Home Made Grow Lights

[Bigmallly]

As we are partial to the odd silly question, would their be any benefit in either painting the tubes Red & Blue or covering them in coloured film, one Red & one Bue?..........My tubes are 3' cool white but says colourlux on them, have no idea what that means. Thanks for any silly answers..........

[veggiechicken]

You'd need 3 lights, Big M for the full patriotic spectrum - red white and blue
You did say silly answers were acceptable

[Bigmallly]

You did say silly answers were acceptable

I knew I could rely on you VC................

[veggiechicken]

Yep, you can always rely on me for a spot of silliness Have you seen my broken front tooth

[Aberdeenplotter]

with a couple of gu10 lamp holders you can get a red gu10 led bulb + a blue gu10 Led bulb which would give a decent grow lamp. For vegetative growth it might be better to have two blues + a red but then it starts getting expensive

[Bigmallly]

Yep, you can always rely on me for a spot of silliness Have you seen my broken front tooth

No, but I heard you mention it.

[Bigmallly]

with a couple of gu10 lamp holders you can get a red gu10 led bulb + a blue gu10 Led bulb which would give a decent grow lamp. For vegetative growth it might be better to have two blues + a red but then it starts getting expensive

That's why I was thinking of paint AP.

[veggiechicken]

Look what was on offer on Freecycle today - I have asked for it but no reply
"hi we have a modern vivarium with light fittings etc but the front glass panes have gone. it needs to be collected by tomorrow please "

[woody21]

tried to check out the bulb that came with the flouresent its 48" long the only marking on it are, Wickes white 07/20 so it came from wickes but have no idea if its warm or cool white or if it is any good for the seedling .

looking at Wickes website all light fittings and replacement tubes they sell are 3500k colour temperature which is Warm White. Dont know if they stock more options in store.
Warm White is the standard colour for household bulbs so i would assume that if it doesnt say.

Dont get too caught up on tube colour as all of them have a good mix of red, green and blue light output and all will do a similar job but cool white or best being daylight if you have the choice.
Cool white and daylight mimic the colour of natural light early in the year, warm white more like the end of summer.

[woody21]

You'd need 3 lights, Big M for the full patriotic spectrum - red white and blue
You did say silly answers were acceptable

i would go for stripes on each tube for moe even coverage

BM... no Coloured filter film or even worse bulb paint really wont help, red film would allow some red through while blocking nearly all other colours losing 60-80% of the original total light output.

With ALL these White tubes they emit full spectrum light so all the colours are there but most of the light comes from a balance of red, green and blue but we see them mixed which is why we see white and not the individual colours.
so all tubes have all colours just a slightly different balance so all are suitable just as they are.

[Bigmallly]

Cheers Woody, will spend it on sommat else..............

[Dead Dogs]

Time to get technical, me thinks.

Did a presentation a couple of years ago on light colour. When a black body is heated, the colour it glows at is related to its temperature. These temperature are measured in Kelvin (K), where zero celsius is about 273 K. This only works for lights that produce a continuous spectrum.

Incandescent
Standard domestic bulb, 2800 K
Tungsten halogen bulb, 3000 K

Fluorescent
Warm white, 3000 K
Cool white, 4000 K
Daylight bulb, 6400 K

Daylight 5500 K - 6500 K

[Bigmallly]

Yep, that's technical DD..........

[amandaandherveg]

And 4 of These.........................Do you not get the tubes with the fittings?

I emailed the chap - turns out it was as expected and no tubes supplied with the unit. On the lookout now for some inexpensive T8 36w.

[veg man]

looking at Wickes website all light fittings and replacement tubes they sell are 3500k colour temperature which is Warm White. Dont know if they stock more options in store.
Warm White is the standard colour for household bulbs so i would assume that if it doesnt say.

Dont get too caught up on tube colour as all of them have a good mix of red, green and blue light output and all will do a similar job but cool white or best being daylight if you have the choice.
Cool white and daylight mimic the colour of natural light early in the year, warm white more like the end of summer.

Thank you woody21