Mounting lights to plywood

[theCre8or]

Hi Guys
I"m putting (9) 150watt (effective, 42 w actual) CFL bulbs into a smallish grow box. I wanted to mount them to something that will make it easy to lower and raise all of them at once. I was thinking of buying those utility lamps with the reflector and clamp at home depot for 5 bucks a piece. Removing the clamp makes them fit. THe reflector is threaded and screws on to the bulb socket.

I was wondering, if I make holes in the plywood large enough for the bulb socket to fit through, then use the reflector on the other side to secure it to the plywood will the balasts of all 9 CFL bulbs create enough heat to start the plywood on fire? It's 1/4" plywood I was going to pick up. I know the bulbs themselves dont' get too hot, but the balast does.

Each of these CFL's should produce 2600 lumens. I'll place another 3 along the sides of the grow box. That gives me 31200 lumens.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
D

 

[Homemadegravity]

I wouldnt know till I try it but when Im in those circumstances I always try to stay safe and go with option b. Personally I would try to keep the wood away from ballasts specially when those lights will be on for at least better half of the day. The ballasts can create alot of heat and Ive heard of to many grow spots catching fire to be tryin that. So I would say look for an alternative way to hang your lights. Good luck remember its jus my opinion.

 

[theCre8or]

Yeah, I am thinking of not going that way, as a precaution, but I was hoping someone would say " yeah, I've done it and it works great, no fires!" I'm thinking I'll stay with the orginal plan and hang them from a chain individually. It will be a pain to lower and raise each one, but better than a fire. Should I bother adjusting the height? The box has an interior height of only 42". The interior will be painted white. SHoudl I bother lowering the lights. THat's the advantage of using CFL, so that's why I was going to do it. Maybe I'll prop the plants up until they are taller...

 

[Firepower]

you dont have much to worry about, in order for plywood to catch fire the heatr would have to be extremely high, that setup would be fine to use with plywood, in the same note your ventilation will also play a critical part on that grow so your temps shouldnt be that high anyways..

a lot of ballasts fires are not caused by the wood catching on fire, but by a short leading to a more combustible material to spark up..
i have put an iron rod straight from the chimney to a piece of wood and it took over 45 seconds to even burn the wood.. but never caught on fire..
hope this helps

 

[Homemadegravity]

Yeah, I am thinking of not going that way, as a precaution, but I was hoping someone would say " yeah, I've done it and it works great, no fires!" I'm thinking I'll stay with the orginal plan and hang them from a chain individually. It will be a pain to lower and raise each one, but better than a fire. Should I bother adjusting the height? The box has an interior height of only 42". The interior will be painted white. SHoudl I bother lowering the lights. THat's the advantage of using CFL, so that's why I was going to do it. Maybe I'll prop the plants up until they are taller...

Chain wouldnt be that bad to adjust. I have my hood and light hanging from chains and when I want to adjust it I just open up a new link on the chain and presto its higher. With cfl's on your plants I would get them as close as possible to your plants as you can get them without putting to much heat on the plants, so adjust your lights to your plants growth. But with cfl's you shouldnt have a problem with those lights being rite on top of them. On my grow I use a 250w mh bulb in a hood and at first I have my plants on something to get them up close and personel with the light. The last part of my veg into flowering is when I will start adjusting the light more with the chains, I think its just easier for me this way. Your walls are white so you should be good in that department, if you can afford it try and get some mylar it will help out alot. Read this section here it mite help you a litlle bit more http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1969. Anyway good luck, anymore questions feel free to ask away.
Also with the ply wood I respect what firepower has to say and in no way am I putting what he said down. I would just like to add 45 seconds on a piece of wood with a hot rod didnt start a fire but think about those ballasts being on 24/7, or what if it would short out somehow, your just adding to the material that could catch fire more easy. If you want to go ahead use it like I said before IMO I would keep the ply wood out of a grow room.

 

[KaptainKronic]

My entire cabinet is constructed of plywood, and I have my lights mounted to them on the inside....I lined the inside of the plywood with Mylar using an industrial strength spray adhesive before I put the cabinet together, then I mounted my balasts. 6 months later still no problems, but I think it also has to do with what Firepower said about your ventilation. I have a 6inch exhaust fan mounted in the ceiling of my cabinet to draw all the hot air out of the top, and a small fan tilted up to pull the cool air from the bottom of the cabinet to keep the temps. down....especially in southern California, where the temp. was over 110 for 2 weeks straight a couple of weeks ago.

 

[Homemadegravity]

Well maybe Im wrong then sorry. Hang your lights from the ply wood obvisouly it works. Sorry for giving you the wrong advice.

 

[KaptainKronic]

Awww come on Homemade....it's not like that man....chains work just as good and your right, it's better to be safe than sorry....I was just sharing my personal experience not trying to say that your idea wasn't good...to be honest I didn't consider that factor when I built my cabinet, or I might have used chains too.....:48:

 

[Homemadegravity]

No no I didnt take it in a bad way Kaptain. I was just tryin to say I stand corrected thats all. I cant get mad at you for giving your opinion or telling your expierence. Ive never even used ply wood, thought about it but never used it so you would know on the subject then me. Its cool no worries bro its all good. Im not mad I apologize if I came off that way.

