Can you grow with cold cathode computer lighting?

[apples]

I guess its not fair to compare my cfl plants to the ccfl 1 but they are far ahead of the ccfl.

Obviously I didnt plan very well and there just isnt enough light close to the plants. If I get a chance I'll try to make a rig to hold the lights in a circle around the plant.

Since my other 2 plants will prob give me at least a quarter(they are small) and I'm a 1 hitter, I don't mind waiting for the ccfl plant to finish. I picked up an 1/8 like 2+ months ago and still have some left.

Anyway, hope your temps come down scrubs! L()kin' good

 

[ScrubNinja]

Thanks for signing in bro If nothing else, you will at least be one of the first few people to smoke some ccfl budz!

-‿-

and that's what you'll look like afterwards, haha!

 

[ScrubNinja]

I left a drill case on the exhaust today (as one does) so the cab had no ventilation for hours. The temp was 100º. Son of a



I think the ccfl inverter in the fan controller was causing that weirdness. I stopped using it for that.

 

[ST8DunWSociety]

Sorry to hear about your temps man, and interesting issue with your inverter. With your fan controller unplugged how is it working? No problems hopefully. I'm not familiar with how CCFLs work so i don't want to give you any misguided suggestions. But i can give you a suggestion on where to get a 12DCV small blower type fan thats designed / engineered to move a lot of air, and also be able to run at different speeds! On top of that costed me 24 dollars. It came out of a 00 Nissan Xterra and it move alot of air with a PSU. Picture soon (once i finish getting the finishing touches up on my puter box)

 

[ScrubNinja]

Oh nice one dude. With the temp, it's not actually the fan that's the problem. I'm pretty sure it's just the foam over the intakes. It's higer density and I can just tell it's too restrictive so I guess today will be the day I fix that.

Everything is fine since I stopped using the fan controllers inbuilt ccfl inverter. They were the only ones flickering and I've read several people unhappy with this aspect of the controller. I could jiggle the wires where they plugged into the inverter and they'd cut right out, etc. I still use it to control the fan.

 

[apples]

well a sad sad day for apples.....

I didn't check my ccfl box during the weekend but today when I opened it my girl was lookin like doo-doo. Most of the leaves were dry and would crumble in my hand. She had water, temp was 78º...She didn't have much of a rootball and perhaps I damaged the roots when adjusting her the other day as she was top heavy.

I cut her down and got about a gram of unfinished popcorn buds...lol. Guess I'm out of the race.

 

[ST8DunWSociety]

Sorry to hear man. But hey looks like it's still early in the game yet could always call mulligan and start over

 

[ScrubNinja]

Yeah bummer bro. I would hang em vertically through the plants if you ever redesign. I almost feel like stripping the pod and starting again but it's too much work!

I showed my bro the instructions to the timer and he agreed they don't make sense, so I have to contact someone and find out. He says it looks like it's voltage only, no amps allowed, or some shit, so I need a relay if that's the case. But hopefully the manufacturer explains so I don't need one. The instructions don't gel with what's actually on the unit itself, hence confusion.

The plant in the pod is rooted and I don't mean in the propagational sense, so I doubt it's gonna make it. The new seedlings are doing pretty decent so maybe I have to scale up the lights slowly. I'll try take a pic later.

Keep the faith ccfl fans...

 

[ScrubNinja]

Well I edged that foam off the intakes today and it was very much the problem. I now have ambient temps at stealth fan speed. No internal fan btw. The almost-charred first seedling is now recuperating in the blue zone but it's dead to me

So I took the middle performer of the newer seedlings (3rd from right) and plonked it down on the floor, trying to get it to stretch, or we could be here for aeons.

Look at the mess

 

[ScrubNinja]

Ahhhavalanche is planning on integrating 55w PLLs in cooltubes into their scrog screen.

The podling is doing good. Theres no internal circulation fan but it's still like there's a tornado in there since I opened the intakes. I came up with a light trap design to replace the shitty foam idea. It's hard working in circles.

 

[ST8DunWSociety]

Looks pretty groovy. Wonder how he's going to hook up the other set of PL-L lights up. You could also do your light trap idea in plastic angle crap. It comes 1/4 thick or so and is way easier to cut then metal so you can make a nice circle out of it or something.

 

[ScrubNinja]

The dream has died

The dream has died

Hey st8! No need for now as I unplugged it, sadly. It's just too unstealthy, and I really don't think summer is the best time to be doing this anyway, lol. Those seedlings did ok! This is the best one after being repotted - this has had only 2 blue vantecs above it (and them). Well I had those 2 short orange ones earlier but I turned them off ages ago.

