Can you grow with cold cathode computer lighting?

[ScrubNinja]

Canna, thanks for the info, sport. I did mean south africa but south oz will be toasty as well I guess.

Thanks for the replies everyone and especially frowny face! Welcome aboard. Just got home and got a bit of a headache so ... hmph. Nice write up too, apples.

Keep it cold

Edit: by the way, like I mentioned you can purchase cheap plugs that will pre-hotwire your cpu, so technically, you can get away with zero wiring. Pretty cool. I want to wire mine up like AlienBait's done his though. But I will need two bunches of inverters. I can't really decide if I should leave the switches in. It would be good for adjusting the ratio to give blue light to the seedling.

Does anyone have any opinion on starting my plant? Basically I only have a cab in 12/12, and I can't run the highpod mini until these dudes fit new insulation in the roof, and that *should* happen in the next two weeks. Could I start a seedling in my 12/12 cab, and before 2 weeks, put it in the highpod with a veg light schedule and veg it as long as needed. Think it would work?

 

[oldbootz]

yea scrub that works fine. why dont you keep the seedling in the 12/12 for 3-4 weeks then you can sex it and then re-veg it. that works too...

 

[ScrubNinja]

Cool! I am keen to get it in the pod as young as possible to get a decent idea of what the lights can do, but I can continue to sex if needed in the pod. Ain't got no time to wait around. I guess I'll start 3 or so just in case. Thanks brah.

 

[StealthDragon]

looks like we're all making alot of progress! Lookin good everyone

I've been gutting/rebuilding another PC, wow I forgot how much work it is.

I decided to line up 2 reds and 2 whites horizontally down the middle of the PC, and I have 2 blues that I put some magnets onto so I can adjust them as needed. The velcro is cool and all but I worry about the adhesive with changing temp and humidity. The PC opens on both sides so I'll be able to access each side of the light bar. This is just going to be for some veg testing for a few weeks, but I want to start on flowering asap cuz I know that's what everyone wants to see. I'm running some temperature tests right now, with and without the reds on since they put out the most heat. The majority of the build is complete, just need to install some ventilation after I run these temperature tests.

I cut out all the switches except one, I was figuring I would leave the red lights off at first to try to reduce stretch. Then I figured instead of turning off the red inverter, I'll unplug the reds and just split the white bulbs between the 2 inverters and over drive them instead.

I'm going to run low light first with only 4-6 bulbs. I know my strains pretty well and I think I'll be able to tell how these bulbs compare to growth under equal wattage of my cfl's. I doubt I'll get much growth from 4-6 bulbs, but I want to know for sure. I'll work my way up and install more bulbs as I go.

I'll get up some pics up of my newest creation later on today, just want to clean things up a bit first and work out the fans/filters and Scrublouvers (tm)



oooo.. I think this might be my 50th post too..

back to work!

*edit after testing some temperatures in my PC I noticed I'm getting alot of heat from my DC adapter thingie. It's mounted flat on the back of the PC and alot of heat is "bleeding" inside from it. I've decided to put about a 1" gap between the adapter and the back of the PC, but I can't figure if I should leave an empty gap of air betweeen the adapter and the PC or if I should mount some heatsinks to the adapter and use the heatsinks as the gap between the 2. What do you guys think?

 

[ScrubNinja]

magnets

Genius!

The velcro is cool and all but I worry about the adhesive with changing temp and humidity.

I meant to make a post about this actually - good thinking. I can tell you that they don't hold up even under ambient temp and humidity, let alone inside a fractal oven like I have. I used the velcro at the tops of the bulbs as it's a good visual indication and temporary holder when I was working things out. I taped the bottoms with mylar tape. I'll definitely be taping the tops before real operation.

I know that's what everyone wants to see.

Exactly. We've only been politely humoring you up to this point, bro. Haha just kidding man.

Then I figured instead of turning off the red inverter, I'll unplug the reds and just split the white bulbs between the 2 inverters and over drive them instead.

Yeah great thinking. I was thinking about wiring all the reds to one switch, all the blues to one, etc. But I think your idea is easiest, just unplug em!

