Homemade cfl fixture

I made this the other day and plan to use it in my 2x4 cabinet over 2 plants or so. It's pulling 276 actual watts and I believe 19200 lumens. I'll also have a couple of 2 foot grow lights on the sides. Let me know what you think or if you have any suggestions. Right now it's holding 6500k bulbs but obviously switchable to 2700k.

Pics?

I rigged up a bunch of old bathroom light fixtures, the shiny ones with 4 or 5 sockets each. I mounted several to wood strips so they look like railroad ties.

Worked pretty good, too

my apologies, it took me a minute to figure out how to upload from my phone, and i still think i doubled one up lol.

Cool reflector. My guess is that you will get much higher reflectivity by painting it with a "flat bright white" OR lining it with mylar.

include 25% min. warm white bulbs in the 2700k range, for correctly spaced internodes, ...to my blog for my cfl collection ...

https://www.rollitup.org/Journal/Entry/a-collection-of-diy-ghetto-blasters.30154/

https://www.rollitup.org/Journal/Entry/vostok-builds-a-ghetto-blaster.30155/

vostok said:

include 25% min. warm white bulbs in the 2700k range, for correctly spaced internodes, ...to my blog for my cfl collection ...

https://www.rollitup.org/Journal/Entry/a-collection-of-diy-ghetto-blasters.30154/

https://www.rollitup.org/Journal/Entry/vostok-builds-a-ghetto-blaster.30155/

Click to expand...

Ok so you're saying do more of a full/mixed spectrum for both the veg and flower stages just switch bulb is predominant depending on the stage of growth? And idk if I'd get more reflectivity painting it white it's already an aluminum vent piece which seemed pretty reflective to me, I could be wrong but that would surprise me.

Yeah, bright white reflectors surprised me too. The best commonly available reflector is highly polished aluminum with no clear coat. Simply putting clear coat to prevent corrosion, makes the reflectivity equal to bright white with a flat finish. I suspect that Mylar film is similar in reflectivity to highly polished aluminum, but have not seen research to back that up.

In a few months, I will have a spectrometer... so I will be able to do my own testing.

As a new-ish member of RIU, you are in for many surprises...!
I'd be doing 75% cool white(6500k) then once you hit bud/flower swap them bulbs for a domination red hue at 75% warm white, and as for ventilation versus reflectivity ...favor ventilation first then work the reflected light, and yeah flat white rules over that other shit,...I had a wiki chart sumplace let me look


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_reflectance_value

Buttknuckle said:

View attachment 3479046 View attachment 3479046 View attachment 3479050 View attachment 3479048 my apologies, it took me a minute to figure out how to upload from my phone, and i still think i doubled one up lol.

Click to expand...

is that reflector a piece of aluminum duct? good idea,, definatly mix up the k value of bulbs,,mixed spectrum always better..

I built mine from a 10" Ducting :
The inner reflective surface is acceptable as is. I agree a mixed spectrum
of ( Daylight 5000k/6400k ) and ( 2700k Warm Light ).

Love this design! Mine used twice as many lamps and didn't project the light half as well as these do!

Hey can I just throw a bunch of 150w cfls in a 3 1/2 x 3 foot mother box? Or do I need different cfls? Also how many you think will be good for a couple moms?