Tinting Shed Panels

[Guest]

At the time i first put this up no one replied so i deleted it; but i'm seeing some activity around the forum so i'm gonna lay it back out.

I'll probably be having a shed where i live soon. The shed will get the tin ripped off the top and side facing south and replaced with clear panels. The obvious answer is frosted; but it does mean a reduction in light; about 20%. And that 80% that comes in will bring a lot of light not in the photo - active spectrum, creating unwanted heat.

The more obvious solution is transparent panels; but that means people can see in easier; also, where i'm going, it's desert: it's going to be real hot, over a hundred a lot of the time.

Cooling it, i can do, to a point; i have a couple of those portable evaporative coolers, and currently i feed one of them with a 1/4" line, and have a float i put in by taking off the back and installing. It works real well; no complaints there.

However where i'll be it's hotter and i want to negate the heat inside the unit.

It's well known that you don't need anywhere near full spectrum light to grow; primarily just red.

Do any of you know of a case where someone has thinned red paint way down, and put it on transparent panels to make a red pass only filter, so that (1) people can't see inside, and (2) the heating up, inside is reduced by not admitting the other light?

The question of needing some other colored light is easily answered by just putting some tape on the panels, after a light scuff with some fine sandpaper; painting, then removing the tape, for some clear area that will admit full spectrum light; so that's obviously not a problem.

It seems with all the talk of l.e.d.s people understand spectrum requirements, but i haven't ever seen anyone using tinted panels; hence this thread to ask anyone familiar with it what they know.

Obviously as well, getting paint the right color, is no problem either.

I guess the main questions i'd have about it is, firstly, is it true that latex paint will work just as well as a solvent based paint; and is there any well known/documented reason, people DON'T use tinted panels.

Any reasonable discussion on it welcomed.

 

[Guest]

LiL bump

LiL bump

and, bumped.

 

[stonedeconomist]

i thought red paint absorbed all other colors and just reflected the red light spectrum. it seems to me if you wanted to put a reflective coating on your panels you would want to go with a color like green which is reflected by the leaves of the plant anyway. also if you are going to tint the panels enough that people are not going to be able to see what your growing, won't that reduce the amount of light available to the plants too much? as for reducing the temperature inside the greenhouse is there a reason you can't just use roof vents or put in some kind of fan system. pot grows pretty well outdoors in the tropics so as long as you keep your greenhouse interior temp close to the outside temp your weed should grow pretty well i would think. i've never grown outdoors or in a greenhouse myself so unfortunatly i can't help you with firsthand knowlege but hopefully a more experienced grower will contribute to this thread and help you out.

 

[Guest]

it reflects red light which means it won't absorb it; which is why it passes through thin films of it. It absorbs other colors, but rejects the red, and the red passes through. There's some rejection straight back out; which makes it red on the outside: but if the film of paint is thin most passes through.

The cooling is secondary but i don't want it heating up inside, or people looking through it so the two go hand in hand Stonedeconomist.

Hopefully somebody who knows something about it will come along like you say; thanks for comment

 

[BakedBeans]

One person on another thread suggested taking the sprayer nozzle off of a paint rig and spraying silver paint in varied dots on the inside of a clear panel. Coverage of about 20% should be about right. It sounded to me like simple camouflage without affecting the light spectrum overall.

I have no idea how it would work in practice, however.

bb

 

[Guest]

I read that as well, BakedBeans, and i do remember the guy saying it worked as a camouflage, he said he was in a hot-air balloon ride, actually, and had the chance to look down at his own place, if i remember right; he said it made the panels look like they were just silver tin.

Well hopefully, someone will come around and describe any tinting they've seen done, although it seems at this point, no one's actually witnessed it. Thanks for stoppin by

EDIT i found the thread you're talking about BakedBeans, the guy said he used shadecloth and it looked like a tar roof, in the one i was remembering; here
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=1000944&postcount=2

Same thread, the guy who mentioned the light coverage with metallic paint was just below:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=1002058&postcount=4

The thread name was ''Corrugated Fiberglass Panels?"

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=56459

 

[Guest]

if this is still the direction you're going,and your assumptions about the red paint merely reflecting some red and the rest going through, why not use a purple paint (red and blue) leaning a little more towards red if you're just concerned about flowering. remember, blue spectrum keeps plants more compact/tighter nodal spacing and reduces energy wasted on stretching.

If you go through the LED threads, you might notice one in particular where a grower attempted using ALL red LEDs and no blue, which resulted in little to no growth.

My point is that plants do need more than just red light. Whether or not this would work for you, i'm not one to say. It could work just because other light may pass through spots that the spray missed

 

[Guest]

I noted above that leaving some panel space clear would admit some full-spectrum light; but using blue in the paint would probably mean a more difficult to see through visual path.

 

[big mike]

window film(tint) block UV rays, wouldnt that not be a good thing?

 

[Guest]

First time i wrote this it was a stoned ramble; or at least an unedited one.

The reason for using paint not tint film is that you can selectively reject and admit light; whatever uv gets blocked gets blocked and is all the more reason to find another way to let in a little unfiltered sunlight; say through vents etc that will let sunlight in through a thin sheet of fiberglass filter material etc