I'm going to run low light first with only 4-6 bulbs. I know my strains pretty well and I think I'll be able to tell how these bulbs compare to growth under equal wattage of my cfl's. I doubt I'll get much growth from 4-6 bulbs, but I want to know for sure. I'll work my way up and install more bulbs as I go.

I'll get up some pics up of my newest creation later on today, just want to clean things up a bit first and work out the fans/filters and Scrublouvers (tm)

Man, I cannot wait for this. It took me so long breaking all those quotes up that it's probably posted by now

I'm actually a big fan of low wattage grows. I would love to see a bud grown under one ccfl!

 

[StealthDragon]

hmmm I'm thinking (see edit above) that with the inverter, one side gets much hotter then the other. So I'll turn the hot side away from the PC and just have a gap of air between. Maybe I'll still put heatsinks on the hotter outer side though.

But I think your idea is easiest, just unplug em!

not just unplug them, but use those adapters that aren't in use to overdrive the remaining bulbs

 

[ScrubNinja]

Not too sure what ya mean about the power adaptor....any chance of a pic or three when you do the others? Does exhaust air flow over it or is it enclosed? What were you planning for a heatsink?

 

[ScrubNinja]

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.

Forgot to respond to this bro. You know what? I don't even know any more. I have so much information flying round my head that it's hard to assemble into meaningful form. This whole spectrum difference between mine and Stealth's bulbs really has me questioning what's going to happen.

But I do think your idea is good. I would think use LEDs for basically all the lighting, in the right ratio, and then a full spectrum ccfl or two to round things out, hung like you suggest.

I did some more reading of an LED thread, this time the guy who did the hps/led side-by-side. I didn't read it all but skipped ahead and not to knock the guy, but there were some pretty obvious arguments about his methods, and his way of calculating yield. He got 36g from 82w

This got me to thinking, and I think it's a very important question. I probably sound stupid but here goes... Has anyone ever really broken 1gpw with LEDs, legitimately? I don't actually remember seeing someone do this, where there were no disputes of unfairness etc.

Just good old fashioned total wattage of lights divided by total grams dry weight. If that doesn't exist, then personally I would abandon LEDs...if I had taken them up Simply because CFLs will grow in the same space, and they have broken 1gw. I'm pretty sure they have anyway. But then LEDs supposedly will run cooler? So it may be better for stealth? I dunno man. This is what I mean - too much to think about.

Also, here is a pic that may be useful for CCFLers.

Keep in mind that's referring to spectrum, not necessarily bulb colour that we see. And they're not cannabis, lol.

 

[ScrubNinja]

 

[oldbootz]

that powerful green band wont do much help but the rest should

 

[ScrubNinja]

Aye that's what's got me worried. All of them have a solid green band I think. I'll try to assemble a collage of all the bulbs' output together. I think I've covered them all now? Maybe not the blue? Anyway, I'll take pics in all the same format. I also want one of all the lights, from above the pod - that would seem to be the most important one, right?

I hooked up the Delta fan inside to power the tornado, and the temp was exactly the same ~9* f over ambient. (I originally posted 10* but paid closer attention after). I feel like the heat is unnecessarily trapped inside the outer protective tube. I've been trying to think inside the box and I thought up a trippy idea about drilling the outer tube, and inserting an airline into each tube, and cooltubing them individually, and use a tiny centrifugal to blow the air. It's a ridiculous idea of course, but I post it hoping it inspires someone into another idea.

The tubes are actually quite moveable inside the tube if one tries. If the hole for the leads wasn't so tight, you could slide them right out I reckon.

Oh also, Stealth, I didn't say anything earlier, but I was kinda thinking "man, how heavy handed do you gotta be to break a freakin' molex"...but errr, I actually pushed one of the wire clips out of mine too! First time that's ever happened to me that I can remember. So you were quite on point, as per usual. :

 

[oldbootz]

are those tubes not filled with a gas of some kind?

 

[ScrubNinja]

No, not at all, it's just to protect the real tube inside. If you look at 420.se's setup with the scanner bulb, I believe that is just a raw bulb.

