MH 400 watt ceramic-JM

19 years ago

JM,

I read your info about the 400 watt ceramic. Just curious, you said you were having success, what are you growing, if you don't mind me asking?

I noticed this light is 35,000 lumens and a regular MH 400 watt is 40,000.

Also, you are saying there is red in this bulb?

Scott

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Comments (7)

jwmeyer
19 years ago
Hi Scott,
Not at all. I have peppers,tomatoes,lettuce, and egg plant right now. I use a 4' vertizontal reflector by sun supply which I love. The more light sensitive plants like lettuce and starts, I put to the outside. This lamp has the energy output of a typical 600w hps bulb. Some say that's only accomplished using a electronic ballast, which are becoming available but are pretty expensive right now. This bulb is a very bright white light. I have done a lot of research about different HID bulbs and like this particular one for several reasons. I really just wanted a bulb that replicated the sun's spectrum as closely as possible, in a HID format. Regular HPS and MH bulbs, even the "enhanced" don't have the spectrum I wanted. Will a HPS or MH do well for indoor grow's, yes they will. To my knowledge,the CMH has a spectrum that is unmatched in a HID lamp. People will use a HPS for veg then switch to a MH for flowering, w/ the CMH that really is not necessary. Assuming the sun has a CRI of 100, doesn't it make sense to get as close to that as possible if growing indoors under lights, for best results? CMH bulbs are rated from 85 to 92 CRI depending on the site you look at. Some will say that CRI is not that important, I disagree. It has more red than a HPS and more blue than a MH. For me it's well suited for every stage of plant growth.
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shrubs_n_bulbs
19 years ago
Lower lumen (weighted for green light) numbers are common for wide spectrum lamps. The wider spectrum inevitably includes far red and far blue light that simply doesn't count much towards lumens. It would be nice to see some PAR numbers, but I wouldn't worry too much about the lumen rating.
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Yes it can be used, however keep in mind that feeding 400 watts into a 150 watt bulb will shorten its life. You will also need a mogul to medium reducer socket as the lamp you linked uses a E26 socket which is smaller then the standard E39 used in higher wattage high intensity discharge lamps. https://www.1000bulbs.com/product/5840/ELEC-242515.html Piece of advice from a very experienced indoor grower, get the 400 watt version at minimum. Youll be disappointed with the 150 watt, slow growth and no canopy penetration, small footprint, etc The most efficient HID in terms of lumens per watt is the 600 watt high pressure sodium. I stricly use 600w hps, 1000w hps and 1000w metal halide lights, anything smaller doesnt grow much...
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The Ceramic Metal Halide lamp will fit into your 400w HPS ballast. This is called "retro-white" and is way more efficient than other retrofits that use the old- style quartz arc tube technology. HPS is about 33% more efficient than standard Metal Halide for plant growth, particularly if you use enhanced HPS like Hortilux. The Hortilux is more efficient, producing more light in general. The blue spectrum is not signficantly enhanced, proportionately, and HPS produces very little besides yellow-orange. I read the article "Shrubs" self-references. Unfortunately, he does not provide links to the data he describes, so there is no easy way to verify his interpretations. I googled an article title, and received only a summary of another article. Perhaps the journals he references are available by subscription only. Thanks for the references, perhaps I will get the public library of Seattle to mail me xerox copies. Here are a couple of Shrubs' statements: "In particular the relative levels of red and far red (or near infrared) light are most important for controlling etiolation, but by far the most important factor is the intensity of the light." (Lermer) Perhaps here, "Shrubs" is referring to the excessive stem elongation that typically occurs with insufficient light. In nature, this typically occurs at the bottom of a forest canopy; and light toward the red end of the visible spectrum penetrates the canopy much better because it bends easier. This can be observed when the earth is in between the sun and the moon; the moon will appear red, because sunlight passing through the earth's atmosphere will bend, some hitting the moon. So in nature, low light levels are associated particularly with low levels of blue spectrum. Although high intensity of even red light can counter this excessive stem elongation, his article talks about his experiences with fluorescent lights, not a good idea beyond the seedling stage. The low intensity is good for only a few inches (assuming you don't have a whole bank of them). The leaves grow differently and maybe shocked when later placed under more intense light. (The flourescent reflector often blocks more natural sunlight than it artificially produces, so not recommended generally for greenhouses.) While it is true that infra-red and near infra-red can cause stretching, typically grow-lights do not produce excessive quantities in this region. What is more relevant, is the presence of blue light, which does reduce stem elongation. Ceramic Metal Halide produces more blue than a normal MH, and more red than an HPS. Blue induces growth hormones, red induces flowering hormones; each has other functions as well. See: Artificial Lighting in Horticulture by Philips. (Shrubs) "A few experiments comparing gro-lux lamps, that concentrate most of the light emission in narrow red and blue bands, with standard cool white tubes, which have a spread of wavelengths in the red and blue and also some in the green, have shown no worthwhile difference." (Lermer) Dr. Norton of the Mount Vernon Ag station found that the sylvania gro-lux did worse than the standard cool white. The grow-lux spectrum was good, but obtained by filtering out the less efficient parts of the spectrum, resulting in low over-all intensity. But why even talk about "Gro-Lux"; I thought this bulb was discontinued. What you want generally is full spectrum light, efficiently produced to achieve sufficiently high intensity (i.e. about 4300 foot candles). Different stages prefer different parts of the spectrum, this can be fine tuned by using PSMH bulbs by Life Lights (that come in four different average color temperatures).
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With a 7' paraboloid reflector, that would cover about a 7' circle. However the hood alone would cost hundreds of dollars if the best German metal were used. I don't think the 7' are made any more. The ballast is the major component. The ballast is like the engine, the bulb is like the transmission. Very few people buy new 1000w MH any more, they have been obsolete for almost 20 years. Ever since the development of super-hps like Hortilux, which has a higher output to compensate for the less blue, and actually works better than a MH even in the veg phase (for most varieties). Almost 10 years ago, HPS became obsolete (for plants under 2.5' at harvest) with the development of CMH or ceramic metal halide, an efficient full-spectrum light.
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That is a close call, between t-5 electronically ballasted fluorescent and MH with vertical bulb and magnetic ballast. But remember, watts are watts. 400 watts of MH or MHP produces exactly the same amount of heat as 400 watts of fluorescent. By far the best plant light is ceramic metal halide. This has more red than an HPS and more blue than a MH. I recommend horizontal orientation for several reasons.
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abeccara
19 years ago
Hi jwmeyer, I read your post about HID lamps. Could you give me a website with the technical specifications of the Sun supply?
Thanks
Silvio
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jwmeyer
19 years ago
I'm not sure which post your referring to but here are some links about the ceramic metal halide bulb. I hope this helps.

