Building a better and cheaper flourescent light setup!

R

RandyL

New Member
Maybe I'm just really cheap (that probably is the case), but I've been looking at T5 HO lighting systems, and they all seem to be INSANELY expensive. Why? What's so fancy about T5's to make them cost $400+ for an 8 bulb 4 foot long setup?

Even on craigslist I rarely see anything under $100 used, and even then it's only 4 bulbs usually.

So I got to thinking today. To find a way to use commercially available and much CHEAPER T8 or T12 bulb setups from Lowe's or Home Depot for veg lights. I'll still use HPS for flowering.

T5 HO 4 foot bulbs are 54 watts, and ~5000 lumens output, right? OK. And an 8 bulb setup putting out 40,000 lumens is $400 + dollars and 432 watts.

I looked at my local Lowe's, and I can buy a 4 foot 2 bulb T8 setup that uses 32 watt bulbs putting out 2700 lumens each. Total cost? $13 for the lighting fixture, and $7 for a pair of 6500K T8 bulbs. Only disadvantage is that the light fixture is painted black, so a can of spray adhesive and some mylar will be needed to make it more reflective. The fixtures already have power plugs wired in, so they would be easy to hook up to a power strip.

I looked at T12 bulbs also, but they never seemed to be as bright as the T8's.

Anyhow, $20 + tax will get me 5400 lumens for 64 watts. Not far off a T5 HO bulb. Slightly more output and wattage, far less cost.

So 4 of these twin T8 setups side by side would give me 21600 lumens for 256 watts and $80 + tax total cost.

8 twin bulb setups would produce 43,200 lumens for 512 watts and a cost of $160.00 + tax . And also, 8 of these twin T8's would be spread out more, covering a wider area, to light more plants.
Home Depot had a 6 bulb T8 4 foot long setup all in one unit, with a nice reflector on it, but it cost $96 + tax + bulbs. So it's not as cost effective as putting together a bunch of 2 light fixtures.

It's a bit more work, but every time I sit down at the PC to look for good deals on T5 setups I just end up getting really pissed off because they start at "expensive" and go up from there!

Anyone ever consider making something like this?:grinjoint:
 
If I was going to make a fluoro light, I would use a board of whatever size I needed, mount whatever number of ceramic sockets I want, and use CFL reflector floods and/or spiral CFL's.

The advantage to a light board with multiple sockets is that you can tune the wattage, and you have much more flexibility as far as tuning the spectrum.

All you need is a board, ceramic sockets, lamp all-thread and nuts, and some wire.

That's what I would do, but I also like your approach of using ready-made lights.
 
I forgot to mention this before. Home Depot also has 3, 4, and 6 bulb bathroom lights that use those round "globe" type bulbs. The bulb is the size and shape of a baseball. The sign said 60 watts per bulb, so for $30 or so (I forgot the price of that 6 bulb inline fixture), you could put 6 high powered CFLs in that also. That's an option too. I think the CFL's would be good for small grows of a few plants, whereas my T8 idea would be better for larger grows.
 
RandyL said:
I forgot to mention this before. Home Depot also has 3, 4, and 6 bulb bathroom lights that use those round "globe" type bulbs. The bulb is the size and shape of a baseball. The sign said 60 watts per bulb, so for $30 or so (I forgot the price of that 6 bulb inline fixture), you could put 6 high powered CFLs in that also. That's an option too. I think the CFL's would be good for small grows of a few plants, whereas my T8 idea would be better for larger grows.
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30 bucks for 6 sockets is insane you can buy 15 sockets for that price....
 
