Things to Know About Lighting
- Thread starter roosterfish
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Enigma
Well-Known Member
1-2 plants at a time.. 400w HPS would do it, but I'd go 600w HPS hands down.. that could all be done in a 3x3, 2x4, 3x4 or 4x4 sq. ft. area.
High Tech Garden Supply
600w HPS, cooltube, electronic ballast, hangers, and extra lamp for under $300
I'm not trying to plug anything.. but that shit is a deal.
EmtMdwestPipes
Active Member
Holy crap I'm finally getting some info. Thanks peeps!
Enigma....do you have a height recommendation for the 2x4 room? I'm either going to line my closet and use a carbon filter because it's in a safer location than my basement. I'm really paranoid about odor, actually everything but I'll start with odor and conquer that first. BUT, how high (pun intended) should the room be? I'll be able to raise and lower the lighting as necessary, I'm just trying to keep my little greenhouse...my little greenhouse.
Thanks again!!
Enigma....do you have a height recommendation for the 2x4 room? I'm either going to line my closet and use a carbon filter because it's in a safer location than my basement. I'm really paranoid about odor, actually everything but I'll start with odor and conquer that first. BUT, how high (pun intended) should the room be? I'll be able to raise and lower the lighting as necessary, I'm just trying to keep my little greenhouse...my little greenhouse.
Thanks again!!
Enigma
Well-Known Member
First measure the height of the planter pots. Then give the room anywhere from 2-3 ft. for plant growth, this all depends on the method of growing (training or topping/fimming). Remember, Indica strains are usually shorter than Sativa strains.
Depending on the lamps used.. a cooltube with a 600w or 100w can be put down to about 6-12" of the canopy.. then there is the question of air circulation.
Right now I'm working with a 4x3x7 ft. area. 600w HPS & Quad 48" T5's holding mothers, clones and flowers. Highly efficient for a small area.
You could get away with a 5-6 ft. height.
Edit: Oh, and check out my sig for some cool links.
EmtMdwestPipes
Active Member
Thanks for all the advice RIUer's! I saw this light....they call it the LED UFO light that is supposedly equal to a 400watt HPS bulb producing very little heat and only using 90 watts of power. I know I'm new at this but that sounds like a much safer alternative to the HPS/MH bulbs----my wife is worried about the fire hazards involved....everything will be upstairs in a closet in a guest room and she's worried.
Alto
Well-Known Member
The guy at my Hydro shop tells me that LED panels are junk.
Personally I don't know, just passing along info from a trusted source.
For 2 plants all you really need is that single 1000W (its actually enough for more plants than that!)
If you can get a MH conversion bulb for vegging you would be golden with just that one light.
Heat would be less of an issue as would your electric bill.
If you can, see about using GFI outlets (Ground Fault Interrupt) just tell your relative he will know.
They are the ones that you should see in your bathroom or kitchen with the little buttons on them (Test/Reset)
they will stop providing current should you get a short or something and are meant for use near H2O.
(better to not explain this to the wife as the thought of a short may cause more worry, but good your your piece of mind)
just air cool the hood using a carbon filter in the room as an intake then go from there to the hood and finally out of the room (hopefully the house)
If your electric is wired correctly you should not have much of a hazard to worry about.
My wife worries too so my advice is trim the OP down to a manageable scale and spend more time with her and less with the kids in your Grow OP.
Does wonders.
Find time when she isn't around to tend your garden.
They will do fine all on their own for a while now and then.
If you obsess about them she could get jealous.
Just a few tips from a guy with an anxious wife.
jimmyspaz
Well-Known Member
I know there have been threads about those ufo style Leds on this forum , try a search. May even be in Faqs, worth checking if you are interested in those lighting fixtures. Good luck and keep us updated on your progress. Consider a journal. If I was able to post pics I would do one. Need to reinstall a program first, and must find disc( I know it's here somewhere
)......
Edit- Alto posted while I was typing, I second what he says about one 1000 watter with conversion bulbs. A 600 might be enough for your space. Also he( or she) is right about a ground-fault receptacle , put one at beginning of circuit. Have fun , but don't burn down your house . That would really get the ol' lady POed!!!!
)......Edit- Alto posted while I was typing, I second what he says about one 1000 watter with conversion bulbs. A 600 might be enough for your space. Also he( or she) is right about a ground-fault receptacle , put one at beginning of circuit. Have fun , but don't burn down your house . That would really get the ol' lady POed!!!!
