CFL Light Bar - Proof of Concept

There are some very creative DIY solutions to mounting CFLs in grow spaces.

Being a inventive DIYer, I'm always coming up with ideas.

My idea for a light bar is to use a perforated angle iron to mount CFLs. I got the perforated angle iron at Home Depot - a 3 foot length cost $8.00.




I bought 3 light sockets. These are used in construction. The wire hook suspends the light on a wire or rope. The cap unscrews, the wire is laid into the small tracks, the cap screws back on pushing the wire on to electrical prongs for a circuit. These sockets cost $2.39 each.







I used a length of extension cord I had from another project.





And the finished product:


This light bar can be fashioned to your exact needs. Add as many sockets as you want. Make four bars and connect them in a square. You are limited only by the power requirements of the lights.

The perforated angle iron can be shortened or you can buy up to a six foot length.

Great post man! I just use vanity fixyures but most of the time this would be even cheaper

+rep... i had reccomended using a temp lighting string more than once on here for cfl placement, im glad to see the concept in action, best of luck with your grow.

ps- take care to remember the blk and white wires on the last lamp are hot as hell and will have exposed copper on the ends where the wire was cut, and will cause problems if you have high humidity. in the future, leave enough wire sticking out of the last lamp to tape up or cap off with a wire nut...

420hydro said:

I bought 3 light sockets. These are used in construction. The wire hook suspends the light on a wire or rope. The cap unscrews, the wire is laid into the small tracks, the cap screws back on pushing the wire on to electrical prongs for a circuit. .

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does it puncture the wire to make the connection?

this is my setup, i used a row of lights with 6 sockets i got at good will for 1.99
and 3 cheap lamps i took apart and wired together and duct taped to the row
basicaly the same just more ghetto and more space consuming lol

zerowned said:

does it puncture the wire to make the connection?

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yes it does .

to me, all this metal and exposed wire seems kinda deadly

but nice and easy,creative fixture !

tmaster2 said:

yes it does .

to me, all this metal and exposed wire seems kinda deadly

but nice and easy,creative fixture !

Click to expand...

yeah true it seems deadly but as long as the wire is not broken all should be good, its when you forget to cap the ends and they start touching the metal or eachother or YOU that it becomes an issue all in all i like that set up and ill probably try it out... pretty easy looking

yea as long as ur not a jackass about it and b real careful and pay attention to what your doing its totaly safe and really easy to setup, mine is all ghetto and cheap but i put it together ina bout 20 mins n with bout 10 dollars
its a great way to go if ur on a strickt budget or need lights without much heat

I agree that in a real installation you would want to cap the ends of the wires for safety purposes.

I didn't in my example because as the title of the thread says, it was a proof of concept - testing a crude idea.

Think about the versatility of adding / removing cfls, adjusting the spacing, and being able to bolt a frame together in different shapes and sizes.

i use unistrut. could easily acommodate 12 cfls on a 26 inch piece. extremely strong too...