Found some Great + Cheap little lights

[MadameCrash]

Hi all! I found these great little shop lights at Menards for $29.99 each. They fit perfectly inside a 24" wide 12" deep cabinet. Just put a couple of screws in for the brackets to slide over and plug them in - done! 2 of them would be perfect for say.... a lowryder grow. (or for clones)

Cheers!
Madamecrash

 

[Serpico]

how mnay lumens does one of those give off

 

[MadameCrash]

I don't know - doesn't say anywhere. They are freakin bright though! The box said they were High Output lights. 1=500w (like flourex) They each have 4 x 13w flouro bulbs in them.

I had a 12" Purple Widow growing BEAUTIFULLY under just 1 of them - Bushed out like crazy. (till he showed me his balls ) I was amazed with how well they worked! For 1 plant it worked as well as my dual spectrum HID.Wouldn't hesitate to use them alone for a small cab grow or for vegging. The spectrum seems perfect for MJ.

 

[noobie97]

Not trying to shit on your idea, but the're only 52 watts. You can get a 42 watt bulb for like 8 bucks. And you can fit about 4 times as many of them compared to those.

Not hating, just helping.

 

[MadameCrash]

It's all good. These are just eaaaazzzy to setup/mount and get going. They work really really well - much brighter than the pics show. Perfect for someone (like me) who doesn't want to mess with splicing wires or bundling CFL's into tidy usable fixtures. (these have built-in reflectors) Plug 'n' Play so to speak. Plus they can be easily moved around. For example - they can be put on the floor and aimed right above a propagation tray for seeds or clones. And ya don't have to worry about them falling on yer plants.

Madamecrash

 

[GreenThumbsUp]

Right on Madamecrash!

LOL I just did the splicing fixture thing, and frankly, had I seen this, I'd have gotten those. they would be perfect for my cloning/bonsai mother chamber. and I would have been done much quicker!

How hot do they get? The brackets kinna make me think you don't want them against a wall...?

 

[DankCloset]

thats the impression i have, i got a couple of those shop lights for 8 bucks and the tubes for 3.

 

[MadameCrash]

Thanks GreenThumbsUp! LOL Splicing wires scares the sh*t out of me.

The ballast gets warm but not hot at all. The brackets stay perfectly cool to the touch. And, they keep the temps in my cabinet + bubbler perfect for the clones. (not sure exactly what the temps are, but the clones LOVE it in there.) The little oinks hadn't rooted in over 2 weeks under the HID. 5 days in the bubbler under those little shop lights, and BAM 6/10 had roots coming out of the plugs.

So I think I'm gonna keep vegging 1/2 of them under the shop lights cause they seem to like em so much. It'll be interesting to see the difference between vegged under the flouros vs. HID .

 

[GreenThumbsUp]

My intent, as a cabineteur, is to do most of my veg in my CFL chamber and run it 24/7. I bet I can start flowering a well rooted clone in 1 week in my aero-hybrid HID chamber. That's what I'm trying next round anyway /crosses fingers.

meh, you already have me thinnking about upgrades to the lighting...those would give me another precious inch of vertical space over my bonsai mothers.

 

[noobie97]

There's no wire splicing involved with CFL's. Just plug in the socket and screw in the bulb. There's even 100 watt CFL's. You can get reflectors, make one out of a soda can.

 

[MadameCrash]

Ahhhh... vertical space..... (dreamy sigh)

you can add CFL's to the power strip these lights are plugged into. I just added 1 23w CFL today. total 127w of Plug 'n' Play flouros in the cabinet now, with another socket available. Suprisingly, the CFL puts out a lot more heat than the shop lights. It would get pretty hot in such a small space with the equivilant wattage of CFLs. With these shop lights + 1 CFL no active vent/cooling fan is required to keep the temps stable in the cab. There is a hole cut in the back for the wires to pass through, and this seems to be doing fine for ventilation.

I am wondering though, will 127w be enough to veg 3 clones?

 

[GreenThumbsUp]

Now, for heat control, I have your answer.

You can get a 120vac to 12vDC converter and get 2 PC cooling fans and hook to em. Put one on one end of you chamber pulling air in, the other on the other end blowing out, and voila, no more CFL heat problem. And nice fresh CO2 and O2 for the babies. LOL I did min in a hurry and just used an old ATX power supply to run my fan, and to serve as the air-out fan. Heh works well cuz it's already baffled.

I do 2x 150w CFL (well, 150w equivalent, they only use 48w of power) and OMG, I just changed to it a week ago and I swear root rate has increased 3 times. I also have seedlings that absolutely stopped stretching like the very next day.

 

[MadameCrash]

Bitchin idea! Thank You! Hhhmmmmm, You could get some killer ventilation goin' in there - just plug in more PC fans.. those ATX power supplies have got what? like 4 or 5 power connectors on em? Verrrry smart GreenThumbsUp.

Dang, I wish I could get my seedlings to stretch a little bit. Got 7 lowryder sprouts just 2-3 days above dirt, and they'se som' stubby little bitches. Real fat n healthy, just sloooooowww on the uptake so to speak..

 

[GreenThumbsUp]

Yeah, I can add more fans, but nice thing about PC fans, is they usually have a connector that allows other fans on the same 12v pair, you just chain them like xmass tree lights...heh heh.

I don't like having the atx thing though because it whines a little since there is no motherboard attached, heh. Next paycheck, I'm just getting the dc converter, you can run a bottload of fans off it as well.

edit: and yes, I'm already thinnking about putting a motherboard in too and hooking it up to environmental sensors and crap, LOL. Maybe a USB camera and a wireless network card so I can put my cab on my network and check on it from work