Have a great invention to help with gardening? Are you the self-reliant type that prefers Building It Yourself vs. buying it? Share and discuss your ideas and projects with other members.
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#1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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This is my Grow Light Build journey, sorry if this was posted already, anyhow I started this in 2015 and just added a few tweaks this month.
Grow Light Build December 26th, 2015 - updated December 18th, 2018 For the upcoming 2016 garden year I decided to build a Grow Light/Germination area this winter. I also wanted to be able to grow some winter veggies for my salads and smoothies. I don't know if this is cost prohibitive but its not about saving money anymore, recently it has become a risky business purchasing lettuce, my wife has been ill twice due to e-coli poisoning and once she ended up in the ER. Onto the build There was an area in my garage that is just the right size, (barely), but I was using it for storing scrap metal, paint, deck stain, my generator, a tool box and a bunch of other stuff. I decided I would much rather have the spot for a permanent grow area, so I thinned everything out and made it work. The generator and toolbox will stay, the toolbox was thinned out and a few drawers will be used for the indoor grow area tools and supplies. There is another problem with this corner as it can be quite drafty from the garage door, I am working on that.
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![]() ![]() I didn't want legs on the table and wanted a "floating table", to do this, a hole was drilled in one corner and an eye-bolt is installed, I used a bead of silicone when installing the eye-bolt. Another eye-bolt is installed in the shelf above where the table top eye-bolt is located, most on the weight will be on the nailer plate.
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![]() After the shelf install I put on another coat of oil base enamel on the tabletop. I had a few lettuces growing, a few were growing in the shut down Aquaponics planter by the Koi pond and a couple sprouted from seed I had planted late in the season in the shut down Aquaponics rail NFT/Deep water culture hybrid system. I figured this would sort of be a trial, the plants are placed under one of my 2 bulb LED shop lights. The plants are in terracotta planters lined with a wicking material (pond underlayment) then placed in a steamer pan with some water and a bit of fertilizer. These will be moved to the grow table once the table is completed. ![]() ![]()
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![]() After a bit of research I decided on a 4 bulb 4' Fluorescent fixture using 6500 Kelvin bulbs. I almost purchased this T5 grow light from Amazon, it seems like a pretty good deal and is worth looking into. I don't need to cover the Red spectrum for seedlings and greens. Warm Glow - 2200k, Soft White - 2700k, Bright White - 3000k, Daylight - 5000k, Cool White - 6500k The shop light is modified with 2 strips of LED's, these LED strips were removed from two 48" LED shop lights, one had a bad internal driver and the other was a wrong bulb sent to me as a replacement for a bad bulb from a 4 pack (the replacement bulb was a "linear led" and since my existing setup was a ballast bypass type LED with shunted tombstones, you can imagine my surprise when I popped this bulb in and sparks shot out and blew the circuit. Anyhow the LED's are stripped out and wired together to share the driver, then the LED strips are glued to the lamp housing, giving me a 6 bulb fixture.
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![]() December 30, 2015
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![]() Four more lights were added using led's this time, I glued 4 tombstones on each side of aluminum bar stock from an EZ-Up and secured to the shop light using 3/4" self tapping screws. The tombstones are wired to a cord with a plug scavenged from an old lamp, this is then plugged into the other end of the shop light, I can now turn the 11" x 22" trays 90° allowing four side by side trays if need be.
![]() Last edited by SQWIBB; December 19, 2018 at 07:15 AM. |
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#2 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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The bulbs came in and they were the correct kelvin but the wrong type bulb... can you say Sparks!! Instead of sending back the bulbs I liberated 4 from one of my shop-lights and had to rewire that shop-light differently to accept the new bulbs, I may order 6500 next year.
![]() The test subjects seem to be thriving so the lights seem adequate for greens.
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![]() I ordered new trays, my original trays would split after a season of use. These are Permanest Tray and domes from Indoor Garden Supplies. ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]() ![]() April 3rd, 2016
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#3 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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![]() Supply List (updated 2018)
December 18th, 2018 Update on the grow table Since I am going into my 4th year with the light, I decided to replace the 4 three year old fluorescent tubes with 6000k Led bulbs from Amazon, the cost of the Led's is 42.00 as opposed to 23.00 for new 6500k fluorescent bulbs at Lowes. My new bulbs are due to come in Friday but I had some motivation so I decided to do the mod and use my existing shop bulbs until the new bulbs come in. When I took the light down, I noticed a strip of Led's that were out, the Led strip still works but the driver is shot, I didn't feel like trying to figure out what driver it needed so I replaced with Led tape, and let me tell you, soldering Led tape is not fun! Pardon the grimy fingers, I'm a Printer by Trade.
Time to mod the fixture for the new Led's. The new Led's are "Single end powered ballast bypass" or "direct wire LED fluorescent replacement tubes" that means they are powered on one side and that there is a positive and negative on one side of the Led bulb and the other side is not powered.
I removed the Ballast and used the wires from the ballast to rewire the tombstones, the problem here was that the hole in the tombstone to feed the wire on the other side did not go through to the metal piece like shown above, so I had to drill out the hole to accommodate the new wire. One side is red, the other side is blue.
I have the light setup as follows. The four led bulbs in the center are one group, the 4 outer Led's are another group and the led tape strips recently installed are another group, so they all work independently from one another. This works great If I am using two trays lengthwise. I turn on all the lights when using 4 trays side by side.
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#4 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Near Philadelphia, PA
Posts: 1,940
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Looks great! Thanks for sharing such a detailed write-up!
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#5 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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#6 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: washington
Posts: 498
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What lumens are you getting at what distance from the canopy?
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#7 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: washington
Posts: 498
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And what is your total watts being drawn from the outlet?
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#8 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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#9 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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#10 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: washington
Posts: 498
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You can download an app for lux and fc, that would be an easy way to get some sort of an idea of light quantity. I'm just curious as to what those leds put out.
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#11 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: selmer, tn
Posts: 2,944
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Great documentation!
Jon |
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#12 |
Guest
Posts: n/a
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Really interesting and gives lots of ideas. Thanks!
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#13 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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Biscuit, I'll see what I can come up with this weekend in way of Lux and Wattage.
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#14 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: washington
Posts: 498
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Awesome, thanks much!
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#15 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2018
Location: Philly 7A
Posts: 739
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![]() December 24th, 2018 I had ordered 2 new Led grow lights for the new indoor garden area, but it got me to thinking, and you know what happens when I start thinking $$$. I was reviewing led grow lights and came across the Viparspectra 700w led that looked perfect for the new grow area but it was just too expensive at $300.00, I surfed the net all day and best I could find was $285 free ship but was still on the fence with ordering one, until I came across one on e-bay brand new still in box. It was an auction and was @ $110.00 when I placed a bid, but was outbid in a few hours. The auction still had two days and 9 hours to go. I decided to set my max bid 3 seconds before closing, so I stayed up late Saturday night 12:30 I believe and was watching the seconds count down and submitted my bid 3 seconds before closing and won at $222.50, not bad. So I decided to use the 1,000w lights for the existing table and the new 700w for the new grow area. December 22nd, 2018
December 23rd, 2018
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