Gavita-Pro 1000w 400v (new generation hps)

[LEDNewbie]

I almost have my room wrapped up. Hung my 3 gavita's and fired them up for a little look Man those suckers are BRIGHT!!!

Quick question for anyone in the know... I fired the lights up, one I fired up at 1000W and the two others I fired up at 600W. I honestly didn't see any difference in light output?? I then turned up the other two lights to 1000W as well and didn't even see them flicker or anything? Is this normal? Shouldn't I be able to see a big difference between 600W and a 1000W?

 

[whazzup]

the light is so intense that you would not directly see the difference, but when you switch you need to allow 60 seconds per step for the ballast to adjust. This is callees soft-dim and it is better for the lamp. The output is reduced so gradually that you do not see it dim.

I assure you that 600W is a lot less

@ ilikehejz: as short as possible!! It will not influence the output of the lamp a lot, but it could influence ignition and any long cord acts as a giant antenna which creates electromagnetic interference. We recommend complete fixtures to prevent this from happening or, when you use remote ballasts to keep the lamp cords as short as possible.

 

[LEDNewbie]

the light is so intense that you would not directly see the difference, but when you switch you need to allow 60 seconds per step for the ballast to adjust. This is callees soft-dim and it is better for the lamp. The output is reduced so gradually that you do not see it dim.

I assure you that 600W is a lot less

@ ilikehejz: as short as possible!! It will not influence the output of the lamp a lot, but it could influence ignition and any long cord acts as a giant antenna which creates electromagnetic interference. We recommend complete fixtures to prevent this from happening or, when you use remote ballasts to keep the lamp cords as short as possible.

Nice to hear right from the source!! Do you have a rule of thumb for keeping the lights away from the tops of the plants using 1000W? Same as other 1000W lights? 18" and check to see temps at canopy height?

And yes whazzup, these bloody Gavita's are DAMN BRIGHT!!!! Even if not looking at the light, a couple minutes spent in the room really fucks up your eyes!!! WIll be wearing sun glasses from now on!!!

 

[whazzup]

at 1000W keep them at 70 cm if you need to come close. I always prefer a much greater distance and overlapping lights to create uniformity and reduce heat. But for single lamps or small tents that is not an option. At 1150W keep a greater distance or you will over-saturate your plants. Use a PAR meter to check the light levels at the top of your plants.

 

[LEDNewbie]

Thanks Whazzup! I don't have a light meter yet but it is on my list of things to get!!

I have 3 Gavita's covering a 5x15 area. Doing a SCROG. Basically each light is covering a 5x5 area. At 70 cm/27 inches will the plants get the max amount of light that they need? Only reason I ask this is because every other 1000W light out there is recommended to stay between 45-50cm/18-20 inches.

Thanks

 

[whazzup]

yes it is. You need to consider that the lamp is a bit brighter and the arc tube is a bit shorter so the short distance light intensity is very high. Coming closer the intensity reaches values of over 1500 umol m-2 s-1 easily and for most plants that is a bit too much HPS. Though values in the sun can be even higher there is also the spectrum and the heat. Plants under plasma light can withstand much higher light intensities we found out, which we partly can explain because of the lower heat but also partly because of the spectrum. I dare you to stand in the sun on a hot summer day for about an hour. You would be really warm and your body would be transpiring a lot of water to cool you down (and you would probably have a sun burn) but the plants around you would be doing fine. They can take quite high intensities of the right light.

In greenhouses using high intensities HPS light in the dark winter this can cause a serious quality problem, especially with the parts closest to the HPS lamp (the shoot tip of the tomato plant for example). Added (quality) sunlight prevents this from happening. In Scandinavia MH lamps are added in the dark winters.

Talking about sun and burning plants: Many people warn not to spray the plants with water when the light is on. I think plants love a fresh splash of water once in a while. I have never seen a wet plant in nature burn under the hottest sun.

 

[Gardens Keeper]

How high do you recommend running 1 of these at 600 watts above a plant? I know it is recommended 30 inches for 1000 watt setting but interested to know what 600 is as I am about to do this in one of my rooms that has height issues as a result of only a 50 inch ceiling. I am guessing 20 inches is perfectly safe but just wanted to know if anyone had first hand experience.

Incredible lights btw best upgrade in years.

 

[whazzup]

18-20" is safe. Remember that the lamp efficiency goes down when you dim a lamp.

