cool cfl homemade relector

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Cost me 9 bucks to make it and its extremly effective it almost doubled the lumens my plants are getting with the same bulbs didnt have to buy one single extra bulb to almost double my lumen out. All you gotta do is buy a piece of aluminym pipe ducting 4$ in my case, 2 2 foot threaded rods 75 cents a piece, 8 bolts 3 cents a piece, its more if you have to buy new lighting fixtures i only spent 4 bucks and got two just so it would be new with the reflector i had hemp rope already to hang it with cut the holes put the bars and the lights in hang it plug your lights in viola cheap lumens. Im running 7 cfls total under there two 45 watt 2700 k cfls and 5 5700 k 23 watts im pushing 8-9 k lumens at the top of the canopy and thats 4-5 inches away. Altogether im not even 60-70 bucks into the lighting situation. I forgot to mention the round reflector on the side that also goave me a signifigant lighting boost.

Thats whats up bro. Wish I could put something like this in my grow box

thats some ingenuity right there

Good idea. Wasn't sure what it was made of until the last pix.
I may try one myself but try to put a bend in it with no rods.

Thats Nifty But I would wait to use it until flowering, looks like your girls are stretching a bit. Good work all in all though. +2 cool points

That looks cool, I need to figure out a reflector for my vanity strip so this well help. Yours girls need something though, they are some droopy. That usually just means they need a drink. Also that space your growing in is awesome. You could start a big growop in there!

AthlonJedi said:

looks like your girls are stretching a bit. Good work all in all though.

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I would agree they do look like they are stretching but its not like he has limited height to work with. The mans got enough space in that room to grow a 6 foot plant haha.

Yea but stretch under CFLs isn't nessasarly a good thing .

I think ive been over watering to be honest im gonna start waiting longer between waterings and stop ferts for a week

And yeah i had a problem with strecth with a couple when they were seedlings but ive been reversing that things are coming along nicely in there

Looks like you need some fans. Whats the temp average?

How old are your plants?

Nutes and Nugs said:

Good idea. Wasn't sure what it was made of until the last pix.
I may try one myself but try to put a bend in it with no rods.

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yeah it would work without rods and the rods make it easily adjustable so if your growing less or more plants you can reflect your light more narrowly or widely. you can find a couple videos how to make one on youtube but im happy with the results other than its harder to get to my plants now until they get taller

Closet Stalker said:

Looks like you need some fans. Whats the temp average?

How old are your plants?

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I have a boxfan fan running i move it every couple hours to get air in different directions dont know if that makes much of a difference. I usually run 80-85 in the cooler part of the day and when its gets warmer i just dont cut the air on because it sucks all the humidity out and im averaging 85-90 in the hotter part at about 50 percent humidity im trying to keep humidity on the higher side right now because i had a minor spider mite problem im keeping there population super low but i cant seem to get every single last one so whenever i see a mite i neem my plants wipe em down and all that good stuff and i wont see any for a week or two and repeat. as for nightime temps its usually 68-70 i do keep the air on at night but it doesnt seem to affect my humidity as bad i think the lights burn off a decent amount of the humidity as well so im gonna keep on how im growing and see what comes im gonna start flower in a week or two excited to see this stretch ive been reading about and actually see some buds.

I built a hood like that but with 3 outlets in it....thing is with taht many cfls you need a fan or 2

I am running two hoods, each hood running 4>40 watt cfls. I had a hell of a time with heat, running about 82 degrees. Too hot for my young plants.

Get a couple of small fans and place them on the floor. Aim them up at each end of the hood. Blowing air away from the hood, not into it. This will draw cooler air up into the hood as the hot air escapes from the very top of each end. You should be able to drop temps 3-5 degrees.

That was the only way I could get my temps down.... while maintaining a proper light level.

trivman10 said:

yeah it would work without rods and the rods make it easily adjustable so if your growing less or more plants you can reflect your light more narrowly or widely. you can find a couple videos how to make one on youtube but im happy with the results other than its harder to get to my plants now until they get taller

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The rods are nice to hang the whole works and keep the hood bent. My set up is a 6 fixture bathroom light. I put Y connectors in the middle 4 sockets and larger daylight bulbs on the ends. My walls are white and the ceiling done in bits of mylar but would still like to build a hood over this beast.

Nutes and Nugs said:

The rods are nice to hang the whole works and keep the hood bent. My set up is a 6 fixture bathroom light. I put Y connectors in the middle 4 sockets and larger daylight bulbs on the ends. My walls are white and the ceiling done in bits of mylar but would still like to build a hood over this beast.View attachment 2669666

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that would look damn nice with a similar hood as mine built over it.

Nice setup, but... (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think that lumens are additive. IOW, you can't add the individual lumens per bulb and get a new "total" output. If you're running 6 bulbs at say 1180 lumens each, that doesn't mean that you're delivering a total of (6x1180) 7080 lumens to your plants. You're still just lighting your plants with 1180 lumens. Please please someone correct me if I'm wrong (but I think this is correct).

EZmooover said:

Nice setup, but... (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think that lumens are additive. IOW, you can't add the individual lumens per bulb and get a new "total" output. If you're running 6 bulbs at say 1180 lumens each, that doesn't mean that you're delivering a total of (6x1180) 7080 lumens to your plants. You're still just lighting your plants with 1180 lumens. Please please someone correct me if I'm wrong (but I think this is correct).

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Your absolutely right to a point, imo when you have several lights under a reflector you lose light intensity at a slighty decreased rate especially if you have several lights close to each other. In my case i have 7 cfls running 2 46 watt 2700 k cfls and 5 23 5700 k cfls i pick up easily 100k lux in the brightest parts of my hood when i point the lux meter at the hood facing away from the lights i get an easy 10-20k lux thats not even pointing at the lights , when i measure the lux under the canopy im still between 8 - 12k lux so imo i have enough light penetration at this point but well see what happens when they get bigger. From what i understand you have simply add more cfls on the sides and lower on the plant to imitate the light penetration the sun would.

first of all nice reflector, when i first saw ur plants i thought that guy in a past had weaker lights and is overwatering, later while reading you confirmed it, feels good when you start recognising problems at a glance
about lights. due to light interference(from physics) they do sum up, just not all of the surface of a lamp is pointing to one direction, and reflectors does not reflect it 100%, so there you got your leak. also google light pyramid, you will see why meter shows different results, cause light intensity falls drastically depending on distance. good luck with your grow man! cheers