Home Made Grow Lights

[Bigmallly]

Looks like there's another losing his marbles ^^^^

Nah, I lent mine to one of the young 'ens to play wi.............

[veggiechicken]

Nah, I lent mine to one of the young 'ens to play wi.............

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Maybe its time you borrowed them back...........

[Ananke]

We finished our grow box at around 5pm but had to rush out for an important dinner (the importance being me not cooking tonight) I've uploaded the grow box pics to my blog if anyone wants a look.

Link to the blog is on my signature

I'll go pour another cheeky wee red while you have a look

[Bigmallly]

We finished our grow box at around 5pm but had to rush out for an important dinner (the importance being me not cooking tonight) I've uploaded the grow box pics to my blog if anyone wants a look.

Link to the blog is on my signature

I'll go pour another cheeky wee red while you have a look

Looks brilliant.......the only thing I would have done was to put some hooks inside on the top & fasten the tube with chains with "S" hooks, that way you can have the tube right down over the seedlings & can raise it as the plants grow. You will also notice a difference if the inside is white as I did.

[Ananke]

That would have been a much better idea, for now i'll just put some upsidedown MFBs in and sit a shelf on them to get a bit of height and when I have more time i'll put the chains in.

[veggiechicken]

Looks good Ananke! I found white reflects better than mirrors in mine so I've lined my box with A3 paper.
Here are some photos of the seedlings

The 4 pots on the left live in the Blue Peter box, those on the right are out on the table by the window. The first photo taken with flash seemed to drain some of the colour from the leaves so the second is without flash.
The third photo is the 2 test pots of Salad bowl lettuce (red & green) - again the one on the left is from the box and the other one lives out!

[redser]

Looks brilliant.......the only thing I would have done was to put some hooks inside on the top & fasten the tube with chains with "S" hooks, that way you can have the tube right down over the seedlings & can raise it as the plants grow. You will also notice a difference if the inside is white as I did.

+1 The seedlngs really need to be right up at the lights or they will stretch for it. I place mine so they are so close they are just about not touching the bulbs.

Nice job. Just a tip, your best bet would be to simply paint the inside of the cupboard with white matt. Needs to be matt, not gloss.

[Bigmallly]

From your 3rd photo VC, the left pot looks healthier than the right.

[Ananke]

Those look great VC

So the light is definately doing it's job going by the look of test pots.

[redser]

Looks good Ananke! I found white reflects better than mirrors in mine so I've lined my box with A3 paper.
Here are some photos of the seedlings
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The 4 pots on the left live in the Blue Peter box, those on the right are out on the table by the window. The first photo taken with flash seemed to drain some of the colour from the leaves so the second is without flash.
The third photo is the 2 test pots of Salad bowl lettuce (red & green) - again the one on the left is from the box and the other one lives out!

Lovely stuff, you should see a big change once the true leaves come and they start photosynthesizing more

[veggiechicken]

The leaves in the left pot are more advanced than the right - they're only just opening. The ones from the box are deffo ahead of the others - I'm surprised at how good their colour is too. It does work!!!

[redser]

You aint seen nothing yet! Wait till you get your toms and peppers going. Especially once you plant them out later in the year. The lights make such strong sturdy young plants, so healthy they take off like crazy once they get the natural light and heat.
And dont forget flowers, marigolds come on so quickly and will easily bloom under lights and slow growers like begonias love it.

[Bigmallly]

Mission accomplished...................glad I started this thread now.

[Bigmallly]

You aint seen nothing yet! And dont forget flowers, marigolds come on so quickly and will easily bloom under lights and slow growers like begonias love it.

I've got sweet peas under the lights, looking good so far, plus I sowed a pinch of marigolds last night.

[woody21]

I found this on B&Q site but it doesn't say what type of tube. Maybe some techy can see it.

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/images...cent_bulbs.pdf

Yours will be one of the T8 fittings on the list, all use 3500k white tubes.
03822500 Batten Fluorescent Diffuse 2 X 36w T8 3500K <-- is this the one

Tube colours can be displayed in 3 different ways and it will be printed on all tubes.
colour temperature in degrees kelvin ie 3500K , 6400k
colour description ie warm white, cool white and so on.
or colour codes ie 827,830,835,840,860+865

colour code - Kelvin - colour description
827 -- 2700k -- Very Warm White
830 -- 3000k -- Warm white
835 -- 3500k -- white
840 -- 4000k -- cool white
860+865 -- 6500k -- Daylight