Chilli light rigs.....where to start?

[Lamboluke]

I love the idea of getting chillies going in jan/feb but as I don't have a heated greenhouse I'm wanting to have a light set up in the spare room to get potential seedlings growing nicely after they have germinated in the airing cupboard.

Where do I start? I'm wondering if a carefully placed table lamp would suffice as long as the k level is as close to sunlight as possible.a
Money is an issue so the cheapest method/set up is what Id require. Complete novice to growing under lights.

Not sure where you could get a fluorescent tube kit to suspend from the ceiling to grow under would be.

Pics, links, costs and set up spec....please contribute.
Thanks.

[veggiechicken]

Have a browse through http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...hts_69290.html

[Kirk]

How about a strip of LED's?
Would expect that you can find them is a few different lengths and a simple power supply would power them happily owing to the low current.

[Kristen]

It needs a lot of light. The odd light bulb or a strip of LED isn't enough I'm afraid. Such things will keep overwintering, tender, plants on tick-over until the spring, but they won't get plants growing.

Worth having a read on a C***abis forum from more information - those boys have artificial lighting rigs down to a fine art!

Short overview:

Lighting rig of T8 fluorescent tubes, or a board studded with LED bulbs, has to be within an inch or two of the plant, so is suitable for seedlings but not so good for bigger plants (very little canopy penetration)

Discharge lights, like Metal Halide, give off more "power" so are fine for canopy penetration on larger plants, but they also give off a lot of heat so have to be 24" or so away from the plants.

By my calculation the Wattage of each is about the same per unit of area. A 400W Metal Halide bulb will cover about a sq.m., and an array of fluorescent tubes suitable for a sq.m. works out about 400W. LED is a lot lower wattage, but more expensive bulbs.

Cost:

1 Watt on for 12 hours a day is 0.365 kWh per month. Lets say it is used for 4 [winter] months of the year, so that is 4 x 0.365 = 1.46 kWh. Not sure what electricity cost - 17p per unit?? so that would be 1.46 x £0.17 = £0.25 per watt per season.

Thus a 400W system would be 400 x £0.25 = £100 in electricity, from which you would get "some" contribution to the heating of the room as a side-benefit.

Broad-brush: a lighting rig is around £100 for something that will do between 2' square and a square meter.

[Lamboluke]

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply. Cost sounds a lot but spread over 4 months isn't too bad.
Cheers. I'll read the thread on light rigs..couldn't it but I'll save it now !

[Spunky]

I just use 2 table lamps with 35w cfl in each

[the big lebowski]

hi all,has anyone tried tried 125 watt cfl`s ? i have one and it was only about £30 and is cheap to run it only costs about 3 pounds a week to run ,cheers

[Penellype]

What I did last year (which worked ok with young pepper and tomato plants) was rig up a couple of fluorescent tubes on chains. The tubes say F20T4 on them and were bought from B&Q - the sort of thing you use under kitchen units, that all plug together. I'm completely hopeless at DIY but I screwed the fixings onto either side of a wooden slat about 2ft long which came out of my airing cupboard, and fixed eyes like you use for net curtain wires on top of the wooden slat. I then attached 2 lengths of chain with those fixings like a link that unscrews, and hung them over another slat, supported on my clothes rack (but you could use tables or anything solid. I plugged them into a timer, put the plants in trays on the floor and surrounded the lot with white paper stuck onto pieces of cardboard box. As the plants grew I adjusted the lengths of chain. I can't remember how much the whole thing cost, but it wasn't huge.

This was the setup when I first started with it (26/1/14):

[Lamboluke]

How do you get on like this? (Table lamps)

Also to the last poster that is quite a snazzy looking set up, especially for someone like me who isn't great at diy.

[chilli_grower]

I use one of these, suspended on hooks and chains in the cupboard in spare room.

MAXIBRIGHT LIGHTWAVE T5 2FT 4 TUBE PROPAGATION GROW LIGHT HYDROPONICS | eBay

[starloc]

I grow a lot indoors with various grow lights, metal halide are best, cfl very good, led seemed almost useless
You can get a 300w dual spectrum cfl kit with reflector etc on ebay

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OMEGA-CFL-...-/261677345223

It doesn't use 300w, that's the light power, or a 600W metal halide kit on ebay for about £50

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OMEGA-CFL-...-/261677345223

, the metal halides use 600w and make some heat but make far more light than the CFL bulbs , the heat will warm the room better than a lot of heaters!, I use the light to warm the room as well

Metal halide will give best results a very big CFL very good results with lower electric costs , small cfl bulbs very little unless you add one per plant almost touching it

[Spunky]

How do you get on like this? (Table lamps)

Also to the last poster that is quite a snazzy looking set up, especially for someone like me who isn't great at diy.

I just added some 30w (not 35w sorry) to our table lamps and put something reflective behind it like foil
I've took it a bit further and lined a blanket box with foil and drilled a couple of holes so I can get my lamps and heat mat in

[Spunky]

HYDROPONIC LIGHTWAVE T5 4 TUBE PROPAGATION FLOURESCENT GROW LIGHT CFL LOW ENERGY | eBay
Just treated myself to one of these!

[chilli_grower]

same as me!!!! THe kelsae onions are currently under mine

[Spunky]

Happy days! How long are you planning on keeping them under the lights ? I was thinking of having a go with some zebrune shallots