Led spotlight help

[Sallisawjim]

I have a huge monster of a spotlight. 600w led and this beast throws light. Full spectrum. Trying to set up my veg room but thinking this guy is overkill. And help or guidance is appriciated. Par meter is broken and on backorder. Room is 3x4x6

[DrPhoton]

If those values are in PPFD, then you are going to want to mount that bad boy at least 24 inches high. More, when or if used for young plants in early vegetation. You may want to use something else for vegetation and use this light mainly for flowering.

Is this a grow or visual lighting product ?

[Sallisawjim]

Thank you Dangerdan, for the reply. First grow from ground zero. Just legalized here in oklahoma. Soooo excited. I have a t8 horticulture setup for my clones and seedlings. Have a 1000w hps also. But it is 3 phase. Sad day. But I have this goliath, here is a link. Supposed to be the "best" led out right now. So maybe I jumped too soon, but I live along way from anywhere there is likely to be a dispensary and would rather grow my own perpetually anyhow. Any and all input/advice is greatly appriciated. I know it is a commercial light but figured I could build my room/tent to suit. Have vortex by atmosphere vtx600 fan and matching filter also from vortex, true usa made variac controllers, and few other goodies going into this build also. Just running shorter on time than I wanted...

https://www.ledlightingwholesaleinc.com/PH-SL600UF-L-p/ph-sl600uf-l.htm

[braincrash]

I have a huge monster of a spotlight. 600w led and this beast throws light. Full spectrum. Trying to set up my veg room but thinking this guy is overkill. And help or guidance is appriciated. Par meter is broken and on backorder. Room is 3x4x6

I see its a full spectrum cob.. Do you have any more info on which manufacturer and light colour of the cob? If you can find these out, we can probably solve this issue
Regards BC

[Sallisawjim]

https://www.ledlightingwholesaleinc.com/PH-SL600UF-L-p/PH-SL600UF-L.htm?_vsrefdom=adwords&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlK7cBRCnARIsAJiE3MhZPUE8wrAa_vqVFhE_bYRAbdHUl8YzfuzuuNU8zZQNANSylLkIPaMaAoD6EALw_wcB

Here is a link. They are made by Maxlite and it is the fullspectrum model. I am very appriciative of any advice you can shoot myway. Thank you for the reply.

[DrPhoton]

Yea these look like commercial grade fixtures, you can make it work, as long as you have the height. 24" is the absolute minimum, but you will more than likely need to go even higher. Up to 36". The issue here is that it is not designed for optimal use in 3 x 6 or even 4 x 4. This is more suited for 5 x 5 to 6 x 6. So there are efficiency losses, due to having to raise the fixture so high. Its just too damn powerful for anything smaller than 5x5.

If you have any further questions, ask away.

[braincrash]

Yea these look like commercial grade fixtures, you can make it work, as long as you have the height. 24" is the absolute minimum, but you will more than likely need to go even higher. Up to 36". The issue here is that it is not designed for optimal use in 3 x 6 or even 4 x 4. This is more suited for 5 x 5 to 6 x 6. So there are efficiency losses, due to having to raise the fixture so high. Its just too damn powerful for anything smaller than 5x5.

If you have any further questions, ask away.

I agree. But if we could figure out the manufacturer and model number of the cob, then one would probably figure out the right way to decrease the output of the driver but still keep the optimal PAR spectrum.

[DrPhoton]

Yes, it would require a pulse width modulated driver, which can change the photon flux without shifting the wavelengths of light. But i dont think you would need to know the COB manufacturer for that, you would just need to measure the current drivers output for reference and then replace it with another driver, such as a meanwell. Which has the feature for dimming using PWM. I am not sure you can add a PWM with a pre exhisting driver. Would need to look into that.

It might even be possible that the particular driver it has, is dimmable. But unlikely.

[9fingerleafs]

Is t possible to use a round lens to make a more even footprint?

[DrPhoton]

The surface area of the chip is not large enough to allow lenses to make much difference. The reflector it has is actually more suited for creating better uniformity, as it increases the surface area of the point source. The issue is not really at all to do with power, but to do with the concentration of energy in a narrow region. Which forces the grower to raise the fixture, in order to equilize the hotspots. Doing so however increases the radiative and reflective losses by quite a large amount. By my calculations, going from 12" to 36" is a loss of roughly 25%. Though with reflective walls you can gain about 10% back, maybe. The overall photon flux is actually not powerful enough to support areas larger than 4 x 4, however these are designed to be used in daisy chain with other fixtures, to equalize the flux and uniformity deficits that a single fixture has.

The options available here are really quite small.

#1 Use a larger grow area to suit the fixture. (Not ideal)

#2 Or reduce the power of the fixture to suit the grow area.

#3 Or if possible, hang the fixture at the appropriate height and accept the losses.

After closer inspection, there possibly looks like current and voltage modulators on the meanwell driver. So could be something to look into, or perhaps through external dimming equipment. However, using dimming will ultimately lower the potential yield, so much in fact that it would probably be better to just use HPS. Im sorry if this is not what you want to hear. But the design of the light makes it difficult to implement for small grow areas, to the point that it ends up being not any better than what you are probably trying to replace (HPS).

[braincrash]

Besides; using any kind of glass optics in your setup will reduce the ultraviolet radiation... Great for people but UV is known to raise THC production...

[9fingerleafs]

Ohhh right. Didn’t thought about that

[DrPhoton]

LED's produce no real level of UV. With or without lenses. Specific diodes that produce UV exclusively are highly inefficient and impractical.

[Sallisawjim]

Soooo, update. I have decided to turn my shed into a grow room. It is 12 x 15 and has a 12 foot ceiling shaped like a barn. I am going to build a 6x6 room and design it like a tent but with white walls. Fan filter everything. I am going to increase the height and use an extra lower watt led 8t setup fo compensate for any radiationand reflective loss. I finally spoke to someone in another forum that has used one of these and they have and have since had great results. They say they are best suited for LST projects where you have a lower canopy that is widespread. Hopefully I get the results i am after.

[DrPhoton]

Sounds good

[DrPhoton]

How much extra lighting are you going to be using ?

That light source is not powerfull enough to cover that size that you are intending to use. As i previously said, increasing the grow size is not the ideal solution for the fixture. If you added a second 600w LED you could provide enough light for that size grow.

[Sallisawjim]

Oh, I am building it today. It just got delivered and is bigger than the one I thought I was getting. This is 12x24 barn style. Lot of work cut out for me today. I will send pics. Lol. Insulating the walls of the shed and I have a 4x4x8 tent i plan on designating this light to. I have 1000w hps for the other 2 4x4x8 tents and am going to have t8 led lights for seedlings. May use flos but have these pictures t8 lights for seedlings and clones. Will add more as I go if all goes accordingto plan.

[Sallisawjim]

My hps lights are 2 ended with aluminum hammer style hoods with adjustable controllers downto 600w, but Maxlite tells me these must be set to 1000w pr I wont get fullspectrum benefits they were designed for.

[DrPhoton]

Sounds good, i think you will be fine