Light with built in light mover

StrongGrow

New Member
The idea:

A light with an anchor point in the middle spinning at appropriate speed. Only part of the bottom surface has diodes.

Why isn't this a thing? Shouldn't it be able to achieve similar yields to more powerful lights, at lower wattage?
 

MidnightSun72

Well-Known Member
The idea:

A light with an anchor point in the middle spinning at appropriate speed. Only part of the bottom surface has diodes.

Why isn't this a thing? Shouldn't it be able to achieve similar yields to more powerful lights, at lower wattage?
Because light movers are kind of useless for LEDs. More efficient/ effective to spread your light correctly.

You aren't going to get away with substantially lower wattage since you still need a total number of photons to produce your yield. It takes around 48-54 photons for the plant to successfully make a unit of carbohydrate. There's no skirting around the fact that you need a total number of photons to produce a certain amount of weed.

where the light mover can benefit is if the light is too powerful or hot and the plants can't sustain themselves in the conditions near the fixture.

I'd rather setup my grow space so the plants can grow happily anywhere in the space.

The added cost/complication of design as well as additional failure points would be the main deterrent. A mechanism for a light mover will also kill a little bit of the head space. Probably cost another 6" in grow height. I think it wiser to put the money towards more diodes and better spread.
 

magnetik

Well-Known Member
I'll play. drop the power from above, use electrical slip rings, put a small tower fan in center of tent which spins 360deg and mount vertical light strips to it and power from slip connector above. Get equal side lighting while also gaining under canopy air movement to all your plants. Will it work?
 

crimsonecho

Well-Known Member
where the light mover can benefit is if the light is too powerful or hot and the plants can't sustain themselves in the conditions near the fixture.
this i can comprehend, getting more with less of the same light because its spinning, i dont because not only are you gonna put out less photons with lower wattage you’re also “rationing it out“ between plants so each gets much less than the total photons created.
 

Dave455

Well-Known Member
The idea:

A light with an anchor point in the middle spinning at appropriate speed. Only part of the bottom surface has diodes.

Why isn't this a thing? Shouldn't it be able to achieve similar yields to more powerful lights, at lower wattage?
just use bar lights for nice even coverage
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
The idea:

A light with an anchor point in the middle spinning at appropriate speed. Only part of the bottom surface has diodes.

Why isn't this a thing? Shouldn't it be able to achieve similar yields to more powerful lights, at lower wattage?
They used to make one years back that had 3 or 4 spokes sticking out from a hub and it slowly rotated most of the way around then back. Used bulbs like HID but more powerful and can't for the life of me remember what they're called. Gimmicky thing that never had much of a fan club.

I got a Light Rail 4.0 6 or 7 years ago that I like but don't use it that often. If my plants are taking up more space than I think is good for the coverage they are getting I can put it to use and use the same light rather than go up to a bigger one. It will make a 600 work as well as a 1000W and save me a big chunk of power. It only uses 9W. It more than paid for itself after a few grows.

:peace:
 

StrongGrow

New Member
Or boards.


A bar fixture could have the bars move and it would be a better fixture for it, but probably not so much it would make sense at all.
Yeah I think I've come to the conclusion that there isn't enough room for optimization.

LEDs have become super efficient and between the power of the rotating action and the saved LED wattage, there isn't enough to gain when factoring in the hassle of having an actual rotating light in a grow tent (sounds totally ridiculous really lol)

With all the manufacturers chasing efficiency it would be cool to see someone experiment with it though
 

Markshomegrown

Well-Known Member
Yeah I think I've come to the conclusion that there isn't enough room for optimization.

LEDs have become super efficient and between the power of the rotating action and the saved LED wattage, there isn't enough to gain when factoring in the hassle of having an actual rotating light in a grow tent (sounds totally ridiculous really lol)

With all the manufacturers chasing efficiency it would be cool to see someone experiment with it though
I think the idea could work, not spinning, but you could drop the bars closer to the canopy and space them out 50% more, so the canopy gets between 400 par and 1,000 par, plus light moving over the canopy will light up any shaded area's.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
I'll play. drop the power from above, use electrical slip rings, put a small tower fan in center of tent which spins 360deg and mount vertical light strips to it and power from slip connector above. Get equal side lighting while also gaining under canopy air movement to all your plants. Will it work?
Nope.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
They used to make one years back that had 3 or 4 spokes sticking out from a hub and it slowly rotated most of the way around then back. Used bulbs like HID but more powerful and can't for the life of me remember what they're called. Gimmicky thing that never had much of a fan club.

I got a Light Rail 4.0 6 or 7 years ago that I like but don't use it that often. If my plants are taking up more space than I think is good for the coverage they are getting I can put it to use and use the same light rather than go up to a bigger one. It will make a 600 work as well as a 1000W and save me a big chunk of power. It only uses 9W. It more than paid for itself after a few grows.

:peace:
There was also one that was built to spin at 30-60rpm. Different models had different numbers of lamps on the arms.

I have the strong feeling they went away because the thing was DANGEROUS AS FUCK.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
I built several light movers, all with the same purpose; to get as much growth out of one high powered lamp as possible.

Mine were built from old 10 speed mountain bikes and used the gear reduction. They were driven by junkyard windshield wiper assemblies mounted to drive the back tire backwards. The assembly was powered by a 12V battery charger on low power. It plugged into the same light time the lamp was.

No slip rings needed, the light hung from a swivel that kept it from twisting up the cord. The fixture was a horizontal parabolic wing (yes, one version did indeed use the famous "grow wing") and it was mounted only a foot above the canopy.

The grow was arranged in a circle about 7' diameter with mylar reflective material hung vertically all the way around.

The lamp itself was on a crossbar hanging from the crank ATM of the bike. One end had the light, the other carried a counterweight.

The light itself was mounted about 30" from the center and the gearing was such that it took about 3 1/2 minutes to complete one revolution.

And yes, it worked! Here's why I think it was effective; it turns out that cannabis, like many plants, can "charge up" on bright light and keep its photosynthetic processes going for about 3 minutes or so afterwards. The light never got far enough away to make the plants think it was dark; between the wing reflector and the mylar, everything got light all the time, even if it wasn't the optimal amount.

So the 1000W HPS lamp was so close to the canopy that if the rotator ever stopped, it would fry the tops. Since it moved, the top buds never cooked but they got very strong, if intermittent light from all sides as the lamp passed overhead.

This way the plants all got really strong light but that same light was spread across the canopy, which was itself carefully managed by topping the plants and tying the branches down to spread them out into a flattop shape, a form of ScrOG only without a trellis net or panel.

I ran a dozen plants; 6 each in early bloom and 6 in late bloom, and swapped them about every 3 weeks since the strain I had finished in 6 weeks. Of course this meant I needed a perpetual veg to feed this setup with half a dozen bloom ready plants every 3 weeks, a process done with 4' T12 shop lights in a separate space.

I pulled about a pound and a half every 3 weeks. Not too fuckin' shabby for an old mountain bike, some car parts and a single thouie! Oh, more more detail; this setup pulled that weight even from an HPS lamp that was 4 years old because I didn't know they deteriorated!

Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Somewhere, I still have pics of the rotator, I'll have to find them.


Long story short; get LED, spread them evenly over the canopy and you're way ahead of any silly ideas about moving lights.
 
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