Home Made Grow Lights

[RedThorn]

Problem with LED is the light spectrum is tight on them and they gernerate virtually no heat, advantage of LED lights is they have a narrow light band and generate virtually no heat.....

So without due experimentation to get the exact light spectrum you want, it's far easier to pilfer someone elses experiments (from aquarium manufacturer's) and put a flouro in that's been taylored to plant growth

EDIT: One fine day when I finally get some time to experiment, I'm gonna set up some time to play with this and try and run some control experiments, you get LED's now that with the right electronic's, you can tune the light spectrum pretty much to where you want it, so roll on time where I can make a compartmentalised dark room where I can do proper controlled experiments

PS as you can see, I haven't given it enough thought yet

[Aberdeenplotter]

I paid a lot of money for a custom made led light complete with fan. Waste of money .

[vikkib]

Do you have to use fluorescent bulbs or will Led light fittings do?

I'm not sure about LED lights, I've seen a lot of ads for LED grow lights but also a lot of bad reviews.

I've just set up another space with a fluorescent light in a cupboard I thought we were putting a new boiler in.



With a similar fluorescent bulb my seeldings are doing quite nicely now!

[Mikey]

Do you have to use fluorescent bulbs or will Led light fittings do?

[Bigmallly]

Cheers Potty, time will tell I suppose.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Looking OK BM very OK.

Potty

[Bigmallly]

Just wondered how your lights were doing. I've got mixed feelings mainly because I don't know what I'm doing or what to expect.

[Potstubsdustbins]

Smile now, wait till you see the quotation for the new boiler, you may have to switch your lights off.

Potty

[vikkib]

Would it be Vikkib by any chance?

Hehehe!

[redser]

Well at least it proved it's potential. If you have the space I would suggest something like mine - a twin 5 foot long light. Gives you lots of space to line up a good few trays.

[veggiechicken]

BTW I've given up on BluePeter Yes it worked fine, but it wasn't practical to abandon him for days at a time as the seedlings/light positions needed to be adjusted daily - and a timer can't do that. I may think about something a bit bigger and more permanent

[redser]

Would it be Vikkib by any chance? Glad I had to go back and do those calculations again, it's a good deal cheaper than I thought!

[vikkib]

must get more bulbs!

We had a plumber/gas engineer round on Saturday to look at replacing our very old Baxi boiler... in preparation I had cleared out a very large cupboard which I thought might be a good spot for the new boiler... the plumber said it would be better sited in the kitchen...










...









Guess who is eyeing up the large cupboard which has slatted shelves and imagining how many lights they can fit in there?!!

[redser]

Yip, Euros for me. Just did the math again. Tarrif is approx 16 cent per kwhr.
I have 2 60watt bulbs. That works out at 14 cent a day if I run them for 7 hours a day. That comes out at 4.20 a month. Happy days must get more bulbs!

[veggiechicken]

Is red talking Euros or pounds? (Just want to throw in some more confusion )