I started off with a 9.6K lumen half-a-trash can CFL with 6 x 23-watt 1600 lumen 5000K bulbs for my seedlings. Since I eventually wanted to do an outside grow, my mission for the seedling stage was to DIY the cheapest CFL light with parts in stock at the local Home Depot.
A youtube video of a trash can DIY was my guide. From other posts, it seems most of the DIY CFL grow lights use some combination of power strips and/or outlet-to-socket light plugs, twin-socket lamp holder adapters (Y socket), weatherproof sockets, etc. With these sockets it seemed difficult to mount the bulb in a near horizontal position to best accommodate CFL light emittance. The small value I might be adding to the body of knowledge is my selection of bulb socket. I ended up choosing Taymac Metal Weather-Resistant Lamp holders. At $2.79 per socket these were about the same cost or cheaper than the other options. A benefit was the flexibility of changing the angle and rotation of these sockets.
My apologies if these sockets are old hat. I must not have searched hard enough to see if there was a precedent. Maybe I can still lay claim to customizing the sockets so they could accept medium base bulbs with large ballast sizes. For my initial CFL bulb purchase I mistakenly bought 3500K bulbs. When I switched to the highest 5000K bulbs available at my Home Depot, the ballasts wouldn't fit in the sockets. I ended up using my Dremel tool with metal cutting discs to chop off the lip of the socket. This had the added benefit of fully exposing the ballast for better heat wicking.
Then I upped the half can to 19.2K lumens with 12 bulbs.
Because of the blustery Hawaiian winter weather, I didn't want to put the saplings outside yet. I ended up getting a cheap 2'D x 4'W x 5'H grow tent. For the tent grow light, I next attached two half cans together each with 12 bulbs for a total of 24 x 1600 = 38.4K lumens. The damn thing reminded me of what a galvanized axlotl tank might look like in a nightmare. I thought I had pictures of this contraption with all the bulbs installed and lit up in the tent but I must have been dreaming or I haven't found the right SD card yet. All I can find is a photo of just the connected half cans. You'll understand why only the trash can skeleton remains in part 2.
A youtube video of a trash can DIY was my guide. From other posts, it seems most of the DIY CFL grow lights use some combination of power strips and/or outlet-to-socket light plugs, twin-socket lamp holder adapters (Y socket), weatherproof sockets, etc. With these sockets it seemed difficult to mount the bulb in a near horizontal position to best accommodate CFL light emittance. The small value I might be adding to the body of knowledge is my selection of bulb socket. I ended up choosing Taymac Metal Weather-Resistant Lamp holders. At $2.79 per socket these were about the same cost or cheaper than the other options. A benefit was the flexibility of changing the angle and rotation of these sockets.
My apologies if these sockets are old hat. I must not have searched hard enough to see if there was a precedent. Maybe I can still lay claim to customizing the sockets so they could accept medium base bulbs with large ballast sizes. For my initial CFL bulb purchase I mistakenly bought 3500K bulbs. When I switched to the highest 5000K bulbs available at my Home Depot, the ballasts wouldn't fit in the sockets. I ended up using my Dremel tool with metal cutting discs to chop off the lip of the socket. This had the added benefit of fully exposing the ballast for better heat wicking.
Then I upped the half can to 19.2K lumens with 12 bulbs.
Because of the blustery Hawaiian winter weather, I didn't want to put the saplings outside yet. I ended up getting a cheap 2'D x 4'W x 5'H grow tent. For the tent grow light, I next attached two half cans together each with 12 bulbs for a total of 24 x 1600 = 38.4K lumens. The damn thing reminded me of what a galvanized axlotl tank might look like in a nightmare. I thought I had pictures of this contraption with all the bulbs installed and lit up in the tent but I must have been dreaming or I haven't found the right SD card yet. All I can find is a photo of just the connected half cans. You'll understand why only the trash can skeleton remains in part 2.
