It's Time For McGuyver! CFL Light Arrays

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

So whilst in the middle of someone else's thread (sorry, Theherbalizor), I got a request for my design of a CFL array. Basically it's just a cheap way to mount a whole bunch of CFL bulbs on one flat plane so you can then use it to veg, light short rooted plants, etc. I make no claims that it's somehow the bee's knees for any particular application, but I can attest that it works well and was dirt cheap to make.

I'll try to bring the relevant parts of the discussion over here from the other thread, sorry if it looks funny.

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

Elite Nugs said:
I've seen dudes flowering the entire grow with MH and there wasnt a huge yield drop and those hardly have any reds in them. The LEP has much more red then an MH, and much more of a usable spectrum. So in my opinion... I think they would be great for flowering if the light was intense enough.

So a LEP to me, would be like a daylight colored CFL on steroids. I dont see how you could go wrong with a CFL on steroids... lol

So this is how it all started...

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

Too bad you can't scale up CFL effectively, I feel the same way about 'em!

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

Elite Nugs said:
Im gonna get a 4'x8' sheet of plywood and wire and hot glue hundreds of CFL's to the board. Then flip it around and hang it like a reflector. lol. Scaled up CFL...

once he said this, I was off to the races...

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

No way dude- do it like this: go to your local used building supply store, we have a Habitat for Humanity store locally, for instance- and pick up a bunch of old bathroom fixtures, the shiny ones with 4 or 5 lights in a row for like $2 apiece. Arrange them like ties on a railroad track, and then attach them to 'rails' of 1" x 2" strips. Wire them up (in parallel, not in series!), and voila!- instant CFL array, for stupid cheap compared to buying a T5! I've built two of them; one was 6 fixtures of 4 lights each, and the other was... yep... 5 x 5... roger that!

They're even tunable, as you can put CFLs of widely varying wattages and colors in them. I'd use them instead of 400W HID any day, because the light is much more evenly distributed and the bulbs never get hot enough to burn plants unless they're actually touching them.

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

Elite Nugs said:
LoL... I was just joking... but maybe I will give that a shot some day. Sounds like it wouold be a pretty good veg light.

Ok, so maybe he was joking, but having already done it, I figured, why not go all out?

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

The growth rate achieved by this bargain basement CFL array will wipe that smirk right off your face, replaced by the ear to ear grin produced by strongly growing plants. The only sore point is your butt, where you'll be kickin' yourself knowing how much you spent on T5s, lol.

My pals who saw them nicknamed them the McGuyver lights, lol

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

Elite Nugs said:
Haha.. you were right about the grin.... Yeah... I've been thinking about messing around with something like that for a while. I just dont have the time I guess.

You should manufacture them and sell them to people like me....

I'm all about spreading the word to people, soooo...

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

LOL- you know, sillier ideas have made millions...

Ok this is what one looks like. Sometimes evil genius is deceptively simple, no?

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

whazzup said:
cfls are really terrible lamps to use in reflectors. The shape of the lamp does not allow you to create optimal reflectors and there is a lot of losst light due to the shape of the lamp. T5 is the easiest lamp to produce a good reflector for as it comes to cfl. Being a very long light source is can only be used at close proximity and inverse square law does not apply: that starts working at about 5 times the distance of the maximum length of the light source. So with a 60 cm light source inverse square law starts working at about 3 meters.

He's 100% right, of course. So I'm guessing the reason the design works so well is because the lights do a great job of lighting on the sides, which means the plants you put under them- and not very far under, at that- get light from not only the top, but also from all sides, since they're surrounded by CFL bulbs.

ttystikk · Nov 4, 2011

I didn't mention in the orifinal description that I wired half of those fixtures together through a switch, and the other half directly. The direct half lights whenever it's plugged in and the switch controls the 'silver' group, that is every second panel so you can cut light intensity by half. Doing it this way turned out not to be very useful, as the light intensity went down too much. If I ever mess with this fixture again, I'll run the switched lights all at one end, so I can easily run half or the whole array without needing to partially unscrew all the CFLs I don't want running.

Cort · Nov 4, 2011

They make little splitters too. Run 2 cfls off 1 socket. Though they may cost more than your thrift store fixtures.

ttystikk · Nov 5, 2011

Cort said:
They make little splitters too. Run 2 cfls off 1 socket. Though they may cost more than your thrift store fixtures.

That splitter looks good for small area spot lighting. The point of the array is to provide a consistent lumen level across a larger footprint, with good side lighting and low heat buildup.

ttystikk · Nov 6, 2011

I did this when seriously hurting for cash, and it worked beyond my expectations for a specific situation; lots of small plants. It was the butt of lots of jokes amongst my friends, that is until they saw how well it worked!

I don't recommend it for anything taller than about a foot.

sedate · Nov 6, 2011

ttystikk said:
That splitter looks good for small area spot lighting. The point of the array is to provide a consistent lumen level across a larger footprint, with good side lighting and low heat buildup.

Heh I did that.

Works the shit out of clones.

ttystik said:
The growth rate achieved by this bargain basement CFL array will wipe that smirk right off your face, replaced by the ear to ear grin produced by strongly growing plants. The only sore point is your butt, where you'll be kickin' yourself knowing how much you spent on T5s, lol.

Um. I imagine it does real well for vegging small plants.

I actually do think you would do better with fewer bulbs and aluminium clamp-style reflectors - definitely do NOT agree with the previous comments about not being worth reflecting CFL's . .

ttystikk · Nov 7, 2011

I hear you- but even without reflectors, these vegged some clones really well until they got to be a foot or so tall, at which point the tops were ahppy but the bottoms were not. Guess that's just time top put them under something else, right? I put this design up so people could see it and if they felt like it was for them. I also think that one advantage of this over T5 is that the open nature of the array lets things breathe a lot more. A typical T5 setup is all but solid, and would get warm a lot faster for me.

Ne Obliviscaris · Nov 29, 2011

Like I said in the LEP thread, this is a great design for clone/small plant lighting. I always like seeing guerrilla room rigging. Especially when it saves money on electricity.

ttystikk · Apr 11, 2012

<bump> Just wanted this thing to... err... see the light of day again...

BlueBlood · Apr 11, 2012

LMAO

This thread makes you look like a total schizo, stikk XD

ttystikk · Apr 11, 2012

BlueBlood said:
LMAO

This thread makes you look like a total schizo, stikk XD

There is a fine line between genius and insanity... and I like to think I straddle it well.

Now where did I leave the phone numbers to Two Face's girls...?

It's Time For McGuyver! CFL Light Arrays

It's Time For McGuyver! CFL Light Arrays

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