Can you grow with cold cathode computer lighting?

[ScrubNinja]

club

club

Holy crap dude, you do not mess about, apples!

I think I'll contact a mod and get the name changed, or should we start a new thread?

Also mate, will you be running two bulbs per inverter?

 

[apples]

lol, I think once we are all setup we should make a new thread so there is some solid stuff right from the start.

Yes, I will be running two bulbs per inverter like AlienBait but I will have 2x as many as him.

IMO the duals are about the same price as the singles, give you more location coverage. and as Dragon stated

there defiantly is a small difference running 1 tube vs 2 off of the same inverter.

I will prob end up with a crappy GPW ratio just because I'm using so many.

sleeeeeep

 

[ScrubNinja]

Indeed. That's cool bro, just as long as you're aware there's a difference. You probably saw the wattage figures I listed earlier from the box.

 

[Mr.Jones]

hey a stupid question guys: do you know if the plants are actually growing under that kind of light?

thats what i might try in the future with fluros - maybe it could be cool for your cold cathodes as well:

 

[ScrubNinja]

Mr.Jones, quick questionnaire one must answer first before admittance to the temporary ccfl club house.

1) Have you read the thread?

There are pictures of a guy growing weed with them. We are like a cult. AlienBait is the mysterious head figure from an unknown realm (marijuanapassion) and we are his followers. Does he even know we exist? I PMed him but he hasn't logged on for a while.

I like your idea though. If you scroll back up the thread a little, see my post about suntan bed guy. Peace.

 

[Mr.Jones]

Mr.Jones, quick questionnaire one must answer first before admittance to the temporary ccfl club house.

1) Have you read the thread?

There are pictures of a guy growing weed with them. We are like a cult. AlienBait is the mysterious head figure from an unknown realm (marijuanapassion) and we are his followers. Does he even know we exist? I PMed him but he hasn't logged on for a while.

I like your idea though. If you scroll back up the thread a little, see my post about suntan bed guy. Peace.

sorry i thought i have read thru the whole thread but ive missed the beginning my bad ...

and sorry about posting my idea - i just had it a lond time ago and was kinda proud of it and then it got stolen or i was too proud and it existed before

but hey - how hot are those cathodes getting? can the buds touch the bulb or would they burn? because im sick of t5 - they just get too hot

 

[ScrubNinja]

That's ok mate, I'm glad you did post it! With no air circulation the cab gets a little roasty, especially with all that mylar. But compared to a cfl or even a t8, the bulbs themselves are relatively cool. I don't think I could burn any part of a cannabis plant, or anything at all with it if I wanted to. Even if every fan broke, I doubt it would do much burning. You'd get heat stress, but the bulbs just don't have that burn we are familiar with.

Especially not now



It seems to pull really well now it's all sealed up, even on minimum speed. Just gotta re-angle the lights, and get the power supply, and do a few little bits and pieces. Shouldn't be too long now

 

[ScrubNinja]

Enjoy

Enjoy

I re-angled the bulbs to give me more of a gap

And turned it on of course, as you may have noticed This is running @ 2 bulbs per inverter.

One thing I gotta say straight up - hot, as in very. I'm using an old digital thermometer I found tucked away today, but it seems to work. Anyway, in the "sweet spot" where I am holding the lighter, I'm getting about 9* f over ambient which equals 90* cab temp. BUT, that is with an exceedingly weak and crappy 120mm fan blowing the vortex (and resting on the floor). The delta will be many times more powerful so this should help a lot I hope. And I also don't have to move a bulb to fit the fan in with my new found space.

Still got a bit of light leakage but the blower fan is very good at blocking most of the exhaust light.



And I realised that even two layers of the mylar tape AND the pod's thick white walls are still not enough to block the light. This doesn't bother me from a hermie perspective as I'll keep it in a dark room, but it annoys me that the light is leaking out and not being used for growing the icky.

Aaaaaaaanyways, another day at the office. It rules being me I hope you others get the same level of personal satisfaction I've got from my build. I am at the stage where it's like, who cares if you can grow weed in it, it's just awesome, full stop. I am considering painting it flat white to try help the temps though. What do yers reckon?



Edit: oh yeah, the gap between the wall and the centre of the bulb now is pretty much one bic lighter.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Hello SN. You're getting 10* above ambient? I'm sure there's room for improvement but it's not that bad. Depending where you live, 80* ambient temps shouldn't be around much longer, unless you run your heat on 80, lol.

If you could put the pod in a 68* room, that would be about perfect.

 

[oldbootz]

The space ship was doing preflight checks?

