Best light setup under $150 for a 2x2x4 foot room

surfbolinas2008

surfbolinas2008

Active Member
Hello everyone
I wanted to take suggestions (links, if you feel so motivated) for my small grow room. It's a 2-foot by 2-foot by 4-foot tall grow box I threw together out of plywood. I ran an outlet into there.

I need to buy a light, ballast and fixture for under $150. I know this isn't a whole lot, but I also know that there's cheap, smaller lights out there for that much, or less. The lights maximum length can be 21" long. I was thinking a 150 watt High Pressure Sodium bulb. I will only have a maximum of four plants in the box at one time.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!
 
Shredder111

Shredder111

Well-Known Member
Getcha 2 175W compact CFL's, 1 6500K spectrum and 1 2700K spectrum for flowering. That will come to about 150$ and get power cords and white paint. You got yourself a beautiful little room for veg and flower.
 
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crudvapors01

Active Member
What about heat? You have a plywood box and you plan on throwing in 2 175W CFL's?

Is the box sealed off? If so, are you venting it? Maybe you should get a thermo strip and keep track of your temp to make sure you arn't posting here later asking why your plants are showing signs of heat dmg.

Maybe you should look into LED's, for 150$, you can buy almost 4 LED plates producing about 48 equivalent watts to HID each. Of course, you'd have to assemble, but you do the math. Plus, LED produces no heat, saves power, and works better then HID period. 14 Watt Grow Light Kit - HomeGrownLights.com.

Oh yea, i really want to see what kind of node spacing can be produced with LED's. Because LED's produce virtually no heat, you could actually have the plant grow straight into the LED's before you even have to lift the plant, and you can drop the LED's almost all the way to where the plant starts propagating.
 
surfbolinas2008

surfbolinas2008

Active Member
However, if you don’t know what a soldering iron is, this kit probably
isn’t for you.
Click to expand...
Crud - that's from the page you linked. Although I like the idea, I've never soldered in my life. Do you know of any lights that come assembled?

Shredder - I like the white paint idea, and am probably going to do that. THe CFLs wasn't a bad idea, but like Crud said, isn't that going to be too much heat?
 
W

wtfd00d

Well-Known Member
Dude CFL's are your best bet. Check out my grow. Get your self some fans, make an exhaust in your box and then create some passive intakes for more air to move around youll be gravy..For under $150 I did up my ENTIRE grow room almost! Grow on!
 
greenjumble

greenjumble

Well-Known Member
I had a similar grow area and grew and flowered two indica's under 3x42watt CFL's in a closet without proper ventilation, except for a fan blowing for circulation, due to the stealth nature of the grow.
Which build and style will work best depends on how much ventilation and fans you have going. If you don't have a lot of fans and fresh air coming in I would go with CFL's, if you do then HPS is a better spectrum to work with for producing nice buds. CFL is also MUCH cheaper which is the other requirement you mentioned. I have a more proper grow setup now that I have a basement to work from and fesh air circulation going so I can use HPS.
I agree that you should definatley have a thermometor around the tops of your plants so you can keep it the 70's.
:mrgreen:
 
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crudvapors01

Active Member
they have the 15min assebly kit for 60$, 65 pre assebled, they are stronger, but more expensive and they only replace the majority of o fthe 14watt kit, so they are slightly less effective but also smaller. ::shrugs::. I beleive eventually everyone will go LED oncre the cost goes down, that site is the most reaonable i've ever found, especially for small grows.
 
xochi

xochi

Active Member
led's are inadequate for anything other than clones, dont create the volume of light.. ive seen what they produce... cfls? don't do it, they're not good for anything bigger than a bonzai, t5's aren't much better and grow lanky lacking plants and all of thease alternatives produce very spaced out airy buds.. for your space 100$ gets you a 100w suns systems mh or hps light, which will work great with your footprint, some ducting and a pair of fans or blowers and your there ready to go. if you cheat your plants you cheat yourself. get a good setup so you can just roll with it and grow better shit than people sell. no one wants to be disapointed with thier product.
 
