 1 250 watt HPS in the room mounted sideways, but again, I'm worried about mixing light spectrums.

Should I switch everything to HPS? Again so many different bulbs, dual arc, hybrids, oh my, so many different brands and pricepoints in looking at HIDHUT.

Also I saw the mega ray UVB product mentioned above as well, would anyone suggest something like UVB supplementing? or should I KISS?
 
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messn'n'gommin'

ember
Veteran
Personally, I would just go with all CMH. But, I think you would see some benefit if a CMH/HPS combo was used in flowering. But, that would entail rotating your plants, at least every few days.

As far as your concern about a mixed spectrum, weed has been growing outdoors for millions of years under a full spectrum light source. I would question the thinking of anyone who said a mixed spectrum hurts yield. If nothing else, pairing HPS with MH will not only improve (imho) yield but quality as well, rather than using either alone. By theirselves, MH or HPS covers less of the usable SPD than in combo and CMH provides more than both in combo.

Adding UVR is a good idea. But, I would get everything else squared away first. Just my :2cents: Hope this helps.

Namaste, mess
 
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Ok i want to get a good light for my space and temperature is a big thing for me. I'm looking into getting a 250 watt lamp. not sure if i should get an hps or one of these cmh's. the space I'm working with is 2X2X4 and i have the Tds-100 mix vent for my exhaust. the setup would definitely be in a cool tube. my plan is to perpetually have 9 plants in the flower box and 3 in the veg chamber. and i would pull 3 out and replace them every month. so i would use a 60 day strain and have a month of veg on each plant. I have been on the Philips website and was wondering what i need to get started. like i know i need a ballast kit and a horizontal cmh would i need anything else ?? and if temperatures are easy to handle with these is a 400 possible ??
thank you in advanced for any help :)
 

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
You'll need a reflector and a ballast box as well. The ballast kit is just the guts.

Whatever you want the MH for, CMH is better. Whatever you want HPS for, CMH is better. If you've space for a second lamp, CMH is better. Notice the recurring theme? Why bother with half spectrum lamps. The sun doesn't turn blue or red. It sends out the full spectrum and trusts the plant to take what it needs.
 

hoosierdaddy

Active member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I am now harvesting some from my second CMH grow.
In the first grow with it, I saw some plants really take on mucho calyx swell during the last couple weeks of flower. The calyx' were tight and standing up like knuckles, even the popcorn took on this denseness. Although, I figured I was looking at a strain dependent thing.

Well, this run I put in two cuts of a mandala plant I had grown previously with HPS only. One in soil, one in my water tube.
There was some difference in how these identical plants ripened, but they both had a similar theme...big fat hard swollen calyx' that were clearly not present with the HPS grow. The buds of this plant under the CMH are far superior to those of just HPS. Now, it may not be fair to a point because I had only 300w of HPS the first run, and 400wCMH x 150HPS this run. It may well that it took the combination of spectrum to net the buds in the shape they are.

But there is one thing I have found out about the CMH that is undeniable.
The light colors plants purple. That is a fact that is undeniable.
I had two plants purple up alot when they were grown with the CMH last run. My MOC carnivals got real purple. I even sent in a pic of them to the breeder and they stated they had never seen their strain do that before. Asking me about how cool my temps were, etc...
Well, I had noticed from the two mandala cuts that they never changed color at all when under HPS, they stayed a very dark rich green. They didn't yellow a whole lot even after a good flush.
But grown under the CMH, the color abounds! And it is the CMH that is bleaching this color into the plants. I don't think at this point that temps or strain has anything to do with the purpling effect I am seeing from this light.

This is a bud from one of the mandala plants:


You can see from the stalk of this one that it is a deep rich purple color. Well, the other side of that stalk is bright green. I never rotate my plants, and you can see exactly where the light falls on the plants, and this falls exactly the line where the purple fades back to green.


The same thing is happening on two different phenos of SSH.
Had I been turning my plants, I may not have noticed it as much, but it is obvious to me that the CMH is responsible for every bit of this color change.

Am I seeing UV work here?
I have a glass cool tube around the bulb, and I know folks talk about the reduction of light rays,,,BUT...I have been doing some deeper investigation into that aspect of the deal. It seems, from what I can gather, that it may just turn out that the cheaper glass, such as what most always comes out of Mexico, can actually refract much better than any other glass, even borocilicate type. Reason being that the cheap glass often is full of lead, which causes this high refraction value.

I am going to go ahead and drop some coin on a decent camera. I need y'all to see just how deliciously fat the buds are from my set-up, plus y'all need to see this purple thing up close and personal.
 
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