Grow Light

Hi ricky 101, yes it has 2 x 2ft 24w tubes. I had no problem other years but I want to try and improve growth.

 

Hi,

We use a usb fan similar to this design to circulate heat around an enclosure, so think a small 4" one would be fine to blow over your plants.
Possibly directing it more up towards the light unit so it takes the heat away before it reaches the plants.
Might be a bit of trial and error as you do not want to cool the plants down too much or be too strong to knock over the tender stems.

Expect you will have an old phone usb mains socket charger you could use.

 

Thanks, a small fan it is. Roll on Spring now for us all.

 

If you/others start stuff off under growlights, you'll need to keep them under growlights until it's OK to put them out in a (heated?) greenhouse.

So your area under lights needs to cope with the rapidly expanding space requirements of transplanted/potted on seedlings.

In no time at all they will fill the area under your lights (previously on limited hours timer) and you will need keep them turned on 24/7 and have plants in trays to facilitate shifting in and out up to 3 times a day.

Then I arrange some more (cheap LED tubes) lighting on a table by a window and shuffle that around.

Next is putting the greenhouse heating on, and starting to use the greenhouse lightbox, again on 24/7 and with plants in there in 'shifts'.

But the indoor growlight box/supplentary lighting is also still in use.

 

For new growlight users, it's important to understand the Inverse Square Law (I ∝ (1/d2)) which means for example, if you move a growlight away from plants, it decreases the light by the square of the difference, for example, double the distance and reduce light by 75%/4x (2 squared).

Natural daylight, coming from 92 million miles away is hardly affected by moving your plants around.

 

Hi,

An article in last weeks Garden News magazine caught my eye, a guy called Medwyn Williams, a show grower, showed pics of some new led units he was trialing, very few details but he said more will be on his twitter page.

Had a look, and in his nov29th post there are the same pictures, but as yet no more details.
Might be worth following but more for the serious growers as those units are £300+ each !
Expect he got them for free ?

https://twitter.com/medwynsofangles?lang=en

 

Is he still alive, and still writing in Garden News.

 

I asked an electrician for this, and he suggested just to cut the cable and replace it with UK plug. EU cable has no ground (green) but it doesn't need to be connected. He suggested to get these spare plugs from Toolstation or Screwfix, and put a 3A or 5A fuse on it (there are sites online which say what you need if in doubt).
Since then its been less duck taped adapters and more properly plugged in cables.

 

I will look into this Finngal. I have a power lead for each individual light, so can afford to use one as a trial. Thanks for the info.
Rusty

 

How long should light stay on for? I have mine set to come on at 17:30 and go off at 08:30.

Rusty

 

I run my lights for the same number of hours as the day length when it is warm enough to plant out.

 

As I'm now in full blown growth indoors, I have them going on at 7am and turning off midnight 12.
This is to maximize growth and just get harvest. Its a food production plant for me

 

I start my lights with them on overnight on cheap Economy7 electric (12:00 midnight - 7:00am), but only until seedlings are pricked out, or 'potted' on, then there's so many the lights need to be on 24/7, with the plants being juggled under lights + some natural light for up 3 'shifts' a day.