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Neps Lighting

  • Thread starter bianchi914
  • Start date
  • #21
i use 32 watt T8's cause thats what i can find cheap.....use the cheapest bulb i can find as well......i use atleast 4 bulbs but if the rack can fit it i always go 6............this system has worked without fail for 4 years now..........though now that some of the neps are starting to vine i may increase the height and add a light or two to the sides........
 
  • #23
Those are nice lights, JMurphy, and plants grow well under them. However, I've had about five of those fail on me in relatively short order, and have only two that still work. One day they just stop working. ?? Maybe I've been unlucky, but they're obviously inexpensively made. One good thing is that our power company in California subsidizes them, so I get 'em for about $20 per.

Capslock
 
  • #24
LOA products are cheap, and it shows. I use them two (the 4' dual tube fluorescent fixtures) and sometimes they just stop working indefinitely. I've had about 4 of them fail on me in 2 years. Not too bad though, considering they're $8 a piece
 
  • #25
Yeah they are nice lights I think. I've had them for about a year now and they are still good. I just changed the bulbs and added some myler so it's even more bright in there. Those lights with the basement temps got everything to just take off.
 
  • #26
in a nutshell,

the thinner bulbs allow for a more efficient reflector design and closer point of focus, the 4' t8 is 32 watt, the 4' t12 is 40 watt but the 4' t5 is 54 watt, hence the big improvement in the T5. When you combine the improved reflector shape and increase in wattage you can get major gains.

A good relector as opposed to a poor or no reflector fixture is as much as a 300% difference is usuable efficiency.

a T5 with no reflector or a poor reflector design may not anywhere as good as a T12 with a decent reflector

lumens is a measurement of intensity as it appears to humans, it is biased towards the yellow and green spectrums which are least used by plants. A much better value to go by is PAR or even better PUR

Lumens is actually a measurement of the energy plants cannot use efficiently ;)

big lumens and big watts is like a big shot gun, you cant help but get some big energy amounts on target, better yet would be big watts with big PAR/PUR, which would actually be low lumens (relatively speaking)

and keep your CRI around 85, increasing CRI much above that puts more energy into the non usuable wavelengths...

I believe Varun recently experienced this first hand, I sent him a 2'x2 T8 that has a decent reflector, and the results were obvious to him, they produced much more light then his larger t12's with no or poor reflector design, even though the wattage and lumens was much lower

Av

edit: here is IMHO the single best unbiased/ no BS webpage on the subject, a must read if you really want to learn more about fluorescent plant lighting

the author, Ivan Busko is Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore MD USA
 
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  • #27
He's right! Thats why I was suggesting T8 over T5. ;) However, take heed though... its also causing a lot of heat . SO if you place it inside your grow chamber think about ways to funnel the heat away. ;)
 
  • #28
Thanks Av.

Why would I want to funnel heat away? I grow lowlanders ;)
 
  • #29
lol! I am freaking out as my temps are popping up. lol! Its 75 - 77F max in during the day time now. Before the new light temps were 72F max....the highlanders were loving it. Considering this is just the start of spring in Canada, it freaks me out thinking about what would happen when summer actually arrives. :(
 
  • #30
My temps are already hitting high 80s/low 90s. My plants are enjoying it. Ahhh the joy of lowlanders.
 
  • #31
Well....all is not last for me yet....I need to just get by for another month till I head back home for the summer. Then I will be in my basement and it "SHOULD" be cool enough to help. ;) If not, I might have to pull the light fixture and settle with low light. :( :-(
 
  • #32
ahhh but with proper ventilation and adaquate humidification capacity you should be able to maintain a delta t of zero degrees over ambient if not a few degrees drop from evaporation :0o:

removing the light would be treating a symptom of the problem and not its root cause

you need to do a root cause analysis, go through the TPS/Six Sigma five whys... then Kaizen and Poka-yoke my young apprentice

test on TPS tomorrow, notes permitted
hehehehe
Av
 
  • #33
lol! true B! soo true!

Well....I will be making a new thread soon on planning for a new setup. Its unique in the sense I want to make something visually appealing but at the same time, light and dismantle able to move around as I would have to. At the same time, the frame has to be strong to hold a 4 foot light fixture. Well, it has to be a new topic...so I'll leave this one alone for now. :p

V
 
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