 

[canna cola]

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.

You should be connecting them in parallel.

When you connect them in series it will cause the voltage coming out of the PSU to change to compensate, I think in this case the PSU will try and increase the voltage until it hits a limit and then shuts down for safety.

ScrubNinja:
I think Weezard has broken 1gpw with his home made LED light and claims to grow and flower better than tropical sunlight on the island he lives on or maybe that is just his aim and he is yet to achieve it.

There is a thread on another forum I will link to later when I read it where they got 381 grams from 250W of LEDs, I think that was the total power used and not just the output of the LEDs.
I was in a comparison of HPS versus LED thread.
I think it might have been a Procyon.

Can the outer sheath be cut to remove the tubes from the CCFLs?
You should get a bit more light.

 

[oldbootz]

aircooling the tubes would be a better option coz then the leaves would have cool surfaces to rest on

check your smallest drill bit see if you have one small enough to make minihole and silicone some see-through plastic tubing maybe?

if that works you could bunch up all the other ends of the tubing and ductape them to an extraction fan. you'd have to have one hole drilled on each end of the lights of course.

 

[ScrubNinja]

lol gosh, apples may be the first person to overdrive CCFLs!!! I'm thinking that may be a terminology error, since you kind of plug the molexes in one after the other....dunno. But you definitely want them in parallel as canna says. I didn't even catch that. I quite often mix the two up myself.

Good idea oldboots, although it's mine in reverse!

 

[canna cola]

I don't know if he would be overdriving the CCFLs, more like underdriving them, the PSU would have been 'overdrawn' (if that's really a word) as it was trying to provide the higher voltage that the CCFL inverters would have been trying to draw.

Here is that thread with the claim of 381g from 240W LED (2*120W chinese panels, about 200W of LEDs), it was here on this website , see the last post on that page by knna:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=108442&highlight=381g&page=51

 

[ScrubNinja]

Hey canna thanks, and sorry, I keep forgetting to reply to your points. You could fairly easily remove the sheath. I know in my case though, I need it! I would have several smashed bulbs already I think, if not for the sheath. But for a more conventional cab setup, sure I would consider removing them.

Well, actually I'd wait for someone else to do it to make sure it works, but you know what I mean

Thanks for that link dude, I'll dig a bit further but yup, that seems to answer the question! They're not knna's plants are they?

 

[apples]

I read a little about parallel wiring but still its kinda lost on me for this situation. Could someone explain it a little without some crazy circuitry diagram.

 

[StealthDragon]

*yawns*

*yawns*

I got a lil more done, still a ways to got though.

see my mini scrublouver

I think I need to open up the front a little more for intake, or put an active intake by all those wires. I dunno yet, still thinking it up as I go. I did kind of a crappy job mounting the adapter on the back, but I was getting frustrated and just wanted it done. There's about a 1 cm gap behind the adapter where the mobo stuff should be. I dunno bout the heatsinks now cuz it will be on the outside anyways. I have tons of extra heatsinks for ram and videocards n stuff, aluminum and copper. I used them to cover a small light hood in the first lil cab I made which is no longer in use. Worked awesome btw, exhaust fan was mounted directly on top of the hood/heatsinks.

wow scrub that's an interesting idea about the cooltubing mod. I think I would try using a air pump and just pump air through them, and let the exhaust remove the heat that comes out. Although that's more watts I'd have to run. also more electric stuffs, I'm trying to keep this one pretty simple for now.

canna, as far as removing them from the tubes, I'd be scared as hell having them "nontubed" around my babies. Seems like they're fairly delicate, plus they have a bare wire inside to that runs the length of the tube so you would have to insulate that somehow thus blocking some light.

In the near future here I plan on getting a kill-a-watt to see exactly how much these ccfls are pulling, and one of those laser heat gauge thingies (those are freakin awesome!).

I'm sleepy. time to clock out.

edit: Apples- wiring in series is when you hook positive to neg to positive to neg and kinda daisy chain them.....parallel is when you hook all the negs together and all the positives together. I hope that makes sense. please don't zap yerself. Be careful.