http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/ecatalog/hid/pdf/p-5497c.pdf

Here is a link that might be useful: hydro-tech
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npthaskell
18 years ago
The Philips Mastercolor 4K ceramic is also available in horizontal burn; I have a 250W horizontal burn on order.

http://www.eyelighting.com/
has a similar lamp, possibly with better UV filtration, called the CeraArc.
Eye also has 4 versions of their ColorArc that look really interesting.

Venture (link below) has a NaturalWhite lamp (vertical burn only) at 5000K, 90CRI.

All of the above lamps have spectral output that is relatively smooth compared to the highly spikey nature of previous generations of MH lamps. The spectral outputs are all relatively flat and don't waste a lot of energy in the green-yellow-orange portion of the spectrum (500-600). The red output is really red, not the worthless orange 615 spike put out by the new generation of triphosphor fluorescent lamps.

The new Eye 6500K ColorArc may have better UV filtration (but I am not really sure) than the Eye Hortilux Blue lamps now offered at various hydroponic outlets; otherwise the spectra of these two look similar.

A good source for MH spectra (besides from the manufacturers themselves), with emphasis on aquarium bulbs, is:

http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/

I wish there was a web site for fluorescent lamps similar to this aquarium MH site.

Here is a link that might be useful: Venture Natural White
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fred9x
18 years ago
jwmeyer, I have a 400hps light growing toms and pepepers. How long should light be on/off?

thank you, Steve
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jwmeyer
18 years ago
Hi Steve,
Well I'm certainly no expert on this topic and I'm learning as I go but, after reading alot here and other sites I started with a 18/6 schedule. At 18 hours a day, everything grew very quickly.
I've since cut back to 15/9. With the vegies I'm growing, bell & hot peppers, eggplant and tomatoes I don't think you can give them too much light. Some will disagree but I personally think it's important to have dark cycle or a rest period.

Good luck~

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:51469}}
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MH 400 watt ceramic-JM

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