Let's talk DIY lights

Close enough I think. It just means your lights can be a few inches higher than with the Angelinas and still get all the light on the plants. They do make a huge difference as you will see.

I compared the lux with my light meter and it almost doubled the center brightness. I thought the sides would suffer but they actually almost doubled too. As long as you are in the 90 degree cone of light (or 72 degree) it’s terrific. The reflectors use all the light that COBs emit out to the high side walls that never gets to the plants.

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I disagree to an extent. Adding the reflectors means you have to run them higher, and at the cost of photons. As to where you you can run them lower without the reflectors, and control loss to the sides by not mounting them close to walls. Where I see value in them is places like corners and in some cases edges, or with lower powered cobs.

The benefit of reflectors is heavily dependent on application in my opinion. In something like a 5’-6’ grow tent, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to drop an extra $10 per cob then have to limit your plant height an extra 6-8”. You can generate plenty high enough par levels from cobs without any optics, or any photon loss to those optics. So spending extra money to then raise your lights to get back to reasonable par levels gets a little counter productive. In the situation of a small low powered cob or very little height restriction they make a little more sense to use.

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But COBs actually radiate a lot of light almost sideways. They light up the high side walls with photons that only reach the plants after several reflections, or maybe never. Sure, you can minimize this effect by keeping the COBs really close to the plants, but then you have to worry about light burn and the big difference between the area right under each COB and between the COBs. You also have to deal with big differences between a COB to plant distances in the vertical dimension. For example, if the COB is 10 inches above the highest plant, then a plant with a 20 inch distance is only getting 1/4 as much light. (Inverse square law) by increasing the COB to plant distance, you decrease the effect so you get more even light.

The sun is so far away from the plant that buds on the top get almost the same amount of light as buds on the bottom.

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Quick update…picked up 4 clones yesterday…
Purple Cadillac(Ind)
Blackberry Fire (Ind)
Strawberry Banana (Ind)
Black Jack (Sat)
So far the light is functioning great…

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i like @Brittster1967 ,where did you get those? if you do not mind me asking…

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@BIGE…clones came from local collective…they get their clones from Dark Heart Nursery…they serve Northern Cali. If you live in Northern Cali I strongly suggest you check them out online.

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i have seen them already @Brittster1967 awesome stuff!

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Outdoor growing and natural light is much different than indoor growing and artificial light. At least, I’ve never seen anything suggesting you can make a correlation like that. I’m 6’5 and can easily hold a meter close to 9’ off the ground. If I do that under the sun and then place on ground there’s no change in light intensity. That’s because in terms of amount of distance to the sun I haven’t changed it any. But I hold a meter directly in front of a cob an then 9 feet under it, a meter will go from astronomical reading to nearly nothing. The law of inverse square is all about distance to light source, and doesn’t really apply to outdoor grows.

You restated my exact point. My cobs don’t burn at 12”. But I bet they would if I put reflectors on them. So why would I spend an extra $60 on my light to turn around and lose growing space? The exact pattern of light varies from model to model, but they usually seem to be between 120-150 degrees. Which is not quite sideways, about halfway between losing 7-10% light as it leaves the emitter and sideways really. This why you don’t see every cob builder mapping out their grow space and placing cobs at even distances from center to walls. They’re usually cheated towards the middle some to account for the pattern without reflectors, and even with reflectors sometimes.

I don’t dislike the reflectors, but believe they are more of a situational tool. As I stated before, if you have 8’ to work with and are happy with plants under 6’ tall. Then you can add reflectors and maybe drop a couple cobs per 4x4. Or you wanna get down on some cheap 9-18mm cobs, and then be able to boost par levels on them later when you have some extra cash… that’s
A great application. But I don’t believe that every cob in every grow is better with reflectors.

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I use blended spectrums so reflectors would actually hurt my grow while reflective side curtains on my rack actually help quite a bit…jus sayin…

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I agree completely. There are situations where they are useful, and situations where they are not. My 5000 K COBs are in a large rectangular grid roughly in the shape (but smaller) than my grow chamber. So reflectors are useful.

My 3500 K COBs are all in line across the center of my grow chamber. I have reflectors for them but they are not on because the fixture is lower and I want more spread.

And yes, reflective side curtains are great.

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Ok guys, not quite as cool as @Bogleg’s wireless unit. But the diy killawatt seems to be working properly. Fan in pic is 6” hyper fan, advertised at 315 cfm and 35 watts consumption.

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Outstanding @dbrn32 I love visuals.

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I think I have about $12 into it. I was actually thinking about putting it into the project on the next light. Backlight can be turned off, and there’s a bunch of settings and alarms. Have to look at it more.

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Let me know, I probably should get one mostly for a piece of mind on how much I’m consuming. @dbrn32

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Will do. You would probably like that deal bogleg has. Seemed pretty accurate, also functions as timer, and you can get access through wifi.

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@Rick3 I’d be happy to help you here. You’re asking specifically about the quantum boards?

@Covertgrower @MattyBear it only took 6 months, but she’s ready for leds haha.

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I’m out of likes, but I’m gonna need to see that bad boy in action soon! Haha

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Better late than never @dbrn32! Now you just something green under it… hmmm…

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