Alto
Well-Known Member
thats right!
I have the carbon intake inside the grow room(IMAGE), next in line is the "in line" fan, then the "sealed" light fixture, then out of the fixture to outside the room.
I found sucking the odor thru the filter first then thru my "sealed" light fixture, then out of the room the most practical.
The Crabonair filter I have is like 16" diam. by 16" (or so) tall and I just don't have a place on the end of the exhaust line to put it where it won't be noticed.
The dryer vent style exhaust hose I'm using (4") blends in pretty well as a bathroom exhaust in the ceiling of my basement. Stealth is good.
Filter-Fan-Light-Outside seems to be used a lot.
I have another passive duct that brings fresh air into the room which is separate from the exhaust system.
It is also good to (if you are able to) place the filter near the top of your room so as to catch more heat/ Odor as heat rises.
EmtMdwestPipes
Active Member
I searched for the LED's but couldn't find anything....that's why I asked. I've considered a journal, I just don't know how paranoid to be, I don't exactly live in a 'friendly' state so I'm either covering my ass or fueling a split personality....I wish I could scan in my notes so you guys could see them....pages and pages. I'm just trying to get a nice amount for personal use only, I keep thinking how sad it is that I can get it everywhere but home. 
captnplanet
Active Member
Does anyone know how to overdrive a ballast ?I am sure someone out there has . Happy 420! Peace pot and micro-dot!
captnplanet
Active Member
Overdriving Fluorescent Lights
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Overdriving fluorescent bulbs is a method of getting more light from each bulb than is normally obtained. It involves taking the light fixture apart and rewiring the insides. Each electronic ballast normally drives either two or four bulbs. The ballasts are then tied together in such a way that a two-bulb ballast now drives a single bulb and a four-bulb ballast drives only two bulbs, sometimes it only drives one. Usually, an extra ballast is put into the fixture and wired into the bulb circuit. For instance, if you have four bulbs in the fixture and they have a four-bulb ballast, this ballast now drives two bulbs and another four-bulb ballast is used to drive the remaining two bulbs. If the directions in this article are carefully followed, this rewiring is not dangerous and the bulbs wont blow up, they simply become brighter. The bulbs are limited by their design to draw only so much current and no more. If you double the amount of current, you wont get a bulb thats two times brighter because the efficiency drops off a bit. So even after the increased current is made available, a bulb driven by a factor of two times its normal supply, only gets 1.7 times brighter. You can do a 1x, 2x, or 3x overdrive with a four-lamp ballast, but the efficiency drops. (4x output into one bulb is only 2.4 times as bright as normal).
Put another way; the output of the bulbs does not increase in direct ratio to the amount of power the ballast consumes. The more times you overdrive a fluorescent bulb, the less efficient it becomes, as it is starting to drift out of the bulb's optimal design parameters.
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The information for this article was partially gleaned from postings on forums all over the Internet. The forums included gardens (seed starting), fish/aquarium (freshwater and salt water), houseplants, pro studio photography, reptiles, electronics, and others. If you see postings here that youve seen elsewhere, keep in mind that Im just trying to bring some semblance of order out of the inherent disorder of every forum out there that deals with this subject. If you have a question about your particular application, please try some of these forums. There are people who are very knowledgeable about the process of overdriving and they are willing to help you. Many, many people have rewired their fluorescent fixtures with no explosions or house fires that I know of. There are people out there that are deathly afraid of electricity, and if you are one of them, perhaps you shouldn't rewire your lamps. If you haven't overdriven your own fixtures, please don't be a nervous nelly and post gloom and doom predictions of disaster for those who want to try this. The data took many hours to put together into a more or less readable form. Sorry theres no way to give proper credit to everyone who contributed to this huge Internet pool of information.
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This is a rather long article and seems to be very complicated, but really, its not bad once you get the core idea of whats involved. Dont be apprehensive. Check each step carefully and then recheck. Youll be fine!
Safety first!
Dont even think about using a magnetic ballast, it wont work for overdriving fluorescent lights, and you might have a very smelly incident as the internals melt down.
Utilizing ODNO (Overdriven Normal Output) fluorescent lighting technology will likely void your warranty on ballast and/or bulbs. We are not responsible for damage caused by improper use or failures due to overdriving fluorescent lights.
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Use or install a GFCI fixture to plug your fluorescent fixture into after youve rewired it. Use a power strip with a circuit breaker on the strip if you dont have a Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter. This will offer a degree of protection for you, if youve made a mistake in the wiring. Always make sure a ground wire is connected to the fixture! This is for safety and it helps the lamps to start when the metal reflector is grounded.