True stealthy but it depends on how much ease of use is to you (someone may not want to build and wire all those sockets) and your budget...not so long ago I would not have batted an eye at $50 for a six socket strip like Randy mentioned but the financial powers that be now make $50 seem like a gold mine ;)

Randy, is the 2700 lumen rating for those 4' T8's the total output from one lamp? If so you would be much better off going with CFL's as you can get more lumen in a more concentrated spot which is exactly what we all want. You should be able to fit about 16 26W CFL's (spiral) in the same space as a 4' T8 bulb assuming 3" per CFL (I measured yesterday while contemplating how to do my light strips). I am using 6500K GE CFL bulbs that are rated 1315 mean (average) lumens and 1600 initial, big difference when you get in to multiple bulbs...is the 2700 lumen rating of your T8's initial or mean? I've noticed manufacturers tend to make the initial rating easier to find than the mean.

Anyway, figuring $5 for a pair of 26W bulbs that's 8 2-packs at ~$5 each (I got most of mine for $3.50/2-pack on sale but $5 is regular price)) meaning $2.50 per bulb. Figure $2.50 for a ceramic socket and that comes out to about $5 per bulb. $5 X 16 (# of sockets) = $90 for how many lumens?

If you go by initial lumens: 16 X 1600 = 25,600 lumens

If you go by mean lumens: 16 X 1315 = 21,040 lumens

Really hard to say which is better without knowing two things:

1) Are those bulbs you looked at rated with initial or mean lumens?

2) Is the lumen rating of a T8 bulb spread out over the entire length or is it, excuse the mathematical/physics/engineering terminology, for each individual point source along the entire bulb (i.e., if you chopped it up in to say 10 sections is that 2700 lumens per section?)?

Another thing to consider is that if one of the T8 bulbs goes out you've just lost the entire lumen output along that entire stretch whereas with individual CFL bulbs if one goes out its neighbors are so close that there will be minimal energy transfer lost until you can get a new bulb in. At least that makes sense to me at this early hour on a weekend lol. Not to mention with CFL's it is much easier to get that fluorescent bulb with the weak output closer to the plant leaves which is critical with fluoro bulbs for the best results.

Just tossing some stuff out there for consideration...nothing wrong with your idea, it's simple, cheap, and easy to install. :)
 
Yea dog, I'd personally go with the CFL's. It's easy as shit to make ANY type of reflector to fit anywhere you want! It's unbelievable cutsomizable, and extremely in expensive. Check mine out, I spent less than $50 to make it. 10 CFL's, 26 watt each, the red spec lights are 1600lum, and the blue spec lights are 1750 lum. So that's what, 260 watts pushing out 16,450 lum. Growing 3 plants under these lights right now, and DAMN the girls are lookin good!
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Things have been modified since, and are looking much better in the grow room. But I am still using the same light fixture that I made in these pix!
Hope this helps.
 
Lostfedexman, Nice light bar !! Looks better than all those cords and lights swinging around in my closet !! I think I'll have something to do out in the garage this wk . Thanks for the inspiration .:peace:
 
Setting Sun said:
Nice job!

That's what I like about multiple sockets and spiral CFL's, you can tune the spectrum easily by changing the ratio of bulbs, and you can tune the wattage for when less light is necessary.
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Exactly bro! It's just unbelievable how customizable you can make it! I can literally have pretty much ANY ration considering light spectrum from this. Perfect for VEG and FLOWER! I LOVE it!


ol hippy said:
Lostfedexman, Nice light bar !! Looks better than all those cords and lights swinging around in my closet !! I think I'll have something to do out in the garage this wk . Thanks for the inspiration .:peace:
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Hahaha, thanks man. For real tho, all you have to do is sit down and smoke a bowl and think for a minute. It's crazy what you can come up with! That's how I figured out how to build my entire grow room! It's in the TOP of my closet, above where I hang all my clothes. And nobody knows! :slide:
 
You could use T5 bulbs in your T8 fixtures. The adapter is about 2 or 3 dollars. Then you could use these Spectralux 901480 - 4 ft. - 95 Watt - T5 - 3000K Red - 7200 Lumens - Very High Output - Fluorescent for the bloom. They have 6500k too. That would give you 57000 lumens at 760w. This would be ok for an herb garden.
 
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