Lighting CFL bulb heat or?

[mycter]

This may seem a bit elementary to you pro's so please forgive the newbness. I'm reading alot and trying to understand something for a grow chamber design in my head. The heat from the CFL bulbs comes from the ballast if I understand correctly??? Is there any heat given off by the bulb part like can plant parts touch the bulb without burning if the ballast were to be sort of "away" from the actual grow space?

This idea involves forming a cylinder of inexpensive coroplast sheet. Inside the cylinder would be the grow area and there would be holes just large enough to insert the ballast parts through to screw into socket strips outside the cylinder, thus keeping the ballasts with their heat away from the plants.

Like I said, it's an idea based on unknowing. I vision it but do not know of its practicality. So do the CFL bulbs generate heat? Thanks for your input.

 

[agito]

it comes from the glass the ballast is cool
My 200w cfl will take the skin off you hands

 

[AndyBotwin]

it comes from the glass the ballast is cool
My 200w cfl will take the skin off you hands

Yep, the whole thing is hot to the touch, so no way to avoid the heat other than some sort of cool tube (which is overkill for CFL in my opinion).

 

[mycter]

Thanks for your input dudes. Have taken into consideration among other things, did some re-thinking, alot more research and am about ready to build the idea. I think it will work but even if it doesn't I like tinkering just for the heck of it. Too much time on my hands perhaps. Hopefully coming soon, the "Yet To Be Named", a not so stealth personal grow chamber but it will (should, maybe, might) look really cool.

Kind of a diy short and stubby version of the phototron I remember but with CFL's and made specially for short, stubby autoflowering varieties.

OK I got a name for it but let's wait and see how she turns out...

 

[Truu]

I mounted my 2 ballasts outside my box, and ran my wires inside to my sockets. Completely eliminated ballast heat (wich is very hot). However my 6 lamp HO fixture still puts out alot of heat! If I didnt have fans inside my box blowing up at them the temp would easily go in the hundreds. The bulbs are cool with fans, and still can be touched without the fans blowing but are much hotter. But with a good exhaust and good intake that can easily be solved.

 

[mycter]

Yep, the whole thing is hot to the touch, so no way to avoid the heat other than some sort of cool tube (which is overkill for CFL in my opinion).

Take a look at this folks and tell me what you think...

This is a rectangular box, inside reflective, size undetermined but I'm leaning on 2' x 2'. The concept is what I'm interested in finding out if it is viable. What I vision is taking advantage of the corners as internal reflectors, having them isolated with a pane of clear glass of plexi with the bottom and topside open for passive cooling, like the heat produced by the CFL's naturally rising and exit through the top while drawing cool air from below. Perhaps even a center clear tube with a couple of lights so in theory this box could have 10 CFL's of lower wattage but in the 6500 K daylight spectrum or a mix of bulbs.

I imagine this with a removable top and the whole thing being able to separate or lift off from the bottom which is not shown to be the "pot" for holding grow medium and designed with the shape in mind to leave the open space in the corners for air movement.

So I suppose the questions are...

Is glass or plexi going to block so much light intensity that its use would be pointless?

If there were 10 CFL's, given light intensity was not overly diminished by glass and heat not an issue given the passive cool tubes work and one were to place 4 autoflowering seeds, one each exactly between the lights, that is roughly 6 inches away from the light on two sides. Is this going to be sufficient for seedling development? I'm basing most of this thought on the original Phototron which had no upper or center light source, a fully reflective interior and the plants grew fine but if I remember right the seeds were started somewhat closer to each bulb.

I appreciate your thoughts based on your experiences but I'm likely to build the thing regardless and see how well it works if at all. Just my nature and please don't think anyone would be wasting their time pointing out things. I do take all things into consideration. The comment in the quote made me have to research to learn what a cool tube was, which has gotten it to this point in the design. Thanks.

 

[agito]

my thought are that the plexi will block 10% of your light but this may not be a bad thing if you can get your plants 3" closer that would yield 50% more light.
There was an amazing grow i have seen recently with a lad who ran a 250w hps in the middle in theory this is better as plants will be close to the source and the plants were trained up the side walls taking all the light in his yields were impressive to say the least. the thing with light it diminishes so quickly so if your using a cfl i would want one with the biggest intial light amount so the glass does not cut much out

so i would run the light in the center
cooltube a 200w cfl or a 250 mh/mh
or run cfs small enough the plants can touch the bulb or not burn but It it would be effcient to the the above or run a bank of t5's in the middle cool enough to touch and no need for a tube

 

[Noods]

Hey mycter! I've had to cut off a few leaf tips that raised up into the swirl of the cfl after watering the plant. The tips burned and went necrotic. Cut that off and the leaves were fine. It's still bad practice though.

I had a slightly smaller setup than what you are planning with only 4x 23w 2500k cfls and it was HOT in there. I had three 120mm computer fans as an exhaust and a passive intake. It was not enough to keep the temps down to a cannabis friendly level. I was constantly putting frozen water bottles inside, in front of the passive intake so the exhaust would suck the air in and around the ice bottles, resulting in a sort of diy a/c. This worked, but it was a pain in the ass, big time. The condensation from the bottles kept the humidity way, way up. This might be fine for seedlings and before flowering, but as you know, you have to keep the RH down during flowering.

Hope I could help with your construction plans! :smokebuds:

---------- Post added 10-25-2011 at 02:15 PM ----------

...or go LED and that thing would be really spaced out!