What's your favorite reflector?

[clowntown]

 

[MTF-Sandman]

You'll like it...I'm running 2 of them currently and love the footprint and they stay pretty cool to the touch with a decent inline pulling through them. Wish I'd have gotten mine for that price...I payed $150 ea + tax. Supposedly there is also an 8" ducted version, but I haven't seen any in person.

 

[Sauce]

I just run a cheap homemade cool tube right now but if I bought a reflector it would be a Daystar or Silverstar. I've seen Silverstar reflectors in action at the local grow shop and they are really nice.

 

[Bonzo]

I have 2 Daystars, with 2k, and i have seen the Silverstars, 6" and 8" at one of my local stores and i would swap em out in a second, i do not recomend the Daystar, it looks nice but its not as well made as either the Super Sun or the Silver Star. Clowntown is right on about the reflector and the overall quality of the Silver Star, nice choice.

just my 2 cents

peace

bonz





>>>>>>>>>>>Nam myoho renge kyo>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

[2Lazy2GetHigh]

ok you guys sold me on the silver star.

 

[PonicalChillin]

Yo,

Hydrofarm and Sunlight Supply reflectors
They seem to be ALWAYS raising their prices. Daystar AC reflectors now retail for like $160...they used to be way cheaper.

I've become a fan of the Sunleaves reflectors.

All of their reflectors are quality built ...and way cheaper then other brands. Checkout their sunspot or aurora reflectors. www.sunleaves.com

Good stuff.

Peace,
PC

 

[Heineken]

Supposedly there is also an 8" ducted version, but I haven't seen any in person.

http://www.progressive-growth.com/proddetail.php?prod=380378

 

[Guest]

Yo,

Hydrofarm and Sunlight Supply reflectors
They seem to be ALWAYS raising their prices. Daystar AC reflectors now retail for like $160...they used to be way cheaper.

I've become a fan of the Sunleaves reflectors.

All of their reflectors are quality built ...and way cheaper then other brands. Checkout their sunspot or aurora reflectors. www.sunleaves.com

Good stuff.

Peace,
PC

What type of reflective surface do they use? The pictures don't show it too well.

 

[Guest]

I like the vertizontal for flowering but it cant be aircooled,its a 4 ft octagonal parabolic hood

 

[clowntown]

Lately I've been hearing a bit about P.L. reflectors and how good they are. This got me curious, so I had to see for myself what all the talk was about:

Hummmm... so basically for $100 you get a giant aluminum cereal bowl with a hole punched through the side? I know appearance isn't everything, to not judge a book by its cover (or something), and so on, but... how could this POS looking reflector do a good job of evenly and effectively reflecting light?

I've read the whole mini-campaign about how it was originally designed for use in greenhouses, and all sorts of crap about its origin and how great it is because of it. But did it ever occur to someone that high-quality reflectors (such as air-cooled ones commonly used for indoor grows) might perform much better than some $10-a-pop reflector designed for low-cost, "good enough" reflection over a massive area for typical plants that don't require lots of intense light like cannabis? Maybe I've completely misjudged and these things actually do put out a nice pattern, but I just can't see it.

 

[Guest]

That almost looks to me like a typical "high hat" fixture thats what they're called in the trade used for flush mounting in ceiling tiles/Professional lighting or PL fixtures have been around for 20 years or more,I didnt even know until now that they made horticultural fixtures as I'm famil;iar with their commercial kaka.Yea that thing doeant impress me at all

 

[billbob]

the PL is simple, light, and effective if that meets your needs. a lot of people get great results with no reflector at all. The silver star does looks nice. I will see what you think once your ballast arrives

 

[clowntown]

I've had the ballast for a little while, and it appears to throw out a nice, even (and big) pattern although I'm sure just about every decent reflector does that.

One thing I'd like to do, although I'm not sure it'd make that much difference, is to center the bulb. The socket is mounted in a fixed location and is probably perfect for centering a 1000w bulb but I'm running a shorter 600w bulb. Went to Home Depot, got a 1 1/4" ID (2" OD; approx. same as E39 Mogul socket) galvanized steel pipe cut at 3" length to try and mount in between the socket and the bar that the socket mounts onto via a bolt. I've been having trouble locating bolts with the correct diameter / threading longer than 3", so I just bought a 12" piece and will cut it myself as soon as I get ahold of something to cut it with.

I'm going to work hard at getting a camera in the next week or two, so I'll post pictures of the whole process.

 

[hoppjah]

I've become a fan of the Sunleaves reflectors.

All of their reflectors are quality built ...and way cheaper then other brands. Checkout their sunspot or aurora reflectors. www.sunleaves.com

I second this one. I just bought a new Sunleaves Sunspot 6 for a mother chamber, and the quality of the reflector is really good. Its still in the building process, but I think it will work out well.

 

[Pinner]

I have been searching here for a direct comparison between the use of cool tubes and air cooled reflectors to plant growth and yield.

Have not found yet.

What are your opinions on the pros and cons of these 2 types of coolers?

FYI I have 1000W bulbs and E-Ballasts and am now deciding on which one of the 2 'coolers' to choose.

 

[clowntown]

The Cool Tubes are obviously going to be more efficient at moving air (less turbulence); but every variation that I've seen to date is lacking in design of the reflective device.

The internal reflector designs aren't able to put out an even footprint over a reasonable area, and are known for hot spots. It also doesn't incorporate a "V" in the center, due to space limitations in typical 6" diameter tubes (the "V" helps in deflecting light to the sides so that less reflected light goes straight down through the bulb). The external reflector designs suffer from what I call the "triple-glass effect":


... although I'm unsure how profound the effects are. There is definitely going to be some loss to be sure, but just a matter of how much extra light is lost through that design.

I've seen others here run 600's and 1000's on the standard, internal-reflector Cool Tubes here and they don't seem to be complaining; but I'm not sure how they would rate it against a "normal" air-cooled reflector...

 

[Octagoner]

PL Hoods

You have a 1000W PL reflector pictured.

The "Deep" 600W HPS is the shit.

They make aircooled housings with 6" openings, too bad their ballasts aren't so good these days.

PL didn't used to sell only reflectors, until companies started knocking them off, and now they do.

I have a room with (4) PL Deep with arc tube-to-arc tube 24 inches on center.

Don't put them less than 3-feet above the canopy, they are made to focus the light in a tight area. You'd burn em.

I have mine 4 feet above the canopy with a bunch of T-5 HO's for sidelighting around the room. Aprox 62 watts per square feet.

Respect

 

[thecarguy]

Clowntown-

Where did you buy your silverstar, and do you not think it'd work well for 400 watt bulbs?

 

[clowntown]

I bought it from hydroponicstore.com. It creates a tad bit large of a footprint for a 400w.

 

[Guest]

For flowering,I love my vertizontals,4 ft octagonal hoods.They cant be aircooled so AC is a must but they have a great spread for those spread out flowering plants.I like a deep hood for veg because they tend to concentrate the light more straight downwards to the vegging plants which are normally pretty close together not spread out.In flower when the plants stretch vertically and horizontally lol I like the shallow vertizontal whose shallowness tends to disperse the light to a wider area to accomadating the spread out flowering ladies if that made any sense whatsoever lol.Deep hood for veg,shallow hood for flower