For me personally , I am still undecided if the LED veg light I am using is necessarily better for vegging. It seems to grow very nice even canopies but the branches don’t develop as well as they seemed to under the 1000W halide with a parabolic reflector. It seems strain dependant to maybe… I also notice if I let temps get under 76F in veg, the plants develop issues under the LED. I try and keep the room 76 to 80F and the plants seem happy.
My climate is very dry in the winter, very cold, and reasonable amounts of snow. The ice comes off the lakes here mid to end of April and occasionally some years it’s comes off in early may. So I grow indoors November to end of June and sometimes like this year my indoor crop has 3 or 4 weeks to go under HPS lighting. The room is controlled by an AC infinity temp/humidity controller and 6"fan and the lung room has a big 8" main exhaust fan that triggers from either high temp setting or high humidity setting. So I keep the veg tent in the lung room for a pretty steady 78F, 45% RH, LED at 40% about 4 1/2 feet off the floor.
That HLG 600 Bspec is a powerful veg light that is for sure. I installed a 110cfm bathroom fan above the drivers on the LED panel so that A) it helps keep constant air flow over the drivers and B) that fan vents into the flower room 24/7 , keeping that room from going below 70F while the room is dark.
I have not flowered under an LED yet but I am about to swap out that HLG Bspec for a Spider Farmer SF4000 and flower out some clones I am going to be making seeds with.
Wish me luck LOL
Consider buying or building a Lazy Susan big enough to put the plants on top of it. Then you can just push the wheel and rotate them much easier.
need to invent an LED panel that spins like a disco ball.
I have often wondered why there arent any Bowl or concave shaped Led lights yet that give the light varying angles instead of the flat surface .
A disco ball grow light might be cool eh? hehehe
100% agree. My plants in veg thrived under fluro lighting. Led, not so much.
“Hot as fuck” that is the truth…
I am almost recovered from my hernia repair, so I am moving my window unit in soon, but normally, I’d have it set up already, for about June to Sept or so… that’s on top of the portable ac to cool my sleep/smoking area.
The rest of the time, I manage
But holy, hot as fuck, you aren’t kidding. I can only scale further with LEDs because otherwise, I’d need a mini split year around
Mind you, this is only 800w in a 8x4
But I live in here, I have veg lights, seed run, HDTV, laptop, ps4, it’s always making it heated up even without a HID
No rant about HIDs here, they are a mini sun in your indoor garden.
Cool tubes are the ideal solution to hear with HIDs, also a dimmable ballast and an array of bulbs at hand for different stages.
I start with a 250 Hps in winter and move up as the plants grow, with slow air movement and high temps (30-32) and a small humidifier, I can reach a 70-90rh range in veg, which just drive them crazy at those temps and they grow like in the jungles
At summer as my tent is outside I switch to CFL for my clone keeping tent and flower everything outside.
I’ve grown for over 25 years now, I’m pushing 40 and I remember myself with a plant in my hand when I was 11 lol
I tried them all, LEDs are nice in veg but not comparable to HIDs or the sun in flowering plants, that led bud just doesn’t hit the mouth right
Also, the main reason people buy expensive high end led system only to end up hanging them way up and dim them so low, is because they emit a lot of RF, and up close RF is no bueno to any living tissue.
CFL, HIDs, all other grow lights (and non grow lights)
Don’t have this effect.
But leds showed me a very important fact, spreading is always better, even down to a 0.2w light source.
So, downsize HIDs and spread them.
I still wanna build a CFL panel haha from those strong 125-150w ones, could be cool.
i used a bathroom exhaust fan on top of a custom built reflector to cool my hid lights back in the day. it was a lot easier with a wooden cabinet and the light fixed on top, outside the box, separated by a piece of glass. you could modify it to work in a tent though, it would just be a tad heavy to hang but not more than 8 or 10 lbs. i had a 600w hps that i could put my hand on the glass two inches from the bulb and it was about 75*.
Damn, never thought about sucking air from the upper section of reflectors… you sir a genius !
I always feared the lower performance of cooled bulbs, they have a optimal working temp, but ever since I saw it has a 10% difference in performance it was a relief as it’s so little to sacrifice in order to solve a bigger problem such as heat.
i wish i could take credit for the idea, but it came from og v1 back in the day. no, i take that back. i got the reflector idea from og, but the fan cooling it was mine. i made a carbon filter also. check out the old grow pics for a step back in time…
Hey all: OP here. I love all this stuff to read. Thanks to all. I have more to think about and some crazy ideas up my sleeve, which are always fun, if usually wrong. . .
You took the words right outta my mouth: I swear I was thinking this exact thing the other day as I was burning the top of my bald head on the cool tube. 
I love it. 
Or maybe we go from tents into “grow domes” – like mini-planetariums, with a moving array of leds.
Bulbs included is a big deal. Usually 40 each for the cheap ones. Excellent deal for 100! 
That’s pretty slick
When i run parabol reflectors they have the hole in the center for the light socket and hardware. I drop the light a little lower so I can attach exhaust piping to that center hole in the parabol. This method keeps a constant draw of air from around the light and out the exhaust. Sealed units cool better probably but I my rooms sure ran cooler once I started doing that. I also keep those HID ballasts in the Lung room and not in the grow room itself.
Yeah!! Right!! I originally went on the sight to look for a couple bulbs for my remote hoods and saw those and the bulbs where 85 and the complete fixture and bulb was 49. So had to grab a couple for that price. I’ll run them this fall and see how they do when my room temps cool down.
Hey @navy66, do you have an IR thermometer? Eg:
If so, could you tell us the temps of the actual plants (bud/foliage, whatever) with lights on?
Also, you’re in a 4x5 tent, right? If you do switch up to led, I’m sure people will have lots of good “cheaper” light suggestions. It makes a big difference in plant temps, as you likely know about.
HLG still makes the qb132 boards, which are pretty affordable and easy to hook up. Or their qb96 are an option too, as reasonably affordable, though they’re smaller footprint and might be better with more head room to allow better…spread or space for the light to spread out. qb132 don’t need heatsinks under 75 watt each. I use them in veg. I only have experience with HLG brand in the led category.
Edit: Are you using the photone app on iphone or android? It’s more accurate on iphone.
MiGrow put out some info recently on a new par app, my email wouldn’t let me follow the link. But might be worth checking out/looking for.
If you know someone with a good par meter you can try to calibrate photone to theirs/their results. But I’ve had more difficulties using/trusting photone lately (compared to an apogee sq-520 sensor, photone is off by 25%, even after I calibrate).
I’ve always been curious: if the temperature at canopy is 80 degrees, why would the leaves be anything other than 80 degrees? I can see maybe if you have an oscillating fan it could bring it down a degree or so but otherwise I don’t get it haha
i just bought backups. they are hard to find, or you have to wait a while to get them shipped in. i tried the grow led 11w bulbs in my clone tent…it was ok, but not like the cfls.
The temperature of what at canopy? Do you mean the air temperature at the canopy level?
The plant’s leaves are transpiring - like sweating, which has a cooling effect on them. They should be lower than the air temp.
Also, a plant under HID (or led with infrared or something like that) will be hotter relative to the ambient air temp at canopy than that same plant would be under led or some light source without infrared, because it’s not being directly heated.
It’s why if trying to…follow or take into account vpd, you should really also take into account the actual plant temperature along with the air temp and RH.