Can you grow with cold cathode computer lighting?

ScrubNinja · Sep 20, 2009

Like any of these for example.

They seem pretty bright and kind of made for computers. I'm looking at a fan controller and it has a dial for cold cathode lights - two lights included.

Has anyone tried, or does anyone understand the technical details? lol :puppydoge

Maybe the UV ones would be good for UV related stuff?

EDIT: I'll save you some reading - it does work...apparently! So read on, but please be aware a lot this is completely experimental for me/us. A lot of the early pages are misleading due to the lack of information we could find and my general stonerness. Everything gets a little clearer as the thread develops so please take the early numbers etc with a grain of salt. I also made a mistake about 1gpw so please disregard that.

:

BTW I'm typing this from inside my CCFL POWERED VORTEX TIME MACHINE which you will see later in the thread.

As you were!

Aerohead · Sep 20, 2009

Yes you can, CCFL (cold cathode) is just another fluorescent lighting technology. I don't believe they are intense enough to use alone but they would make excellent lighting for spectrum tweaks, add a red, add a blue, ect...

ScrubNinja · Sep 20, 2009

That sounds perfect! I was thinking on the sides, supplemental to the main CFLs. :woowoo: I'll give it a whirl, thanks. I assume I can switch the ones that come with the controller, I'll look into it.

grow1620 · Sep 20, 2009

wow, I had a grower friend of mine talking my ear off about these a few weeks ago, he was looking at some long strips of it..first thing I thought of when I saw it was a scrog screen made out of it..maybe I'll give him a call and see if he ever got any..

VAtransplant · Sep 21, 2009

id say no. i used cold cathodes to initiate mushroom pinning and they barely were adequate at that. I've had better pinning from a single 5w LED than the cool cathodes.
not really bright at all- no intensity... no heat either, but yea- PL-L instead would be my vote.

ScrubNinja · Sep 21, 2009

grow1620 said:
a scrog screen made out of it

Haha! What an awesome idea, man! :respect:

Thanks VAtransplant. I'm pretty sure I'll be going with that fan controller and they would actually fit in really nicely, so since I'll have 'em, I'll pop em in anyway.

I was looking into 12v CCFLs a long time ago, I didn't realise it was the same tech.

ScrubNinja · Sep 21, 2009

I'm looking at some bulbs for it now and they list the following (pretty sure this is per bulb)

Power: 2.9W
Luminance: 5800 nit

According to teh internets, 5800 nits converts into 538.8 "lumen/square foot/steradian". I think it's one of those tricky things to convert but I dunno, that's what this page says.

Anyone have any thoughts? Can we assume that each one is going to be sort of like a 15w cfl stretched out, lumen-wise? I wasn't actually expecting that much out of them. Or is it that the conversion thing is not a straight lumen figure? Should I expect them to be more like what their wattage suggests? 3w each.

Edit: found a thread only days old with a guy using one ripped from a scanner! Freaky!

StealthDragon · Sep 21, 2009

Is the light from these generated like leds? like from the different metals or phosphors heating up?..because I know with leds the white/blue (i think) efficiently produce the most lumens per watt..so maybe these cold cathodes would be the same way? You might get alot more bang for your buck if you go with the whites or blues in that case.

I'm not sure on any of this stuffs, but it's sounds logical to me :joint:

grow1620 · Sep 21, 2009

a scrog screen...

I'm full of ideas man!

I can't find the site but I remember he was looking at some on a custom automotive site...it was like 6-8 ft long and flexible...and looked pretty thin like air tubing, I guess for those cool ground effects for cars..kinda like neon. It ran off 12vdc and he was all excited cuz it could be run off his solar stuff

*edit hey aerohead you think these are safe to overdrive too? mwhahaha

grow1620 · Sep 21, 2009

Power: 2.9W ~ 538.8 lumens

no offense but that can't be too accurate of a conversion..that's over 185 lumens per watt! (I know technically we don't use lumens blah,blah..)

seems like intensity can't be too great...but I don't know...hmm we need some cc grow tests!

