PLL Club. (if you don't know, now you know)

[Hephaestus]

While not as filled with plants as boleman (I one day hope to be that good) Figured I'd post up the new light install... Half - is WH7, half is coralife torn down and remounted in my cabinet...



Thats a pair of 4100k and a pair of 2700k bulbs...

 

[Milhouse]

Does the length of the Power cord to the outlet affect the brightness of the bulbs?

 

[Researcher]

How much heat does 220w of PLLs throw off in comparison to perhaps, a 150-200 watt hps? I know Scrub that you already told me that it makes one of your rooms uncomfortable on a hot day, but i'm just trying to get a better picture of it.

I have 220 watts of PL-Ls in my cab 26" wide 19 1/2" deep 54" high. These bulbs do cool off after the second week or so.

When I started this grow and had the fixture just a few inches above the new growth in the reservoir and until the vegetative growth was shielding the rez these lights raised my DWC water temp.



But for the rest of the grow they have been almost too cool.



Be sure to have a 50 to 90 cfm fan blowing air across the socket end and the bulbs and the heat is almost nonexistent.

 

[Hephaestus]

Does the length of the Power cord to the outlet affect the brightness of the bulbs?

Practical - unless you're running like 200' - probably not... Reality, yeah exponentially - ballast steps up the voltage; so anything lost on the input power will be magnified on the top end... Varies ballast to ballast, some wont be affected as much, others might not even fire...

 

[Milhouse]

OK, just checking. I run about 25' to my plug and wanted to make sure I didn't need to shorten that up. What about the distance from the ballast to the lampholder? I think my longest is around 5' total wire length. Is there any other reason that these lamps would run dim?

 

[Boleman]

bump

 

[Hephaestus]

C'mon boleman - if you're gonna bump at least give em something to look at You had me all excited that you'd posted new plant porn

 

[LymphNode]

I'll put some pics up a little later today, got 324w of PL-L vegging some bagseed atm.

<3 PL-L 4eva and always.

 

[#1cheesebuds]

yah bolemen new pix would be great.

 

[big ballin 88]

I love my new PL-L's if people thought regular florescent were good they haven't tried these. I'm using two in my new veg chamber and it seems like they'll do amazing. Their not to hot to touch even without a fan.

 

[Boleman]

C'mon boleman - if you're gonna bump at least give em something to look at You had me all excited that you'd posted new plant porn

I did, but it was in my grow thread... sorry for that, here you go!

This has been the Cleft Mark version of my grow so far. 6-8 weeks left.

 

[Hephaestus]

Heh... Getting frosty!

 

[flatcurve]

Where is everybody finding their bulbs? I've been trying to buy some 6500K 55watters for a month now. Nobody has them and from what I understand, there's some sort of manufacturing delay that's holding shipment until 3/1. It's driving me crazy. I'm keeping my fingers crossed here that these bulbs aren't discontinued, because I just invested in this whole new system for my mother plants.

 

[Hephaestus]

My local commercial lighting stores have em - they've almost become standard in commercial light fixtures now... It's not just 1 manufacturer, just ask for a 6500k 55w PLL and they should be able to hook you up... Worst case ebay - 65w PLL's for aquarium

 

[flatcurve]

I actually tried a local place but they didn't have them. Maybe it's not standard in the states yet. Almost all commercial fixtures here seem to be those 40 watt T12 bulbs. I am near a big city though, so I'm sure more than one commercial lighting place exists. I'll take another stab at it... Google don't fail me now.

 

[j6p]

AHSupply has 6700k 55w PLL bulbs for $17.99; 1000Bulbs has 55w 5300k for $11.45 and 4100k for $3.05; that was all I saw at a quick glance.

 

[fatigues]

1000bulbs.com for 4100k at $2.91 (for 10) a piece is still the best deal. The phosphors on these bulbs don't heavily favor the higher temps as much as you would think. 4100k will do you fine.

If you insist, for 6400k, see HTGsupply, right here. They are $15.95 for a pair of them; so a $7.97 per lamp.

 

[flatcurve]

Awesome, guys. Thanks a ton!

 

[dymaxion grow]

I was thinking of using a glass sheet below some pl-l's to completely separate the lights from the plants. Any advice? I saw that somebody here had a glass sheet that was lead-free(I think)so no light was filtered by the glass. Glass sheet + air cooled light space could work really nice.

 

[Hephaestus]

You're going to loose some lumens anytime you put anything between the bulbs and plants... That said... I'm using 1/4" plexi to separate mine - plexi/acrylic is more efficient as a separation than glass (doesn't allow the heat to radiate through as much). I think the loss of a few lumens (we're talking minimal %ages here) is more than compensated by the reduced cooling needs...



Cabinet runs about 7 degrees cooler with the plexi in place - more than makes up for the maybe 20-30 lumens lost...