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What can i grow with a Sunblaze 24?

That fixture is bright enough to grow just about any plant there is, cp or other.
 
Just keep in mind the heat produced by these, if your planning on using them with cooler loving species. Plenty of light thou.

Also you might want to figure out how much these will cost for power usage and compare it to other options out there.

Part of a longer reply in the Terrarium lighting 101 thread, there is more info I posted in that thread but here are my basic numbers, all are subjective from my experiences with T5s and ONE type of LED that I'm using. Not all LEDs are created equally.

Basically the important info is that in my area with my electrical costs the LEDs lower power usage would pay for itself in 2.5 years and in 3.14 years I've now paid the electric company the ENTIRE cost of my LED system just to run the T5s.

Its just a guess but I'd think CA power costs more than TX power :) If that is true the break even points would come quicker.


The 24" fixture should use 1.152 KW/h per 12 hours so 420 KW/h a year. For me that would be a running cost of just under $48 a year.



"Here are the electrical costs for me @ $.114 per KWH
Running 2 48" T5 12 hours a day (48.75W*2)*12 = 1.17KWH = $.133 per day running costs or $48.68 per year.
Running 16 LEDs @ 350mA 12 hours a day (1.355W*16)*12 = .26KWH = $.03 per day running costs or $10.83 per year

So running T5s would cost me an extra $37.85 per year in electrical costs. This is a very important number as we can use it to figure out the "break even" point for the LEDs.

For a while you could get a 4 bulb 48" T5 fixture for $60, I will use that example even thou I was not able to locate that fixture for sale a few weeks ago.

Setup costs for the T5 system would be $60 (bulbs included/shipping included), it was/is a great deal.
Setup costs for the LED system would be $153

Using the break even number we can figure out that the LED system would be $93 more right out the gate. So the extra setup costs of the LEDs divided by the extra electrical costs of the T5 system gives us the # of years it would take to break even. $93/37.85=2.46 years

At 3.14 years running the T5 system you have paid enough in electricity to buy the LED system.

At 4.04 years running the T5 system you have paid enough in electricity to buy the LED system and run it for those 4 years. This bit of info is useful if you already have a T5 system running.

Since I'm in this for the long run, T5s just don't make sense anymore for me. The main exception I can think of is if you wanted the heat from the T5 for the plants/animals in the terrarium. "
 
Thanks! glad, to hear.

oooo damn it, more choices :) thanks!

Well... I'm just so clueless when it comes to anything technological, do have to learn LED lights would prob kill my brain. However, your calculation is on point and totally now making me reconsider my decision. Thanks! I"ll go back to read what you said in the Terrarium light 101 post.
 
I have that exact fixture in my house, I used it to keep growing herbs in my kitchen over the winter. (It was awesome until the weather got better. They seemed to start to suffer and I think it was just my wife and I not watering enough or too much. Will be doing it again this year and see if the same issues arise after three months.)

I didn't find the fixture all that warm but I can check it tonight and let you how hot it runs.

What I can tell you is the power draw. I recently put a meter on it to see how it went, but I still don't know what all the data means. I took some pics of all the data yesterday before removing the meter to move some things around. So I still haven't looked into what all this means but I bet some of you here will have the experience to tell us off-hand. I had this meter running to this fixture for the past 3 weeks or less.

This is the meter I used and the stats come from pressing each of the buttons on there:
KWH: 36.84
Volt: 121.3
Amp: 0.67
Watt: 76
Hz: 59.9
FullSizeRender_zps3c8aa660.jpg
 
The numbers you really need are the power usage over the entire day. Even an 6-10 hour period would be useful enough. You just need the exact KWH number and the time the meter was connected.

Without knowing the exact time the meter was connected the numbers can be misleading. Assuming the meter read 36.84W (not KW) and it was running for 3 weeks that would be the following.

((3 weeks * 7 days)*24 hours)=504 hours
504 hours * 36.84W = 18.56736 KWH

In my area with power plan I'm using it costs me .114 per KWH so 18.56736*$.114=$2.12

Or $36.69 per year assuming I can do math correctly tonight.

I would reset the meter and run it for a specific amount of time, say 10 hours to get a more exact estimate.
 
Thanks for crunching those numbers, RSS. I appreciate the help!

I will do that tomorrow since my time at work should be about 9 hours so I can be home in time to check at the 10 hour mark.
 
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