1000W Double Ended MH Comparison Test

1000W Double Ended MH Comparison Test



Video Transcript:



"Hey everyone, Nate from GrowersHouse. We're doing our newest review test which is the Double Ended (DE) Metal Halide (MH) [1000w] shootout. There are two companies in the space. We wanted to see what they had to offer, what their spectral distribution looks like,  so we can really compare these lamps against each other and go over the pluses and minuses of both. There are two companies in the market at the moment (for MH DE), MaxPar which is engineered and distributed by Nanolux and then Solis Tek. If you take a look at these two lamps, you'll see they look quite different.



Solis Tek on the left, Nanolux MaxPar on the right. These are both 1000 watt Metal Halide (MH) bulbs. Both in the 4K versions. What you'll see here is that the Solis Tek doesn't have whats called an outer jacket that Nanolux Maxpar has on their double ended metal halide lamp. This outer jacket is something that's completely new, patent pending design by Nanolux and their engineers. MaxPar made this outer jacket because they wanted their bulb to ANSI and NEC standards. Sometimes when metal halide bulbs go out, they burst, and so they wanted this borosilicate glass over the quartz to make sure you're protected in that way. I talked to Solis Tek about that and they said they designed their bulb--even though it doesn't have the outer jacket--that it is safe to use.



Mainly when we're talking about safe to use we're talking about open rated fixtures vs. closed fixtures. Closed fixtures are like your normal air cooled fixture that has a glass lens that totally keeps the bulb enclosed. Whereas something like a Gavita or a Solis Tek A1 Double Ended DE Complete Light System 120/240V are reflectors that doesn't have any glass is an open rated fixture. We at GrowersHouse ran both of these bulbs in both style of reflectors, they are both quality bulbs, both companies recommend you can use them and in either open or enclosed fixtures they just have a different way of going about it.



Now when we test these I would imagine that some of the features are little bit of give and take. What you might gain in a little bit of safety on the Nanolux MaxPar double jacketed design (we will see under our spectrometer) but we'll see if that design changes in either the spectrum or the intensity. It could be a bit of a trade off.



So that's why we're here to really figure out today and will bring out all the bulbs in their entire lineup. Solis Tek has a 4K, 6K, and a 10K. Nanolux MaxPar has a 4K and 6K. When we say "4K" we are refering to Kelvin. The Kelvin scale (Color temperature of mesured light energy. Higher the color temperature the closer the light source is to the blue end of the spectrum. The lower the Kelvin temperature the closer the light source is to the red end of the spectrum).



The 4K lamps you can use for vegetative growth but you could also use for flowering. It's a little bit of one size fits all bulb. Whereas the 6K is a dedicated vegetative bulb that gives you more of a blue spectrum that's much better for a plant to have shorter inter-nodal spacing for its leaves and offshoots and at the same time give you a little more foliage and growth so your plants have more node sites for flowering.



Solis Tek has one added lamp selection, the 10K Finisher made for the end of flowering. Solis Tek recommends using this the last two weeks of flowering because there's a high amount of UV. The high amount of UV is going to mean that when you measure PAR (which is the intensity within normal realm of wavelengths that plants use to photosynthesize) the UV doesn't show up there. If you measure the 10K bulb under any PAR meter it's going to be quite a bit lower intensity than your normal for 4K, 6K, or HPS. Where it makes up for that is a little more intensity in the UV range. This 10K lamp at the end of flowering stresses out the plant's a little bit but it's a good type of stress because it causes plants to produce more essential oils which is what a lot of people are looking for. Lets see our test results.







Looking at the spectral charts of these bulbs first we'll start off with the 4K. You'll notice that both of these bulbs are giving off the same spectrum (4,000 Kelvin) mainly for vegetative growth but can also be used for flowering. You can see that they closely match each other and if you look at the spectrum is really you just see that some points the SolisTek just eaking out the MaxPar little bit, but actually in a few other peaks the MaxPar has the highest point we would say these are very evenly-matched spectrum's.







The 6K charts show similarity also, but you see the SolisTek and MaxPar peaking in different areas. The highest peak at about 590 nm is the MaxPar just a little higher than the SolisTek and in some of the lower blue peaks the SolisTek is eking it out. But overall you can see how these spectrums are very similar. If you go over to the UV all the way on the left you can see that's where that at 350-400nm around there you can see the SolisTek is eking out the MaxPar just a little bit but really these pictures are so similar.







The Solis Tek 10K Lamp you'll notice over at 350-400nm the UV is much higher than the 6K which is what we would expect this is a finishing bulb made to have really high UV.







For these bulbs, so we measured the intensity of not only the normal light but also of the UV. Just as the spectral graphs showed, the intensity of the UV spectra for that 10K is up and above all the other bulbs quite a bit of at 43. Versus the other bulbs which are down, the 4K 6K are about 26 umols, and the MaxPar 4K at 23 umol and the MaxPar 6K at 21 umols. SolisTek did a little bit better in the UV but they're pretty close within a 10 to 20 percent difference in the MaxPar Nanolux.



In the lower portion the overall intensity that's where it actually flip flops a little bit with the MaxPar giving out overall slightly more intensity in the PAR which is the 400-700 nanometer wavelengths that plants use lights most efficiently to photosynthesize. Where the 4K SolisTek was at 1106 μmol the 4K MaxPar 1120μmol. The 6K SolisTek was at 950 μmol the 6K MaxPar at 1052 μmol so a little bit of a greater difference with the 6K than with the 4K that was very close.



The 10K is down at 925 μmol, this is an important thing to notice, that 10K down at 925μmol has a lot of its energy focused on spectra that's outside of the 400 to 700 nanometers range. Namely some of that UV and IR really are focusing on the UV in the sub 400 nanometers that's why you see the intensity of the umol go down there.



These are really interesting findings, we hope it helps you choose a lamp that's the best for your operation based on UV light and intensity. Both the Solis Tek and the Nanolux MaxPar MH bulbs can be used in basically any DE Double Ended fixture at this point.



If there's any other information you'd like to see please send us an email at staff@growershouse.com



-Happy Growing!"



Double Ended Metal Halide Graphs Master Data Excel File *Click Here To Download*