Okay guys and gals. This is my current setup. It’s nothing special, just working with what I have til I can buy a nice grow light. But I have spent a lot of time and energy on this, but I’ve only spent about $80 on it altogether. I’ve been tweaking it for the last few weeks. Buying more lights and sockets here and there. It’s obviously all DIY since I don’t yet have the funds for a good grow light. I’m using 21 LED’s. 5 are soft white, while the remaining 16 are daylight. It adds up to around 275 watts(actual wattage not wattage equivalent) and 18,000 lumens (just going by what each bulb says) It seems that my plants are liking this curent setup much more than the previous t8 shop lights I had, and it’s MUCH more bright. I have to use sunglasses at night when I’m around it lol
Just wondering if you all had any comments or suggestions on my setup?
To grow that many plants you will need ~150,000 lumens. You need to invest in a GOOD light. Check out Horticultural Lighting Group. My 4xQB304 puts out 80,000 lumens and is barely good enough for 4ftx4ft (4 Plants)
This setup is exclusively for veg just until it’s warm enough to put them outside.I won’t be using this setup to flower any plants. They would outgrow this space in no time and I’d have to buy a crap ton more lights lol
Agree. The plants will continue to veg under those lights until you are ready to plant outdoors. They will stay small and may get leggy on you though because of lack of light required to effectively veg.
I’ve also been giving them natural light to supplement any time the sun is out. And I think I only have a little over a month here before I can put them outside.
And I’ll definitely be getting a better grow light, but that will probably be before I start next year’s crop. I’ve been thinking about getting a 4ft t5 8 bulb 440 watt light I found on Amazon.
Again check out Horticultural lighting group. The amount of wasted electric will add up.their lights are super efficient. 1 board QB288 board using ~100W will generate ~19000 lumens. A 1 board setup~$110 at the moment and a 2 board setup is ~$200.
How much do the quantum boards run? I can’t spend hundreds of dollars on lighting right now that’s why I was think about the t5. It’s only about $130 on Amazon.
Not a very good picture but it’s the only one I’ve got right now:p
You can also make your own set up with the lighting section instead of buying a kit and it’ll be pretty cheap
Awesome thanks for the info! I’ve got a lot of time to do research on it to figure out what I’ll need and just learn about it cuz I’m not even sure how to set one of those up lol
My Wal-Mart doesn’t have anything like that unfortunately. Allthey have here are the t8 and t12 shop lights but I’m not going to use those anymore. I have 2 4ft t8’s right now that I’m using for my vegetables and herbs.
It’s easy. For the 1 board you would attach cord to power supply. Connect power supply to board mounted to heatsink. Bolt power supply to the heatsink. With the 2 board, you would have to build an aluminum fram to mount the boards and the power supply. I did mine on a 1/8’ aluminum plate.
The 288V1’s won’t last long as they are on clearance. Although HLG runs new sales al the time.
Here’s mine: (QB304’s so different power supplies) but you get the idea
Haha yeah it’s definitely a pretty large gorilla grow… i usually don’t start this early the year but I’m hoping to get a good head start indoors then transfer outside. But that’s why my set up is from so many odds and ends
Your setup will work fine for what you’re doing. You could probably knock your power consumption in half building your lights with components from scratch, but for the short period time you’ll be running them probably not worth it.
