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My DIY lights

Discussion in 'Growing Areas' started by orchid boy 01, Dec 2, 2015.

  1. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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    I have added one more LED strip to my rig. So there is one white strip and one red and blue spectrum strip and space for one more. I have made a bamboo bracket to hold my split pieces of bamboo(with LED strips in). Hope they like it :) ImageUploadedByOrchidsForum.com1449076961.742391.jpg ImageUploadedByOrchidsForum.com1449076976.937284.jpg ImageUploadedByOrchidsForum.com1449076989.313057.jpg ImageUploadedByOrchidsForum.com1449077002.164004.jpg
     
  2. MICKEY

    MICKEY Member

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    cool white or warm white
     
  3. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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    Warm:)
     
  4. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    hi, Dave here,..... light is the one issue that I'm having problems with. In my little greenhouse I have 1- 2 x fluorescent grow light fixture and the rest comes from a west facing window. I can identify with the girl who lives in New Mexico. Essentially we live in hell. Seasonally, too hot with no humidity. It is considered the beginning of winter and the afternoon Sun still burns even though it only lasts for a couple of hours. Fortunately my girls and I have been together for a while and winter brings a welcome and necessary change. Currently, 8 of them are going to spike and I am showing 13 spikes. For those of you who are working with LED lighting, could you please chime in and make a few suggestions? I would appreciate the input. Thanks
     
  5. KellyW

    KellyW Orchid wonk Staff Member Supporting Member

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    Dave, I'm sure some will chime in on the LED lights issue. In the interim, there are dozens of posts discussing LED lights. A search should bring up a bunch. Good luck.
     
  6. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    Any personal ideas about illumination for a 4 foot by 5 foot by 5 foot grow area?
     
  7. KellyW

    KellyW Orchid wonk Staff Member Supporting Member

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    I don't use lights. However, I suggest you start your own post to ask this question. You will get lots of help.
     
  8. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    Thank you
     
  9. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    What am i doing wrong here? I respond to my DIY lights and I get a response I don't use lights can somebody please tell me what I'm doing wrong
     
  10. KellyW

    KellyW Orchid wonk Staff Member Supporting Member

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    I'm not sure what you mean. I don't grow under lights but this is not my thread. I was just trying to help you get some answers. You are doing fine here. Don't give up.
     
  11. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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    sorry not to reply but was asleep then as it was 2am here in UK :). I would just buy some led strip lights as they come in 5m reels and I bought some red and blue plant spectrum was £20 for 5m. And you can stick it to any thing but you may need to use hot-glue as some times the sticky tape is not sticky enough, but it is so versatile. And my cattleya has growled a new growth so quickly being under the LEDs. So have fun with them (if you go with them:) ).
     
    blestbeing likes this.
  12. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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    Sorry ...that was "grown" not "growled "!! Predictive text not always good!
     
  13. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    Thank you for your response orchid boy. That showed me another avenue to go down. I noticed in the photograph on your post that it looks like there are three different colored LED lights in the same strip. Am I seeing things right? If so I haven't been able to find anything like that here in the States. Another thing is that anything associated with grow- lights is affiliated with the propagation of marijuana, which has dominated the industry lately, and the prices increase exponentially. I have found a 12 foot strip of warm white light LEDs for $70. That seems a bit much seeing as how my grow area is approximately 5 feet wide 4 feet deep and four and a half feet tall. That would only span two rows. Questions; 1) how many rows and watts would be considered a sufficient supplemental amount of light, 2)- do these light strips come plug and play 3)-any other creative, more economical alternatives? Thank you, Dave, "blestbeing"
     
  14. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    Hi, Dave here again. I was wondering how many lumens per foot are those lights rated at? Are they plug and play?
     
  15. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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  16. orchid boy 01

    orchid boy 01 New Member

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    And there are not plug and play, so you have to do some soldering or twist them together and hot glue them. But you can get a plug and play kit thing.
     
  17. MICKEY

    MICKEY Member

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    you can get the strips from china on ebay much cheaper and use a 12 volt transformer as a driver
     
  18. naoki

    naoki Well-Known Member

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    Dave, lumen/W isn't so relevant for red+blue light.

    Frequently, you don't get enough information with this type of LED Tape. I think SMD 2836 based LED is the newer version with a bit higher efficiency than 5050. In this wikipedia page, they list the lm/W (for white LEDs). But actually this is a small part of the story. The design influences the efficacy a lot. For example, some T8 LED bulbs using 2836 can achieve close to 150lm/W. They achieve this, by driving the LED softly (each LED gets small amount of current) and use lots of LEDs. Obviously, this is costly to manufacture. Many of the cut-to-size LED strips have much much lower efficacy (due to the price constraints). There are several reasons why these cut-to-size LEDs have low system-wide efficiency. The white cut-to-size strips have efficacy similar to or lower than T8 or T5HO in general. But orchid boy's is red+blue, so it may be a bit better than fluorescent bulbs.

    Just to clarify, I'm not saying that you can't grow plants with these. If you put enough of these, you can grow even high light orchids. It looks pretty interesting with the bamboo cover!
     
  19. blestbeing

    blestbeing Member

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    Thank you everybody for all your help and knowledge about the lights. Mickey, that's a great suggestion about China and eBay. As it so happens I happen to have three 12-volt transformers all at different amperage ratings. I am sure one will work out. As for the soldering and twisting I bought myself a little soldering gun at Home Depot. I use it for low voltage small wiring. I have already used it in the wiring for my controls and it works great. Thank you everybody
     
  20. MICKEY

    MICKEY Member

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    you might want to try higher power cfl for a small area