 

[smile]

Question for Whazzzup

Question for Whazzzup

Whazzup, thanks for taking your time to be availale to answer questions regarding the Gavita lights.

I have a question about the heat generation of both the 1000w and 600w versions.

One of the things I've read about the lights is that they have a "very low heat dissipation."

Compared to a regular magnetic ballast 600w or 1000w lamp running HPS Hortilux bulbs approximately how much less heat will the Gavita 600w Pro or 1000w Pro bulb/ballast combo generate in total? Comments in this thread indicate there may not be a readily discernible difference in heat between traditional lights and the Gavitas, but maybe the savings in heat simply cannot be "felt" due to lack of sensitivity of human perception..?

Also, if I am understanding correctly the Gavita electronic ballasts generate less heat due to high efficiency (35w of heat for the 600w version) but the bulbs will generate similar heat (60% of whatever wattage is being used) as a Hortilux operating at the same wattage?

I appreciate any insight you can provide on this as heat generation is a primary concern because of high ambient temperatures where the garden is located. Every little savings matters due to high electricity costs and the need to cool growing spaces.

Thanks!

 

[smile]

Also, what is the approximate comparison in lumens or umol between a 600w DE bulb running at 660w and a traditional magnetic ballast powering a 1000w Hortilux bulb in an aircooled reflector? We are drawing roughly 66% of the power and electronic ballast are supposed to provide more lumens per watt than magnetic ballasts for another efficiency gain. Also there is no light lost to the glass in the reflector - so how close can we get to the performance of old technology 1000w magnetic ballast/Hortilux bulb/aircooled reflector in lumens or umol using the Gavita 1000w Pro and a 600w DE bulb at 660w? My baseline is the magnetic ballast system mentioned above, hence the comparison.

The 1000w Pro footprint is roughly 3.5ft x 5ft., would the useable footprint be approximately the same using a 600w DE bulb in the fixture running at 660w? This is using a single lamp not multiples with overlap. Surely there will be some loss due to less light output, but how much?

Still searching for the highest yield potential with lowest power draw and heat.

Thanks again!

 

[whazzup]

first of all there is no 600 DE lamp, it is a single ended lamp (SE) E39 in the US, E40 in EU so you can not interchange these lamps.

The heat dissipation from electronic ballasts is low compared to magnetic ballasts, even lower when they work at higher mains voltage. An average 1000W 120V electronic ballasts can dissipate close to 90-100W, a 1000W 240V more close to 60-70W. The energy that a lamp uses will be either transformed into light or heat, but that also depends on the spectrum used: you need more energy to make blue photons. How the emitted light and heat is brought to your crop depends on your reflector. a lamp that throws out more light can clearly have a reduced heat production as you are right, 60% or more is converted into heat. So more light with the same heat levels is less heat per surface at the same light intensity. If you increase the light intensity by using the same throw I don't expect much difference.

Lumens comparisons I stay away from, they don't mean a thing for plants. As for the losses in air cooled reflectors: it's about 8-10% with a clean fixture, and then you have also the reflector efficiency of course. If you then take into consideration the different outputs of the lamps (which vary between 1500-1800 umol for 1000W lamps single ended lamps) you will understand that you can have outputs as low as 1300 umol or high or as high as 1600 umol from your air cooled reflector. The Pro 600 @ 600W outputs about 1140 umol from the reflector (with the new GreenPower Plus lamp), the pro 1000 @ 1000W does about 2000 umol from the reflector to your crop. So, as the hortilux is a pretty good lamp (~1800 umol@100%) you will not come very close with the Pro 600, not even at 660W (if this were possible on the Pro 600, it isn't).

But running the Pro 1000 DE at 825W will give you about 1500 umol straight from the reflector, saving at least 185W of energy for the same light levels.

Another way to look at it: Compared to an air cooled solution you will get at least 25-35% more light from a Pro 1000 DE lamp at the same power use, or even at >150W less compared to a 120V core/coil. That 30-40% better energy efficiency you can also use for climate control.

Don't get me wrong: if you have a climate problem and a limited electricity supply the easiest way to cool is to use air cooled hoods as they are the most efficient way to get a lot of heat out of your room with the lowest amount of energy (a fan) and lowering the air conditioning requirements, but it will cost you light and yield.

Considering the fact that you are probably not growing lettuce an extra lamp to compensate the losses is a no-brainer investment economically. But if your climate or climate control allows it, open reflectors are a good and efficient way to go if you want to maximize yield.

