Eliminating shading - light from perimeter?

[RickWhite]

In my seemingly never ending quest to eliminate shading and increase total plant illumination I had this idea.

Has anyone considered designing a grow room with the lights around the perimeter shining toward the center of the room?

One could even run different rows at different times to save on electricity. This would be much like turning your plants or like the sun passing over.

The center could have overhead lights if your room is large but for smaller rooms the overlap of the perimeter lights would create a bright spot in the center.

Anyway, you can just picture how a baseball diamond is illuminated to get the idea.

Now picture a 10X10 room with couple 400W lights near each of the 4 walls pointing toward the center of the room. One could run two walls criss cross for 6 hours and the other two for six hours so that the plants would get light from every angle with good penetration.

Now I know you are thinking "ya but you have to spend a lot more on lighting." This is true, but given the return on your investment, multiple lights more than pay for themselves even if you don't run them all the time.

What do you think?

 

[RickWhite]

Anyone feeling this?

 

[HookdOnChronics]

Sounds to me like this would work GREAT if you have the lights/space ect. 10x10 room would make for the light being what, 4&1/2ish feet away from you plants... The only problem I see is that just seems a bit far from your plants for the light to be, I could be wrong tho. I use CFL's, not HID, so you'd know more than me on that aspect of things. Otherwise all sounds like a great idea!

 

[T.H.Cammo]

Multiple light sources (when equally spaced) are always more effective than a single source (of similar total wattage) when centrally mounted. In other words - four 250 watters, spread out, will beat the shit out of a single 1,000 watter - even though the 250 watters put out fewer combined lumens!. This is true beause the single 1,000 watter has to project it's light at least twice as far to reach the perimeter (thereby, only delivering about 1/4 of it's potential energy).

By placing your lights around the perimeter, you are forcing them to do the same thing in reverse, to project thier light at least twice as far to reach the center (thereby, only delivering about 1/4 of thier potential energy). You have just traded the perimeter for the center as the "farthest point" the light has to reach.

Spacing the lights across the canopy (instead of around it) is the most efficient usage. Draw it out on a piece of paper, you'll see what I mean!

 

[RickWhite]

Multiple light sources (when equally spaced) are always more effective than a single source (of similar total wattage) when centrally mounted. In other words - four 250 watters, spread out, will beat the shit out of a single 1,000 watter - even though the 250 watters put out fewer combined lumens!. This is true beause the single 1,000 watter has to project it's light at least twice as far to reach the perimeter (thereby, only delivering about 1/4 of it's potential energy).

By placing your lights around the perimeter, you are forcing them to do the same thing in reverse, to project thier light at least twice as far to reach the center (thereby, only delivering about 1/4 of thier potential energy). You have just traded the perimeter for the center as the "farthest point" the light has to reach.

Spacing the lights across the canopy (instead of around it) is the most efficient usage. Draw it out on a piece of paper, you'll see what I mean!

That makes sense. I guess the best arrangement is two (or however many) rows evenly spaced. So a 12 foot wide room should have two rows 6' apart making each plant within 3' of a bulb.

 

[figtree]

Heres a verticle flourescent fixture that stands in the middle, theres some that can line the sides as well. quite beneficial, when used as supplimental lighting.

http://www.hydroponics-grow-light.com/GROW-LIGHT/Grow-Light-System_Grow-Light_Plant-Grow-Light_hps-grow-light_Indoor-Grow-Light_Grow-Light_hydroponics.html

 

[T.H.Cammo]

That makes sense. I guess the best arrangement is two (or however many) rows evenly spaced. So a 12 foot wide room should have two rows 6' apart making each plant within 3' of a bulb.

Yeppers! It's all about keeping the light path as short as possible.

 

[IAm5toned]

you would also be losing more than 50% of the light that is lost on the reflectors.... you would be better of spacing lamps evenly throughout the canopy footprint, as someone else already pointed out.