What was originally a good idea using light bulbs as cobs.

Bought a couple of packs of light bulbs that I was going to use in a home grown veg tent. Basically a way to keep humidity in during the winter and keep some mothers alive. I did not like the use of bulbs with holders as you loose some height and what would be a $1.25 bulb at the Dollar store becomes a $3.75 setup with the holder. First I knocked off the bulb portion, then finessed the bits out of the base. I had some industrial curtain rod rails to use as heatsinks, then thought I should blow external air through them and keep the heat out of the tent. Did a copy and paste from my newbie thread.

Got them wired up, need to mount the rails into the air manifolds and rig up getting the air in and out of them.










There is a difference between the bulbs, think the one was 9W and the other 10W, threw away the packaging yesterday. I will have a switch to take out the outer rails and one to switch off four of the middle row so I can run 50W. Maybe they will get the original bulbs in again and I will use the two outer rails on the top level and make two more for the lower.

I did a similar project, but I used PC tower side panels and ended up making a cheapo power supply to run them for now.

I used the heat sinks and screws that came with the pucks to help with heat...the little PC fan helps too...they run about 26-30 degrees depending on how much I turn them up and the room temp.
Good work and happy growin'

Measured the current for each of the modules, with the wall voltage at 118V the one bulb taking 0.52A with the hot one at 0.67A. 61W and 79W, so the individual bulb at 6.8W and 8.8W. The dimmer bulb taking 6.8W says that it draws 9W, which I read they usually draw less than indicated. The hotter bulb draws 30% more than the lower one, feels like it with the temperature of the rails. For what I want these for the lower wattage bulb might have been the better option.

Finely got it mostly together. I still have to humidify the space but at least I have the plants inside.

Drop those lights way down...the plants will stretch.
Or lift plants up.

What a tough crowd. The lights are on for a total of 10 minutes and they are chirping. Just kidding.

I am going to make a plant stand to get the height right, I have a few other things I want to do to the space but I wanted to get the plants out of where they were taking up space and making life difficult. Then I have to get the lighting and ventilation finished for my flower area.

printer said:

What a tough crowd. The lights are on for a total of 10 minutes and they are chirping. Just kidding.

I am going to make a plant stand to get the height right, I have a few other things I want to do to the space but I wanted to get the plants out of where they were taking up space and making life difficult. Then I have to get the lighting and ventilation finished for my flower area.

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Are your lights in a fixed position, or can you raise them up and down?

Fixed position, I have the intake and exhaust going through the vapor barrier. I tested the intensity with a cheap meter and compared it to daylight in the summer. A little lower so not bad. I do have the two outer banks wired independantly so I can switch them off. I also have two circuits for the middle bunch, alternating which are together. That way I can get to a minimum amount of light to the plants and a maximum when I want it. The space will hold my six mothers and I don't really want them large.

Nice design. I did the lazy man's design by using bathroom vanity lights with screw in leds. 315w with 70w underneath light. I am harvesting this week.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, because I love creative ideas like this, but why didn’t you just buy LED strips instead of pulling apart all those light bulbs? LED strips can be very inexpensive and you probably could’ve built a killer light for a similar cost. For example, THESE STRIPS are only $5 a piece and each one pulls around 66W @ 48VDC.

TreeFarmerCharlie said:

Please don’t take this the wrong way, because I love creative ideas like this, but why didn’t you just buy LED strips instead of pulling apart all those light bulbs? LED strips can be very inexpensive and you probably could’ve built a killer light for a similar cost. For example, THESE STRIPS are only $5 a piece and each one pulls around 66W @ 48VDC.

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No troubles getting well meaning advice from people, I like when everyone helps each other. It is much easier to get these kind of deals if I lived in the US. First tack on the difference in currency, multiply the price by 1.45. Then shipping across the border is much more expensive than across the US. Then there is the cost of doing the paperwork for the order to make it across the border, that can be $50 alone. Then I also need a driver.

When I first started growing I did buy strips from Digikey and made an array. I need to finish a driver for it, I have some power supplies that I can massage to do the job. I did this because I saw the bulbs for $1 each. They have their own driver. By putting them on the rails and blowing air through them I have given them much more cooling than they would normally have in the bulb. The lower temperature brings the efficiency up, when you take the Leds and the driver as a package the efficiency of the bulbs are not that bad. Also I never planned on using this many bulbs, maybe half of what I used. But you know, you can always use more power. Project creep.

And I was curious as to how it would turn out. It is not a high wattage package, the little loss of efficiency if not a big deal when the total draw is 200W. And when I run it at minimum power it will be more like 50W. It would take some time to get the cost difference back in electricity costs. I would not go this route if I was doing this for my flower room. Mind you, for a vertical grow it would be interesting. Shame they do not have more at this price.

