Need tips on how to mount CFL's for side lighting?!?!

Ok I have a 400watt HPS in my flower room/ I am growin in a close about 4x2.5 feet. I want to add some CFL's for side lighting to hit the lower growth, but I am having trouble figuring out a way to mount them. I have one sitting in the pot with a plant facing upwards, but I need to add some to the sides of the other plants, ill post a pic to give u an idea. Any tips or advice on how you mount CFL's would be great, cause as of nbow CFL's are a pain in the ass to set up

Here is a video I made of my flower room towards the end you can get a better shot of the room, but I took out the side CFL reflector casue it was bruning the leaves on the sides of the plants,

Just get something like a floor lamp and then get one of those silver hoods that has a clamp on it and go to town! You can probably get 4-5 depending on how tall the lamp and plant are

This article will give you a lot of inspiration. I mount household LEDs to my tent legs. And, I've made top-light fixtures which work well. You can see it in action in this grow journal.

tHANKS FOR QUICK RESPONSES ANY OTHER JURRY RIGGING THAT PEOPLE HAVE COME UP WIT PLZ LEMME KNOW!

SMD 2835 LED strip/tape lights.
Or use T5/T8 fixtures instead of CFL.

CFL 80 lm//w
T5/T8 105 lm/w
SMD 2835 strip 120 lm/w

Led strip lights actually work for growing?>

NecterSecter said:

Led strip lights actually work for growing?>

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Yes, the plants don't care what type of bulb/emitter the light is coming from, just the color and the intensity.

You just need to avoid the inefficient LEDs. SMD 2835 beats CFL and even the cheap Epistar based LED fixtures on efficiency.

What would be a good starter led for not a ton of money to add to my growroom?

I built a tressle out of pvc piping with lots of "tees" and cross legs, dont glue the joints. 3/4 pvc pipe (lowes, home depot)

Or broom handles criss cross your closet, if thats where you're growing.

B4L

Blunted do u happen to have a pic of this so i can get an idea? i like the sound of it but not sure exactly the best way to do it

NecterSecter said:

Blunted do u happen to have a pic of this so i can get an idea? i like the sound of it but not sure exactly the best way to do it

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I got this setup in 3/4" pvc pipe, perfect for side light setup!

Good luck

B4L

I like using the clamp on lights from Home Depot. Very useful. Remove the reflector and add 1 or more Y splitters. Three Y splitters put together will allow for 4 26w bulbs. Get two. One for each side of tent. You can use an aluminum pie pan (Paint it flat white if you like) to make a reflector that sits on top.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/75-Watt-Incandescent-Clamp-Light-HD-200PDQ/205139241

Then you can clamp them onto something (Be careful the clamps suck and will fall and burn your plants or worse) or loop them over a bar that crosses the top of your closet. Just make sure they are well secured since fires suck.

Definitely build a reflector for them.. This will dramatically improve the light being cast on your plants. I forget the exact stats I read, but the difference was dramatic.

sunny747 said:

Remove the reflector and add 1 or more Y splitters.

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If you leave the reflector attached, it's like having 4 bulbs without reflectors. (I have measured it.). I don't know if a pie-plate hood is the same. (I wouldn't think it is due to the geometries. I haven't seen any measurements.).

I mount them directly (without the spring clamp) to the tent frame to conserve space. I can use flexible gooseneck extenders to move the reflector closer to the plant.

Thats the problem I am having i bought a bunch of those 10inch home depot reflector lights and got y splitter in each. but the clamps dont stay tight enough they just fall down, and i got bars going across top to hang from but the hps is in the way of most spots. I going to have to figure out something to build

NecterSecter said:

Thats the problem I am having i bought a bunch of those 10inch home depot reflector lights and got y splitter in each. but the clamps dont stay tight enough they just fall down

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A photo would help. Your first post said sidelighting, so not sure why you're trying to mount large reflectors from the top. The tent-leg mounts work well for sidelight, but require some effort to make the sliding sockets. (Those can also be resused with a top-light DIY fixture like this one.). If it were me, if I bought clamp-on reflectors, I would do everything I could to keep the bulb in the reflector. I'm not sure the "hoods" above clusters of bulbs work as well.

I would also use GE 10w BrightStik bulbs instead of CFL. They're already directional by design. You can use them without a reflector (and they deliver about as much light as a CFL in a reflector). They cost $3.50 at Home Depot, about the cost of a CFL. In a reflector, they deliver almost twice as much light as a reflected CFL.

The only downside is that you have to remove the plastic diffusor cap which exposes electrical contact. They should be powered through a GFCI outlet to reduce shock. That's probably a good idea anyway, working with water around electrical items the way we do.

If you're not in a tent, there are "swivels" that can be mounted to a secure surface, and the clamp-on socket would attach to the swivel via the 1/8 NPT pipe thread on the back end of the socket. That page also shows the gooseneck extenders. They have a M8x1.00 male stud on the end. You could rigidly mount them to the side/corners of your space, and attach the reflector from a clamp-on using a rubber-band-like grip:

No i was just addressing sum1 who said hang from the poles above. Also I am in my closets and not a tent. Those swivels sound like the perfect thing I could mount to walls around the closet. T hanks for the link man I truly appriciate all the help and time u put into that reply az2000!

What kind of bulb is that big one u have on the top of the plant facing down?

NecterSecter said:

What kind of bulb is that big one u have on the top of the plant facing down?

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Cree 18w PAR38 47-degree floodlight. 3000k. It's good for flowering. With these bulbs you need about 25w/sq ft.

There is a fixture I made for them here.

NecterSecter said:

Also I am in my closets and not a tent.

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Those inexpensive gooseneck extenders would work very, very well for you. Bust the base off and you'll find a M8x1.00 male stud. You could attach that to something like an angle-bar of aluminum.

For example, what if you had a 4' tall piece of angle-bar. Drill it for an M8 bolt every 4"? Use a jigsaw (or hacksaw) to cut the edge of the hole away so you have slots every 4". That would be very adjustable. You could slip a flexible (gooseneck) extender/socket into any hole you wanted, and then adjust gooseneck for additional aiming. You could add lights as necessary. (I imagine an angle-bar with holes drilled in it at certain intervals. But, those holes turned into notches, open on one edge. You could "slip" an extender into the hole from the *side*, tighten the nut, you're done. Just attach plug to the back end of the extender.).

I should take a picture of one of those extenders with the base broken off so it's easier to see the male stud-end and how it could be mounted to something rigid.

You'd have to use fairly light bulbs, like the Cree 9.5w A19, or GE 10w BrightStik. The heavy PAR38 wouldn't work. Those inexpensive goosenecks won't hold that weight.