Building a Floro Tube Setup - DIY

[Bud Hi]

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.

I use 20,, T-12 no heat issues and let the plants grow up threw the tubes.

 

[Guest]

I have a rapid start balast, it seems to need to be grounded, any clue on how i would go about that if I run it vertically trying to get light from 2 sides of it (the oppisite) It needs to have some metal running near it right? sorry if this post is to old to ask in, but I cant pm yet.

 

[clowntown]

How about covering one side of the wood with a layer of Mylar (attached with maybe spray glue)?

 

[Guest]

maby my concept of grounding is wrong but wont that put the potential of running a current though it, doesnt mylar enjoy burning? if I ground to somthing metal do I run the risk of zapping myself? My current Idea is running a curtain rod between the two lamps and grounding to that (rubber tips)

 

[bounty29]

Yeah I didn't want to put mylar so close to the lights, as it is flammable. If anything I'd paint the board white, but any improvement to reflection is a plus, just be safe.

 

[clowntown]

I figured the low heat from fluorescent tubes would be safe.

 

[Guest]

I think we have a disconnect here. I'm not worried about the heat the bulbs are making I'm worryed about connecting a ground wire to something. I've only had a few electrical lessons and they where all practical so I'm not entirely sure what the ground actually does, besides you know preventing short circuts

 

[bounty29]

I can't give you advice on the grounding issue Charles, sorry.

clowntown - I think I might've mentioned it before, but my setup was overdriven, so they were putting out like twice the heat they normally would, so maybe it'd be ok if it were wired regularly. The bulbs were within a half inch of the board, and burned plants that touched it, so they did put off some heat.

 

[Guest]

oh well, thanks for the attempts. Guess I'm going to have to go ahead and learn something from a book. Or maby ill just go buy a non rapid start balast.

 

[Hawk]

Nice thread.

I'm new to the overdriving thing. Do I understand that with electronic flouro ballasts you can wire a two tube ballast through a single tube, nearly doubling that single tube's wattage? Can any flouro tube be overdriven? What happens to the tubes life expectancy?

thanks

 

[Hawk]

Also, what's the difference between a rapid start and instant start ballast? Are flouro tubes interchangeable between these ballast types?

 

[bounty29]

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=44898&page=1&pp=15

There's where I learned about overdriving floros, lots of info in that thread. They don't get 2x wattage, but closer to 1.75 I believe. Life expectancy of the tube does drop considerably, but the tubes I was using were less than $2 each so it wasn't a problem for me. Rapid and Instant Start ballasts use the same bulb, they just work a little differently and are wired different too.

 

[Hawk]

Thanks for the link and information. I'll check out that thread.

 

[calstar]

Nice tutorial. Easy to follow with lots of info. thanks