Home Made Vegging-Light Fixture. What do you all think?

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I built a light bar that houses 14 bulbs and I built it in the fasion of a MH style hood, but again, I daisy-chain wired each outlet to the next. Each socket I connect a 200Watt daylight bulb that only uses 42Watts of electricity. this way I get over 50 thousand lumen for all socket filled. but, I'm thinking it might be benefitial to my plants to supplement 7 of the 14 outlets with these party bulbs you're talking about. or maybe stay with the 14 200watt'ers. what do you thnk. if a pic of my homemade veger would help let me know. Others are welcome to use the design i'll answer any questions about it. I have 12 plants under it now and they grow like wild fire. but im hoping this new bulb concept could be an elevator to my current op, which is respectable in size. that white plastic is 95% reflective and is 3mils thick. great stuff. anyway, it is wrapped around thick garden fencing to form a hood of sorts. that guides the light escaping at the sides downward. this conttraption the way you see it is only using 250 watts total, but putting out 2800Lumen each bulb(42W=200Wx7). very cool, almost no heat. you can see that it is dark above it proving optimal use of all light produced. the plants underneth that you may see are just under 2days old. The fixture works great.

What if you had every other socket running a y-splitter with 2 bulbs, that way they sit at an angle and give more direct light to the plants? But I guess thats what the reflection's for huh? Really like the setup though, does that white plastic have a certain name?

View attachment 1338129View attachment 1338130It does, it is called something.... I just took pictures of the label you should be ale to see the dimensions it is sold at. i made a mistake its actually 5.5mils thick not 3 i mentioned before. I'm already able to pull a ton of lumen out of this not to mention the equivalent wattage, i think if I was to Y them it would be kind of a mess... but the thought of that lumen output sure makes ya think huh? here are th picks of the label. i picked this stuff up at a local (kind of) hydroponic store called hydrocork. great place this is 10x100 and was only $80. good deal, I have had it forever and still have a ton left. i have to additional budding "facilities" fully garbed floor to ceiling with it too

I was just thinkin put the 14 bulbs in 7 splitters, but there's no use tryin to fix what aint broke (plus the extra $) I'm gonna have to pick up some legit reflection one of these days...

Let me guess: currently usin' the shiny side to aluminum foil??? The row of sockets with no bulbs also works great but I have to buy more bulbs to put in them, pay-days are too far apart, lemme tell ya'

Totally outta curiousity how much has this project cost you ?? in my neck of the woods, it would seriously be close in cost and easier to buy 2 4ft Twin T5 battons.

you say you daisy chained your lights? when i tried that, all i got was a strobe light show. how'd you do it?

bobbypyn said:

you say you daisy chained your lights? when i tried that, all i got was a strobe light show. how'd you do it?

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They should be in Parallel not in a series.

[420]Haze;5070820 said:

Totally outta curiousity how much has this project cost you ?? in my neck of the woods, it would seriously be close in cost and easier to buy 2 4ft Twin T5 battons.

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I agree and would take it one step further and get a 6 tube 4' T5 . If my math is right you've overstated the numbers, your fixture only produces 39k lumens and requires 588 watts of power to run. a 6 tube ho t5 will do 30k lumens and run at under 324 watts of power.

[420]Haze;5070820 said:

Totally outta curiousity how much has this project cost you ?? in my neck of the woods, it would seriously be close in cost and easier to buy 2 4ft Twin T5 battons.

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without the light bulbs it cost me less that 35$. The wood I used from a desk i threw out, The garden fence (which holds the form for the refelctor plastic) I had left over but I know a whole role from home depot is only 7$,the plastic, as mentioned i've had for a while now, other than that 12G wire from ACE hardware at 8 feet two different colors.
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Here are the specs: 14 lights --> 200W each [(output)(only 42W used per bulb) 14x200=28,000 Watts put out (14x42=588 used) Each bulb produces 2800 lumen. 14 lights x 2800 lumen each = 39,200 total lumen. I don't think any T-5 bulb can put out that much lumen. Also, bulbs are cheaper to replace, but they last forever and then some so i don't anticipate losing money or efficiency in the bulbs. total cost of all the bulbs is only about 115-125$ which is comparable to that of a MH.

what spectrum does the T-5's focus on? the bulbs i use are daylight and awesome their blue/violet portion. Alos, the size youre talking about for the T-5's etc are way too big. the fixture i built is only 36 inches long and 10.5 inches wide.

golddog said:

They should be in Parallel not in a series.

