how to use common shit to make one hellva hood for cfls

sorry fdd was just given a little poke. My post was lame. a small mh is less heat better light and less hassel. I guess thats not the point mh isn't cfl light. lol I use 80 and 100 watt cfl for mom and clone/veg. 380w hps plus 42w cfl for side light in flower.

another thing about cfl light. With 23w bulbs you will only get so much light them being so week does not penetrate the canopy so all the extra light on top is no help you need to get inside the canopy. so max watts on top and get the rest down inside the plants.

another point i would like to make. i have found cfl's to be directional, in their light emitting capabilities. i find the light is strong, straight off the coil, not the sides as you have set up. also, you are mixing your light spectrums, i see red and blue light, stick with the blues in veg. good luck on your grow

Awesome job. I think I am going to do something similar for my CFLs! Only got too plants going and a bunch of clamp reflectors, so prob do a smaller version. More safe too.

Only use CFLs for now. Once vegging is done, Im picking up a 400w hps

Im not good at wiring tho, so need to look into how to wire those orig light bulb sockets (thing all your lights connect to)

Nice set up. Sucks about the accident but shit happens and thats all part of R&D. What kind of bulbs are you running in it now?

Looks like a very creative set up man, kudos....how close are you going to try and get the bulbs from here on out?

And if you see me tonight, with an illegal smile, it didnt cost very much, but lasts a long while.

Will you please tell the man, I didnt hurt anyone, Im just trying to have me some fun.

stumps said:

I'm going to be the bad guy. when you put a hood on a bunch of low watt cfl's all you do is trap heat. now the math. you need to keep a cfl 2-4" off the plant to use them for growing. lets say what your using has 100% reflectiveity. It doesn't by the way more like 30-40% at 100% you would only get about 50% light off the reflector. I do back off my statement that the reflector does no good with low watt cfl's. It does have some value. but the heat build up is a much larger neg value. cfl light is great I use it myself. I know my expalatoin sucks but if you reserch how light works I think you'll figure out what I'm trying to say.

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i have never seen a hps or mh that i would wrap my hand around when it has been on for over an hour what about you? my cfls i can grab and unscrew while they are on either 15 minutes or 15 hours. as for my hood trapping heatmy intake fans are located at the bottom of the box and i have an exhaust fan mounted in the top so my air flow goes straight up so heat being trapped is not an issue.

fdd2blk said:

i making fun of the OP. i know i shouldn't, but how many actual watts is that thing pushing? a 250 MH would do really nice in the area he is growing in. much easier to vent as well.

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fdd2blk i have read many of your post and would like to tell you thank you for your input. but my cabinet is not very tall and in order to get a hid in there and being able to cover all 6 sq feet would be next to impossible but i understand where your coming from. i have just chosen to use cfls as they are easy to obtain and i can get them close to the canopy

tom__420 said:

Not only is it pushing a lot of watts but it looks like the most unsafe CFL setup I have seen. That thing has got to be at least 400 watts... I can tell ya for a fact that a 400 watt MH would grow better plants than that thing. And fdd does have a point about the metal halide being easier to cool, good luck cooling those 16 bulbs or however many are there.

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my temps stay at 77 degrees in an 18 cubic foot space with two 4 inch pc fans and one ten inch household fan. think you can cool your 400 watt mh with those fans? i think not so please put your two cents back in your pocket as i dont need someone jumping on fdd2blks coat tails and trying to down a cfl grower. the post says hood for cfls not try and talk someone out of using a cfl because you think their setup sucks. remember opinions are like assholes

AquafinaOrbit said:

An HPS system is capable at peak to achieve 140lumens per watt,(Usually a fair amount less then that) a CFLs is 90 but it's lumen per watt range doesn't vary as much. Of course heat is simply the current flowing in the bulb so watts represents heat. So is what your trying to say is that a CFLs light is not worth reflecting, but an HPS bulb is? People reflect HPS often because if you can get back even say 5% of the light on a system that powerful then you've added a lot. CFLs are of course much weaker generally speaking but if the room is properly ventilated then I don't see a reason a reflector would be bad. That being said CFLs are so cheap these days I rather just buy a couple extra bulbs. I actually like this guys reflector, though I think he should add a few cumputer fans to the sides and I'd seriously make sure those bulb sockets can handle those amps.

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sockets are cool thanks for the defense of the cfls i have added two 4 inch pc fans at the bottom of the cabinet and a ten inch fan in the top of the cab as well the pcs are for intake and the ten inch is for exhaust

stumps said:

another thing about cfl light. With 23w bulbs you will only get so much light them being so week does not penetrate the canopy so all the extra light on top is no help you need to get inside the canopy. so max watts on top and get the rest down inside the plants.

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stumps have you ever heard of a scrog??? all there is is the fucking canopy!! come on man i dig cfls if i wanted a hid i woulda bought one and the title of this post would have been different

IllegalSmile said:

Looks like a very creative set up man, kudos....how close are you going to try and get the bulbs from here on out?

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thank you i can keep this hood with in 3 inches and be safe

nitroman said:

hey guys just wanted to show off my handy work on my new cfl hood it will look like the side with the y sockets whenever the store here gets some more in stock but this is what it looks like as of now. this has to be one of the biggest cfl light hoods i have ever seen right now it has 17 lights and will be adding a few more. i used a piece of air conditioning duct work that was a 5 inch diameter some 2x4s and alot of intiution

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hot shit bro i made something like that with coat hangers for my hps but it got to damn hot in there man so i gave it up bro

looks good i would stagger the diffrent bulbs and run it veg thru flower under that soon as they get a lil height

u can take the base of the bulb apart and solder ,solder extensions on the wires inside and get away from all the adapters


in the end hid is better for buds but cfl makes great supplemental lighting
anyway more detailed info about hacking those bulbs in the faq

sorry

my MH is half that size. but whatever.


happy growing.

CFL's work fine, but with that many so close together your gonna have serious heat issues (trust me), try enclosing it with glass/wood and sending a fan through it to the outside like a cooltube or a vented hood. You could also try to space them out a little bit more, it seems to help the heat dissipate a little bit.

captain chronizzle said:

another point i would like to make. i have found cfl's to be directional, in their light emitting capabilities. i find the light is strong, straight off the coil, not the sides as you have set up. also, you are mixing your light spectrums, i see red and blue light, stick with the blues in veg. good luck on your grow

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I agree with this, here's a 3D model I made of what a CFL reflector should look like.