Y cant i use ALUMINUM FOIL??

u can use tin foil with leds and clfs, but once u use hid lamps, the tin foil will cause hot spots

 

Just another confirmation - Aluminum foil is a last resort option, and then only the dull side. The shiny side results in uneven distribution and increases the amount of hot spots and if you plan on using an HID, this can damage a plant in an extremely short amount of time. Using fluoro's on the other hand you could get away the foil, but there are much better options. Flat white paint or white visqueen plastic are good options. Mylar is an excellent reflector of light, but it can lose it's luster/sheen and efficiency after time. Good luck and congrats on your decision to grow your own meds, welcome to the club.

 

This stuff about hotspots is another old wives´tale.
If I focused the heat from a lamp with the accurately configured parabolic mirror from my Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope, I might be able to produce a hot spot if I got the plant at exactly the mirror´s focal length.
No WAY is a piece of crinkled up Aluminium foil (not tin foil, that hasn´t been made for years) going to be able to bring rays from a lamp to any kind of focus.
All you guys who mentioned hot spots have just READ about it and are simply passing the INCORRECT information on. NONE of you have experienced it, because it just doesn´t happen.

There is absolutely no reason why aluminium foil cannot be used as a reflector. It has good reflectivity (which is why my telescope mirror is aluminised), is available in every supermarket, and is dead cheap. I think mylar may have even better reflectivity, but is not so readily available and costs a lot more.

 

I see no reason to use the dull side, I have done a bit of homework here, and as expected it is not so reflective. Surely we want maximum reflectivity, to get maximum light reflected onto our plants?

 

I agree that the "hot spots" issue is a myth. I suppose there is the remote possibility that out of a million setups a particular crinkle to the particular angle of the light could cause a hot spot, but the vast vast majority would not concentrate the focus of the light right onto the plant.

Aluminum foil is less reflective than either mylar or flat bright white paint. True that it is shiny so seems very reflective, but remember that our eyes perceive light, we don't absorb actual light directly.

 

I seem to remember Jorge Cervantes explaining how tin foil is not ideal because it reflects light at angles that don't benefit the plant (obtuse if im remembering correctly). I don't know if this is like a 5% mitigation or something more substantial -- but I do remember hearing that rationale.

 

Aluminium (NOT tin foil) will obey the same laws of reflection as any other reflective material.
ie Angle of incidence = Angle of reflection, both rays being in the same plane.

 

i still think tin foil causes hot spots with HIDs

 

From a purely practical standpoint, it would seem much easier to throw a couple coats of white paint up than to mess with hanging foil. Foil would still probably be cheaper for a small box, but for a room a bucket of paint would be much cheaper than a few rolls of foil.

 

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