HydroLynx
Well-Known Member
So I commited a cardinal sin of horticultural lighting: I incorporated 100W tugsten filament lightbulbs into my led fixture. The lighting efficiency enthusiasts reading this must think this idea is total bonkers. I will argue why this is a good idea for my situation.
It's winter here and I grow in a cold garage, we don't have central heating as it doesn't get that cold in my country but still it's too cold to grow cannabis under led lighting. HPS was fine, in-fact it put my air temps to good levels in winter (summer was too hot for HPS). When first I got led lights (Samsung strips, cool white) my temps were too cold for healthy growth, yields were terrible and quality sucked.
Sure I can use an oil-filled radiator heater, but those use ~1kW of expensive power to heat the whole uninsulated bricked garage, so it's really inefficient and so wasteful to heat just a tent in the garage that way. Also these heaters are huge and take up precious growspace if placed inside the tent. These 2 tugsten bulbs cost me 200W of power to heat my 2x4ft space, and are tiny devices. Heating the canopy by "shining" heat onto the plants directly is more efficient than heating up the air first, which inevitably gets sucked out extraction, and so there goes your precious 1KW of power into the outside air.
So I thought that maybe I can "shine" the heat directly onto my canopy much like HPS does, but be able to turn that heat source off in summer when it's not required. In summer the air is warm enough to grow healthy cannabis under efficient and so cooler running led lighting. My airtemps are only 18C under the LED running alone in winter. Cannabis will not grow well at those temps, I've tried, it simply doesn't work.
Enter the tugsten filament light bulb from the 90's. These bastards are better heaters then lighters so to speak. They shine enough heat down onto the plants, no where near an HPS, but enough to bring my temps into spec. Esp for veg stage where temps need to be 29C (85F) according to Bruce Bugbee. I plan on using these bulbs well into flower and will maybe dim down or switch off during the final stage of flowering.
Some might argue these bulbs can emit unwanted IR spectral light which may negatively affect morphology and other things. I have used these bulbs before in veg stage and I saw no negative issues like elongated stems. Guess without a side-by-side trial I can't say how it affects plants. But a lot of us grew for years under HOT HPS bulbs and stem elongation was managable if an issue at all.
I only real issue is that these bulbs die after ~3weeks of use lol. Ya. Oh and good luck sourcing these dinosaurs. Even CFL's are hard to find these days.
![20250731_120439[1].jpg](https://www.rollitup.org/data/attachments/4577/4577393-8fd8b52a65a3d21e50c7322a5feb1999.jpg?hash=PsvS39O6ov "20250731_120439[1].jpg")
It's winter here and I grow in a cold garage, we don't have central heating as it doesn't get that cold in my country but still it's too cold to grow cannabis under led lighting. HPS was fine, in-fact it put my air temps to good levels in winter (summer was too hot for HPS). When first I got led lights (Samsung strips, cool white) my temps were too cold for healthy growth, yields were terrible and quality sucked.
Sure I can use an oil-filled radiator heater, but those use ~1kW of expensive power to heat the whole uninsulated bricked garage, so it's really inefficient and so wasteful to heat just a tent in the garage that way. Also these heaters are huge and take up precious growspace if placed inside the tent. These 2 tugsten bulbs cost me 200W of power to heat my 2x4ft space, and are tiny devices. Heating the canopy by "shining" heat onto the plants directly is more efficient than heating up the air first, which inevitably gets sucked out extraction, and so there goes your precious 1KW of power into the outside air.
So I thought that maybe I can "shine" the heat directly onto my canopy much like HPS does, but be able to turn that heat source off in summer when it's not required. In summer the air is warm enough to grow healthy cannabis under efficient and so cooler running led lighting. My airtemps are only 18C under the LED running alone in winter. Cannabis will not grow well at those temps, I've tried, it simply doesn't work.
Enter the tugsten filament light bulb from the 90's. These bastards are better heaters then lighters so to speak. They shine enough heat down onto the plants, no where near an HPS, but enough to bring my temps into spec. Esp for veg stage where temps need to be 29C (85F) according to Bruce Bugbee. I plan on using these bulbs well into flower and will maybe dim down or switch off during the final stage of flowering.
Some might argue these bulbs can emit unwanted IR spectral light which may negatively affect morphology and other things. I have used these bulbs before in veg stage and I saw no negative issues like elongated stems. Guess without a side-by-side trial I can't say how it affects plants. But a lot of us grew for years under HOT HPS bulbs and stem elongation was managable if an issue at all.
I only real issue is that these bulbs die after ~3weeks of use lol. Ya. Oh and good luck sourcing these dinosaurs. Even CFL's are hard to find these days.
