Lighting Off the Shelf Screw in LED Bulbs as a Viable Alternative

[Tombsy]

Hey and Welcome!!
Sweet set up. It looks really clean. Healthy girls too from what I can see.
Peace and happy growing.

Thanks. It's my first grow and I think things are going fairly well. Researched alot before but had some PH and Calmag issues. Nothing abit of time didn't fix though. Big ones are pineapple chunk. I will be switching to autos once these are done.

 

[wwwillie]

Thanks. It's my first grow and I think things are going fairly well. Researched alot before but had some PH and Calmag issues. Nothing abit of time didn't fix though. Big ones are pineapple chunk. I will be switching to autos once these are done.

Nice!
Ya, that cal mag will bite ya in the butt, especially with LED.
Keep up the good work!!

 

[L0wbob2017]

Nice!
Ya, that cal mag will bite ya in the butt, especially with LED.
Keep up the good work!!

under LED's i would recommend using a cal-mag with some micronutrients and some amino acids, like the Sensi Cal-mag Xtra so ur plants can take up the cal-mag a bit better/faster.
also spraying all leafes once a day with a 2% solution of bittersalt helps pretty fast.

 

[Baxterwolfe]

Picked up a used metal cabinet for clone/veg so had to reconfigure the light setup.

 

[hairyman]

@Mr. Sparkle hi pal , sorry if you've already covered this in some way , but I been looking at bulbs , and the dimmable non dimmable option is making me wonder if I could hook up a series of off the shlelf lights run them through a dimmer switch and just adjust the lights depending on stages, reason , OK , I thinking of some veg box which I want to also use for flower for some of the ones I start off or even males, so start say 12 girls in 1 litre pots, week one they don't need that much light, week 2 ,I going to take some away to pot on, the remainder say 8 can stay in situe and fight for a spot and then up the voltage to them depending on size age etc , the total space will only be roughly 24 x 12, so what am I asking , is there any difference in the led used in dimmable bulbs or is it and Its my thinking it's the ballast? that's used in them so would it work ? Have I missed a trick?

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

@hairyman The leds themselves more or less will be the same but its the electronics and ballast behind it that makes it different, Dimmable lamps work in a couple different ways, but typically come down to two methods being Current Adjusting or Pulse Width Modulation, now how those bulb work with your dimmer of choice is another matter as well and can get quite confusing as old style dimmers just varied the voltage typically resistively and that's was fine for incandescent bulb but new dimmers that are compatible with cfl/leds can be trailing or leading edge dimmers, or current adjusting or whatever, now how a bulb is designed to utilize and work with those dimmers and what form of dimming it does can be quite complex as well so i wont get into as we don't really need to.

But to make it short yes you can use dimmable led bulbs but only so long as your using a dimmer switch that is cfl/led compatible, other wise it probably wont work with an old resistive style dimmer.

Now dimmable bulbs are typically quite a bit more pricey as they need those added electronics to work not to mention you also needing a dimmer switch as well but the "Cheap and Easy" way to accomplish the same thing is just get non dimmable bulbs and screw in and out bulbs as needed for the amount of light you want

 

[hairyman]

@hairyman The leds themselves more or less will be the same but its the electronics and ballast behind it that makes it different, Dimmable lamps work in a couple different ways, but typically come down to two methods being Current Adjusting or Pulse Width Modulation, now how those bulb work with your dimmer of choice is another matter as well and can get quite confusing as old style dimmers just varied the voltage typically resistively and that's was fine for incandescent bulb but new dimmers that are compatible with cfl/leds can be trailing or leading edge dimmers, or current adjusting or whatever, now how a bulb is designed to utilize and work with those dimmers and what form of dimming it does can be quite complex as well so i wont get into as we don't really need to.

But to make it short yes you can use dimmable led bulbs but only so long as your using a dimmer switch that is cfl/led compatible, other wise it probably wont work with an old resistive style dimmer.

Now dimmable bulbs are typically quite a bit more pricey as they need those added electronics to work not to mention you also needing a dimmer switch as well but the "Cheap and Easy" way to accomplish the same thing is just get non dimmable bulbs and screw in and out bulbs as needed for the amount of light you want

Cheers pal, great info , lol and yes I was missing a trick, the simplicity trick,

 

[Penrey]

I picked these up at Costco for around a dollar each (I think they were 35.00 with 25.00 rebate) with the at register utility rebate. The one not showing temp is 2700k 90 cri. They also had flood light versions for a little more (same rebate) 2700k 11.5w 750 lumen and cebr30 at 5k 9.5w 650 lumen. I think the floods were in 8 packs and the regular lights were in 10 packs.

 

[ruinthere]

Mr Sparkle, you've blown me away again.

I love it when combined engineering minds can explain something semi-technical in an easy understand way. (AND all these purty pitchurs...) Some other technical discussions on AFN require an education to understand, or even hold one's interest. Not a problem here.

Good, Cheap LED lighting is a topic very near/dear to me. So much good info here. This thread's a little cold now. I hope it picks back up soon.

Props for starting the talk!

I apparently can't slap you again yet. You deserve to be slapped again...

Thanks Mr. S!!
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[Tombsy]

Update. Here are my photo Pineapple Chunk plants. Taking a while to finish but nice colas. First grow ever. 3 Sour Crack and 2 Sour Hound next.