Sub R1000 all in, 450w cfl poor mans diy.

[Bay Seeds]

[Bay Seeds]

525w

[PsyCLown]

What have your grown with this?

 

What does that 525W produce once flowered and how many plants does it cover?

[CreX]

On 9/14/2020 at 7:05 PM, Bay Seeds said:

i dono man, every bone in my body just cringed at the thought of 35x15w of outdated inefficient lighting.

you could get ready built ACDC flood lights that have a better spectrum, lower heat output, better canopy penetration, better efficiency per watt..

https://www.acdc.co.za/products/220-240-150w-cool-white-led-alum-flood-light-ip65?variant=32751529689165

150w for under 400 bucks.

and sure, 150w is very shy of your 525w, and 400x4 is quite a bit heftier than your sub 1k light.

but please bruh, trust me when i say i would rather bet on the 150w LED fitting to outperform the CFL setup. 2x 150w light fittings for 800 if you want a landslide victory.

[Bay Seeds]

If you think a 150w cob has a lower heat output than a 15w cfl bulb your wrong. Cringe all you want bud.  Match my output for R1000 shipping and materials included. You forgot that you need more than 1 spectrum. Your 150w led pushes 12500 lumens in a single spectrum. 35  x 750lm 15w multi spectrum bulbs = 26250lm. If a bulb breaks its a R23 fix.  You missed the point. Of course led's are better than cfl's . And a 4100k floodlight is not the spectrum for flowering cannabis. 

[CreX]

And I'm saying there's more than one way to skin a cat.... 

And you are spot on lol... I wonder how I ever thought a 150 would put out less heat than a 15w globe... Jesus I must be fucken retarded or something to think you were going to run all 35 globes at once... What a fire hazard that would be right!? 

I seriously doubt your contraption would push out over 20k lumens at 40cm, have you even measured? The options I gave go over 40k at 40cm.

LOL sure you need more than one spectrum... So buy a different spectrum flood light for flower. 

You are wrong to think that your invention is the way a beginner should DIY his grow on the cheap.... 

If you want to live in the 80's then by all means do so... But don't dis my options because they showed yours up. 

 

[Stinger96]

It's real sad to me that we are so quick to floor somebody else.. I really think some more appreciation and les criticism is the way to go.. Im not taking sides here and I am a new bee as so many others... Sometimes we need to be straightforward and to the point but this guy did not want to sell a 4k light for 10k.. Come on man.. Represent... don't go over the edge just  because you can... Have the 420 spirit for Pete's  sake...

[CreX]

Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong... 

My apologies @Bay Seeds, I didn't mean to be so blunt.

I'm all for DIY and on the cheap... But just because you can, doesn't mean you should. 

I have tried many times in my grow experience to grow with cfls... High powered ones, low powered ones... They all suck compared to what else you can get on the cheap nowadays. 

So again... Maybe I was out of place and too quick to put you down.... And I apologize for that... 

But I will not apologize for my counter arguments for the cheap floodlights if cheap is the way you have go about things at the moment. 

[ORGANinc.]

On 9/14/2020 at 7:05 PM, Bay Seeds said:

Why don’t you use LED bulbs??? Might be more expensive then... hmmm

I’m all for happiness etc. but this forum is like this. People are straight. I think it’s also passion, everybody is passionate about their growing experience and and... how much you are willing to accept that you’ve maybe wasted time and move on will be your own defining factor.

not saying your light doesn’t work. I’m sure it grafts quite well bud However the technology is very very different. 

[Bay Seeds]

No need to apologize dude, its all in good fun. And yes your probibly right. I would choose led's over cfl's any day. The point was a sub R1000 diy. I grow with led's.

[ORGANinc.]

2 hours ago, Bay Seeds said:

If you think a 150w cob has a lower heat output than a 15w cfl bulb your wrong. Cringe all you want bud.  Match my output for R1000 shipping and materials included. You forgot that you need more than 1 spectrum. Your 150w led pushes 12500 lumens in a single spectrum. 35  x 750lm 15w multi spectrum bulbs = 26250lm. If a bulb breaks its a R23 fix.  You missed the point. Of course led's are better than cfl's . And a 4100k floodlight is not the spectrum for flowering cannabis. 

I’m using one of these flood light (warm white) with 4 T8 LEDs attaches to it (cool white) as a veg light. Total draw is 222w (questionable because I added numbers on the box ☝) also wrong spectrum for vegging ☝ And this thing works better than my previous 600w metal halide. Believe it or not  

[Bay Seeds]

@CreX Its a picture of a shopping cart list to show you can buy it for under a R1000. Not my setup. Im growing with a 1000w led setup. You should watch lex blaxers video on light elitism. 

[afternoon blazer]

Thats gona be alota bulbs and wiring to accomplish. @Bay Seeds.

No offence to u or any disrespect. But i have the floodlight. And from trying lots of other cheaper options. I would highly reccomend these floodlights for any newbies. These things surprised me alot.

Yeah the spectrum might not be right for a full grow. But it freaking works man.

