I got tired of looking at my crappy, way-too-simple batwing reflector for my cool tube, so I started looking around for better reflectors, but I couldn't find any. So I bought a cheap basic light fixture/reflector for about $30 and used its reflector to sloppily put it on my cool tube. I beat down the middle so it was flat and used aluminum twisty ties to attach it on because I couldn't figure out a better way. It works pretty well and is secure. I figure for $30, if I get two extra grams because of it, I'll be satisfied with that. My question about it is, will it help improve my yield at all by providing better light reflection and therefore more light penetration? Why don't cool-tubes come with or have the option of having better reflectors? I read that cool-tubes have the worst light penetration... could it partly be because of such a shitty reflector? It's a 600w HPS. What do you think? Here is what I had originally, but got annoyed with: Here is what I did and have now: **** RP ONLY!!
looks real good. If you want yield mound the tube vertical and dont use a reflector. Hang it right down in the middle and put the plants around it. Every time light it reflected or pushed through another layer of glass there is some loss.
Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately I can't vertical mount it right now because there'd be no space for the plants, I have it kind of stuffed but they still have some room. I just wonder if anyone else has tried it before or what improvement I might get.
Remember that with cooltubes and air cooled hoods the light has to pass through an extra layer of glass/acrylic. This can cost you up to 10% of your lights output...