Home Made Grow Lights

[Bill HH]

Hey thats a first class job, I have no experience of grow lights but all those I have seen seem to be a lot closer to the plants than yours are. What amount of time do you light them and when?

[Penellype]

I've only just put the plants in today (they only germinated last night), so I didn't want to put the lights too close straight away. The beauty of the chains is they give huge flexibility and are easy to adjust.

I've got the timer set from 8am to 6pm at the moment as this is the sort of timing I've used for other seedlings in the grow light garden. I'll probably increase this a bit as the days get longer.

[Bill HH]

I might just have a bash at this myself. We have those same lights in our kitchen, i wonder if my wife would miss a couple for a month or so. Are the tubes suitable for grow lights? I presume you have checked. How do the cost of those compare to normal flourescent tubes?

[Penellype]

I didn't have much choice with regard to checking the tubes were suitable - they are described as "white". As I am completely confused by the various descriptions, and as they look the same as the ones in the grow light garden (I agree looks can be deceptive), I decided to take the plunge. This is all experimental as far as I am concerned, and the primary constraint was making something that I was happy would not set the house on fire. It was this or an east facing windowsill, which I think would be hopeless at this time of year. The fittings cost £19.99 each, including the linking connectors - I don't know how much replacement or alternative tubes would be.

[Bigmallly]

I might just have a bash at this myself. We have those same lights in our kitchen, i wonder if my wife would miss a couple for a month or so. Are the tubes suitable for grow lights? I presume you have checked. How do the cost of those compare to normal flourescent tubes?

I used "Cool White" tubes in mine Bill.

[Bill HH]

I used "Cool White" tubes in mine Bill.

Thanks BM, so would tubes described as white be the same?

And am i right in saying the lights in the picture need to be closer?

I suspect those under unit lights may not have much output, grow lights I have seen pictures of seem to be very bright.

[Hazel at the Hill]

From memory of getting a fish tank set up some years ago, there were a number of different light spectrum standard light fitting flourcsent tubes that you could buy for the canopy - some were to promote plant growth, some to show the colours of the fish.

Might be worth a trip to the local pet store (er - one where they know what they are talking about!) to ask. It would save you nicking Mrs HH's kitchen lights too, Bill!

[Bigmallly]

Thanks BM, so would tubes described as white be the same?

And am i right in saying the lights in the picture need to be closer?

I suspect those under unit lights may not have much output, grow lights I have seen pictures of seem to be very bright.

I believe you can get cool white & warm white which I think has a yellow tinge........I would agree that the tubes in the prev post need to be around 2-3" away from the seedlings otherwise they will go leggy.

From memory of getting a fish tank set up some years ago, there were a number of different light spectrum standard light fitting flourcsent tubes that you could buy for the canopy - some were to promote plant growth, some to show the colours of the fish.

Might be worth a trip to the local pet store (er - one where they know what they are talking about!) to ask. It would save you nicking Mrs HH's kitchen lights too, Bill!

If memory serves me right from my aquarium days Hazel, I think they are called Growlux.

[johnjohn]

From memory of getting a fish tank set up some years ago, there were a number of different light spectrum standard light fitting flourcsent tubes that you could buy for the canopy - some were to promote plant growth, some to show the colours of the fish.

Might be worth a trip to the local pet store (er - one where they know what they are talking about!) to ask. It would save you nicking Mrs HH's kitchen lights too, Bill!

Ther is a link here:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...xes_44716.html

But earlier posts in BM's thread (this one, which I think is better than the sticky above) seem to indicate that cool white is the one to go for. This is also referred to as a T8 bulb. They aren't specialist bulbs, mine came from the orange diy place, cost about £9 each (including the bulb and fittings) and I wired 2 together and fixed them with a couple of bit's of old batten.





I've hung mine under a cupboard in the garage where the propagators live.

[Martin H]

[QUOTE=johnjohn;1205177]Ther is a link here:
http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...xes_44716.html

LEDs have come on hugely in the three years since that was written. They are much more energy efficient than flourescent tubes ... but are they any use as growing lights? Anyone know?

[johnjohn]

LEDs have come on hugely in the three years since that was written. They are much more energy efficient than flourescent tubes ... but are they any use as growing lights? Anyone know?

When you look at horticultural lighting online there is a huge move towards using LED's particularly in the area of naughty propagation

Cost seems to favour LED's over a long term use but not by much.

There remains a question as to weather LED's provide a suitable amount of light- some web sites now advertise that their LED's push out light at real power consumption eg a 90W LED puts out 90W but uses 90W of power so to my mind doesn't deliver the cost saving- gogle PRACASA for more info.

Someone more techy will be able to advise but for me as things stand I'm happy with my lowish cost fluorescents but happy to change things if I find out more.

[RedThorn]

The old fashioned incandescent lamps ( your 40W, 60W and 100W that everyone is familiar )with lose somewhere between 80%-95% (exact % eludes my memory at the moment) of their energy consumed as heat leaving the small percentage as light energy. LED is far more efficient and effective at converting electrical energy to light energy and improving rapidly.

Energy cannot be destroyed but can be changed in form, so in the incandescent, most was heat, little light, LED most light, little heat.

Bear in mind that the LED celebrated it's 50th birthday recently and the blue light spectrum was only cracked in the 90's. This was always the thing holding the LED back. Once blue was sussed, white light now became possible via LED.

The info you need to focus on is how close to white( like sunlight ) and how intense( lux or lumen value)

[Kristen]

LED lighting rigs are outputting very narrow spectrum light. By tuning that to what the plant needs (usually by having a mix of Red and Blue LEDs) then more of the light that is produced is usable by the plants. So although LED lighting panels seem to be very low wattage, apart from LEDs generally being lower wattage than earlier forms of lighting, and don't look very bright to our eyes, the fact that the wavelengths are targeted to what plants want means that they are very effective - and very cost effective.

Only downside that I can see is that, similarly to fluorescent tubes / CFLs, they have very little canopy penetration. i.e. great for seedlings, get the lights as close to the plants as you can (a distance that is not hot to the back of your hand, held there for long enough to have time to feel the heat ) is good. Usually a couple of inches for Tubes / CFLs - although because LEDs are very directed light sources it might need a tad more distance for LEDs to let the light spread and even out ?

Compare that to a HID lamp, like Metal Halide, which needs 18" - 24" from the plants - otherwise the heat will cook them!

[veggiechicken]

Announcing the 2014 successor to the 2013 Blue Peter lightbox



Two lights from L1d1, some chain, a couple of dog leads and a lot of help with the wiring Only set it up today and I'm sure the seedlings have grown already

[johnjohn]

Blimey VC! From this:



To this!

Announcing the 2014 successor to the 2013 Blue Peter lightbox

That's amazing- Not surprised that you notice an improvement though....