I go by Phaeton since the citizen band craze of the 70's. Now I'm dated.
I'm autistic, idiot savant to us old folks, and enjoy lighting. The disjointed rambling that follows covers 12 years of growing. OCD is also a problem with me and THC helps, lots. The key is only 1 person smoking my grows. I could use 50 watt tungsten long-life's and grow enough for just myself, so quite often I used lighting almost guaranteed not to grow plants, just to see.
All below is 400 watt discharge.
HPS got thrown out of the budroom 6 years ago. I did not like the fan leaves turning yellow when I thought they should be green. Standard industrial multi-vapor HID's worked fine. T12's and T8's suck at budding, but smokable buds did get harvested.
CMH came along, doing it all, I could even clone with them.
So all the CMH ballasts ended up in a drawer, no fun.
CMH bulbs use M135 ballast, HPS bulbs use S51 ballast, old HID use M59 ballast.
M59 fixtures are no longer for sale in the USA. I dismantled the CMH fixtures and put HID ballasts in them.
PlusRite makes a 'red' HID with dominate wavelength 590 nm. That is yellow but I bought 3 just to see. Oh yes, very solid pink came out, the spectrum must go down through red from the yellow peak, uh huh, yup. I bought 2 more, refurbished more fixtures and put them in the budroom with my 450 nm blue HID's. 3 weeks went by, Before this I pruned fan leaves every day, but not a leaf in 4 days. Time for a prism.
I won't use caps but those 'red' lights were not red. None. I took red stuff in the budroom and it looked black. No red whatsoever. A very sharp peak at the advertised 590 nm, skinny and yellow. The other spectral peak centered at 395 nm, violet and a shade less skinny. That is it, no other colors. Yellow and violet mixed look pink to me. Together with the manufacturer calling the light 'red' I saw red.
What that taught me: light without red will not grow a plant, I had other lights also to counteract all the 'red'. 2800 watts total, the plants did not die but neither did they grow. I had 590 nm, 450 nm, and 395 nm, all PAR light but the plants did not grow, no red.
I looked at all my fluorescents also, 4100K looked same as 6500K in the prism (coffee can painted white inside), but 5000K vegs clones better than either. Plants must see what I cannot, but even the 6500K fluorescents have a band of red coming out.
Reptile lights put out UVB. These tanning rays are supposed to shorten the time to ripen bud. I don't have a control done yet, but any results that are not big enough to find without detailed records are not big enough to make me care. Going to finish the test anyway, done right it may be big enough. Budding under violet cost me over 8 ounces, maybe ultra-violet will take it the other way. Good thing my sharing is 'try this' rather than my day job.
Halogen tungsten attracts me for its bright reds, but it always dry out the plant. 500 watts of glowing metal dries plants immediately out to 48". Not one to let small things get me I got a pair of 9" driving lights with 4200K special short life bulbs. 72" away on 2 sides with old HID's on top. The spot was 12" across at that distance so only 1 bud got the treatment. The major visible result was the silvering burned off the reflector. Driving lights need airflow. The buds did not noticably care.
Whoa, bedtime, gotta turn off the veg lights too. Why does everybody use 18/6 for veg? My plants go to bed with me and wake up with me, averages 15.5/8.5 and moves around a little if I watch a late movie or sleep in. Not seeming to be a problem. I veg in an open room, not needing dark dark, just gray dark.
Good night all :kitty:
I'm autistic, idiot savant to us old folks, and enjoy lighting. The disjointed rambling that follows covers 12 years of growing. OCD is also a problem with me and THC helps, lots. The key is only 1 person smoking my grows. I could use 50 watt tungsten long-life's and grow enough for just myself, so quite often I used lighting almost guaranteed not to grow plants, just to see.
All below is 400 watt discharge.
HPS got thrown out of the budroom 6 years ago. I did not like the fan leaves turning yellow when I thought they should be green. Standard industrial multi-vapor HID's worked fine. T12's and T8's suck at budding, but smokable buds did get harvested.
CMH came along, doing it all, I could even clone with them.
So all the CMH ballasts ended up in a drawer, no fun.
CMH bulbs use M135 ballast, HPS bulbs use S51 ballast, old HID use M59 ballast.
M59 fixtures are no longer for sale in the USA. I dismantled the CMH fixtures and put HID ballasts in them.
PlusRite makes a 'red' HID with dominate wavelength 590 nm. That is yellow but I bought 3 just to see. Oh yes, very solid pink came out, the spectrum must go down through red from the yellow peak, uh huh, yup. I bought 2 more, refurbished more fixtures and put them in the budroom with my 450 nm blue HID's. 3 weeks went by, Before this I pruned fan leaves every day, but not a leaf in 4 days. Time for a prism.
I won't use caps but those 'red' lights were not red. None. I took red stuff in the budroom and it looked black. No red whatsoever. A very sharp peak at the advertised 590 nm, skinny and yellow. The other spectral peak centered at 395 nm, violet and a shade less skinny. That is it, no other colors. Yellow and violet mixed look pink to me. Together with the manufacturer calling the light 'red' I saw red.
What that taught me: light without red will not grow a plant, I had other lights also to counteract all the 'red'. 2800 watts total, the plants did not die but neither did they grow. I had 590 nm, 450 nm, and 395 nm, all PAR light but the plants did not grow, no red.
I looked at all my fluorescents also, 4100K looked same as 6500K in the prism (coffee can painted white inside), but 5000K vegs clones better than either. Plants must see what I cannot, but even the 6500K fluorescents have a band of red coming out.
Reptile lights put out UVB. These tanning rays are supposed to shorten the time to ripen bud. I don't have a control done yet, but any results that are not big enough to find without detailed records are not big enough to make me care. Going to finish the test anyway, done right it may be big enough. Budding under violet cost me over 8 ounces, maybe ultra-violet will take it the other way. Good thing my sharing is 'try this' rather than my day job.
Halogen tungsten attracts me for its bright reds, but it always dry out the plant. 500 watts of glowing metal dries plants immediately out to 48". Not one to let small things get me I got a pair of 9" driving lights with 4200K special short life bulbs. 72" away on 2 sides with old HID's on top. The spot was 12" across at that distance so only 1 bud got the treatment. The major visible result was the silvering burned off the reflector. Driving lights need airflow. The buds did not noticably care.
Whoa, bedtime, gotta turn off the veg lights too. Why does everybody use 18/6 for veg? My plants go to bed with me and wake up with me, averages 15.5/8.5 and moves around a little if I watch a late movie or sleep in. Not seeming to be a problem. I veg in an open room, not needing dark dark, just gray dark.
Good night all :kitty: