Need help designing a cfl fixture

[ExileOnMainStreet]

Do you have a pics with your lights in it yet?

Sure:



Those cords actually rest in clips rather than hanging loose - had to move 'em to raise the light a bit for the pic. I HATE messy cords, lol. Right now there's a horizontal piece of 1" dowel that the chains run over, then that hangs on a piece of line and a pulley from that top hook so I can adjust the height. I need to pic up another piece of aluminum and I'll make a spreader that the chains will be attached to.



The light meter in my camera kinda went nuts - as I'm sure you know from your CFLs, you can't actually see the tubes. The chains are attached to scraps of plumbing strap pop riveted to the end plates but, with so little weight, one could use almost anything.

[QUOTE'"Fultono"]Trust me, make it so good that you're impressed with yourself and the work you put into this. If your happy with the way it is rate now then leave it. [/QUOTE]

Couldn't agree more. You can read on here all day long about how there's only one way of doing any of this and nothing else will work, but the bottom line is that it's still just a plant. Give it light, water and food and it will grow - everything else is window dressing and you'll learn along the way. I've picked up a lot of great info from the folks here but sometimes you have to sift through a lot of ego and BS to find what works for you....same as anything online I guess.
Good luck with your cabinet grow !

 

[Fultono]

Perfect man. Keep me posted! I'm working on some stuff with my bigger box now trying to adjust things a little.

 

[Fultono]

Beauty exile! How much lighting is in there in total? IT'S EVERYWHERE lol. And what bulbs?

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

Right now it's 10 lamps @ 2700K under the hood in 5 lamp holders with splitters and 3 more (6 lamps) along each side. The lamps are various wattages but mostly 23 or 26W. With CFLs, more is definitely better because the lamps don't throw nearly as much light as HIDs do. When I was starting out, I just kept gradually building up more and more as money allowed. I actually built the hood to take a 400 or 600W HPS but I'll use it with the CFLs until I get the new light. When I put the HPS kit in ($$), I'll add a glass cover and ducting...probably. I made a similar one for a little 50W HPS I have, but there isn't room for that AND the new hood at the moment but I'll probably turn the hood sideways once I get it hanging off the spreader bar.

By doing it this way you can get it to fit your cabinet exactly...and it's cheap and easy to build.
Maybe not the fanciest setup but I don't remember the last time I actually bought weed.

 

[Fultono]

Here is my bigger home for the girls. Needs finishing but it'll give you an idea.

 

[Fultono]

Don't think uploading working :-/

 

[italianstallion24]

Don't think uploading working :-/

Yea i tried uploaded a pic earlier and i couldnt i dont think it is either... well i went to town and bought some stuff that i think might work... i ahve to go to my parents now to build it but i think it might work... after i build it ill post some pictures

 

[italianstallion24]

Sure:



Those cords actually rest in clips rather than hanging loose - had to move 'em to raise the light a bit for the pic. I HATE messy cords, lol. Right now there's a horizontal piece of 1" dowel that the chains run over, then that hangs on a piece of line and a pulley from that top hook so I can adjust the height. I need to pic up another piece of aluminum and I'll make a spreader that the chains will be attached to.



The light meter in my camera kinda went nuts - as I'm sure you know from your CFLs, you can't actually see the tubes. The chains are attached to scraps of plumbing strap pop riveted to the end plates but, with so little weight, one could use almost anything.

[QUOTE'"Fultono"]Trust me, make it so good that you're impressed with yourself and the work you put into this. If your happy with the way it is rate now then leave it.

Couldn't agree more. You can read on here all day long about how there's only one way of doing any of this and nothing else will work, but the bottom line is that it's still just a plant.Give it light, water and food and it will grow - everything else is window dressing and you'll learn along the way. I've picked up a lot of great info from the folks here but sometimes you have to sift through a lot of ego and BS to find what works for you....same as anything online I guess.
Good luck with your cabinet grow ! [/QUOTE]

That looks awesome man. That is impressive.. if my box grow was that big i would do something like that.. but for the size of mine i think i found a cheap idea that might work for me... just a buch of Y splitters, some chair, some mylar, a light fixture, and some plywood. i hope it works well enough we will see i suppose! ill post some pics of it after i finish it up

 

[Fultono]

Sounds good. Ill pop back in later.

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

Thanks, looking forward to seeing what you put together. Whatever works, man...it's all good.

 

[italianstallion24]

well i tried to upload pics of it but it wouldnt let me? so i dont know whats rong with it..

But here is basicly what i did... i took a peice of plywood cut it about 8x10 or so and then wrapped that mylar stuff.. well really its the emercency blanket and i folded that up a bunch till it barley wraped around the plywood and stappled it to the back of it then i drilled a hole right in the middle attached a light fixture. wired it up. ran it through the back of it to the top side of my box drilled another hole then ran it through that to the outlet... then i screwed a cup hook to the top of the box.. just one. then ran three chains to three other cup hooks on the back of the my light fixture its holding it up pretty nicely...

right now im doing temp tests... i have four 2700 cfls in there right now with the fans going.. seeing what the temps will look like. havent opened it up yet. been about 5 mins lol but im anxious.. its about 75 or so in my room. so we will see what it does soon enough.. im actually really proud of my self lol

thanks Fultono for telling me about putting all the wires to the back.. i know i will thank you later and later on. it made alot more space.. and looks alot more professional now...

and thanks Exile for the imput and the light fixture idea it kinda gave me an idea... i hope i can upload pics soon so you guys can see how it looks....

if guys were here right now id be passing my bong to ya.. thank you!

 

[italianstallion24]

this is the top where the chains are and where the light cord runs out of the box.



This is the front view of the lights



This is the way the lights are attatched and the emergency blanket (mylar) how it is attatched to the board



Just another picture

im going to add more cfs when i actually have a plant in there but i dont have them to put on and i dont have enough Y splitters available at the moment and its basicly just a test run to see how the temps go.. its been well over half an hour now and temps are at a steady 82 which isnt good enough for me but with the temps at around 74 in my room i think its pretty good just for two pc fans i may have to attatch a 12 volt plug to the exhaust fan to make it pull more.

Now i have to deal with another huge problem....

smell...

but ill make another thread on that

 

[justanotherbozo]

...i learned my chops with CFLs and i grew with nothing but for almost 2 years before i moved up to HPS, ...anyway, i bought 4 of these at a local builders supply house for $4.88 each and with the Y splitters and 8x 26watt bulbs that's 216watts per fixture, ...at the time i was running a SOG in 4x 7gallon DWCs with 8 plantlets per DWC and where i was pulling 1 bin every 2 weeks, ...which is why i needed 4 light fixtures, lol, 4 DWCs, 4 lights.

btw, fluorescent light isn't very intense so to use them effectively you need to focus on growing many short plants rather than trying to grow tall plants because the light just won't reach the bottom and you'll end up with a lot of loose, fluffy bullshit only good for the hash bin.

...which also means that it's not really worth the effort to try reflecting that already weak light and maybe it's better to leave an easy way for the heat to rise up and away from your plants, ...at least that's how i looked at it and i did pretty good ok with fluoro's for quite some time, fact is, i still use fluorescent's in veg even now, T12 shop lights to be exact, lol.

peace, bozo

 

[italianstallion24]

the only thing about using HPS is i ahve a tiny grow box... and it cant get much bigger.. i dont really plan on having a big plant... small is what im going for... small and bushy... But that is a good idea. Thank you for the input!

 

[italianstallion24]

im not going to let my plants get much taller than 10 inches.. even if that.. but we shall see... this is my frist grow.. and has to be stealth... everyone i know smokes... and of course the one person that doesnt like it is my room mate.... so this has to be secertive

 

[justanotherbozo]

...if you have limited space and you are at all handy you might consider PLLs which are a newer form of CFL that has a couple of advantages in your situation, first they are straight rather than twisty so they deliver light more efficiently over a wider canopy which also spreads the heat more evenly which makes it less of a problem to deal with.

...another major advantage over standard CFLs is that PLLs are remote ballasted so that part of the heat equation is completely removed from your grow space, ...standard CFLs each have the ballast built into it's base and that contributes greatly to the heat they produce.

...another thing worth noting is that they are available in several Kelvin temperatures and several wattages as well with the lower wattage bulbs being progressively shorter the lower the wattage, all in all this is a very good option when you have limited space and you don't want to throw down $300.00 or $400.00 on LEDs.

anyway, these are some 55watters that are approx. 23inchs and the ballast is a Fulham Workhorse 8 rated for a maximum 220watts in any combination, meaning in my case 4x 55watts or maybe 6x 36watters or whatever, as long as it doesn't exceed 220watts.

...this is my clone/seed start cab btw, i learned my chops in small cabs, lol.

...this is a shot of the back where i mounted the ballast, as you can see, it's a pretty small box.

peace, bozo

 

[italianstallion24]

Those are really cool.. never seen anything like that before... i may have to try something like that when i upgrade or something.. like to a bigger cab. cause mine right now is 20 in wide 16 in long and 36 in high... its kinda small but its what i needed and fits peferctly for what im using it.. thanks for that tip too.. haha illl keep those in mind.. i deff like the ballasts outside of the cab... that will help alot of heat

 

[Fultono]

Looks great ital, glad you gave it some tweaking to make it a little better for you! I think now your set and like bozo said, when you can get the cash to slowly upgrade bulbs now, do it! I've read through his posts and there is actually a lot of useful stuff you could learn from him.

 

[ExileOnMainStreet]

...it's not really worth the effort to try reflecting that already weak light

I measured mine with and without the hood using the output of a solar cell. For me, the improvement was definitely worth the time and money to make the hood. If I didn't have the tooling or the confidence to build it, maybe not. To each their own.

You're bang on about the small plants: I've been flowering under CFLs for a few years now and use a bunch of small plants in cut off 2L bottles and get a whole bunch of little popcorn buds. If you're looking for the tall colas you see in the pics, CFLs aren't the way to go. I like those PLLs - they might make better side lights than my CFLs.

Ital, another thought about your box: I supplemented mine with a little 50W HPS and noticed an improvement in the size and density of the buds (everything else stayed the same). That one I linked to is a replacement for commercial lighting and the bulb fits a standard E26/27 base rather than a mogul socket. It might be an option for your small space - I think it was about $60 and came with a lamp, ballast and capacitor. You'll need a lamp holder (about $2) and a hood of some sort, but even the flat reflector you've already built ought to be fine. After running it for a full flowering cycle, I can honestly say that the ballast generates way more heat than the lamp itself. If you mount the ballast on the back like bozo did with the PLLs in the pic, the heat should be more than manageable with your 120mm fans and you'll be getting 2100K rather than the 2700 of the CFLs. Now that my hooded array is done, the next job is to get the little HPS back in there...probably inside the hood in the center lamp holder.
Are you planning to paint or mylar the inside of the box eventually ?

 

[justanotherbozo]

I measured mine with and without the hood using the output of a solar cell. For me, the improvement was definitely worth the time and money to make the hood. If I didn't have the tooling or the confidence to build it, maybe not. To each their own.

You're bang on about the small plants: I've been flowering under CFLs for a few years now and use a bunch of small plants in cut off 2L bottles and get a whole bunch of little popcorn buds. If you're looking for the tall colas you see in the pics, CFLs aren't the way to go. I like those PLLs - they might make better side lights than my CFLs.

Ital, another thought about your box: I supplemented mine with a little 50W HPS and noticed an improvement in the size and density of the buds (everything else stayed the same). That one I linked to is a replacement for commercial lighting and the bulb fits a standard E26/27 base rather than a mogul socket. It might be an option for your small space - I think it was about $60 and came with a lamp, ballast and capacitor. You'll need a lamp holder (about $2) and a hood of some sort, but even the flat reflector you've already built ought to be fine. After running it for a full flowering cycle, I can honestly say that the ballast generates way more heat than the lamp itself. If you mount the ballast on the back like bozo did with the PLLs in the pic, the heat should be more than manageable with your 120mm fans and you'll be getting 2100K rather than the 2700 of the CFLs. Now that my hooded array is done, the next job is to get the little HPS back in there...probably inside the hood in the center lamp holder.
Are you planning to paint or mylar the inside of the box eventually ?

high man, here, check out how this guy used him a few PLLs, ...i think you'll dig the way this guy thinks, lol.

[URL="https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=92259"]"the high-pod"[/url]

...and did someone say 'cut down 2liter bottles'? ...lol

peace, bozo