Home Made Air cooled Lowes/Homedepot light.

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Ok, this one is for you Lowes and Home depot people.

You got some driveway/parkinglot lights ? 70 - 150w ? I'll show you how to make a cheep air cooled box using a dresser drawer a jig saw and stuff you can find around the house.

First of all, I am using 2 Lowes/home depot 70w lights that I pulled out of my driveway last year when I put in new ones. One was a HPS one was a MH.

I'm making this for a small 2'x2'x2' fridge that was given to me and it had a two story floor in it with the back 1/4 raised about 4 or 5" higher then the rest of the floor. It has a magnetic glass door and should work verry nice for keeping humidity in for the clones. I'm going to make the higher part of the floor my clone shelf. On the lower part of the floor will be my bigger, rooted clones.

And since I cant have a exposed bulb in such a small space, I'm making this vented box to put it in. This is just to get them out of the rubber maid tub I got them in now. Although it has done a good job.


Ok your caught up.

 

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Part 1. Teardown.

First step is to tear down the lights.

Keep all the screws and brackets, we will be using them later.

 

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If your light has a auto turn on switch. Take that out and set it aside.

 

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Take out the socket and push it aside. Make your way to the bottom to the ballast. It's glued in but easy to get out.

 

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Just grab that sucker with a pair of pliers and rock it side to side. it will break off easy.

 

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Ok, once you got the guts out, set it aside and get a dresser drawer. I got a old one siting around so I just used that.

Take it apart and try not to break it up to much like I did.
See how it has a grove in it to hold the bottom piece ? That is going to hold our glass.

The glass I'm using for this is the piece that was on the HPS fixture. The MH didnt have one, it was plastic. But for what I need it for it doesnt need to be any bigger then 1' x 1'.

I will be using the HPS metal case as a ballast box for both ballasts. I'll get to making that later.

 

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Ok, first things first.

Set the glass into the groove and mark where all the sides meet. This is where your going to cut. This is just held together while I took a picture.

 

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Find two good arched brackets and let's mount the lights.
The MH light I got lucky. The bracket I used has holes for screws so I just put one through the bottom of the socket and tightened her down. That's it for that one.

The HPS light didnt have holes in the socket and there were no holes in the bracket. But it had some click in tabs that mounted it to a plate inside the HPS light fixture. So I bent them around the bracket with some vice grips and it worked perfectly.

 

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Now that we have them mounted We are ready to cut our pieces and start puting the box together. The second pic shows how they will go into the box.

 

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Part 2. Box construction.

This is realy simple. Make sure you have all your pieces measured right the first time. And make your cuts. I just used some pop cans as a makeshift sawhorse. Once you have them cut, put three sides together with some wood screwes. And slide the glass into the groove in the wood. Now put on the last piece and screw it down. I'm using 1" wood screws. And you end up with a verry nice, almost professional looking glass box.

 

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I'm going to use 4" dryer ducting, the plastic kind so I can make a smaller oval hole instaid of a 4" round hole. And for this I trace a 2 and 1/2 inch high, 5" long oval hole on each side. try to off center it so it blows over each bulb and not over the sockets.

So remember the board is 1/2 thick, so measure 5 and 1/2 inches from the side atleast. I did mine at 5 and 3/4 inches.

This mark is how long the oval is, Mark in from the side at 3/4 of an inch, This is the other side of your oval. Make a mark in the center and measure up and down 1 and 1/4 inches. This will give your oval a nice shape without a protractor or something to trace with. Now draw your oval. Do the same on the other side.

 

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Ok, let's get the back made.
Just set your box on the bottom piece of the drawer. Trace it, and cut it out.

 

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We will use some small trim nails to keep it on.

 

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Take the back piece and a glue stick. Put some glue on the back piece.

 

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Take a piece of foil and stick it on. This is just a little back up for the reflector we will put in this.

 

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The reflector came out of the HPS fixture. This will go in right behind the bulbs and be screwed down.

She's starting to take shape now.

 

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Now line the sides of the box with foil.

 

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The reflector will go in the back and all you need to do is bend it around the sides of the box and tap it down with a hammer.

It will hold the shape now and will not move till you take it off.

Put the back on and see how it fits. Make any adjustments you need. This one worked like a charm.

 

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Ok that's about it for the box. Now we need to mount our lights inside.

 

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Alright. Put your lights inside with the bulbs in. Find a spot where the bulbs dont touch anything. Hold them in place and mark the foil with a screw. Now you can let it go and screw them down.