Are those 4 ft racks? What kinda drivers you gonna run?
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They’re 3 feet racks. Those 2 lights share a 600w driver. I have 2 other matching lights but I haven’t put the cord in yet. I’m stubborn and instead of getting a wago I am going to attempt to just tin the plug I fucked up myself at some point.
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The short answer is if you are getting 960 PFFD at 18" go with that.
I’m going to presume that was a center area measurement. What you want to measure and adjust to is even distribution of light at the highest AVERAGE PPFD across the canopy. Not just highest PPFD at the center point. Do a simple grid, one foot/ 50cm squares. Measure at each corner, and average the measurements. Adjust your lamp height six inches/25cm and map again until you find the best configuration. It’s likely somewhere between 12-24 inches, depending on shape and size of your canopy.
I tend to pay more attention to the canopy periphery than the center area. Our motto at Photon Solutions is “No Larf” afterall. LEDs have a 120 degree spread out of the diode, which tends to mean good high-PAR light spreads 4-6 inches in each direction out of a SolStix rack at 12-inch heights. Use that guidance in positioning and sizing your rack projects.
@neogitus is working with our 36" SolStix Rax kit, which includes everything you see in his pics, plus either a Mean Well 360w dimmable driver, or in this case, a 680w Mean Well with dual power leads to run the two racks simultaneously.
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What is your canopy area? 2x1 or 1x1.5? If 2 s.f. then you’ve got 40 w/sf at full power. Maybe more if you aren’t actually metering output with Kill-a-watt meter - Mean Well drivers typically overdrive 15-20% above their rated power. So you could be at 95-100 watts actually draw. And yes, that’s probably too intense in a very small space with less than optimum ventilation and no CO2.
Get a watt meter ($20) and dim down to 25w/sf, then after acclimatization (1-2 weeks), adjust towards 30-35 w/sf. Watch your top big shade leaves for a bronzing effect that is the sign of light burn, back things off if you see any signs of it. Keep the air moving - the more light, the more air (read temp control and CO2 replenishment) you need to move.
And yes, one X2 strip at full power (58w) should be plenty to veg a 2-ft canopy (29w/sf).
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Yeah, 2x1 canopy. Cabinet is 1.5’height. Ive got a sonoff POW monitoring my big light usage I could always use it to check the little light and dim it. Definitely think I’m gonna split the 2 x2s into 2 separate areas. Kind of a waste right now, and ive got good enviro conditions. Door stays cracked w a fan blowing in, pretty consistent at 74 degrees.
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I can’t wait untill I can upgrade to led , love the look of the plants nice and uniform and low heat output. Nice looking canopy you got going on.
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Very nice @nitro . The double SolSheet X with the HLG-320H-24A driver configuration is highly underrated. Great value and electrical efficiency with great production results. It just shows that the old thinking of buying lighting by the watt (more watts/dollar is better) needs to go - you are buying photons per watt (umol/joule) per dollar. And your setup hits the sweet spot in the SolStrip line I think.
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They work great for sure, production per watt used is amazing and the quality of the final bud product is top notch. Now it would be unfair to say it was plug and play as there was a definite learning curve involved coming over from HID to these lights… I see you have changed your sheets some, what are the output differences of the new ones compared to these ? With my last crop i put a single Bruce Banger under a panel powered by a 185 ( tho It may have been a 320 split ) and the plant produced 8 ounces of primo nugget and another ounce or two of quality smalls and the plant was all of 48" tall …pretty amazing for a single panel if you ask me, especially on such a tall plant…
New trick I picked up for keeping the stretch down, keep temps up at night till the stretch period is over …i ran my room 85F day and night for the first 5 weeks and am on average about 12-15" shorter than I was last time letting the room drop down to mid 70’s at night. … check out the density of these girls ! first 2 pictures are a DocHoliday x C99 cross and the last a Purple Queen
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Do you have any pictures of the 1 plant under the single panel that yielded 10 oz?
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I do have one yes, not the best shot but it shows you the overall shape and size …it ran 10 weeks and started to show powdery mildew so I harvested it on the hurry…I likely won’t run it again as I am not a fan of long flowering cycles…good bud, tons of frost, good rosin production…taste not special but not bad…
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Looks good! I’m getting close to my first harvest under a solstrip light, I hope I have a harvest like that!
The new SolSheetz with the X4 boards have 96 more diodes and are 17% more efficient with the Samsung 301H chips than the gen 1 SolSheetz - essentially the equivalent a sixth strip plus greater efficiency. The result is about 20% more PPF and a 10% drop in power draw at the wall using the same driver (HLG-240H or 480H in this case), due to the increased efficiency of the 301H chip and the lower current per chip. Overall thermal management is better as well, a good 10-15C lower back-of-board stabilized operating temps depending on ambient conditions.
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If anyone is interested in acquiring @nitro’s exact setup, I’ve still got three gen 1 SolSheets in the five-strip dual-band (2700K/5000K) configuration, on sale now. Also still have the HLG-185H and 320H drivers available:
https://solstrip.com/shop/clearance/solsheet-x-dual-band-3900k
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Just ordered a sheetO x4 3500h. Curious just came across this and find it awesome thank you again my friend.
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post withdrawn. order cancellation requested. As of 1800 EST My order was still “processing” state. I’ve emailed requesting cancellation as of 1806EST.
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4/20 Sale 25% Off2020-04-20T07:00:00Z
Happy 4/20. F*KCOVID. Store-wide sale at Solstrip.com. Save 25% with code SOL420 til midnight.
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post withdrawn
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Went ahead and bought another, thank you 
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EDITED Please address communications re: individual orders to sales@solstrip.com. For obvious customer privacy reasons any such comments here will be edited. Thx.