So there are many angles of looking at light, many perspectives. There is not one solution that is optimal for every situation.

 

[masshole61]

Hey wazzup, I have a room design question for you. Given what you know @ overlapping lighting and the projected footprint of pro 1000, what size footprint and configuration would you use for 4000w? 10x10 on 5' centers?

 

[whazzup]

that depends on your room height and the light intensity you require, your style of grow and flower bed arrangement, complete sea of green, (scrog) beds or trees?

About the space: you have only 4 lamps, so you don't have a lot of overlap. It's 8000 umol in total, and you want about 1000 umol s-1 m-2. With 90% room efficiency (walls) that would mean about 7 square meters rectangular.

2.1m (7ft) x 3,5m (~12ft), 2 lamps rows on short sides, rows 2m apart, center lamps 1.25m apart will do the job at 90 cm (3 ft) from the crop with more than 90% uniformity.

So for example lamps at 1.9m high, crop about a meter. At 50 cm room height you still have average more than 850 umol s-2 m-2 average with this setup. You can bring the lamps higher or lower with your crop of course.

With just 4 lamps you already profit a lot from the overlap and coming closer will give you really high intensities you should not want. A ft closer will give you >1500 umol right under the lamp.

 

[smile]

Whazzup,

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. Engineering must always be thought of in terms of systems and how they interact as you have been pointing out in many of the answers you have given on the message board. In my garden's circumstances environmental factors will ultimately dictate the chosen path unfortunately. Without question the Gavita lights make me drool because of their yield potential, but removing heat from the grow space with minimal use of air conditioning due to electrical constraints seems to be the limiting factor ultimately. No way to move to a place with cooler weather either lol

Thanks again, and all the best

 

[whazzup]

you are very correct. I am always very reluctant to give averages as they do not apply in every circumstance. A statistician waded a river that was average 1 ft deep. He drowned

For me there is no doubt that unshielded lamps are more efficient than shielded ones, there are enough examples, reports and research papers available that can substantiate this vision, but, due to climate influences, they are not for every environment, it's as simple as that.

 

[RandyCalifornia]

Wazzup, I had a question or two, if you please.
I just saw these at the grow store today and am interested.
4 lights in a 10x12' room 8' high will run cooler, brighter and more efficiently then regular 1k mag coil ballasts and lights?

 

[whazzup]

yes they do. Ballasts dissipate 60W, so they are a lot cooler than magnetic ballasts, output of the lamp is really the highest in the market. When compared to average lamps +20%, not even taking the reflector into account. You do need a bit of distance as these are really bright. So that's question one

happy new year

 

[RandyCalifornia]

#2 so you think the brightness might be an issue if there is a height restriction?
#3 how much distance do you recon would be needed between the plant tops and the bulbs?
Thank you for the prompt answers and Happy New Year!

 

[whazzup]

that's three question eh!

2: yes. If you come much closer than 2 ft you will reach levels that go beyond the saturation levels of your plants (>1500 umol) which is not efficient use of the light.

3: it has been said before a few times in the thread: For a single lamp about 2 ft minimum, in overlapping situations, or when used at 115% with single lamps, 3 ft would be better.

Don't try to combine high plants, low rooms and high power lamps. If the height in your grow room is a given, you adjust either the type of lighting (more lamps, lower wattage) or the style of growing (more plants per surface and lower, or less plants and scrog/lst etc).

If plant numbers are concerned and the height is an issue: A scrog can easily bring you a gram per watt with one plant per square meter, but it takes a bit more time in veg. Example with a 600W lamp on 1m2:

 

[Normlfightr]

Hello whazzup,

for got I cannot yet recieve pm's.

First off thank you very much for your opinion and expertise youve displayed here, it is very valuable.

I came across your thread here on the pro 1000 while doing some lighting research for a project im putting together I have already purchased a competitors reflector and cannot return them or afford replacement without at least a few runs. The reflectors I have purchased are the Bell lighting technologies, lr 1000 non air cooled model. it is widely used in greenhouses also and has performed very well for me in the past.

I was convinced on getting these micromole ballasts, sold by monster gardens(made by gavita?) and useing them with a hortilux bulb. That is, until I read this thread here on the gavita 1000 400v pro, which caused me to question my choices.

Id really like to use the remote pro 1000 with phillips double ended with my bell reflectors. if this is not possible, can you tell me which bulb and ballast gavita makes that would be used with these reflectors?

thanks for your help!