 

[Dubbaman]

heres the top of my cabinet i know its not ply wood but it is wood and it hasnt burnt i house 3 42W 150equivelant CFls in the top of this box the holes are approx 5" in diameter and the small clam lights is like 5.5" so it will fit and i was hanging them from the holes( little screw in hooks in the inside of the hole and small chain dangeling them in) in the top but now that my plant is much bigger so now i use the holes to set the reflector of the light on and it is just a bit biggger than the sixe of the hole so it keeps light going the right way and has about 2.5-3" off the bulb when its suspended in there by the reflector

 

[theCre8or]

thanks for all the tips everyone
Kaptain, when you say mounted to the inside, can you be more specifc. Check out dubmans photos here. Those are the exact reflectors I have. They screw onto the socket. I plan on putting the sockets through holes (smaller hole than Dubbaman's) from the top and securing the socket to the plywood using the reflector. This way, I can have all 9 blubs on one piece of wood, hang a chain in each corner and adjust the entire piece at once easily. I'm thinking the reflector will work enough as a heatsink. I do have a small exhaust fan at the top of the box.

Are your lights mounted direclty to the wood? Are the sockets actually touching the wood? Do you think your mylar works as a heatsink?


Dubbaman, you only have (3) 42 w cfls? How many lumens do they output each? The ones I hav output 2600 lumens each. I was reading that 30,000 is the minimal lumens required for robust growth. What's your yield like. When I started these plans, I missed a zero and thought it was only 3,000 lumens and bought (2) of the 2600 lumens CFL's thinking I'd be good. My grow box is 20 inches long x 20 inches wide x 44 inches tall. That's abut 2.56 sq feet of floor space and 9.2 cubic feet of grow box. I was just rading somewhere else that 2000-3000 lumens per sq foot is good.

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Dubbaman]

my box is 2'dx2.5'wx8'h im growing on flos in a side mount style (vertical 4' shoplight ballasts) with 4 4' shoplight 6 bulbs are g.e. kitchen and bath T12 3400 lumen and 2 vitalite twist t12 2500 lumen (i think had them a bit) and the 3 42Wcfl g.e warm white might be 2600 lumen but i think they were 2700 for some reason (the package is long gone now so i can look at it again)and for lumen to area its should be 5K/sq' 3k is mininum my total in a 4.75 is like 29k and change in lumen and the lights (side) are only about 4-6" off plant at all times rotate the potter 1/4 turn every 2 days and your good you say your box is about 2.5 sq" then you should be ok with about 15k lumen thats jsut roundin it up nothing wrong with lumen over kill mine calls for liek 22-23 but i went for it and made it almost 30k but for sq' its wXd=SQ' the hight isnt a factor in it till your talking about moving air so if your box is 20"x20" thats still under half sq' even with the hight you should be ok with 7800 lumen you have in it id think for a box that small

 

[theCre8or]

Thanks Dubba,

I was reading that there are progressivley higher light requirements for seedling, veg, and flowering stages. Right now I have (2) 2600 lumens bulbs. I'm going to germinate this weekend and hopefully have seedlings by Monday or Tuesday. I'll spread the cost of the CFL's and sockets by picking up 3 or 4 more sets right away (about 10,00 lumens,) a few more on the next paycheck, and a few more when it comes time to flower, until I have (12) 2600 lumens CFLs.

Does the extra light during seedling and veg states produce a larger plant? I ask because if I don't need as much light, I'll turn off the extra lights durring veg state to keep electricity costs down. Is it worth the extra expense, or do we hit a point of dimishing returns?

Thanks again everyone

 

[lowrydergrower775]

hey those reflector things you got for the cfl's is there a way i could take one of those and rig it up for a 150 watt hps for about 20 days? i know it uses a ballast and a different socket but just wondering if this could be done?

 

[theCre8or]

I have no idea. anyone else?

 

[Dubbaman]

hey those reflector things you got for the cfl's is there a way i could take one of those and rig it up for a 150 watt hps for about 20 days? i know it uses a ballast and a different socket but just wondering if this could be done?

no the bulb sockets and draw requirements are not the same and if you put your hps in one of these tyype of reflectors if you dont bust (burnout) the bulb id be suprised but its because of the socket (screw in end) of the bulb is different that it wouldnt work

 

[Dubbaman]

yeah guy that sounds like a solid plan for your box hope everything grows out big abd beautiful for you

 

[KaptainKronic]

Hey Cre8or....my ballast is different than yours, mine actually is a side mount that you can mount to the side of the cabinet with a few screws and then you just screw in the bulb....I think the Mylar does act as some type of protectant...how much I don't know but I think it works pretty well.....I tried to upload some pics of the inside of my cabinet but it says that I've already posted those pics in another post and won't let me upload them again....I'll try to find the post and show you if I can but be patient cuz i'm not that good with this stuff yet....lol:fly:

 

[theCre8or]

Thanks again everyone.
KK< I think I"m cool. I"m going to stick with some simple hooks and chain. It wasn't that big of a deal, just wanted to make it easier in the future.

Germination process begins today. I've got 10 Jock Horror seeds i orderd from Nirvana. I'm going to start by attempting germination of 4. HOpeing at least 2-3 will germinate and at least 1 female comes up.

On a whim, I attemtped to germinate in the summer with 5 bag weed seeds. 3 sprouted, but only 1 survived. It ended up being a male. It was grown in a pot on my deck with little attention. Just sun, water and good soil. I germinated in small clay pots with MG seed starter mix, then just left them on the deck. This time, I'm putting them in small plastic peat pots with the same MG seed starter mix. I'll cover the peat pots loosley with some plastic to retain moisture and put them on top of my fridge.

Any suggestions here?


Thanks
D

 

[Dubbaman]

is stay away from the MG seed stuff but other than that Gl with it i think that MG is just too hot for MJ now i was using it for a bit but stopped from to many burns