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10 Overdriven Flouros. Tell me what you think

F

FGandalf

Member
I took a bunch of cheap hd lights apart and then used (5) 4 bulb ballasts i connected the reflectors together at 3 points with small rivets And then used L angle hanging steel(for garage doors) to strengthen the frame and then wired up the bulbs to overdrive them and then hooked up the ballasts and mounted them on a scrap cover from one of the used HD lights. Thats it. From what i have read depending on the ballasts and the bulbs the overdriving can get you between 1.7 and 1.8 times the output. So for 10 bulbs that equals 17 or 18 bulbs. At an average of 2800-3100 lumesn that comes to 47,600 to 55,800, and i can get the plants much closer then with a hps or mh and i can adjust the bulbs color/temp. I might be adding another two sets to the side walls and maybe a set of shorter 2' bulbs across the back of the space. So any comments or questions?




 
ChaoticEntity

ChaoticEntity

Active member
it's a solid thumbs up man, I've used VHO floros for my mothers/clones for some time now and it's a winner.

I will say that equivelent wattage MH beats it hands down for veg for anything over 250watts, just a matter of penetration, anything under 250w seems to lean towards overdriven floros but that's just from my experience your results may vary.

With that said for some people it's just easier to use floros, and if your scrogging and aiming for colas that are 6-10in then floros will work great as they don't need to penetrate further than 10 inch or so, and have great heat characteristics.

a solid setup man, please keep a log and let us know how some grows turn out in it, I'd love to see what you can get out of it!
 
F

FGandalf

Member
i hope i works out ok

i hope i works out ok

CE your right the wattage is high but my on the positive my output compared to the heat and the placement of the plants to the bulbs its sort of a perfect match. I get the same coverage as a 400hps(closer to 500hps so thats 2X250hps) or a 600mh and i get a bit more output i just pay a little more to run 400-500 more watts, but i don't need the same number of fans to keep it cool or have to cool my light to keep the temps down. I'll deffinitely keep you posted. I'm hoping some others show there florescent setups. I was thinking of mounthing a bunch of cfl's every few feet between rows of plants and then more 4' bulbs around the sides and just let the plants do what they do. IS i will keep posting as i get the plants in and take pictures every few days maybe set up a slide show at the end see how they grow. :)
I'm hoping that on a small personal grow i can pull enough buds for me and a few friends to keep nice and toasty without having to buy from others. My goal is to be able to use it in a sog setup. (I gota do some more reading to get the best use of my space and best size containers and the such.) Lots of small plants a few different types and just keep adding new ones as the older ones get harvested untill i get a bit of plant in jars. and i can maybe try a few mixes and see what i get. I'm thinking i will grow each plant in a gallon to 2 gallons of soil and just try and keep the tops within 3-6 inches from the bulbs i think i should yield some good buds keeping the stretch between nodes down some and with some proper pruning of the lower budsites to focus the growth up top it should keep a decent yet constant yield i guess i will be building some platforms to keep all the differen plants the same distance from the lights. :chin: :chin: :woohoo:
 
ChaoticEntity

ChaoticEntity

Active member
I would suggest making soil beds, and make it so that theres 2-3 of them in the room, basically every square inch of floor space is soil. if you have mutiple beds then you can adjust feeding/height to the plants requirments. Nothing left but to screen it over or flower the small clones for a true sog. either way floros will be beautiful for a sog/scrog and with a good soil mix I have no doubt that you'd yeild in the same range as HPS.

a side note. in my floro array I also have mylar glued to the backing just above the bulbs, I find it does help and it did increase my lumens, worth a try considering how little is needed.
 
F

FGandalf

Member
what kinda glue

what kinda glue

did you use to attach the mylar? Also how does it hold up against the heat?

thanks
adam
 
F

FGandalf

Member
yep

yep

those plants are some bag seed mothers and a papy. I Just have them in there vegging for the time while I wait for the real deal to start. But i will be putting the clones closer to the lights close to 3inches and see how they go, closer if it doesn't stress them. I will try and scrog a plant or 2 and also SOG the remaining space. I'll be starting soon just waiting on the clones to root and then sex them. I have 5 different strains that i started about a month ago. :woohoo: so we shall see how it goes. i'll post a pick when i fill the room up.

Fernando.
 
G

Guest

Nice setup...... I have done some amazing things with floro

Nice setup...... I have done some amazing things with floro

Looks like you are heading in the right direction. Follow through with the ideas of lighting the back and running some inbetween . I will have to sit back and watch the show. Floros are nice due to the low heat and easily available. I bet you'll get some nice buds out of that.

Peace
 
M

Murphle

Member
Veteran
Did I miss the part where you tell us if you have to replace bulbs sooner? Also how safe is overclocking bulbs? It looks like a kick ass idea!!
 