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Awesome, Thank You! electricity is in the same category as internal combustion engines to me; both baffle me to no end.

LMAO... wish I'd asked that before i chopped up six extension cords and wasted a power strip as well!

1 2ft Twin T8 running growlush 18w globes will root clones no worries, but for solid veg growth, 2ft Twin 55w T5 is awesome and only costs around $45.

@ Buds*by*Brad, good job anyway, thanks for the info.

[420]Haze;5073072 said:

1 2ft Twin T8 running growlush 18w globes will root clones no worries, but for solid veg growth, 2ft Twin 55w T5 is awesome and only costs around $45.

@ Buds*by*Brad, good job anyway, thanks for the info.

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thats a good option, i wander if i mounted them against the enclosure wall if it would help on the sides of the plant too. do you happen to knoe the lumen output on those? general guess or know?

bobbypyn said:

Awesome, Thank You! electricity is in the same category as internal combustion engines to me; both baffle me to no end.

LMAO... wish I'd asked that before i chopped up six extension cords and wasted a power strip as well!

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I'm with ya on the engines broham, not my thing either. lol. Sorry for the use of the term "daisy-chain" may have caused some confusion. I serv ed for 8 years in the Army and sometimes it's hard to shake the jargon. on the under side of each socket are 4 terminal posts: 2 silver with silver screws and 2 silver with brass screws. keep your dark color wire to the silver with BRASS screws in the pattern bottom of: first bottom to top of next, match this with the lighter wire you get/have (if youre using used wires from another appliance this will be the wire with either the wording stamped into the one of two cords, or it will have a single stripe running the length of one of the two) and do the same pattern of wiring from the first to the next and so on. I used 12g for good conductability and safety, not to mention it's easier to work with. I also attached yellow (i think its 18-22awg) terminal forks to each side of the 7 inch wires so i didn't have to wrap the posts. with the terminal forks all you do is set them in poistion and lower the screw onto the wire terminal-end snuggly. and wulla! ...or something like that, lol. -brad-

well, you can daisy chain incandescents, but as soon as ya said in parallel, i caught your drift. thanks again. terminal forks would be sano, but I like a little excitement in my grow room, so some exposed wiring is always fun.

I am apparently unable to confer rep, so i couldn't. but i did try. twice.

What was the total cost of materials (for all the sockets, etc)? How much time is invested in making all the connections?

Would it make more sense (in terms of time & money) to just buy a vanity fixture? : http://tinyurl.com/2uf57bh

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jaimepagan said:

What was the total cost of materials (for all the sockets, etc)? How much time is invested in making all the connections?

Would it make more sense (in terms of time & money) to just buy a vanity fixture? : http://tinyurl.com/2uf57bh

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I had two sockets already on hand, those would be the odd looking ones mounted in the back corners of the fixture -i put them there because they dip down a little lower than the others, and that is a place where little light usually goes so it worked out well. The ceramic sockets were only $1.99 each but then i bought all they had and i needed more so i bought the rest of their carbon-fiber sockets and they work just as well. the reason i was originally going to go with all ceramic was that i assumed the heat would be high and ceramic is obviously great against heat. fortunatly that wasn't really the case, all the bulbs are pretty cool and i can hold my hand a hair away from them and not feel the least bit uncomfortable. contact with the bulb was a different story though, lol. the carbon fiber sockets were only 35 cents more at $2.34 each. Vanity fixtures are: expensive, decorative more than functional, and sizes are insane to calculate for my space with all the different (decorative, again) options as far as design and size are concerned. also i have yet to see a vanity that can support 14 bulbs. and again this, that i built, was way cheaper. just look around in your garages or a friend's, you'll be amazed at what you can use to turn into something useful wihtout paying retail costs + travel (gas) or delivery charges etc. It is still working amazing. here is a picture of the plants as of today! they were planted 4 days ago.