Home Depot Fluorowing vs. Hydrofarm Fluorowing

So I have had a couple of Hydrofarm Fluorowings and I really like them for a simple CFL. I decided since it was such a simple design I would make a similar one myself. Everything on my homemade Fluorowing was purchased from Home Depot.

List of materials:

12 x 12 .22 gauge steel plate - $7.00
Flat White Rust-Oleum - $3.20
Gloss White Rust-Oleum - $3.20
6' Power Strip - $4.00
Zip Ties - I had these but they are like $2.00
S-Hooks - $1.50
Three Plug-in Sockets - $1.15 ea.
Three Socket Splitters - $2.15 ea.
Total for the Flourowing - $30.80 + $6.00 for bulbs

I think the last time I bought a Hydrofarm Fluorowing it was $48.00 or so from Amazon. The stickers were all free from Acme Hydro.

The Hydrofarm is 10" W x 18 1/4" L - 125w and 7,000 Lumens
The HD is 10 1/2 W x 12" L - 138w and 9,600 Lumens


I just drilled a total of 6 holes in the plate to mount the socket strip to. I painted the underside flat white and the top gloss white. I used white electrical tape to cover up the open plugs. The Zip ties are away from any electrical part so will avoid any sort of melting and the sockets are held into the plugs VERY tight. When it was all done I applied some stickers because life is way more fun with stickers. So the home made unit is more compact and has more watts. I thought that was a nice bonus.

Here are some pics...

HD Top:


Hydrofarm Top:


HD Bottom:


Hydrofarm Bottom:


Close up of the HD construction:

CFL growing is inexpensive and now you're trying to make it cheaper? What the what?

Good job!

Why must the top of the reflector be gloss white and the bottom be flat white? If they were both the same color you'd save $3.20.

I get my power strips from Goodwill @ $2 each, saving another 2 bucks.

Hydrofarm reflector has more stickers, so deduct 18 points.

Thanks for the kind words, StellerKeller. It was a fun project and is a great little compact CFL fixture. I had to paint the top...because I just had to, it looks better.