Purchase a bathroom vanity from Lowe's or Home Depot for like $13. They usually are long rectangular and have between 3 to 5 and sometimes up to 6 light sockets. Purchase, 100w LED bulbs with daylight rating of 5000k or more. If you look for them on sale, you can get two for $10. Get a lamp on/off switch from Lowe's as well. You can usually find them were you get the vanity or just ask. Usually about $5. Get you a pair of pliers and twist the top of the bulbs off LED lights are typically plastic and can rip off. It protects your eyes from UV and other rays. Once you do that, attach your switch to your vanity with electrical tape and put a back of some kind on the vanity if it doesn't have one and boom, grow light. If you use 5 bulbs you can get up to 35,000 lumens. If you do 2 or 3 of these, you are set. I think you can use red and yellow bulbs for flowering but not sure but I know you need blue light for seedling and veg state. Nerds rule!!!
That's not a good idea, you have a few problems that are kind of dangerous, the worst ones being all them live contacts right next to your leds( watch out you don't get electrocuted), tape is not for making connections like that, and also you'll be okay with leds but if you use any other type of light make sure your lights don't exceed 55 watts each, your switch won't handle it.
How good are those lights? I honestly feel that's not worth the money and effort. Even with your numbers, they're about $45 for whatever lights. You can find used lights if you live in a legal state for similar money or less. New marshydros and viparspectra run about 70 on amazon and certainly worth their dime. A 300 watt i used got me 4oz from autos. They can give you some time and product to save up and buy better lights, if you choose to continue. You may find the produce enough and not wanna expand at all. Check out my first grow log: First ever grow: How do the girls look?
Well I was using them to supplement my Vipspectra so I can beef up my light. I placed two long ways alongside my grow light. It made a huge difference in the room and made it unbelievably bright! If I am right, the bulbs will outlast the purchased growlight. The bulbs are 10 yr plus which was what I was getting it. They run for less and last longer and are waaay brighter. I didn't want to shell out another $150 for a quality grow light.
They aren't live contacts. It may look like chaos but I have quite a bit of training in electrical work. It is very safe. The electrical tape is industrial and suited for much higher voltage. The LEDs I am using are high efficiency so they use much less energy than your average bulb. This contraption uses less energy than a tv so it is very safe!!! I guess I failed to mention those things. It is very important to watch energy consumption for each bulb the switch will not even turn on if you max out the power so it's a good thing when it turns on. If you plug it into a surge protector you should avoid any other issues. If you exceed your plug output the breaker will flip and your surge protector will go off and that's a sign to find a different plug with less things plugged into it! However, I did all of the math before attempting this so it's actually safe and cool!
Awesome! All well when it works well, more importantly, your satisfaction! However, i saw the title as a complete grow light on the cheap, an year ago, i spent countless hours figuring this and felt that diy lights like this, didn't really reward the risk and effort, as primary light. Check out my first grow log: First ever grow: How do the girls look?
Probably so, that's why I am using it as an addition to my grow light! With all three, damn it's bright in there!! I literally need shades to go in there!
All the exposed solder on the circuit board is what I meant by "live contacts", but mainly the two wires from the LED driver that have around 15 watts going through them, just because it doesn't sound like much power doesn't mean it can't hurt you; the biggest zap I got was from something that ran off 3 volts/ two AA's. I notice one of your lights is not bad but for the others some liquid electrical tape would most likely be able to cover up the exposed contacts no problem. It's not the insulating factor of the electrical tape that is the problem, wires for that connection should be secured down in a box so they don't move and the connection made with wire nuts or crimped, tape over the nuts if you like(recommended). Electrical tape is flexible, it can move around with a change in temperature or humidity, even when the wires are stationary it will often start to unravel, you don't have your wires secured down to anything and they're in a place where they will be getting moved around quite often, so not only is there a high potential of the tape being able to unravel it can also slide up/down the wire, increasing your chances of the 120 volt wires being exposed. It's just best not to use tape on high potential wires. Your switch is rated for 3 amps, it also has NO safety features, meaning it will try to turn on no matter how much power you put through it, but if the 3 amp rating is exceed, it will start to heat up and you could start a fire, cause a short or even cause arcing to near by objects including your hand. That 3 amps is the maximum rating but you should never actually max out a circuit, only load it to 80% of max, so that 3 amp switch is good for 2.4 amps. That's where that 55 watts per light comes from, 55 watt at 120 volts is 0.46 amps, multiply that by 5 lights and your at 2.3 amps, so that's loaded 77%. A surge protector will only cut the power after a surge, they're mostly only made to stop incoming power spikes, a short will also cause a surge and cut the power but that's only going to happen if there's something wrong, like exposed wires touching something/someone or wires melted together and shorting from say an overloading lamp switch rated for 3 amps, or even the lamp cord rated for 10 amps, since the surge protector can handle 15 amps it might not help until it's to late(fire); same goes for the breakers. And relying on your breakers to let you know when you shouldn't be plugging anything more into the circuit is not good practice, it's simple math to figure it out. ------------- I don't mean to offend you but maybe you should hold off trying to give people electrical advice until you get quite a bit more electrical training, electricity is not something to be playing with. I'm seriously not trying to be an asshole or anything, just trying to help keep people safe, that includes you. A lot of people can read your tutorial and I'd hate to see someone follow bad practices especially without knowing the dangers. You have a good idea though, alot better to do that than buy one of the cheap pre-made ones. Diy is better, I plan on building a cob light someday when I can afford it.
