what do you think about my lighting?

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hampton420

New Member
I have 4 23w cfls, 2 55w cfl (200w equivalent) and four 250w led strip. The 2 55w and 2 of the 23w cfls are able to be raised and lowered to my needs on a piece of metal clothing line fastened long ways to the wall with metal zipits (like anchors if you didn't know. Ghetto? A little lol, but I think it works. I removed a few plants to take better pics, I just wanted to get a few people's inputs on anything I might add or alter. Thanks guys! (I just realized I didn't get it in the pic, but one of the cfls are fastened on the right wall, same as the one on the left wall you CAN see in the pic)
 

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SeasideTrees

Member
All that wiring makes me nervous and it isnt even my home. Make sure you are not risking a fire hazard with faulty or exposed wiring. Next get your CFL's closer to your plants CFL's put off very little heat and you can get them 8-12 inches from your plant as long as you have some air flow in there.

Next, to better improve your grow. Loose the tin foil and wrap your walls and carpet (bugs love to harbor inside that shaggy carpet) with polycarbonate plastic wrapping, otherwise known as panda film. It can be found at any hydroponic gardening store and is sold by the foot might cost you $5 to wrap your whole space. The stuff is 95% reflective and will prevent water getting on your carpet as well as just make it look 10x more bad ass.

But get those lights closer to the ladies and triple check your wiring.
 
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hampton420

New Member
SeasideTrees said:
All that wiring makes me nervous and it isnt even my home. Make sure you are not risking a fire hazard with faulty or exposed wiring. Next get your CFL's closer to your plants CFL's put off very little heat and you can get them 8-12 inches from your plant as long as you have some air flow in there.

Next, to better improve your grow. Loose the tin foil and wrap your walls and carpet (bugs love to harbor inside that shaggy carpet) with polycarbonate plastic wrapping, otherwise known as panda film. It can be found at any hydroponic gardening store and is sold by the foot might cost you $5 to wrap your whole space. The stuff is 95% reflective and will prevent water getting on your carpet as well as just make it look 10x more bad ass.

But get those lights closer to the ladies and triple check your wiring.
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Well I'm an electrician and everything has been wire nutted together as well as triple wrapped with electrical tape and all wire used is fire alarm wire 14/2 thhn with no metal exposed anywhere, not much I can do about the wire itself :/ just gotta be careful about not yanking them out lol. And thanks a ton for telling me about the panda film. I've been very concerned about the carpet getting wet, not just because of bugs but also mold and Fungi and that sounds like a stellar solution and I'm always down to look more badass. And also, I have straps to strap the wiring on the wall so it's not so exposed as well. I have a whole truck full of electric crap lol so that's no issue, o just didn't want to cut holes to actually fish the wire in case I end up moving the grow area at a later point.
 
dabhe4d

dabhe4d

Well-Known Member
Take down the tinfoil and paint it flat white, or get some real mylar if you feel its needed.

your sandwich container pot is hilarious.

Drop down thos cfls till its almost touching the plant.
 
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hampton420

New Member
I took the tape off and took a pic so you can see what I mean. The wiring is actually halfway professional, just not hidden so professionally lol
 

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hampton420

New Member
dabhe4d said:
Take down the tinfoil and paint it flat white, or get some real mylar if you feel its needed.

your sandwich container pot is hilarious.

Drop down thos cfls till its almost touching the plant.
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Haha it's small now, it's going in a 2 gallon hempy soon, I just needed something until the perlite n coco came in.
 
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hampton420

New Member
And the walls are already flat white so should I just rip the foil off? I've heard extremely mixed opinions about that, some people absolutely love it and others hate it even more lol
 
dabhe4d

dabhe4d

Well-Known Member
hampton420 said:
Why do you say that :( I was so proud of my leds too lol
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haha yeah, i dont know what kinda LEDs thos are but, they look like one of the same leds i put under my dashboard to light up my pedals and passenger seat floor.. im pretty sure they are not the corrrect light for growing plants haha. but i could be wrong. kinda hope im wrong so i can put a clone dome in the car :p
 
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hampton420

New Member
Nah these are complete different. They are taken out of a huge 2x4 office light, they're way brighter and nicer than the kind you get at autozone lol I used to have those in my breeze ;) but these are much brighter and higher quality, the light is an almost 200$ light, one we had left over from a job, I just couldn't fit the full light in the closet haha
 
dabhe4d

dabhe4d

Well-Known Member
found this online. hope it helps
Plants need approximately the same wavebands of light that we humans see in; from violet to deep red, and on into the non-visible near infra-red (380 to 720ish nanometres - nm).

Normal incandescent bulbs deliver much of this, although special bulbs for plant growth are better - different spectra affect different aspects of plan growth, e.g. blue light can affect stem growth.

LEDs by contrast only emit light at very narrow peaks, and normal plant growth often needs a wider spectrum. At a push plants can get by on red LEDs emitting at 690nm with some supplementary light in the blue around 450nm, which can be supplied by some white LEDs. Many white LEDs emit in the approx. range around 450 to 550nm, which will not be enough alone to enable plant growth.


Check the image: the green lines are where you want your plant to be, so you can see that by relying only on white LEDs you won't be growing good berries. Supplementing with a few red LEDs (sorry I don't know how many you'd need, but look at the paper "Design and fabrication of adjustable red-green-blue LED light arrays for plant research" for information), and it will help a bit.
 
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hampton420

New Member
dabhe4d said:
found this online. hope it helps
Plants need approximately the same wavebands of light that we humans see in; from violet to deep red, and on into the non-visible near infra-red (380 to 720ish nanometres - nm).

Normal incandescent bulbs deliver much of this, although special bulbs for plant growth are better - different spectra affect different aspects of plan growth, e.g. blue light can affect stem growth.

LEDs by contrast only emit light at very narrow peaks, and normal plant growth often needs a wider spectrum. At a push plants can get by on red LEDs emitting at 690nm with some supplementary light in the blue around 450nm, which can be supplied by some white LEDs. Many white LEDs emit in the approx. range around 450 to 550nm, which will not be enough alone to enable plant growth.


Check the image: the green lines are where you want your plant to be, so you can see that by relying only on white LEDs you won't be growing good berries. Supplementing with a few red LEDs (sorry I don't know how many you'd need, but look at the paper "Design and fabrication of adjustable red-green-blue LED light arrays for plant research" for information), and it will help a bit.
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Thanks for that. I'm probably gonna replace all the 23w bulbs with the 55w, possibly pick up two more sockets. That should help some.
 
Red1966

Red1966

Well-Known Member
hampton420 said:
I have 4 23w cfls, 2 55w cfl (200w equivalent) and four 250w led strip. The 2 55w and 2 of the 23w cfls are able to be raised and lowered to my needs on a piece of metal clothing line fastened long ways to the wall with metal zipits (like anchors if you didn't know. Ghetto? A little lol, but I think it works. I removed a few plants to take better pics, I just wanted to get a few people's inputs on anything I might add or alter. Thanks guys! (I just realized I didn't get it in the pic, but one of the cfls are fastened on the right wall, same as the one on the left wall you CAN see in the pic)
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I think your wiring looks dangerous. You'll electrocute yourself or burn the house down before the end of the month.
 
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