Oh no CreQ's back with another lame mspaint sketch! haha.
I am stuck on trying to put out enough lumens with fluoro's to flower plants as good as any HPS.
I was thinking of a design where the ballasts are outside of the box, powering fluoro's inside the box which are going to be in plastic tubes to allow plants to literally touch them..
Maybe even in a way where the plants can grow around them/use them for support
I was thinking possibly 10x36w T8 bulbs @ 2700 lumens each. The area would be 4 feet long and just wide enough for the plants (probably 1.5-2ft). This is low lumens for this area, however the bulbs will be literally touching the plants in different spots, and be hitting from all different spots of the canopy...like the first pic..
I was maybe even thinking 4 bulbs per row instead of 2 and doing 3 rows, with each bulb 4" apart in the rows, and each row 1ft from the next, making 'shelves' the shoots can grow into and get light from both the top and bottom..like the second box in the pic (had to sketch it quicker for time reasons, but my drawings suck no matter what)
So would the fluoro's being able to actually touch the canopy and having it so the canopy is sandwiched between fluoros like that give it enough light to make great buds? Or would 2 150w HPS @32,000 Lumens hung from the top of the box do way better?
It's more light but it's also going to have to be further away from the plants to cover the area and because of heat..
I really need to figure this out, because I can do the fluoro setup quick and cheap, the HPS setup I have planned (if I can't go fluoros) is pretty pricey.
So what do you guys think?
Can you equal quality buds using fluoros if you use equal lumens but keep the lights right on top of all sections of the plants? (the fluoros will be able to cover the whole canopy from every angle)
Thanks a lot
CreQ
I am stuck on trying to put out enough lumens with fluoro's to flower plants as good as any HPS.
I was thinking of a design where the ballasts are outside of the box, powering fluoro's inside the box which are going to be in plastic tubes to allow plants to literally touch them..
Maybe even in a way where the plants can grow around them/use them for support
I was thinking possibly 10x36w T8 bulbs @ 2700 lumens each. The area would be 4 feet long and just wide enough for the plants (probably 1.5-2ft). This is low lumens for this area, however the bulbs will be literally touching the plants in different spots, and be hitting from all different spots of the canopy...like the first pic..
I was maybe even thinking 4 bulbs per row instead of 2 and doing 3 rows, with each bulb 4" apart in the rows, and each row 1ft from the next, making 'shelves' the shoots can grow into and get light from both the top and bottom..like the second box in the pic (had to sketch it quicker for time reasons, but my drawings suck no matter what)
So would the fluoro's being able to actually touch the canopy and having it so the canopy is sandwiched between fluoros like that give it enough light to make great buds? Or would 2 150w HPS @32,000 Lumens hung from the top of the box do way better?
It's more light but it's also going to have to be further away from the plants to cover the area and because of heat..
I really need to figure this out, because I can do the fluoro setup quick and cheap, the HPS setup I have planned (if I can't go fluoros) is pretty pricey.
So what do you guys think?
Can you equal quality buds using fluoros if you use equal lumens but keep the lights right on top of all sections of the plants? (the fluoros will be able to cover the whole canopy from every angle)
Thanks a lot
CreQ