Teach Me?

peachykeen

Active Member
not sure if someone already said this, but tin foil is shitty. hot spots and what not... get some mylar wrapping paper and put the shiny side up instead. cheap and works fine C:
 

Brick Top

New Member
CFLs pose no fire hazards with aluminum foil. 99% of reflectors you can BUY are aluminum. Most HIDs are housed in aluminum. You make a lot of claims but back none of them up with anything more than hearsay.

There is no valid comparison to be made between aluminum foil and an aluminum reflector. None at all other than the word aluminum.

I would agree that there is little to no danger of a fire occurring if someone is using CFL’s and aluminum foil but there is if they are using HID’s.

When it comes to reflective capabilities aluminum foil is very poor at reflecting light. The best you can hope for is around 55% reflectivity and the more uneven it is the lower that percentage will drop.

Flat white paint is in the 80% to 85% range depending on what brand it is.

Mylar is better having around 90% to 92% reflective ability.



I've never seen hot spots created by foil. I've had plants burn from being too close to a CFL. The foil has never been the issue.
It is a proven fact that it can happen.


'Hot spots' would be an indicator of efficiency(it's too good!).
No, that is absurd. It is not a sign of it being a good or efficient reflective material and definitely not a sign of it being "too good."

If aluminum foil were an efficient reflective material it would not create hot spots because it would spread the light rays around in a more efficient equal manner.

It is a sign of extremely uneven/unequal light reflections/diffusion focusing way to much on one or some areas instead of distributing it around equally to all areas.


Crinkles? You mean like one of those expensive dimpled aluminum reflectors?
Dimpled and textured reflectors are not like random crinkles in aluminum foil. There is a size and a shape and a general pattern to them that diffuses light rays better than flat aluminum reflectors and far better than aluminum foil. A quality dimpled or textured reflector will reflect 95% or more of light rays, that is some 40% or more, higher reflective capability than aluminum foil.

Those are not opinions, those are facts.

I am not new to this, I started growing pot in about 1972 or 1973 so I have been involved with it for roughly 37 years so this is not just the opinion of a noob.
 

TeaTreeOil

Well-Known Member
Aluminum is reflective at 86% of all angles. Show me the hot spots! Never seen them happen. Your facts are fallacious.

I've seen numerous SPDs of reflectance measured off aluminum foil and aluminum. They're both over 90% across most of the entire visible spectrum. Wikipedia's sources claim 88%(average). There is a dip is yellow-orange wavelengths.

Why is it that all the people who cite baseless facts claim to be so ancient?
 

ronronvc07

Active Member
I had no idea that this thread was going to create an arguement. haha but anyways my plants are indoor and im going to transplant them in one more week. During the transplant I will be using a new medium from which i want you guys to provide me with and also wrapping my box with mylar. So which medium would be the best for my situation? Does any one know where to get those grow bags i keep seeing? I searched for an hour the other day and could not find any.
 

TeaTreeOil

Well-Known Member
Aluminum sure is popular:
http://republiclens.thomaswebs.net/republiclens/coatings.htm

I mean really popular:
http://www.ofr.com/oc-12_metal_mirror.htm

Here's a nice chart.
http://www.powerfromthesun.net/Chapter8/Image209.gif

Another chart, you like charts:
http://www.answers.com/topic/reflectivity

Al = Aluminium, Au = Gold, Ag = Silver

Prove it for yourself: Take a piece of aluminum foil and whatever else, hold them up to a light to make them *shine* as best you can. Whichever one shines nearest the bulb's color temp and intensity is better, agreed? Sunglasses... a camera might be good tools to use.

Try the experiment from different distances from the light source.
 

Extortion22

Well-Known Member
once again, just because its shines more doesnt mean dick all teatree. its about which one reflects UVA and UVB the best, and tinfoil DOESNT DO IT.

heres a quote from one of your "sources"

"[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]we make a special aluminum film which is produced by very fast flash evaporation at ultra-high vacuum. This special film is then coated with a very thin layer of MgF2 to yield the very high reflectivity in the deep UV."

a SPECIAL ALUMINUM. just like your a special little guy who cant read. not TINFOIL.

seriously stop posting wrong information on this guys thread. your making yourself look worse everytime.



