I think he’s just looking to keep photoperiod plants in vegetative state during March and April, with those lights. They should work fine for that. In fact, if you just turn them on around midnight for 15 minutes, that would work. Plants need at least 12 hours of uninterrupted extreme darkness to go into flower. If you shine some light on them in the middle of the dark period they don’t flower. It’s a hormonal thing, and greenhouse growers have been using it on lots of different kinds of plants for decades.
To have two crops per year, one will use all natural light in the greenhouse and be harvested in October. The other should be started and veged inside a little early so it can go out in the greenhouse to flower and be harvested in March. No blackout cover need if you do that. Also not much electricity!
Yea but the LEDs make my back yard look like a carnival. If I was doin indoor I would be considering fixture in the high dollar range but since its just for supplemrntal lighting I think its a step above cfls I have now.
They are just so bright and the light is unatural I hab my led in there for sup lighting last grow but moved the green house to the other side of the yard and put the led in it for this grows seedlings and you could see it from the street and that was a lil hydro galaxy 300w. So for the sake of discretion I am sticking to white light.
I should check out the diy lighting thread dbrn32 started a while back. I should have planned a bit better and I would have the time to do the research and get the parts together and crank out a few. Maybe in the near future though thanks again man
Oh the light strips I know what your talkin about I have seen em double sticky taped to the inside of the reflector. Do they really work that well?
I really am GREEN to growing and really do not know alot about lighting.
Only light experience I have is workin with the cfls and a 300w led that was gifted to me and I only used them to supplement sunlight.
Hey @dbrn32 maybe you could direct @Growit which way he should go with DIY lighting? Strips were earlier discussed, but I know quantum boards aren’t much more. Just let him know your budget @Growit
@Growit are we talking for “the cube”? Just wondering if the 4’x4’ dimensions are an inside measurement, or outside? An inch or two could literally be the difference in choosing one led over another. If you’re not sure, would you mind grabbing inside measurements please?
Just caught up on thread, and have another question. If you want a light for strictly vegging, or flowering and vegging makes no difference. But we would probably give one that you may use to flower a little more power and change up the light spectrum a little one way or the other too.
Otherwise, there’s no reason to spend a ton of money to get into high performance leds. Especially if you’re somewhat handy. It appears that you’re somewhat limited on height in the cube, so those strips with the two sided transfer tape would be a good option. With a little ingenuity we can get you a super low profile frame design, and you can run those strips pretty close. So should leave you quite a bit of room.
Something like 4 quantum boards would be a pretty good option too. But you’ll probably want to be around the 500 watt mark with either of them to flower out nice dense buds.
Right on @dbrn32
No actually for the green house for sup lighting
And I can also build a better one for the cube too.
The inside demensions are
3’-10” x 3’-10” x 3’-10”
The green house inside is 6’ x 8’ x 6’-5”
I got the 3 durolux t5s coming but during the outdoor grow I can start building some led fixtures for the next coldweather greenhouse grow.
Budget is not really a concern if I can build a few fixtures that out perform high end store bought stuff I can justify the cost
Not saying I have unlimited funds but if I can say spen 400 bucks for parts and build a fixture that out performs a store bought fixture in the $1000 and up range I am all about it.
You’ll have to be more clear on expectations before I can say you can outperform any $1000 light for $400. An hlg-550 retails for $1050, you can build yourself for like $5-600. Performance itself is kind of subjective as well. Are you looking at which light produces more light overall, or are you looking to hit a certain par measurement and measuring performance by which light is going going to give you that with the least amount of power consumption? Perhaps it would be easier if I asked which light specifically we’d be comparing to?
If we start with the greenhouse first, your just wanting to supplement light to keep plants in vegetative state until natural light cycle is long enough to sustain them?
yea I was just throwing a number out there
I know nothing about lighting so I would need alot of direction
So For this grow I am just supplementing light to keep em in a healthy vegg till end of march or maybe a bit longer in the greenhouse.
But for the cold weather grow late this year I am doing a greenhouse grow and will be supplementing through the entire life cycle of the plants
Originally I was gonna just do bulb changes in the t5s to supplement in flower.
I supplemented light on the last grow with a DIY CFL fixture and a cheap hydro galaxy 300w 9band (which is now in the cube)
I was not even considering LEDs cuz I had my 300w led in the green house for some of the seedlings that I started back in december and you could see it from the street.
I have the cfl fixture in there now it lights uo the back yard but it just looks like I have perimeter lights in the back yard instead of the loud bright purple/pink light.
The diy led came up just recently and figure it would be cool to build a few fixtures during this grow and take my time to do it right. That way I will be ready to go on the next grow with the DIY LEDs especially if they are going to out perform the t5s
The only concern I have with the led set up is the colour. Is there any optiond in diy led lighting taht give full spectum in white light?
I do not know about par measurements
I am looking to provide the best light saturation possible for good steady growth
Power consumption is somewhat of a priority but since the fixture is just supplemental and most the light given to the palnts will be sunlight I am probbably only running the fixture at 6-10 hours a day depending on daylight hours