Anyone know where I can find an electric grow light lifter? Sun Hoist seems to be out of business, and Sun Winch doesn’t ship to Canada. Anyone know of any other retailers out there that will ship to Canada?
Lift and Grow makes them, but they are ridiculously overpriced so not remotely worth it IMO. Grandmasterlevel built his own and I believe he has a youtube video showing roughly how he did it.
Now for my personal opinion: they are unnecessary. If you have a very large room then it doesn’t matter whether your lights are 5 inches or 15 feet above the canopy, you’ll have the same PPFD everywhere you measure. My canopies are large enough (20 by 30 feet or so) that the light grid is basically an infinite plane; light intensity beneath a lit approximately infinite plane is constant, kinda like how the sun is just as intense anywhere in your yard, even if you’re standing on a ladder.
The time when light-to-canopy distance is important is when the canopy is so small and the walls so poorly reflective or far away that the plants on the edges see darkness, but if you have a canopy that small then it’s typically more cost effective to adjust the lights manually, which probably would only need to be done a couple times per cycle.
If I ever wanted to adjust my lights routinely, I think what I’d do is attach the lights to ropes that go through a pulley, which then go on to another pully next to the wall, then down to a rope hook. That way I could adjust the light’s all from the side of the room.
I stopped moving my lights ages ago however. I ramp up the light intensity from seed/clone all the way until the point the plant stops getting taller. So it actually helps me if the plant sees slightly brighter light as it gets taller. I leave all my lights hung at the desired final canopy distance.
One other time when it makes sense to adjust your light distance is if you’re vegging plants close together and don’t need to light an entire room, then I put the lights lower.
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Thx for info, reason I ask is I am trying to do a closed loop system, books say led lights need to be within 1 foot of canopy, if I add my CO2 and have to deal with light height then I am contaminating and loosing the false environment I created by opening the grow. I do appreciate all info you gave me, I may try it without lifters.
Sounds good. I’d say take a light meter or light app on your phone like photone (or a pulse, lol) and measure the light at various locations at various heights. When I do that, I can confirm at least for my room that the ppfd difference 3 feet from the lights is within 100 of the value 1 foot from the lights. And like I said, the difference is useful for me since I want it to get more light as it gets taller anyway. I also hate when the lights are so low that it’s hard to navigate or maintain the room.
I’d recommend that if people are seeing huge differences in the light intensity at various distances from their lights then that’s a problem that should probably be solved. My ideal depth of canopy for good buds is 2 feet; if the light drops off dramatically with distance then the region of good buds is probably very narrow and yields will be low or buds will mature inconsistently.
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I am going out to lift my lights up a bit about 16 inches at the moment,if I go up another 5 inches do U think my par numbers will be similar,I could up the dial a bit ,as it would be good to have a bit more height ,I am fairly new to leds .
So your eh same light intensity, PPFD is the measure youre using
, is the same at 3 feet and 15 feet?
What light levels do you normally shoot for at canopy level? Do you match light intensity with co2 concentration?