Using this for flower or veg? looks like flower by the color ratios

cant wait to see the results on this one

 

[ScrubNinja]

Got bad news DB, I'm in the southern hemisphere so it's only gonna get hotter! I was thinking about getting AC though, it could happen. Cheers. I also have some "real" fans more suited to scrubbers and general cooling (I don't even have the carbon filter on yet!!)

Hey there oldbootz. The first run will be a seedling grown in a coco bed at the bottom and attempting to influence the sex with blue light etc etc. I wanna flower in there for sure, so this is the best compromise of colours using the led system I could come up with, without a degree in lighting. And it seems to me like I was a bit wrong on that anyway, for my bulbs aren't like leds at all it seems, though stealthdragon's are close. If I understand this right.

 

[oldbootz]

scrub are you in south africa?

 

[ScrubNinja]

No mate, I'm in Oz. I wish I was in antarctica! I'm thinking SA will be quite toasty soon too.

 

[canna cola]

ScrubNinja:
If the inverters only rattle because you shake them and not just from them running there is no problem.

I like the new angle you have the lights on as there is plenty of room on the middle for a budsicle and the shade leaves can hang out into the outer area where they will be lit from both sides.

Are you talking about South Africa being toasty or South Australia?

I agree with you about the 3D scrog being a pain to tend to.

How about a hybrid lighting system where you use LEDs for top and side lighting because of their directionality (light not wasted like with tubes) and CCFL hung vertically in the middle of the plant like around the main stem to make up for less penetration from the LEDs and to use the 360 degree emission from the tubes fully.
Choose CCFLs with the wavelengths that don't penetrate as well (blue iirc) as I suggested earlier in this thread.
Should be able to get a plant that is 1 solid cola like the one I grew years ago in the drum.

 

[apples]

Wow that looks rad scrub! Can't wait!!

All my lights have arrived and they all work great

BUT! my psu turns itself off if they are all plugged in after 30 seconds or so.. I'm not sure if I'm over loading it or if its over heating. I did the wiring mod to it as posted before so it runs without the MoBo. It kinda makes a high pitched noise too.

PSU specs.

Light specs

Input voltage of inverter: 12v
Output voltage of inverter: 680v
Current Draw: 5.0mA


I duno if the mod I did screwed it up or if I'm just over loading it. Any smart people here?

 

[420.se]

Does your PSU turn off if you run only a few bulbs? Is it the fan in the PSU making the noise or the PSU itself?
Going by that label your PSU have two 12v circuits. Try splitting the load on the two. My guess would be that you find one circuit in the ATX plug and the other is used for power to drives.

 

[apples]

PSU ran fine for atleast 10 min with just a few on before I started adding more.

I have them all connected in series. The first in the series is connected to the main molex cable which is plugged into the 4 pin multi-use #4 slot. I'll see if I have a another 4pin molex cable and divide the load into 2 multi-use slots.

 

[:-(]

This is such a great thread, thanks everyone for sharing your information, I'll be keeping in touch on this one.

btw, I registered on the forums to tell you how great this thread is

 

[Aerohead]

Hey Apples, looking at the specs, you are well within safety limits with that load. That power supply could safely run 30 of those lights off a single 12v rail and that's what runs the large 4 pin molex connectors you are plugged into.



Very cool thread guys, ScrubNinja is off the hook!!!

 

[apples]

LOL welcome to IC :-(

I didn't find another 4pin molex but I ran 5 sets of lights for about an hour and no problems. I hung them in a metal garbage can 9" diameter about 14 inches tall just to test the heat.

While the bulbs themselves don't get too hot, the build up of heat after about 5 minutes was intense. Around 88ºF.

My summary of these lights so far.

These lights are rather inexpensive, coming in at $72 for 10 dual bulb sets(which = 20 bulbs) including shipping.I suggest the duals because the price is close to the same and you dont HAVE to run both bulbs. A simple disconnect of the 2pin connecter from the inverter and you now have spare bulbs in storage.

The bulbs are warm to the touch but not hot. Prolonged contact with leaves may burn them, but I don't know for sure. You will still need good ventilation because the combined heat of all the bulbs builds up.

Coming in at 12" long and just over 1/2 an inch wide at the ends these lights can fit alot of small spaces as we have already seen. Since we have so many of them we can position them right where we need them. They also come with velcro so you can secure them easily. We can also mix and match colors to improve our spectrum. Red, Green, Blue, Purple, UV...whatever you want.

Another bonus is that these are made for computers so all you need is a lightly modified power supply and a molex cable.(link to mod) http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=67482 You don't need to cut, tape, solider, glue or break anything (except for the PSU mod). Just plug them into eachother. You can also use computer fans for ventilation which also use molex connectors.

These seem like a good inexpensive investment for people trying keep things simple and are perfect for micro grows.

We still need to gather info on their performance, but so far so good.