Transcend Lighting: The Next Generation T5 30w LED

[PetFlora]

Sigh, not going to get the SE 250 for a couple more weeks, so I moved the sat to the Transcend Lighting D 200.

2 days ago I gave her and the 4 in my 2 Mini Me F & Ds a primary leaf haircut. Today I did the same to the plants on the far left under the TL hot5s. Pic 1/2 are before an after

Amazing to see how quickly the secondary branching has grown already

View attachment 362901 View attachment 362902

View attachment 362903 View attachment 362904

 

[PetFlora]

OK, April 23 was first time I noticed a few pistils on the sat, so ~ another month to harvest

Remember my concern back on May 14 about one of the defoled plants not responding...

Baby won't you look at her now, she's on the far right

Also the plants in the multi - tote (far left) are outgrowing it
View attachment 364366

I did the flippety-flop, moving the Sat to the Amare tent and the 2 plants to the TL D200
View attachment 364367 View attachment 364368

Yesterday, I started adding 1/4 tsp of humic acid to each rez. This turns the rez dark brown and will stain the roots, but it should improve the already efficient and healthy root system. Also plan to get some Yucca

 

[PetFlora]

Due to overcrowding along the wall, yesterday I added an additional bubble tote under the HOT5s.

To minimize crowding, I defoled a lot of primary leafs

I may have lost my clones due to an overnight mishap

View attachment 364649

 

[woolybear]

plants are looking great!

 

[PetFlora]

plants are looking great!

Thanks. The pictures don't do them justice

 

[PetFlora]

So far I have removed 3 male plants. The most shocking was on the far right. He looked completely female until the coconuts appeared. I moved him outside will replant in coco. I might collect the pollen to F2 a couple female branches, which I am pretty sure are Blueberry Cheesecake

I cut the light hours about a week ago.

Due to the impressive bud development in the other tents after just a few days of using Emerald Harvest Cali Bloom, I will be replacing the HR V + B in this tent with EH Cal Bloom 2 part + a bunch of EH supplements

See my Hail Hydro thread for pics of the sat bulking- hell Hulking up

 

[PetFlora]

Yippee The big plant (sat) in the back is a girl - NOT

Time to change nutes in her and the smaller female on the left side in the L

Only the 2 squat fatties near the front are still being fed HR, but as soon as I get more RO water they two will be in Cali Bloom 2 Part

 

[PetFlora]

Ah crap. Turns out she is an IT. Now outside for whatever benefits to come

View attachment 365597

 

[PetFlora]

I moved the plant from the back (now on the left) into another Mini Me F & D, and turned the light and plants 90*s to provide easier access. Also this allowed me to put both rezes in a cooler, which should keep rezes cooler longer, similar to my tent with 2 plants in it. That rez is in my Bubble Bath Igloo.

Thinking to put the nutes directly in the cooler sans rez buckets, but then I would need to use my wet vac to suck them out when replacing, which I do weekly. TBC

Unfortunately I neglected to get the cooler into the pictures

View attachment 365880 View attachment 365881

 

[PetFlora]

The girls are doing great, little doubt thanks to me adjusting pH twice a day

I will try to remember to turn the hot5 off so we can more accurately see what's happening

View attachment 366609

 

[PetFlora]

Some gremlins have gotten into my hot5 tent.

2 days ago the tote on the left fell forward during the night, separating the tubing, so all the nutes poured out as the pump cycled. Thankfully, the plant did not break, but was bruised.

This morning the plant on the right had the same experience. Again, the plant did not break, but nutes were drained into the tent floor.

However, I noticed her lower branches are quite wispy. Had I only grown her I might think it was the light, but the other two have sturdy branches.

 

[PetFlora]

Taking pics from higher up instead of from the side eliminated a lot of the red tint created by the 1:1 between white and red tubes

The cola is from the middle plant

Can't really complain about the result to date, BUT, 8 led tubes ~@ $70= $560 + ~ $250-$300 for the fixture. Amare now has a 3ft bar @ 250w said to cover 2 x 4 for $795. I can't wait to get one

View attachment 367672 View attachment 367673

 

[PetFlora]

I've been noticing a marked difference between the pistils under my Amare LED panels and those under the TL LED tubes. Now, this could well be due to the significantly increased intensity of the Amares. Alas, I cannot raise the Amare panels to the recommended height, so what I am seeing could be the equivalent of sun burn.

This morning I decided to take pre-lights on pictures (more accurate color). This was hard as I had to use a small hand held led plus focus the camera

Unfortunately, I don't have a macro lens to get real close ups, but I think you'll see how much fluffier the pistils are under the TLs. What impact that has, I don't know, but it certainly would help for pollen catching

First two pics are close ups under the Amare SE 250

View attachment 368177 View attachment 368178 View attachment 368179 View attachment 368180

 

[PetFlora]

The likely reason why the pistil difference is/was using the glass lenses when I only have ~ 12" above each canopy. According to Amare I was giving them a sunburn= too much intensity for that height: I need taller tents. Since the led hot5s don't generate much intensity, their leafs did not crisp up. Nevertheless, they are looking damned fine


This morning I trimmed a bunch of the crispy primary leafs under the SE 250

Pistils and buds goin wild now

The cola is from the middle plant. The wide shot is mostly the 2 plants to the left of the third plant

View attachment 368725 View attachment 368726

 

[CrazyKappa]

Tried to get ahold of Amare several times about the red LED tubes, cause they are not listed anymore, they never got back to me. Already have 2 of the white bulbs, but i am thinking i am going to cut my losses at this point. I just ordered all the parts i need to build a 9 Cree CXB3590 light flower light, running at 1050mA, that will give me 61% total efficiency.

