Building a Floro Tube Setup - DIY

[bounty29]

Sour Diesel IBL, 58 days of veg (They should be bigger, the PH was off and they weren't fed for the first 3 weeks so they're a bit stunted)

This is using the exact rack I showed in the original posts. I was going to add one more ballast (about 50 more watts) but I never got around to it. So these plants were done in about 100w of floro tubes, which is about 7038 lumens. (A 150w HPS is about 15,800, twice as much.) I could fit 8 tubes (4 ballasts) on this same piece of wood, and I'm sure the results would be great. I'm building a new cabinet very soon, and I think I'll be doing this same thing, but with the tubes mounted to the ceiling of the veg chamber.

If you want to see some more pics of my plants, check out my second grow thread in my sig. It says 150w HPS, but that's just for flowering, and I still haven't gotten there. So far the whole time has been under these overdriven floros, and I like the results.

 

[pontiac]

Simply awesome bro! I'll be refering to this guide very soon. Thanks!

 

[BudgetBud]

Question

Question

Is it possible to use halogen ballists?

 

[CelticGrower]

Great Info

Great Info

some great info there on floros and now that im only starting the whole process
i need all the info i can get.

Keep up the good work......

 

[Guest]

I built one of these using a galvonized street construction sign as the base. It measured the exact L and W of my space. 24" Long for 24" bulbs. I used a mix of 2OD bulbs and 4 standard. I spent 80 bucks on the whole thing because I wanted to get some high end full spectrum tubes. So I run 2 full spectrum lights with some uv in them, rated @5500k and 4 regular soft tubes @ 3000k. Works well. I OD the cheap bulbs ofcourse, the 5500ks run 18usd each.

 

[bounty29]

BudgetBud - Why on earth would you want halogen? They're like fires waiting to happen, and I don't know how well you'd be able to grow with them. If you're asking if you can use halogen ballasts with floro tubes - I have no idea, but I highly doubt it would work. If you try it, don't electrocute yourself.

 

[Guest]

Similar to what I've done for my veg box.

1 rubbermaid
1 can of white spray paint
1 magnetic ballast (nobody had electronic ballasts in stock though they had the full fixtures! fuckers)
sockets & bulbs

Spray paint bottom of rubbermaid lid, then a drill and tiny nuts&bolts, mount sockets directly onto the bottom. Drill holes just behind the sockets (less light) and put wires through to connect to sockets.

Mount the ballast on the top of the lid by drilling two holes along the sturdiest edge and suspending it midair with nuts and long bolts.

I've made a couple improvements for lateral light and ventillation, but it worked great... except for the paint. Maybe if I get my hands on a digicam I will copy/delete this post and make a thread .

 

[BudgetBud]

haha sorry, yeah i meant using a halogen ballast with fluoro's,
So can it be done?
Great info, got 2 8 foot fixtures of the side of the road, good condition too, so i'll have a go at overdriving them.
I accendently pulled out the plug to a halogen globe in my roof, burnt the shiat out of my fingers trying to put it back in.

 

[2ezy]

"I used a four bulb ballast, and wired it to use two bulbs, a method known as overdriving."

Sorry I'm new to flouros, what is the point of this? I looked at the links provided but they still didn't give a clear answer. Or i'm too stoned right now.

 

[bounty29]

With electronic ballasts, you can "overclock" the bulbs, but it's called overdriving. Normally there are four bulbs, each giving in my case, 15w each. You can use it like that, using four bulbs and giving you a total of 60w, or you can overdrive two bulbs, which runs them at about 1.7-1.8x wattage.

This way, you use half the space, but get almost the same amount of wattage. I'm only using four bulbs, and getting a total of around 100w, I'd need to use 6 or 7 bulbs to get that w/o overdriving. It saves on space, and you can fit more light into an area using this technique.

 

[2ezy]

Thanx mate. All clear now!

 

[Guest]

thanx man

 

[goldfronts]

how much cooler are fluoros than hids?

Do 250w of fluorescents put off as nuch heat as a 250w of hid?

 

[Guest]

hey bounty awesome diy..off topic question may bee you can help...i just changed to 4 ft fluoro tubes for my veg cab... 4 of them in a 2x4x4 cab..i had to put the lights in the very top..they are 2 ft away from the tops of my plants..do i need to raise my plants or are they cool..the lights are 40 watts cool white 4 ft...thanks for any advice as i have no experience with tubes

 

[bounty29]

Your plants will grow 2ft away from the bulbs, but I think you'd see a much better growth rate and less stretch if you had them a few inches from the bulb, not feet.

 

[admiralcornport]

Awesome!!!! where did you get those ballasts? I don't remember seeing the site name, could have been removed... PM me if you want with deets, THANKS A MIL

 

[dope_roor]

you can find those ballasts online and on ebay

if you're not interested in overdriving, gutting the $8 shoplight from homedepot is the cheapest option since it comes with the fixtures and ballast and wires already. just need to buy the tubes.

 

[chosen]

It's always a weird kind of question. Watts are watts, but they are spread out over a larger area. You can usually cool a fluoro setup with a simple fan. The other thing about fluoros is that the light is already spread out for you. It means that you get a more even growth with tubes in most cases. Yet, you don't get the penetration of and HID or the overall lumen output. Yet, if you keep the plants small, it can compensate. Here is an old pic from OG that I had saved a while back. This is a fluoro setup by the Dubphiend. This guy is a Stud...










A few more pics than I intended but I'm sure that you get the point about fluoros being very effective when used properly.

 

[bounty29]

Thanks for posting those pictures, really shows what you can do with floros. If I had a space that was more suitable for tubes I would definitely use them. I just run a small cabinet, and even 2' tubes would barely fit in there. I might have to make an 18" veg board though, maybe I'll make some plans for that and see if it'd be any good.

Dope_roor - That's right, I forgot to mention that. There is an $8 4ft tube reflector and lights (2) @ Home Depot. I bought one of those to use the ballast, but it wasn't overdrivable. It was alright though, because I just kept the four tube sockets, because that's how much it would cost to buy the sockets alone. I might still have that ballast layin around here somewhere, maybe I'll use it for my veggie and herb shelf that I'm planning for my kitchen.

 

[Guest]

Nice DIY Bounty.

This is my cloning and veg cabinet using the HD shoplights. I use 5 lights total. I put 3 of the lights on the wall to give the lower branches light to help them beef up. I can grow 10 -12 plants 2 foot tall in there and then transfer them to my flower room without wasting electricity on vegging them with the HPS.

Nice work
GCG