The leaves always get that crinkled up look where they touch the bulbs. No other signs of stress, just strange bends in the leaf. I didn't keep track of the days, but it seemed to grow okay but slowly. Since I put it under a 23w daylight cfl there's an obvious increase in growth, but shit, nobody expects 2 blue CCFLs to outcompete a 23w cfl.

Anyways, that's my report. I will be using them in future, but want to grow medicine and have consistant plants at this stage. Here they are after being moved.

The original pod-plant that spent a day at 100 f recovered nicely under the gentle blue lights and is growing again. (foreground)

I got 10/10 sprout with those other seedlings

 

[StealthDragon]

finnnnnaly got a new camera. It sucks, I'm taking it back tomorrow. fyi kodak m320's suck for macros.
*looks around* where'd everybody go?

 

[ScrubNinja]

Awesome Happy with the growth? I'll probably plug mine in once I have a female vegged and you'll have someone to talk to.

My cam has macro mode, then it has super macro mode

 

[canna cola]

Any updates?

 

[ScrubNinja]

Nothing from me but my former ccfl plants are kicking ass They never lose that crinkle in the leaf. The one that spent a day in the pod at 100º is still kickin' it.

StealthD?

 

[StealthDragon]

HIIII happy thankgiving to those who celebrate it!! (I don't)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been quite busy with a few things, and without a camera I don't have as much motivation to update. I reallly can't afford the quality camera I want to buy, and I don't want to end up with another crappy one and return it the next day

I've been very happy with the growth..it's not insane or anything, but considering the wattage I think they do quite well, sorry for no pics but if you look at my last pics a few posts up, they had outgrown the level of the light bars and fully bushed out from training. I actually just chopped about 8 clones off of them. I really didn't want to but I had a small disaster and have been quite behind on cuttings lately, it had to be done.

They should recover and bonzai out nicely in the next few days and I plan on flipping to 12/12 on dec 1st. If you look at my last pic you'll see a lonely gdp clone in the bottom right. I've been holding off on flipping to 12/12 because it needed a little more time to finish reveg, but now new growth has started and I'm all set to flip as soon as the larger plants recover from the cuttings I took.

My friend had an idea to air cool the tubes with an airpump then route the pressurized air back into my bubble cloner, not sure if it's necessary, but a cool idea if it doesn't heat the water up too much.

I'm thinking I'll eventually just use these for mother plants and supplemental lighting in veg, or possibly hang a few vertically in my flower box to beef up the popcorn. I will finish flowering strictly under these lights for now though as I'm very curious to see exactly what they can do on their own. I don't expect much mostly it's just for my own info. I'd hate to use them as supplemental lighting for cfl's if I didn't know exactly what they could do on their own first.

If I let a leaf rest on the bulb for a few days they will begin drying out so every day or 2 I just readjust the leaves that are touching the bulbs and I don't have any problems with them getting crispy.

cheers, hope everyone is doing well. and scrub your superbush is looking great, I'm betting on 4z's ++

 

[ScrubNinja]

Thanks bro I'm so glad you're seeing them through. I'm on the edge of my seat!

 

[growsmall]

i know how you feel findind decentlights at a decent price i was luck as i have a mate in demolition who gave me 5 150w electronic mh ballasts and 2 35w too i didnt know what they wher for ages and was cfl for a while till i googled make and model lol any way i now run a 150mh in my fridge and it has served me a few harvests was thinking about uv and far red but you know how this place is cold cathodes sound good do they come inspecific wavelenths like leds or just red coated witth the rest of the sectrum like on them cds subscribed annyway in there good enought i might convert the freezer/mother/clone part to just run blues maybe i have 400mm width so the 15" would be perfect do you think 4 would keep my bonsai mom and cloner [currently 27w cfl]

 

[ScrubNinja]

Hey growsmall good to see ya! StealthD can probably give you a better idea, as I only used them for short stints with seedlings. They do get hot though. They are a lot cooler to touch than cfl but they still pump out the heat into the cab, maybe to do with being restricted in the clear tube, and the tube giving it more surface area? Best I can do for a SPD is here. To be completely honest, I would stick with a 23w cfl, it's pretty easy and tried and true! 4 x CCFLs are gonna give you like 12w, so no, it's not gonna compare, right from the get-go. Add in time to wire everything, and power supply, and searching online, etc, meh.

Hey guys did anyone see this in Fatigues thread?

I see two possibilities to light your 2l bottle idea. CCFL or LEDs. Taking in mind the reduced light need of a single small plant, and the minimal light losses due the light sources are going to be very close to plant.

CCFLs would be better suited if the space allows more than one plant, by placing them hanging between them.

It's interesting to note, I was reading knna's Needed Principles for LED Lighting or whatever it's called, and he seems to think green is good to some degree. Also I think on the main Growers Forum there's a thread on green lighting, worth a read.