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Be careful if youre using this setup to power lighting for an aquarium, you know, electricity and water. Nuff said.
Why electronic ballasts?
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First, you are not rewiring the ballast. You are rewiring the outputs of the ballast (nothing internal). Electronic ballasts which operate more than one lamp often show several wiring options, so the same ballasts can be used in several configurations, thus saving the manufacturer money. What rewiring to overdrive lamps does, is cause the circuitry to see a different load drawing the current. The output transistors can do this and still be functioning within proper specifications. This is neither dangerous nor illegal; its simply the way electronic ballasts are designed. The most telling thing about the results is that, using a 2x overdrive; the ballast draws less power with one lamp than it would draw normally with 2 lamps. The two output transistors are teaming up and actually drawing less amperage than normal (with 2 lamps).
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Put another way, when you re-arrange the output of the ballast wiring to overdrive a lamp, you are sharing the "lamp load" between the individual lamp circuits. The ballast itself is actually UNDERDRIVEN, since it is now sending LESS total current to a single lamp than it would normally be sending to two lamps. It is the lamp that gets OVERDRIVEN. The ballast is running cooler, the bulb running hotter. This does not burn out the bulb, although it's life is shortened a bit.
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The ballasts used for overdriving are actually running below their normal capacity, sharing the duty, and drawing less than normal. I have done this with 7 different types and wattages of electronic ballasts and they ALL worked well.
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In a two-lamp fixture, overdriving (which requires a ballast that drives 2 or more lights) involves disconnecting the wires from both ends of one lamp's socket, and joining them to the wires of the remaining lamp. This results in a 32w lamp being driven to put out approximately 1.7 times as much light as normally produced. This will reduce the life of the lamp somewhat, but in the overall picture it is very economical to replace a 32w bulb-even twice as often. With fluorescent lights, over 95% of the total cost of using the bulb is the electricity, since the bulbs last so long to begin with. I used both a current meter and a light meter to compare my results. Your own eyes can DEFINITELY see the difference.
On the T8s and T12 bulbs, this 2-pin plug and socket are called medium bi-pin.
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This is the way the tombstones look on the other end after the ballast is rewired on the Rapid Start system. Diagram to the left.
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It was a pain-in-the-butt to figure out how to get the existing wires out of those push-in-and-stay-in type sockets. Do not pry the back off of the sockets. I did that once, early on, and broke the plastic socket apart doing it. I finally developed the knack of doing what I can only call a twist and wiggle technique to get the existing wires out of their slot. Although I can get most of the wires off, I still end up breaking off 10-15% of them. Since you end up with a couple of extra sockets anyhow, you can afford to mess up a few of them. As a last resort, I would have gone ahead and cut and spliced the wires if I couldnt get the wires wiggled out of the socket. Once you push that wire in, it wants to stay in. Trial and error will hopefully lead you to a useable technique.
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Nox
Active Member
Quick question. I am working on a grow room design to suit my grow space. I am thinking of a fixed lighting system instead of on a pulley like I've often seen.
From reading the very first post in this thread, am I correct in understanding that it ultimatly does not matter the proximatey of the light to the plant as long as the plant is receiving around 7000-10000 lumens?
(and would a light meter tell me my lumens?)
Thanks!
From reading the very first post in this thread, am I correct in understanding that it ultimatly does not matter the proximatey of the light to the plant as long as the plant is receiving around 7000-10000 lumens?
(and would a light meter tell me my lumens?)
Thanks!
Enigma
Well-Known Member
I've always used a filter on the exhaust end of the fan (cent. fan). The reason being:
I put my hand on the intake of the cent. fan and it slowed down A LOT.
I put my hand on the exhuast and it didn't slow down a bit.
I'm also using a seperate fan for my 600w cooltube in order to maintain room temps.
Enigma
Alto
Well-Known Member
I would do the same if I had a stealthy way to hide the filter on the outside of the OP.
As is, the fan is doing the job and temps are stable at around 75-80F
I know all the air being pushed into the other side of the basement is fresh and clean
and there is no dust being pulled into my fan housing. One thing about the canfan I bought.
The seam around the middle of the unit where the two halves meet isn't sealed very well.
I used some duct tape and put a band around the seam. It pushes a LOT more air now than before.
Enigma
Well-Known Member
I catch ya drift!