RON. If you live in the united states try to find "Foxfarm" products. From what I have read and understand they are the best organic products you can get in the states. Im in canada and cant get them here unless i specially order them. If you cant find them then just make sure when you purchase any other soil to not get anything with plant food in it and anything that says continued release or will feed your plants up to such a time is garbage.

By getting something with nothing in it you can add your own better nutes when in flower.

If you read all the posts on here teatree is the only idiot willing to defend tinfoil, that should say enough about whether he is right or wrong. he thinks just because he sees more light shimmering back that the product is better. its not.

in the end what you use is your own choice, and its never hard to do a little research. The types of foil he is defending is the type used for reflecting information back and fourth. and as for the chart in comparison to gold, and silver, those are ONLY in comparison to gold and silver. I dont see flat white paint on there, i dont see mylar, or foylon on that chart anywhere.How about elastomere paint, or even white or black plastic? ALL of these reflect UVA and UVB more than tinfoil. All teatree is doing is finding random information on tinfoil but with no comparison to anything used for growing marijuana. or any plants for that matter. Ill bet he hasnt even read anything hes posting, he just sees foil all over the page and thinks its a good article.

[/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular] Use this growfaq as your bible and you will do just fine, here is a link:

https://www.rollitup.org/view.php?pg=faq
[/FONT]
 

Extortion22

Well-Known Member
I had no idea that this thread was going to create an arguement. haha but anyways my plants are indoor and im going to transplant them in one more week. During the transplant I will be using a new medium from which i want you guys to provide me with and also wrapping my box with mylar. So which medium would be the best for my situation? Does any one know where to get those grow bags i keep seeing? I searched for an hour the other day and could not find any.

by growbags do you mean the grow tents?
 

ronronvc07

Active Member
yea i meant grow bags but I found another solution. I went to walmart looking for pots and couldnt find any that would fit the amount in the box. So I ended up buying pitchers and drilling holes in the bottem of them. They fit in the box great. I have plenty of room. When i was doing the transfer i used perlite, organic mix, and sphagnum peat moss. I have Pictures shown of what I got so far. Let me know what you think or if you have any advice. And I also took out the foil. hahahah
 

Attachments

willitgrow

Active Member
quite honestly i planted some nice seeds in some moist soil and they actually grew pretty well because i took care of them, they look like this currently, i didnt think they would grow but they did . the black background is just for the photo, i have them on the window during the day and under aquarium fan-cooled lights at night, its been working pretty well i was just wondering how im doing and how old they look because i wasnt keeping track i didnt think they would grow but im beginning to enjoy it.
any advice is greatly appreaciated!

 

Brick Top

New Member
well i was just wondering how im doing and how old they look because i wasnt keeping track i didnt think they would grow but im beginning to enjoy it.
any advice is greatly appreaciated!


My opinion is that they looked stretched to me, as in from a lack of adequate light. Other than that they look healthy but they do look stretched. As for age I could not begin to guess given what appears to be obvious stretching.

Don’t you have some idea of when you planted them, like what month and if it was close to the beginning or the end or the middle of that month? I would have to think that you have to have some general idea of their age and when it comes to vegging age is unimportant because you veg for as long or as short of a time as you want to depending on your setup/capabilities/restrictions/limitations and only is knowing an actual date important when it comes to flowering so you then know what day you threw them into flower and can then know when to begin looking at your trichs so see if your plants are nearing harvest and just when to harvest.
 

Sheepdog420

Well-Known Member
If you're talking about the grow bags that you'd use instead of pots, I've seen them cheap at my local hydro shop. I'd bet eBay has them.

I also happen to be an engineer who specializes in optical systems...don't use aluminum foil.

Just because something appears to be "shiny" doesn't mean it's highly reflective. A piece of white paper is very highly reflective, but disperses the light evenly across a wide angle.
Light may shine in your eyes off a chrome truck bumper, but that doesn't mean it's a good reflector.

Sure, we use aluminum reflectors all the time...with highly polished surfaces, specially formulated coatings and highly engineered optics...

Just buy some matte white paint...

Sheepdog
 
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