yes and no. it will disperse heat better then an pebbled aluminum reflector. my veg box is relatively small, around 15x15x24. currently i have 4 26w cfl's and a single tube 2' 30w t8. i have the same IR reflector material as a reflective hood above my cfl's, and i can tell you with proper ventilation that there is no noticeable difference in the temperature inside the box with the hood installed then without it. the difference is certainly noticeable with the amount of light available to the plants below the reflector. the lamps themselves do not get hot enough to cause anything to catch fire, the autoignition point of plain white paper is around 450*F. a 1000w MH lamp would not get anywhere close to this temperature, not that i would recommend putting paper over a lamp that hot.
Honestly for young plants I wouldn't mind a bit of heat radiating down from the lights anyway, emulating the sun a little. That sounds like a perfect material for this. Maybe I'll use wood to make a frame for it or some combo. Some happy babies under the 8-pack: and the 6" tall 90watt 3-pack for newborns:
One more set of pictures for those of you who are paranoid about paper and don't believe in subtraction. No paper this time. This is 6 CFLs (not touching anything I promise!) reflecting off aluminum panels lined with blue/red LEDs.
Hey I think it's a sweet design and setup. Paper is a cool thought for a CFL hood. I'm not worried about heat at all with this. In fact I'm not "worried" about anything...but isn't the point of the hood to reflect light? Seems like a lot passes through paper but I'd just tape tin foil to the paper to combat it thumbs up.
This is truer than he may think... each "Y" adapter is rated for 60 watt.. he's running twice that or more on the first adapter.. so lets toss some paper on top just so we know it's a complete fire hazard... No Thanks I will do mine right...
Pretty sure you missed a 6 in there. EACH Y ADAPTER IS RATED AT 660W. Why would anyone want a weak-ass fixture like 60W? There's nothing unsafe about this. If you do not understand basic science or want to express your irrational fears, do it here http://forum.grasscity.com/spirituality-philosophy/. I'm trying to help people build a super efficient light setup for $35 in this thread. In terms you can hopefully understand: Your closed-mindedness < My creativity Your buds < My buds Direct correlation
Yeah I was looking at it and thinking of a way to increase reflectivity. You'd be surprised how much the paper does reflect but I'd guess about 20-25% still passes through if you only use one sheet. It could be stacked 3-high or mounted to cardboard or I was considering painting the back of the paper black to keep the light from shooting up to the ceiling but I think the paint's more likely to combust than the paper. Gotta get some rust-oleum. EDIT: Definitely would not put tin foil on the paper. White paint or extra sheets would reflect just as well without the terrible heat problems aluminum causes.
Well put. Again just wanna support your math and science because it is correct...there's a better chance lightning strikes your house setting it on fire than that fixture ever causing it. I like the idea of stacking it 3-5 sheets thick cause you're right about pure white paper being pretty damn reflective. Again, props.
I'm using 3 sheets hanging down next to a new CFL fixture and it seems to reflect at least 90%, 5 sheets would be well above 95%. Young girls are loving it
Multiple sheets of paper stacked aren't going to make it any more reflective, it's just further absorbing the light as it goes through each sheet to where there isn't enough to see coming upwards through the paper anymore. The shape of that fixture looks great for evenly arranging the CFLs around the plant as close as they can be, nice job. It's nice to be able to angle each individual adapter around the plant as needed as well to keep the bulbs within 2-3" of the canopy.
Yeah probably true about the paper. Either way my latest one is paperless and has a sheet of clear acrylic 1" below the CFLs that the plants can safely reach up to and touch
apparently not higher then you do you even know what happenes if you broke one of those when its plugged in.
Yeah I do know what happens when you break one that's plugged in. How is that even remotely the same thing as submerging the bulb in water? Which I did by the way and took pictures of for all you incoherent idiots, just scroll up.
I think its commendable your trying to help people, but I have to point out a couple things. First, being rated for 660w and being designed for that are two different things. Do you want to be the guinee pig to find out that 1 out of 1000 (or whatever #) of these y's will fail under stress loads? "Rated" may not mean being on for 24hrs a day for x weeks. The load of all lights are running through the first 'y' so its the weakeast link and most prone to failure. Also, by sharing this clear misuse of how the y's are supposed to be used your putting others at risk who may try it. The safer/sounder method is to buy metal light boxes, install a standard bulb base, and screw a 'y' into that. $3 each. Throwing paper on the whole thing is icing on the cake. Not hating, just saying...
what's the biggest CFL you can find that'll screw into one of these, 65w? 65x8=520watts going through the first Y, well shy of the 660w they're rated at, which by the way already has a factor of safety built in, have you taken an engineering course? The 8 23w CFLs that I was talking about only come up to 184watts, less than 30% of the first Y's "rated" capability. So how is this a "clear misuse"? AGAIN: CFL < 200 DEGREES PAPER BURNS AT 457 DEGREES. IF THIS DOES NOT MAKE SENSE TO YOU THEN PLEASE JUST GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. Leaving an HID on unattended is MUCH safer than this...
So I tried your 8 bulb idea. 2 42 watts,2450lumens per, 4 40 watt 2250 lumens per, 2 35 watts 2150 per. She's has all 2700k and a week into flowering. I will update in a week with a picture. But, anyways, thanks for the idea.