ScrubNinja · Sep 21, 2009

Man I'm kinda thinking about making the scrog screen out of them!

That was a crazy good idea bro. I found the kits for just the lights. They have 10cm long ones so I'm thinking 2 x 30cm's, and 4 or 6 of the 10cm's.

My order is getting quite expensive at the computer modding store

: I will sleep on it.

I don't understand the lumen thing but note that it says square foot. I think it's the equivalent brightness of 538.8 lumens casts over a sq ft. Or something.

Stealth Dragon, I'm not too sure buddy but I will look into that stuff as I go on, thanks for the input.

So, cold cathode scrog screen - who's feelin' it?

ScrubNinja · Sep 21, 2009

Can you imagine having the scrog screen set on sound activated and training your scrog while you talk to them?

grow1620 · Sep 21, 2009

Can you imagine having the scrog screen set on sound activated and training your scrog while you talk to them?

uhoh, I've created a monster.... :woohoo:

ScrubNinja · Sep 22, 2009

Well I woke up and this seems like an even better idea

The 10cm kits (also 2 bulbs) are the same price as the 30cm ones, so what I'm going to do is just have 4 x 30cm along the length, and short bits of wire making the cross sections of the scrog screen.

Not sure which colours to use..... I hear what SD says about white/blue. But it's hardly gonna compete with the CFLs, and this also seems a good way to introduce UV light except I think it's only good at specific times? I know that far weaker UV lights are needed when you use them, so that's another reason these would seem good.

Think I should play it safe and go with a white and a blue set? All purple? All red? :chin:

Mannnn so many colours.

btw the floorspace of my computer is 19cm x 39cm

420.se · Sep 22, 2009

I strongly believe that plants need a wide spectrum of light, colored CCFLs is probably not going to cut it. I do run a white CCFL at the moment, rooting my clones. The reflector is great but the area i can cover with one of these is really small, only 38*6cm.

I did rip my tube out of a discarded flatbed scanner and a guess would be that these tubes do have a full(er) spectrum or the scanner would have a hard time with certain colors. The whole thing is just a tube, an aluminium reflector and a PCB to run it. Feed the PCB with 12Vdc and you got light. I would love having some more of these.

CloudNine · Sep 22, 2009

ScrubNinja said:
So, cold cathode scrog screen - who's feelin' it?

Are you kidding? I gotta see this in action. kind of sad you havent confirmed the order yet..

Btw, I don't know if they are the same type or not, but I've seen these at walmart.. auto section.

ScrubNinja · Sep 22, 2009

Nice one 420.se, thanks a lot bro :yes:

I will go with blue and white for starters then, and I can experiment later.

This is going to be a lot of fun and look REALLY COOL.

grow1620 · Sep 22, 2009

criss cross a couple strips, strobe them, and play them some techno. I'd go with white and maybe experment later with uv/blacklight...

ScrubNinja · Sep 22, 2009

CloudNine said:
Are you kidding? I gotta see this in action. kind of sad you havent confirmed the order yet..

Btw, I don't know if they are the same type or not, but I've seen these at walmart.. auto section.

Just ordered 'em! Should be here this week, although the project itself is a long ongoing one.

grow1620 said:
criss cross a couple strips, strobe them, and play them some techno. I'd go with white and maybe experment later with uv/blacklight...

Hehe for real! Unfortunately the second kit has no noise activation, damn! The kit that comes with the speed controller only comes in blue, so I chose white for the other kit.

:woohoo:

Also ordered the parts to make a carbon filter out of only bits available at the computer modding store.

And a heavy duty 92mm Delta fan for the sealed light section.

Thanks again guys, this is very exciting.

Edit: lol I also have a friend who's a drummer. I might make him a pair of sound activated light sticks if this doesn't work out :tongue:

grow1620 · Sep 22, 2009

huh?

*edit...wow wtf did I just do?...I think i seriously edited my full post instead of making a new one...damn thats some good weed....sry bout that ppl. I think this one originaly said something about scrubninja kicking alot of ass.

Can you grow with cold cathode computer lighting?

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