Ok brothers and sisters, I've been advised by @Rocket Soul to start my own thread so other noobs like myself can use it as a point of reference for a bit of DIY advice. I was advised tag in @cobshopgrow for pointers, and @maddmango, who has helped me a lot by pm.
I'm starting from a point of very little knowledge, and so I hope my little journey will be an interesting one to reflect on in the near future. From me knowing practically nothing except only the most basic things, I hope to have, further on in this thread, pictures of plants in full bloom under whatever you help me to knock together.
So, with that said, here's the bones of it:
My area is a loft/attic grow, my lights will be hanging a foot or so down from the apex on either side.
The floor space is 2.2m front to back, and 2m side to side. I have 1.2m vertical space - This is the point where the actual bar will be at it's highest point. The hanging fittings will be higher up.
I will hang 3 fixtures in there so I have a meter space to get in and work.
The canopy will be scrogged and the screen will start 15 inches from the ground.
At the moment I have parabolic reflectors and 400w bulbs. This isn't a good environment for the plants IMO because the hood traps all the heat. Anyone who has used parabolics before will know it's very difficult to air cool them and, besides, 400w HPS just aren't anywhere near as efficient as the equivalent watts of LED from everything I've read. I can actually go up in wattage to around 450 per fixture based on ambient temps, it's just the environment directly under the hood itself which sucks major ass at the moment.
Hence my switch to LED.
I plan to hang 3 lights in there and for them to be strips. From everything I've seen, they will suit my space better than anything else I've seen yet.
So.. I'm looking for each light fixture to be 90cm wide, by 120cm long (ie the length of the strips) run at around 450w, give or take. And for that to be spread over say 6 strips.
Preferably there will be a gap between the strips to help a bit with light spread, so 2 x strips on a 1.2m heatsink which I'll make out of 3 or 4mm aluminium sheet.
As for everything else, including wiring, drivers, etc etc... that's where you come in.
I've got a basket on Digikey with some Bridgelux BXEB Gen 3 strips, which I've been advised are about the best I can get at the moment. I'm open to any other suggestions obviously.
I've also been quoted some figures from someone on Alibaba for strips which are 56 cm x 7.5 cm, and have 248 diodes per strip, with 8 deep red and 2 far red, which they are also willing to customise to have a different ratio. Price for those is $30 each and shipping is actually reasonable, which it isn't atm for the bigger bar fixtures.
So there we are. Fire away. Let's see what happens.
Peace
I'm starting from a point of very little knowledge, and so I hope my little journey will be an interesting one to reflect on in the near future. From me knowing practically nothing except only the most basic things, I hope to have, further on in this thread, pictures of plants in full bloom under whatever you help me to knock together.
So, with that said, here's the bones of it:
My area is a loft/attic grow, my lights will be hanging a foot or so down from the apex on either side.
The floor space is 2.2m front to back, and 2m side to side. I have 1.2m vertical space - This is the point where the actual bar will be at it's highest point. The hanging fittings will be higher up.
I will hang 3 fixtures in there so I have a meter space to get in and work.
The canopy will be scrogged and the screen will start 15 inches from the ground.
At the moment I have parabolic reflectors and 400w bulbs. This isn't a good environment for the plants IMO because the hood traps all the heat. Anyone who has used parabolics before will know it's very difficult to air cool them and, besides, 400w HPS just aren't anywhere near as efficient as the equivalent watts of LED from everything I've read. I can actually go up in wattage to around 450 per fixture based on ambient temps, it's just the environment directly under the hood itself which sucks major ass at the moment.
Hence my switch to LED.
I plan to hang 3 lights in there and for them to be strips. From everything I've seen, they will suit my space better than anything else I've seen yet.
So.. I'm looking for each light fixture to be 90cm wide, by 120cm long (ie the length of the strips) run at around 450w, give or take. And for that to be spread over say 6 strips.
Preferably there will be a gap between the strips to help a bit with light spread, so 2 x strips on a 1.2m heatsink which I'll make out of 3 or 4mm aluminium sheet.
As for everything else, including wiring, drivers, etc etc... that's where you come in.
I've got a basket on Digikey with some Bridgelux BXEB Gen 3 strips, which I've been advised are about the best I can get at the moment. I'm open to any other suggestions obviously.
I've also been quoted some figures from someone on Alibaba for strips which are 56 cm x 7.5 cm, and have 248 diodes per strip, with 8 deep red and 2 far red, which they are also willing to customise to have a different ratio. Price for those is $30 each and shipping is actually reasonable, which it isn't atm for the bigger bar fixtures.
So there we are. Fire away. Let's see what happens.
Peace