Difference between grow and normal lights?

[gatewood]

Pretty self-explanatory, what exactly differentiates, say, some common, red LED strip, from a red, grow LED light.

 

[Beehive]

No. You can pick a spectrum and grow cannabis. 80CRI, 3500k and below will run a crop.

I use 3000k 80 "color rendering index" from sprout to flower. Measuring things by lux. And I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[BBQtoast]

Spectrum.

After that quality construction and materials used.

 

[printer]

Normal lights converted to be used as grow lights.

 

[Beehive]

That's a sprouting cabinet. No telling where you're going to plant all that.

 

[TurboTokes]

Normal lights converted to be used as grow lights.

Those plants arent a geat testimonial dont you think?

 

[printer]

Those plants arent a geat testimonial dont you think?

Well they did get bigger, moved them to the grow space. More bulbs smashed and the guts used.

 

[gatewood]

Well they did get bigger, moved them to the grow space. More bulbs smashed and the guts used.

Nice! So what kind of lights you're using? If I may ask.

Also, why don't you use just blue and red? (I think plants can't absorb yellow and green wavelengths)

No. You can pick a spectrum and grow cannabis. 80CRI, 3500k and below will run a crop.

I use 3000k 80 "color rendering index" from sprout to flower. Measuring things by lux. And I wouldn't change a thing.

Could you further elaborate on that? Please?

 

[printer]

Nice! So what kind of lights you're using? If I may ask.

Also, why don't you use just blue and red? (I think plants can't absorb yellow and green wavelengths)

Could you further elaborate on that? Please?

Dollar store specials. 5000k (daylight) for veg and 3000k (soft) for flower. I did find some 2700k, which I found odd but by that time I had most of what I wanted already. It might have been good to have the odd one mixed in with the 3000k's. It started just as a veg tent as shown. Then I made a few more as I had plants that needed to be flipped into flower, then I needed more lights because they were getting bigger, then I needed more lights because the plants no longer fit into my grow space. From small things, things get out of control.

Not really complaining, for the amount of light I did not pay all that much. It is some work to wire them up, first breaking the lights apart, I had some aluminum track to use for the heatsink, then just wire them up. As a warning, you have to insulate the exposed live voltage terminals sticking out. Not a lot of hard steps but each takes time and multiply it by 9 per fixture in my case. I have about 1,400 real watts pulled from the wall. Think most are 12W bulbs, 100W equivalents.

So in a couple of years if Led technology gets much better I may jump back in but electric rates are fairly cheap here.

 

[gatewood]

Champ!

Thanks for sharing that with us