So I was walking around my local wal-mart and ventured into the lighting department. As I was looking around I came across so florescent lights designed to be mounted under kitchen cabinets. As I looked at the packaging I saw that you can very easily wire them inline and had an idea. The housing of the unit is no wider then the t-5 bulb that it is meant to hold and is the exact dimension of the bulb. I picked up 3 of them went home and started experimenting with them. It turns out that I will be able to put 7-8 bulbs over my 55 gallon propagation tank I'm building, be able to wire them in-line with the wiring options that come with each fixture, and only have to pay 9.95 per unit. They come with bulbs that throw out 1000 lumens each with a kelvin temp of 6500, so if my number of unit estimate is correct I will be able to provide atleast 7000 lumens, a kelvin temp of 6500, and only use 161 watts total. It seems like my biggest concern will be " do I wanna change out a few bulbs to 4500 kelvin or leave them all on the higher end". So ya I'm mega excited.
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my newest find on lighting
- Thread starter land_pro
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- lights propagation
uh hmm.. are you sure about the stats on those? 2 T12 4' cool white bulbs put out almost 7000 lumens and only use about 80 watts. Why not just get a HO 4 or 6 tube T5 fixture with a mirrored reflector? Yes it will probably cost a bit more than the $70 you are looking at here for 7 of these fixtures but the results will be far superior.
I got this fixture which is .05 under the $70 budget but money well spent.....also you can specify a 3000k/6400k combo which I took it a step further and specified the 2 6400k tubes and purchased 2 2700k tubes seperately to make my own combo but now I have a spare set. 20,000 hours, 10,000 lumens and 110 watts and haven't regretted any of the loot I spent...only thing extra I have to do is figure out how far away I need to keep it from the plants instead of how close. lol.
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-HTG-Supply-2-Foot-2-Lamp-PL-55-Tek-Lamp.asp
http://www.htgsupply.com/Product-HTG-Supply-2-Foot-2-Lamp-PL-55-Tek-Lamp.asp
uphwiz
jimmy
^ jimmy, that is exactly what i will do once i build a big enough chamber. The biax pl55 twin tube compact design is a total win IMO and once existing fixtures fail it is hard to see why any plant growers would not want to transition to these things. During my entire tenure with the trial and error of growing cp's in general this fixture was the one good decision I made from the getgo that I didn't have to go back on or redesign later.
*note: also forgot to mention the fixture comes with a reflector rated at 95% I think. which with small lights it is so much hassle aiming everything to make sure all your plants get enough blues and reds but this thing has enough brute force that you do not need to aim it....even at it's weakest saturation point most of your plants will still be getting enough reds/blues.
to the op: far as wiring......ziptie your cords to length and use a power strip or if you want to get your hands dirty for a neater approach. screwdriver, drill, 1 wire gromet and 3 wirenuts.
*note: also forgot to mention the fixture comes with a reflector rated at 95% I think. which with small lights it is so much hassle aiming everything to make sure all your plants get enough blues and reds but this thing has enough brute force that you do not need to aim it....even at it's weakest saturation point most of your plants will still be getting enough reds/blues.
to the op: far as wiring......ziptie your cords to length and use a power strip or if you want to get your hands dirty for a neater approach. screwdriver, drill, 1 wire gromet and 3 wirenuts.
