Augmenting 315 cmh's with LED PAR or BR 30 or 38 Flood-Type Bulbs

It seems as though the last couple places I inquired about this, the conversations were more restricted or narrow than to permit discussion of this inquiry.

I have 315 cmh hoods and lamps in 4'x4' boxes. Sufficient ceiling space in them for the most part. One of the boxes is 3.5'x3.5', but the others are all as previously described.

I want to hang PAR/BR 30-38 LED flood-style bulbs on heavy cords, one in each corner of each box, 4 per box, to augment the 315 cmh systems.

I'm thinking, based on a little bit of reading, the far red spectrum is the way to go, specifically for bloom.

That said, with my outrageously slow internet connection, I've stared at half-loaded page, after half-loaded page, trying to find a bulb matching what I'm looking for (as described above, but with 10 to 15 watts or so actual usage per LED bulb, with an equivalent output of 120 to 150 watts from a conventional lamp).

If anyone can point to a tried and proven lamp that resembles the specs and needs/parameters described above, please chime in.

Seems there's lots of LED flood-type agro bulbs on the market that may not be all they're alleged to be, so finding some that do well, would be awesome.

Needing 16 of the buggers, plus cords, sockets, and related hardware, I'm trying to be frugal, but it is what it is.

Thanks.

I use a 13 watt Philips Flowering bulb in veg. One bulb for every 500 watts. Overkill for plants in the direct beam but the floodlight's edges still function on plants not in the direct beam.
In the bud room it is 50 watts for every 1000 watts. Mars Hydro offers 50 and 100 watt passive Far Red LED bars, five of their 50 watt units surround the 5000 watt bud room.

The clone and seedling table uses two Far Red bulbs (26 watts) with 800 watts grow lights. Only one end fit in the picture.
The 1400 watt veg area uses three bulbs (39 watts) for coverage.
The 'on' time is one half hour overlapping the on and off times of the grow lights in all rooms.

Far Red alone does not have enough energy for photosynthesis, it needs coupled with 680 nm red and then it is half of the Emerson Effect. This is why it is used only morning and evening rather than all day.

>>>""13 watt Philips Flowering bulb""<<<

Thanks.

I'd narrowed the search to those bulbs with a 35 to 45 degree angle to the beam (more flood than spot).

Some of the agro-specific LED lamps of this sort that I've looked at (ranging in price fairly wildly), when advertised as agro-specific, often have in the range of 450 nm in blue, and 640 to 660 nm in red, with the remainder sometimes filled in with other spectrum, to include bright white. The white light seemed to me to be a waste, other than for the purposes stated by the sources; making the red/blue (purple) hue that's common with agro-LEDs less apparent.

In my case, the aesthetic appearance doesn't mean as much as for those using these things in their living rooms..

Using the bulb you referenced above, placing one in each corner of a 4'x4' area, hanging base-up, in a true vertical position, at the same height as the 315 cmh hood, and running the same duration of the day (in bloom 12:12), what would you expect the benefit to be, if any?

There's not really any room to place another 315 in the boxes, and considering the purpose in switching to them being the better spectrum and lower electrical usage, I probably wouldn't want to if I could squeeze another in.

What sources have you found to be best, most honest/reputable, and affordable in these lamps? And conscientious about their shipping (once had Amazon send me a box of digital 400 bulbs, and all but one arrived broken).

I found a site last night late that offered a number of options in an LED flood-type bulb, not necessarily agro, but they had non-Agro LED floods in a PAR38 E26 or E27 base, in the 2700k and 3000k spectrums (Sylvania, Philips, and a couple other brands I hadn't heard of, as well as a couple others I had; Cree, Feit, etc.). They were claiming 1250 to 1350 lumens per bulb with what they had, though I have read in other threads here about removal of the outer 'lens' to facilitate more light intensity, or (????).

I'll have to check another thread to retrieve the site, as I posted it there last night.

Thanks again.

Dang, here I am in the middle of a harvest and a fresh batch of oil extract.
I hit the wrong button before loading the pictures. Oops, so I started over and this one is hereby cancelled.

Think I'll go get stoned.

Far Red acts like an alarm clock to the plant, telling it when it is night. This causes flowering hormone production to begin immediately. Otherwise the plant will wait two hours to make sure it is not a cloud going by.
Use of Far Red removes major stress from the plant and will eliminate most hermi's and sativa's habit of hiding seeds in buds at random.
It does not increase yields in side by side testing. The energy is just too low, it is one of those 'trigger' wavelengths that directs chemical reactions rather than providing them. UV has similar modes of action and its useful levels are measured in microwatts (1/1,000,000).

I saw 'Far Red' in the first post and jumped from there.
All the screw-in LEDs tested have not had the intensity needed to affect growth.
Except on clones, the bulbs put an nice low level light that does not dry the fragile cuttings.

Here are some photos of my favorite side lights, I use Intelligent Light Source brand but all are really close to identical. The bars average two watts per inch, a two foot bar is 50w and the four foot bars are 100w. Spectrums can be chosen. The Far Red bars are Mars Hydro and BMI, the UV bars are Lumitex.
The two foot bars hang vertical and fit corners well. These will put light up and down the whole plant instead of a circle in the middle.

In the bud room the temps are high enough I run circulating fans just for the side lights. They function fine without the fans but Life expectancy is linked to running temperatures and I am on six years without any failures at all.

The photos show the bars in action except the bud room, the lights were already out so a flash was used.

moose eater said:

Here’s the outlet I found last night, and some non-Agro-specific bulbs that may hold some promise. Zero idea about shipping to Alaska by either resource yet, but that can come ;later when I choose a product, and follow through.

https://www.topbulb.com/led/led-par/...r38/120w-equal

Here’s a bulb another poster here found for me, from a source I believe they’ve used before. I need to research the specific bulb(s) in question in a wider search, as there’s limited reviews at this specific site.

https://www.gearbest.com/grow-lights/pp_801004.html

Click to expand...

The growlight from Amazon will have an output of 3 to 4 watts. All the colored growlights from China run from 1/4 to 1/3 the rated output.
The white LEDs sold for residential use put out the full wattage advertised, if in doubt check the lumens, white light should put out 100 lumens per watt.
Having bought three brands of screw in growlights in the $20 to $50 dollar range I can verify the $15 white bulbs from Wal Mart are much superior.

Thanks.

I have previously ran 2 90-watt LED saucers with heavy red influence in the lights, in a 18" x 50" mother cupboard, with no additional lighting. The plants remained smaller, similar to their stature in the same cupboard as smaller moms, the buds were fairly dense (surprisingly), though on the smaller side, and though smaller plants and smallish buds, in a cupboard that lacked the crowding in my typical Super Cropping arrangement in larger boxes, did over 2 oz. per plant on average.

I think I got close to a half-lb. total off of two 90-watt LED saucers in the one cupboard, though I'm not positive of that weight; been a while..

My objective with the current inquiry is/was to tighten up the buds, increase production, raise the watts/sq. ft., and not exceed the electrical use (if possible) that I ran with 400 hps, where I did as well as 20-1/2 oz. in 16 sq. ft. under the single 400 hps.