A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Headlight Option

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/shortcuts/2012/dec/09/porsche-own... The first thing that popped into my head after reading this article wasn't: "those pesky cannabis growers are giving us a bad name", but: "wow, if done legally [i.e. not stealing them] this could be a really good way to buy grow-lights". I think that this could be a great salvaging opportunity! What do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Eric Warwick on December 9, 2012 at 9:29pm

*"Buy" as in these would be good growlights. You could salvage them from auto-shops I guess. They'd probably sell old ones for less. Editing before posting is a great idea, ain't it?

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on December 10, 2012 at 4:43pm

I expect that is has to do with people "getting" free stuff by steeling it from a relatively easy source. Not that the headlights are really any better for growing plants than the bulbs and fixtures being sold for the purpose.

Also, salvage of used lamps is probably not such a great options since such lamps will loose light output efficiency over their lifetime so if you were having to pay for "salvaged" lamps it would probably not be all that much of a deal.

Permalink Reply by Joe Bifano on January 10, 2013 at 10:11pm

The question is if these bulbs work well how do you hook them up in a new environment? If these bulbs are expensive they need to be tried in a way to see how far away you need to be. Anyone know what they cost to get them legally?

I have been playing with LED spotlight bulbs to grow and they work really good. I can get 2 bulbs to cover 1 1020 tray. I would think that I will save a ton on electricity using these.

You have to try everything you can.

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on January 11, 2013 at 1:42pm

So Joe, how much electricity do those LED spotlight bulbs use? And how much do they cost?

if we are talking just growing seedlings for a few weeks before planting out a two tube florescent fixture of under 30 watts would likely cover two 1020 trays. Now if the cost of the 4 LED spots and whatever fixtures they need is less than double the florescent tubes and fixture then I expect it will come out better even if it used the same wattage since I expect the LED fixtures will maintain PAR output longer than the 6 month lifespan of florescent grow lights (the lights still work and are fine for us people but the plant usable light output falls off after about 6 months.)

Permalink Reply by Joe Bifano on January 11, 2013 at 3:16pm

They are 15 watt bulbs with cheap base's at $3.25 for everything. So I am using 60 watts total. Again I am just testing these. Yes I am just trying seedlings for a few weeks.

Power consumption would be less with the florescent bulbs because your total is 30 watts for florescent bulbs and LED's are 60 watts. So I would think that the LED's would be growing the plants a little faster.

Yes 2 18" T8 bulbs would cover 2 trays.

The cost of 4 LED's & their base = $13.00

The cost of 2 T8 bulbs @ $4.00 to $6.00 = $8 to $12 Plus the fixture = $20 each @ $40

Total for Florescent = $48

Again I am just trying things out and will see how they do. The other thing about the LED bulbs I am getting is, I have basically no warranty unless I want to spend $15 to $20 here in the US. Then that would put the cost of the LED's to $60. Right now I am willing to take a chance on the cheapest thing I can get from a friend.

Time will tell on how this does.

Permalink Reply by Jon Parr on January 11, 2013 at 3:47pm

Joe, shoot us a picture of what 60 watts of LED will grow. I'm sure curious, thanks

Permalink Reply by TCLynx on January 14, 2013 at 2:13pm

Thanks for doing the testing on this Joe, will be interested to hear about the real world results from a real person and not some company trying to sell LED's.

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on January 14, 2013 at 6:14pm

Joe, what is the Wattage of the individual LED (meaning the wattage of a single diode) that you are using? (0.3Watts, 1Watt, 3Watts etc)...

Permalink Reply by Joe Bifano on January 14, 2013 at 6:22pm

I have had a bulb made for me by a friend that has 5 - 3 watt diodes to give me the 15 watts. We first tried 4 - 3 watts now we changed it to 5 - 3 watts. Still working on it though. He is using all cool whites. I am trying to get him to try some blues, cool whites and 1 red next. Gota try everything

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on January 15, 2013 at 6:01am

Very cool Joe. It'll be interesting to see what those will do. Yeah, definitely get him to use some in the 660nm, and 440nm range. After all the cool thing about LED's is that whole ability to tailor to plant specific wavelengths. At 3 Watts you should have good canopy penetration/coverage.

Hehe, you'd be surprised at how many pot-heads rig up a bunch of crappy 0.3 Watt diodes, singing praises of energy efficiency, and then wonder why nothing grows well...

Keep us posted :)

Permalink Reply by Joe Bifano on January 15, 2013 at 10:20am

Yeah, This has mostly come from the pot heads. I had looked at all the panels and they were way to much money. So I built my own panel using aluminum several colored LED's and a driver and it worked okay. Then a friend came up with several other ideas and that is where I am at. We will see!