G

Guest

Sounds like you got it goin for you. how much does each one of those bulbs cost? depending on the cost it might outset your lower electricity bill. just a thought. :chin: cant wait to see how much bud you get. Good luck
Agro
 
F

FGandalf

Member
just regular bulbs

just regular bulbs

It's the $1.97 ge or sylvania bulbs from the HD. There is no electricity savings really. I mean maybe less fans or a/c units needed to keep it cool? But the light output from this setup is probably close to a 550-600 watt hps but my flouros draw 1000+ watts. From wha i have read a 600 watt hps can cover a 3'X3' area so 9 sqft and my space is 2.5'X4' or 10 sqft. But since i can get the plants closer to the bulbs they should have good penitration because of that and alow me to fill a 10sqft area. So i guess we shall see if i'm even close to right on anything at all. :chin:
It does wear them out sooner but not so much that it becomes a cost issue. I'm not sure off hand but in the overdriving flouros faq that i had read, it said that since each side of the ballast(if its a two bulb ballast)was sharing the load created by one tube instead of each powering a single tube on it's own it used less power and the stress on the ballast was reduced by sharing the load and another benifit is that the ballast also runs cooler. So in short safe to do yes will it shorten the bulbs life yes, will the bulbs run hotter yes will the ballast run cooler and use less electricity yes. My hope is that with a full foot print of that closet filled with plants that if kept them close to the lights the buds will be tight and compact.
 
F

FGandalf

Member
it's been some time

it's been some time

but here are some pictures of the plants starting to flower they are about 7-10 days into the 12/12 cycle and seem to be doing fine. This is a test run for the lights and also for the plants that have shown to be females. I had started with 3 bluberrys from Dr. Atomic all are female looks like 3 different phenos and one was a bit of a mutant and one has a main stalk with 3 budsites for every node so thats kinda nice. 5 NYCDiesel cross with Cotton Candy 3 died after germinating because they gott to cold, my bad. The other 2 are doing great both females one is tall and bushy and the other is compact and bushy so 2 different ones to try out. 5 powerplant, 3 turned male the other 2 one is female and the remaining one i'm thinking is female but haven't seen the "hairs" yet. And lastly was 4 master kush and 2 died with the 3 nycdXcc cold spell and the other 2 1 is a female the other is a male which is too bad be cause the female had skinny skinny leaves but was tight the male had larger leaves and was a bit more spaced out would have been nice to hae 2 girls but 1 is better then none. So at present i have 3 blues 2 nycdcc 1 powerplant and 1 powerplant yet to be determined and 1 Master Kush. Now for a few pictures the rest are in the gallery. I'm hoping to be able to post a bunch of pictures sorta as a timeline so we can see how the plants flower under the flouros. Let me know what ya think.













 
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G

Guest

FGand.....

FGand.....

Looking good so far. Node spacing is a bit wide but expected with floros. The difference with the HPS is the amount of energy with the penetration but some of that can be made up for by running some floros on the bottom. What is the Kalvin temps of the bulbs you are using?

Peace
 
F

FGandalf

Member
Bree it is a combination

Bree it is a combination

i have a mix of cool white soft white and daylight. It's a mix of (4) 2700k (4)4500k and (2) 6700k lights Seems to be good so far, but i want to take some pictures later to show how the buds look now.
 
G

Guest

Gandalf.....

Gandalf.....

Seems like a good mix of lights. Covering all the spectrums. Can't wait to see the bud pics.

Peace
 
Farmer Joe

Farmer Joe

Member
FGandalf said:
i have a mix of cool white soft white and daylight. It's a mix of (4) 2700k (4)4500k and (2) 6700k lights Seems to be good so far, but i want to take some pictures later to show how the buds look now.
Click to expand...

Based on this chart, you might want to switch out the 4500k bulbs with something else when they burn out. :confused:

 
F

FGandalf

Member
yep youir correct.

yep youir correct.

I was mistaken I only have (2) 4500k not 4 like i said i did.

There are more pics in my gallery.

Anyway here are some pics of the buds. I started 12/12 on jan 5th 2007. So it is about a month into flowering and about 2 and 1/2 to 3 weeks since the first buds started growing so i think another 5 weeks maybe 6 till harvest. The pics were taken jan 27th 2007
























 
G

Guest

First Gandolf those buds look excellent under any type of light....

First Gandolf those buds look excellent under any type of light....

They are definitely some nice buds. The floros are doing their job.

Second, Farmer Joe--- Need to correct a little on the light graph you presented. It is a very nice graph and informative. The only problem is that the floros at 4500K are in a peak chlorophyll stimulating area. I will post a graph comparing the degrees Kalvin to the measurement of light in wave lengths in nanometers. This will be needed to read the next graph I will post that is the most comprehensive graph I have found to show light wave length actions on both chlorophyll A and B as well as some other useful information. MH and HPS lamps were not built to grow plants and besides light in the human eye sensitivity spectrum make better heaters than replacements for the sun. For now this is the best we have to go with until the LED lights become tangible. Am not being contrary or want to argue. The data speaks for itself and the 4500K floros perform a definite service. Please enlarge the graphs up to 100% or better in paint to read them clearly.

Gandolf please look at the graph very carefully. It will help you tune in your types and amount of floros. Obviously, you are doing quite well as they are bro.

Peace


 
G

Guest

The 4500K corresponds to about 665nm or almost at the peak of Chlorophyll A's red absorption peak.

Peace
 
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