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New grow chamber

....Well, after plenty of guidance from Swords regarding construction and lighting, as well as advice from Tony P., I just finished a new lowland Nepenthes grow chamber...here's a pic....

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The front is a storm window (approx. 36" x 48") screwed into a frame of 2x3's and reinforced with L-brackets.  The enclosure has a depth of approximately 30".  The sides are composed of white waterproof wall surround, and the bottom is 3/4" plywood that has been coated three times with polyurethane and allowed to dry until no odor was present.  The top is 1/4" plexiglass.  Lighting is as follows:  3 Lights of America 65W compact flourescents (500W equivalent each), along with 2 normal twin tube 48" shop lights placed in the front and back (not in photo).  Non-toxic waterproof caulk was used to seal up most seams.  

Not counting the lighting, the total building cost was approx. $140...and $50 of that was for the plexiglass.  I'll probably just use white plastic crates stacked in some sort of arrangement, along with white flourescent light diffuser to create tiered shelving.  Hopefully, anyone who is contemplating a similar project can take some ideas away from this.  Now comes the fun part...filling it with plants!

Tom
 
Tom, that's brilliant! Very nice indeed....And you're right...now comes the fun part.:D
 
Awesome setup you got there, Tom.
 
Looks nicely constructed. Can't wait to see it with plants!
 
Looks great. How are you going to cover the above 70 F temps for lowland? Just curious.

Regards,

Joe
 
Joe,

...The room the grow chamber is in stays around 70 at night and goes up to around 74 degrees during the day. The heat given off by the all of the flourescents sitting directly on top of the plexiglass get the chamber to around 85 degrees by mid day. The Lights of America 500W flourescents give off a decent amount of heat for flourescent bulbs.

Tom
 
Brillant design. Thanks for sharing it.
 
Awesome set-up, TomV! I'll have to make a ditto of it one of these days. Are the florecent lights halides or just florecent? 500 watts for one florecent is alot.
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Spectabilis73,

The lights are a type of compact flourescent...from what I understand. They are made by Lights of America, and utilize a "Flourex" bulb. They're very bright...supposedly giving off 500W of light while only utilizing 65W. They can can be found in most Home Depot stores. Make sure you get the model which has a 6500K bulb.

Tom
 
  • #10
How much did those compact flourescents cost you, and did the fixture come with a built in balast? I'm asking 'cause I want to see if I got ripped off with the one I just purchased....Thanks.
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  • #11
Schloaty,

The lights were around $30 each...complete with bulb and fixture (with built-in ballast). Replacement bulbs are around $12 I believe. They really are great lights..."Swords" from this forum first brought them to my attention.

Tom
 
  • #12
How many lumens does the light give off?

Great chamber?
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  • #13
That's awsome! You are lucky...obviously handy with tools and having building know-how.

Is it ventilated? Is the top open?

Nice job!

Suzanne
 
  • #14
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Schloaty,

The lights were around $30 each...complete with bulb and fixture (with built-in ballast). Replacement bulbs are around $12 I believe. They really are great lights..."Swords" from this forum first brought them to my attention.

Tom [/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

ARG! how many bulbs go in each fixture? What are the specs on those bulbs....now I have to know....Man, I paid a LOT more than that (but, at least, less than one of those really big jobbies like a metal halihide).
 
  • #15
mat_man444: Each bulb gives off 6,825 lumens

PlantAKiss: The chamber is not ventilated. However, I purposely left some very small gaps between the plexiglass top and the top of the enclosure to provide some ventilation and allow excessive heat to escape...usually gets around 84*F by mid-day with 85-90% humidity.

Schloaty: Only one bulb goes into each fixture. I have three fixtures over the enclosure. The bulbs use 65W but are supposedly equivalent to 500W of output. As mentioned above, they give off 6,825 lumens and are 6500K. They are extremely bright, and the plants I have in there are showing wonderful pitcher production/coloration and a slight reddening of the leaves.

Tom
 
  • #16
oh MAN! I pain near $200 for my setup, which is holds two bulbs instead of one, but still!

Live and learn.
 
  • #18
Only reason I am posting this is because I am new and need as much knowledge as possible.

This is in refrence to the above post, as in the "reasonable prices" posted above.

I bought a $13 48" (2 bulb) flourecent fixture, and 2 bulbs (1 is 5000K, 92 CRI @ 2200 lumens, the other is 6500K, 84 CRI @ 2325 lumens) the bulbs where about 6 bucks a piece. So.. for $25 I got more than I could get a single bulb from the store you refrenced. Are the bulbs and lights REALLY that much better??

I mean, I thought I did good by giving my plants a good range of color and a nice amount of lumens. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there is better, but your looking at 10 times the price for what real advantages? (this is my real question)


Casper
 
  • #19
I have not checked out the links but some things to consider with lighting and how/why prices can be so different.

By far the cheapest and easiest is standard shoplights with mass produced coolwhite/daylight type bulbs. These are so cheap because of the sheer volume these fixtures and bulbs are produced. Downside is they are normal fluorescent and the light intensity is low so the plants must be fairly close to effectively light the grow area. This is a problem when lighting a tall terrarium or when lighting plants which can grow very tall or lighting a mixed collection of tall and short plants.

The expensive compact units you see at these much higher prices are highoutput and very high output. They require special ballasts and bulbs to produce 2x and 3x the light of a normal bulb the same length and diameter. The upshot is the higher intensity will allow them to be placed further away and to light a larger area. A big plus for tall grow chambers. The down side as you noticed is the price because of the specialty bulbs and less mass produced ballasts to run them.

Tony
 
  • #20
Casper,
Well, the color temp and CRI are comparable, but the lumens are not. I get a rediculous lux output from my set up. I think it's something like 10,000 lux at a distance of 20" (does anyone know how to convert that into lumens? Would it even make sense to convert that into lumens?).
So I get a lot more light output per watt (the whole setup uses 110 watts).
It is comparable to a 400 watt HID light, but it's opperates at a much cooler temperature. You can touch it without burning yourself.
 
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