Nrk.cdn said:

Nice design. I did the lazy man's design by using bathroom vanity lights with screw in leds. 315w with 70w underneath light. I am harvesting this week.

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Not to be a critic, but your buds look fairly brown, kind of like bud rot. Maybe it's just the pic. Just not sure taking shortcuts on lights ever produces stellar results.

JSB99 said:

Not to be a critic, but your buds look fairly brown, kind of like bud rot. Maybe it's just the pic. Just not sure taking shortcuts on lights ever produces stellar results.

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Just the picture.. no bud rot at all.. RH 50%. I am looking to harvest about 8oz this week.. zamaldelica x old timer haze.. 2 plants.. had to tie and supercrop as the stretch was crazy.

Here is a pic at the same time with polarized lens..

As for shortcut.. i can change spectrum to my needs..light burns out..change it..not throw light away.. leds get more efficient..right now..15w lights. 60w a vanity upgradable to 240w per vanity. I have to keep them 8-10 inch off canopy. Better for scrog setup..

I will build a bridgelux gen 2 build soon. 12 x 2ft strips.

Well, you know how things snowball? The veg light strips seems to be working out fine, decided to do a couple of strips for flower. 100W equivalent 12W actual for the same $1.30. Made a few, then a few more, two strips not shown as they are in the closet to the right (no door). Took some pictures while the lights were off otherwise they would wash out everything.



And the patio seating. I found the number of plants I had were starting to crowd each other so I made a temporary flower area for four plants along with my beer cup grow. The extra screw in bulbs is to give the beer cup grow as much light as possible.



So about 122 bulbs, let's say 10W a bulb, they draw a bit less than rated, 1100W for about $175 with consumables (wire, solder, heat shrink tubing, tie wraps).

On the cheap grow department, had an old blower and am using it with 4" duct. It removes enough heat and humidity so that by the end of the day the temperature at the leaves is about 28 C (82 F) and humidity about 35%. The 4" duct should be undersized but I end up having to throttle back the airflow as I want to keep a some of the heat and humidity in the room. Also come winter I do not want to blow a ton of air outside.



I have a piece of plastic dryer duct to decouple the fan from the ducting. Originally I had a continuous metal duct and the fan hanging from wood strips off the floor joists. It coupled to the floor and used it as a drum. It was loud. So I used coil springs to hang the fan with, the dryer vent duct and a 2 liter pop bottle to connect the exhaust of the fan to the 4" dryer vent exhaust duct and flaper to the outside. I got luck with the plastic pop bottle. It was just a little larger than the rectangle exhaust opening and just fit on the 4" duct. I made a damper that fit in the exhaust duct that I use to throttle back the flow.

I need to clean up the wiring on the fan, the light strips will be mounted on a 2"x2" wood frame so I can raise and lower the lights. I have the patio seating for now but I am anticipating just using the room once I determine which strains I want to grow.

I want to see this in action. Can we get pics of the grow?

Two weeks ago.



Just now.

printer said:

Two weeks ago.

Just now.

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Looks good, if I read this all right, that’s with about 11-1200w?

J232 said:

Looks good, if I read this all right, that’s with about 11-1200w?

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Yeah. It surprised me when I counted it up. I should measure it some time.

I would like to compare my led lighting efficiency, to some Bridgelux strips I have, BXBE-L0560Z-35E2000-C-B3 3500K rated at 175 Lumens/Watt. the 75W bulbs were rated at 1100L, a not too exciting 92 L/W. But then take the point source radiation of the bulb (more or less) and have all the Leds beaming in the same direction along with no longer going though some opaque plastic.

I looked up a Meanwell driver and 93% looks like the efficiency of it at 100% output. So rather than 175L with driver is 162L. Still much better than the bulbs 92L. Wonder w

printer said:

Bought a couple of packs of light bulbs that I was going to use in a home grown veg tent. Basically a way to keep humidity in during the winter and keep some mothers alive. I did not like the use of bulbs with holders as you loose some height and what would be a $1.25 bulb at the Dollar store becomes a $3.75 setup with the holder. First I knocked off the bulb portion, then finessed the bits out of the base. I had some industrial curtain rod rails to use as heatsinks, then thought I should blow external air through them and keep the heat out of the tent. Did a copy and paste from my newbie thread.

Got them wired up, need to mount the rails into the air manifolds and rig up getting the air in and out of them.

There is a difference between the bulbs, think the one was 9W and the other 10W, threw away the packaging yesterday. I will have a switch to take out the outer rails and one to switch off four of the middle row so I can run 50W. Maybe they will get the original bulbs in again and I will use the two outer rails on the top level and make two more for the lower.

Click to expand...

Curious on how you wired these and what did you use for a power source(power adapter)? I have some rgb 10w & deep reds that i too took out the plastic bulb covers. Looking to add some lower lighting for the tent for practically nothing. Thanks