Anybody who has been browsing the design forum often probably would have seen post about pl-l compacts, after about a month of searching, finally found out what i need to make my setup. (couldnt find a PL-L fixture for under £90 and even the £90 fixture was too wide for my needs) PL-Ls are generally used for industrial lighting in shops ECT. Using; 2 dual lamp ballasts for 55 watt pl-l's (£59.20(£29.60 each)) 4 2G11 fixtures (£10.95) Wire (probably buy 10M to make sure i have enough so £3.20 Wood (Looking into price) Titanium white paint (97% reflectivity) (have to work out how much ill need to cover the area) sheet of glass (60cm long about 40cm wide) (un-known) 4 computer fans (2x 80mm £7.46)(working on smaller fan prices) and obviously 4 pl-l lights (2 2700k and 2 6400k) (£23.20) Reason i want to use these is simply the price for the bulbs (£6 each), the low heat emmision and the lumen per watt output hps lights give of 112lumens per watt, pl-l compacts give off 86 lumens per watt while good old CFL's give off around 64 - 70 per watt i thought i had stumbled upon somthing pretty nifty. Being realistic, this is gonna cost quite abit for me, probably over £100 i know its cheaper to just buy a 250watt hps system, but if these things were mass produced the prices would drop because of the bulk orders on the ballasts and the rest. (about £25 per 110watt system because of the ballasts) Theyre also cooler than a HPS Anyway this is the blueprint for what im going to make and ill explain in numbers. 1) The holding, and bulb placement, redis 2700k and blue is 6400k respectively, pl-ls are quite long (54cm) but they arnt very wide (about 3cm(i think)) 2) This is the ballast placement and the Fixtures to attach the chains onto, each ballast can hold 2 bulbs. 3) 3 just shows the dept (about 12cm) 4) The lines represent glass, glass will be put over it so that i can vetalate the system. (1 giant cooltube eh?) 5) this is just to show the computer fans on each end of the Fixture, 2 inlets will be around 70MM and outlets will be 80MM to create negative pressure and keep it cooler. PL-Ls i think are alittle more effective than T5 bulbs but are half the length for the wattage in comparasen. each bulb gives off 4800 lumens. Ill be painting the inside with Titanium white paint because its just asgood as Mylar (mylar is 98% reflective i beleave) and painting things isnt hard. Im quite good with electrics (and cantharis ill wire it properly dont worry), i have the brain power to become an enganeer in alot of different feilds, I was going to do engeneering in college but then i just got high and sort of wandered off. anyway, ill get this up within a month and its going to be for my new cab. what do people think about pl-ls? good idea or not? I already made up my mind obviously im just wondering your opinion on pl-ls? im wondering if theres a gap in the grow light market which could be filled by these setups because theyre quite effective (more effective than CFL's FACT.) and i feel they wouldnt be very hard to ventalate either. Anyway thanks for reading.
Just out of curiosity, what are PL-Ls? Are they like flourescents? And is it a full fixture or just the bulbs themselves?
cfls for their wattage are very compact, meaning the heat comes off one area, pl-ls have a larger area thus can be cooled easyer, the ballasts are the exspencive part, cmon tell me £6 for a 55watt fluro is bad?
That's a pretty good deal. I'm not really passing judgement, I'm just trying to understand what they are since I've never of them, and your post wasn't too clear. And 6 UKP is good for the bulb, but your post says it's going to cost 100 UKP, which is $184. That's a lot of cash for only 55W (or even 110W). That's all I'm saying.
i said making the whole thing would probably cost me £100 but thats the highest i recon itll go, its 4 55watt bulbs, so 220watts 19200 lumens can these are pl-ls http://www.thelightbulbcompany.co.uk/product/PLLCompact.html
Get rid of the glass shield and you'll be fine. Seriously... any benefit you get from going to this higher output light is lost if you put a UVB shield in the way like that. One of the main benefits of the cfl's and tube flouros is being able to have the lights so close they're almost touching. This allows the greatest amount of light intensity to be absorbed by the leaves and not the rest of the room. If you can set this up so that you can keep the same distance from the lights without adding too much heat (think fans blowing across?) then you'll get great results. How much are you looking for anyway? You can produce several ounces every couple of months using a single 150W HPS light....... That's a miniscule amount of heat and power.
only going to be doing 2 plants so i want to get nice ammount of bud from each one, ill probably put some smaller plants in there in small pots in the spaces i have left, I always enjoy making my own things and using them, I also wanted to try somthing abit different.
How's your progress going? I've packed away my 1K HPS and then went and purchased pretty much the same lighting setup as yours. (1000bulbs.com ) I went with 3 55w 3000K lamps and 1 55w 5600K so a total of 220w like you were planning. I also used a Fulham Workhorse 8 ballast that can drive up to 220w, so all 4 lamps are running from it. (There are aquarium ballasts that will run up to 300-400 watts!) Temps are about 7F degrees over ambient because I only have a 50cfm bathroom vent fan for cooling at the moment. Keeps things around 77F when the room is 70F. Plants are digging it hardcore. My question is, where did you find the 2700K lamps??? I can't find any here in the U.S. and now I can't find the link to the site in the U.K. that listed them as Very Warm White (I think?).
Please post pictures as i ain't edumakated enuf to be readin..lol Ok, so im stoned HydroGanic-----I am very interested in this design. If you could draw up some plans and take some pics i would like to see it.
Well I couldn't get some pics so I made a diagram really quick like. Dunno if this is what you were looking for. Keep in mind that I've never used these lights before and am doing this run on nearly no budget. All results are for medical and research purposes only. I'll be running 6 clones, 5 C-99's and 1 Sweettooth#3XPrincessDiesel in a scrog. The SW#3XPD will be given pretty much free reign out in the low light area to the right. Goal is to build a lightweight, air-cooled, adjustable reflector that will hold the lamps steady while sucking up all of their heat out of the cab.
I didn't properly put the odor-scrubber together in my cab. Rubbing the plants in there when the doors are open stinks up my house. Closing the doors helps after a bit. LOL I'll be changing to a stronger fan and more effective scrubber setup soon. Screw in Self-Ballasted CFLs should be replaced every 4-6 months (sometimes sooner if the lamps is cheap) to maintain optimum light output. PL-L lamps generally last up to 2 years. I'd say that's a hell of a bargain for a 55w T5 bulb folded in half.
Subbed lookin forward how this goes I am also lookin into making a pl-l fixture buy I only have about 450*450*600 mm box (18*18*24 inches) mot sure how many I could get away with in such a small space I want to build it myself as I am a very practical person and was a marine engineer for years and always high haha I need to find a site that can deliver to me here in the UK happy growin PEACE
You're the first post in 4 years...... exactly how much info you expecting? Not to be a dick, just curious if you noticed?