I ran my auto for 5 weeks under that light. It started pre flowering at week 3.

Even though the spectrum wasnt correct. It grew my plant strong and well. (This could just be coz the plant was a auto. Maybe it didnt need the 100 percent full spectrum to flower well)

 

I love DIY. Especially for my pocket.

Another member was running 4 plants with 1 x 50w led. And they growing great.

And for less then 400 bucks. For the 150w. Its crazy.

I also ran a sort of light test with my 150w floodlight to check intensity at different heights away from my floodlight. ( again probably not the most accurate app . But u can get an idea.)

 

1000 bucks all in for ur light. But also got a ton of labour to go in. And get setup.

Im not saying ur stuf is not gona work or mine is better. Im just tryna share my hands on experience and enlighten whoever would like to be.

 

Cheers bro✌

Edited September 17, 2020 by afternoon blazer
Forgot the readings pic

[ORGANinc.]

Ya but having said all of this above... That flood light is marked down 50%... happened to stumble upon the invoice and ACDC had the original price R758 ex VAT and less the discount.

So there is an argument. I gotta say, I was surprised at the price of this flood light. 

[afternoon blazer]

@ORGANinc. i checked ur light for the 700 mark.

 

But also remember u got a warm white. Those 1z are marked around the 700.

The cool white are the 1z for under 400.

 

I was just playing around and using my cool white for some of flowering aswell.

[ORGANinc.]

3 minutes ago, afternoon blazer said:

@ORGANinc. i checked ur light for the 700 mark.

 

But also remember u got a warm white. Those 1z are marked around the 700.

The cool white are the 1z for under 400.

 

I was just playing around and using my cool white for some of flowering aswell.

I paid R378.26 incl VAt -  R435 they had both there for the same price bud. All of the are marked down 50%.  I didn't even look to see which color when I bought it. Ended up working just fine lol

[Bay Seeds]

I was really surprised when i saw that light selling for under R400. I agree bud, thats a better pick.

[afternoon blazer]

26 minutes ago, Bay Seeds said:

I was really surprised when i saw that light selling for under R400. I agree bud, thats a better pick.

Its a solid slimline build too bro. Just gota wire in a 3 pin plug.

[PsyCLown]

Remember, its not the lumens or watts which count when we are looking at a light for growing, its the PPFD.

 

Not all LEDs are equal in terms of their output (PPFD), so 200w of LED is not 200w of LED. Just because there are 2x LED lights of which both draw 200W and may have the same spectrum does not mean they will perform the same or provide the same PPFD output.

 

While you may be able to build that light fixture for under R1k, it does not mean its going to be the best value for money - chances are it's going to be very inefficient at turning your watts into light which the plants are able to make use of.

However this thread certainly shows us that there are light options available at under R1k which will work for a grow.

I feel the purpose and point of a forum is to have a discussion, any member who is looking for a budget light and sees this thread now has more context as to what may be a suitable option for a grow light if their budget is around R1k and hopefully they will gain more knowledge and a better understanding of everything.

 

 

EDIT: This article actually explains things nicely: https://fluence.science/science-articles/horticulture-lighting-metrics/#:~:text=PPF is photosynthetic photon flux,a lighting system each second.&text=PPFD measures the amount of,a given surface each second”.

 

Lumens, LUX, PAR, PPF, PPFD.

[Bay Seeds]

@afternoon blazer And yes.the wiring job on a diy can get pretty hectic. Built this 20w led x 55 for the veg room.

.

[Stinger96]

I agree on your statement about why forums are there. Maybe theres a bloke with a shit load of cfl's.. At least now he can experiment and maybe come up with a light for a interim solution while, he or she, saves up for a more appropriate settup.. In the spirit of 420 we can all give our opinion and input. With a tight budget not all of us can grow with the pro's but at least we can have a puf of our own home grown.. Shit or not...

 

[Stinger96]

For me outdoors is preferable and I get my meger 5-10gs every now and then and it costs me next to nothing..

[Prom]

Nothing beats the importance of light. Your harvest raises and falls with its handling. You can have a perfect grow light and still harvest less then a dude using his DIY light perfect. Light stress, to little or to much, will reduce your harvest. Light is the most tricky and the most rewarding if mastered.

[TheUltimateNoob]

I had a DIY cfl unit... Had 16 x 23w bulbs in them.

It was severely inefficient and the power draw was that high for no good reason.

100w of cob light gave me waaaaay better results... Not to mention less heat.

I would chime in more on this thread but I struggle to understand the reasoning behind driving 500w of cfls for like 1k, when I could have spent half on cfls and get a cheap blurple for like 700 to drop in the center of that fixture for better PAR and spectrum.

I'm all for experimenting and DIY so I'm intrigued to see how this works...

Sent from my POCOPHONE F1 using Tapatalk

[Bay Seeds]

@TheUltimateNoob Cfl's are 30% less efficient than led's. But they are about half the price of an led. Its just about keeping it under a R1000. This cheap R1000 any store 525w cfl = 367.5W LED.