I see what you are saying. That is staged, I hung it up so people can see it. I actually took them down two weeks ago when I started flowering so I think I am ok and thanks for the advice...I think. I have 4 outlets for my grow room and each has it's own 20 amp breaker. That's enough power for a high powered electrical device which I do not have in my room. Maybe you should ask more questions before judging. I have worked with electricians all my life and we all use tape that way because that's what it is for. There are connectors underneath the tape so again, ask before judging. You are coming off a little of a matter of fact before even asking what's going on in this room. I am 100% sure that I have supplied enough safe power to my room by doing some math and by installing GFIs for each plug. So sorry, suck it!
Well, back when you used to be able to order just a single qb120 board from HLG for $29 I ordered two and then ordered a couple of power supplies for them for about $14 each. With hangers I spent about $55 a fixture. It vegges the crap out of a 4x4. I don't think you're beating that with bulbs and vanity fixtures as far as price/performance.
They do but only small amounts. This is the spectrum curve for that light. The chart ends at 380 which is where UV begins but you can see there's a small reading that goes off the scale.
Not a problem, I'm not just doing this for you. What's there to think about though? you don't know if you want to be safe? I'm not saying that you're ever going to overload your circuit, I'm just using your equipment as an example to refute your claims of the switch, surge protector and breaker safety. Which my case being that you can easily cause a fire by overload without tripping anything, the circuit is only as strong as the lowest rated component. You don't mention anything about connectors in your tutorial, "attach your switch to your vanity with electrical tape", electrical tape is made to insulate proper connections, it's not for making the connections, especially high voltage ones, which is what it seemed like you were doing; I shouldn't have to ask about the connectors. Can't say I've ever seen or heard of an electrical connection/junction box done with electrical tape by an electrician, all wires are tightened down inside a stationary box and connected with wire nuts at the minimum, it's rare to even see tape used for insulation; where ever you live must not have much of a safety code. I'll take that as a complement, thanks. I'm just trying to help people the same as you are, I'm not trying to attack you and I mean no disrespect, so sorry for the hard feelings.
O Ok, I'll take that dude! Yeah, I didn't explain and totally understand this is a teaching forum so I get it, no hard feelings
That's why you take the tops off. The tops prevent the "danger" UV rays that would hurt a persons eyes. Underneath it is exactly the same as a grow light. Open one up and see what I am talking about and put it up to your meter see what happens.
If you look at the grow lights I've been talking about there is no lenses. They're bare leds like yours. I see what you're saying and you're right a lens will block uv many times. That's why some HPS growers will remove the glass panel on their hood. Open hoods are well known to grow higher potency bud because of this.
OO, that is a good point!! I've been trying to clean mine because I noticed the glass gets covered in what I assume is calcium from my humidifier. But I have a LED light so I think it might be bad if I take that one off. Right?
I don't think that taking the cover of the lights would harm them in any way. Just be sure to use a reflective tent or something like that as the Leds emit light at 120° ish angle Check out my first grow log: First ever grow: How do the girls look?
You can find tests on youtube. It's a commonly known hack to remove the lens/protective panel from the leds. If you have an actuate lux meter or anything like that you can measure the increase in output. People used to do that on mars lights. That's why on their new eco series panels, that are made to replace the mars300/600, they make the clear protective panel removable. The drawback is you can possibly burn them out if water mist hits the light while it's on. Just don't spray or be careful when you do. Mars ECO 49 New Tech SMD High Power Full Spectrum LED grow light Replace Classical MARS HYDRO 300W Less Heat Quiet Good For beginner for sale,buy Mars ECO 49 New Tech SMD High Power Full Spectrum LED grow light Replace Classical MARS HYDRO 300W Less - Mars Hydro I drew their new logo. It's funny when I see it.