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crudvapors01

Active Member
I would have to strongly disagree. lol. LED tech is just getting good enough for growing. But unless you and i have a video proving, we have no proof. Though that site i have on this forum has picture evidence of how good their LED's work, even though they could be lying. But just because some people bought shitty LED's and tried to stretch them over too much area and probably did god knows what else wrong doesn't mean LED's don't work.
 
B

bongrippinbob

Well-Known Member
crudvapors01 said:
What about heat? You have a plywood box and you plan on throwing in 2 175W CFL's?

Is the box sealed off? If so, are you venting it? Maybe you should get a thermo strip and keep track of your temp to make sure you arn't posting here later asking why your plants are showing signs of heat dmg.

Maybe you should look into LED's, for 150$, you can buy almost 4 LED plates producing about 48 equivalent watts to HID each. Of course, you'd have to assemble, but you do the math. Plus, LED produces no heat, saves power, and works better then HID period. 14 Watt Grow Light Kit - HomeGrownLights.com.

Oh yea, i really want to see what kind of node spacing can be produced with LED's. Because LED's produce virtually no heat, you could actually have the plant grow straight into the LED's before you even have to lift the plant, and you can drop the LED's almost all the way to where the plant starts propagating.
Click to expand...

Do a search on CannabisCulture.com for LEDs on their forums, you will see what you get. Every one that has used them has switched back to HPS or MH before they even finish the grow. The technology just isn't there yet, and they are expensive to start up a grow with.
 
xochi

xochi

Active Member
crudvapors01 said:
I would have to strongly disagree. lol. LED tech is just getting good enough for growing. But unless you and i have a video proving, we have no proof. Though that site i have on this forum has picture evidence of how good their LED's work, even though they could be lying. But just because some people bought shitty LED's and tried to stretch them over too much area and probably did god knows what else wrong doesn't mean LED's don't work.
Click to expand...
i have two local hydroponic stores testing led and t5 setups.. unless you spend 3 grand on leds or 400 on t5's you just dont get enough lumins per square inch. i dont care what you think if you do the research you will find that if your not using an mh/hps setup then your lacking.
 
dvsdsm

dvsdsm

Well-Known Member
xochi said:
led's are inadequate for anything other than clones, dont create the volume of light.. ive seen what they produce... cfls? don't do it, they're not good for anything bigger than a bonzai, t5's aren't much better and grow lanky lacking plants and all of thease alternatives produce very spaced out airy buds.. for your space 100$ gets you a 100w suns systems mh or hps light, which will work great with your footprint, some ducting and a pair of fans or blowers and your there ready to go. if you cheat your plants you cheat yourself. get a good setup so you can just roll with it and grow better shit than people sell. no one wants to be disapointed with thier product.
Click to expand...
Do my plants look lanky and lacking off my T5? IMO the T5 did better on Veg than my 400W MH in previous grows. I agree however that LED's suck You're cute as hell tho so I forgive ya xochi. Wanna get high? ;)

Subscribed Brother!
 
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bongrippinbob

Well-Known Member
I think your T5's may have done better for you because there was less heat. If you can't keep temps dwon with a 400watt light, your plants will not grow as fast. The more lumens, the faster they will grow. THat is unless you have 10,000 lumens at like 75degrees and 20,000 at like 90degrees. Then the lower lumens will outgrow the higher amount.
I am also going to guess that because you had more experience when you were using the T5s that you were able to produce better plants as well. Plants will grow just fine in veg under the flouros, but for flower, I suggest some HID lighting.
 
P@ssw0rd

P@ssw0rd

New Member
Yeah 150 is tough to do on a hid setup, I would try ebay, but if you need it now go order from htgsupply and then add a stanley blower some ducting a a diy cooltube from a bake-a-round and you will be good to go. I would think it could be done for under 200 but 150 seems unlikely for a proper air cooled setup.
 
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