If that goes good, and i like the light, i will build one for my veg tent, but with 6 CXBs running at 700mA, and that will give me around 70% total efficiency, cause i can get higher bin number for veg CXBs, and i am running at a lower current.

Since those tubes use a mono diode, even if its the most efficient spectrum, they are not more efficient then the CXBs. My flower light is most likely more efficient, and the veg light (if i like the flower light) would blow it out of the water.

Ill post you some pics when i get in all the parts, and build it.

 

[PetFlora]

Tried to get ahold of Amare several times about the red LED tubes, cause they are not listed anymore, they never got back to me. Already have 2 of the white bulbs, but i am thinking i am going to cut my losses at this point. I just ordered all the parts i need to build a 9 Cree CXB3590 light flower light, running at 1050mA, that will give me 61% total efficiency.

If that goes good, and i like the light, i will build one for my veg tent, but with 6 CXBs running at 700mA, and that will give me around 70% total efficiency, cause i can get higher bin number for veg CXBs, and i am running at a lower current.

Since those tubes use a mono diode, even if its the most efficient spectrum, they are not more efficient then the CXBs. My flower light is most likely more efficient, and the veg light (if i like the flower light) would blow it out of the water.

Ill post you some pics when i get in all the parts, and build it.

I am not aware of Amare ever offering 'red' tubes. See growmau5s newest YT video: Cree says it's dumb to run their CoBs 'efficiently', or to even use CoBs at all.

Actual efficiency comes from running them at the wattage they are designed for and using fans + proper heat sinks

 

[CrazyKappa]

Just watched that video, what they did not say is why its dumb, personally i think it would be dumb to drive them at full power, and lose efficiency. Whatever gains you have from running at full power, you lose in cooling costs. They may have a point on running individual diodes, but again, the why, is never explained. Perhaps they are not looking at this from a cannabis growers point of view, or that it costs more to run at lower power, cause you need more CXB's to get same result. I don't know, because on that front they simply gave opinions, without clarifying at all the reasoning. But regardless, once i have my main light, and get a grow out of it, i will be adding another driver, along with individual diodes, that hit the wavelengths known to be highly beneficial. In fact, i will likely look up those new diodes mentioned in Growmau5's new video, the ones Cree tested vs the Gavitas.

Cree can say whatever they like, all i know is, people are killing it with the CXBs! Growmau5 himself have tested them at 700, 1050, and 1400mA. I talked to him quite a bit about the differences, 700mA produces amazing GPW, but average GPSF, 1400mA produces outstanding GPSF, but only above average GPW, while the 1050 seems to be the sweet spot.

"[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Actual efficiency comes from running them at the wattage they are designed for and using fans + proper heat sinks"
[/FONT]
I get my efficiency ratings from Cree's own datasheet, for the CD bin CXB i am getting, efficiency is 63% at 700mA, 61% at 1050mA, and 56% at 1400mA. Far as heatsink goes, i am getting a pin heatsink, that Growmau5 himself tested vs the heatsinkusa stuff. It out preformed it at every stage, plus i am getting one that is over rated, so that if i wanted to, i could go out and buy 1400mA drivers, and run the same heatsink. Plus my grow tents have 2 fans, one sitting on bottom, and one hanging from the top, they will get plenty of air.

What i meant by red bulb was the flower bulb, now the only bulb i see is the seed to harvest bulb. I wanted to mix them like you suggested, but it seems they no longer sell those. I was just pissed at them for never getting back to me, same reason i dropped the Greenbeam, i messaged them 3 times about the concerns you brought up about reflectivity degrading over time, they refused to reply. In both cases, it was not like i was kicking tires, wasting time, i had already bought shit from them.

Thanks man for helping me see the light on those GB!

 

[CrazyKappa]

Crap i meant Transcend Lighting, not Amare, and i just checked the website and the flowering bulb is once again an option. Still don't like the fact that when i emailed them about that bulb, i never got a reply. Cant stand companies that do not get back to you, particularly if your a returning customer.

Now i am back to being on the fence about buying the last two bulbs i needed for my HoT4 veg light, or build a custom 5000k CBX one. You can get the DB bin in 5k, if you ran that at 700mA, you get would around 70% efficiency. Do you know what TLs plug efficiency is? Photons vs heat

 

[PetFlora]

Crap i meant Transcend Lighting, not Amare, and i just checked the website and the flowering bulb is once again an option. Still don't like the fact that when i emailed them about that bulb, i never got a reply. Cant stand companies that do not get back to you, particularly if your a returning customer.

Now i am back to being on the fence about buying the last two bulbs i needed for my HoT4 veg light, or build a custom 5000k CBX one. You can get the DB bin in 5k, if you ran that at 700mA, you get would around 70% efficiency. Do you know what TLs plug efficiency is? Photons vs heat

Yeah, I too have a hard time getting replies from TL. Not enough people I suspect

I don't delve into the minutia, as I do not plan on building my own panels. Besides, we have Growmau5 for that

What I love about Growmaus design is

1. the individual heat sinks- anodized
2. They are properly designed
3. Air can rise up between them

even if one does not blow air over the top of them, but I would, which should man they can be run hotter.

Most of the DIYers are using huge slabs of non anodized Al, which can trap air from circulating

 

[Tactical Farmer]

What positive effect does ano have vs. raw aluminum ?