Reality Check on an Orchid Light Solution?....

Josh,

I have a solution for you.

Go to Target. Back in the shelving section they have a 3 feet wide x 15 inches deep black or chrome colored unit that is made of wire. These are the same units that you might see in restaurants in the kitchen. They are also available at other locations (container store, Home Depot, Lowes, etc) but Target has the best prices. You can often catch them on sale. They are about 72 inches tall with 4 or 5 shelves.

You don't have to use all the shelves.

Now go to Home Depot and buy 4 shop lights with 48 inch floresent tubes. Only buy 2 shop lights if you have lower light plants. Hang the shop lights from the shelf above the shelf that holds the plant.

I have been able to grow on three levels and the top shelf is available for supplies or other things.

Have all the power cords at the same end of the shelving unit and put it on a timer.

You can also buy wheels for this unit so you can move it around....like to clean behind it.

You should be able to put this together for less than $100 unless you buy really fancy light fixtures.

It gets the plants off the countertop and allows you to put them somewhere else. Just bring them out when they are in bloom.

Good Growing, Gene

Save the money to take him out for a steak dinner and buy standard fluorescent tubes. Run 4 tubes per shelf and adjust the height of plants so similar heights and light needs are on a shelf. Then adjust the light fixture to that height. Low light plants can sit beneath some tall ones - but remember light decreases Radically fast as you increase the distance. Ray has a good explanation - Firstrays.com Lots of free info here - indulge yourself with a visit. Also remember to date the tubes and change them out after 12 months. If you move plants outside in the summer - that 12 months maybe across a couple of calendar years. The timer is a requirement. I also bought plastic by the yard at Hancock Fabrics and wrapped the open face to hold up the humidity. Clipped it on with a couple of oversized clamps that look like clip-on clothes pins and it comes down easily. SuE

i.e. the intensity of the light decreases as the inverse of the square of the distance. For example a light twice as far away will be 1/4 as intense, three times as far, 1/9 as intense, etc.

HOWEVER, from a large or diffuse source such as a fluorescent tube, the falloff is less drastic because the tube is, in effect, a large number of overlapping point sources. The handy rule for such a source is that the intensity falls off as the inverse of the distance, i.e. twice as far ,1/2 as intense, three times as far, 1/3, etc.

J. Del Col

HI folks - Thanks so much for the information. Per your advice, I've divorced my wife. However, this hasn't yet helped my orchids. The actual problem is that our house is Old and the kitchen windows offer the only strong source of natural light. This is why they have to stay on the counter. I'm also interested to hear you all say that enhanced fluorescent grow lights are no better than the regular tubes. That should save some $$s. Regards- js

I had friends with the same dilemma. The spent about $1000 to put in a beautiful huge bay type window in a blank south facing living room wall. It not only brightened a gloomy dark room but created a haven for their tropical plants. Would this be an option for you?

I did something similar to what Gene suggested. I took 4 48" T12 tube flourescent fixtures intended for use with suspended ceilings and converted them to corded "shop lights". (Because someone local was selling those fixtures for less than the $7 2 tube shop light at Lowes). I then hung those from the 48"x18"x72" 5 shelf wire shelves.

All in all it was a few power tool replacement cords, half a bag of wire nuts, several bags of S hooks, a box of bandaids, and some swearing while drilling holes for S hooks and getting to the ballasts to hook up the power cords.

I screwed up grounding on one fixture and managed to buzz myself with it after I moved. If I were to do it again I would have done two things different.

I do keep looking at one actual grow light fixture for the orchids my wife keeps in the dining room. That would be something like item 105072 from farmtek (Hanging Full Spectrum Light w/ 200W CFL).

If you have a clue about working with electrical fixtures the "troffer" lights are the way to go. Look for job sites where they are upgrading the lighting system to smaller diameter tubes.

Here is a bit of what I have seen on the 200W CFL bulbs The first one I ever ordered came broke right out of the box. The spacers that are glued at the top of the tubes had come loose and the bulb was cracked at the base. The replacement for it lasted about three weeks then just did not light at all. I have had one other just give up with less than 100hrs on it. And of course I have broken two of them myself moving them around (one of them by putting it in a fixture and one by it slipping in my hand and I tightened my grip and it just snapped) The 200W are very fragile. I have 4 of the 200 watt bulbs that have been running 18-20hr a day (two in fixtures and two hanging in between rowes of shelving) a good bit over two years and they still put out resonable lummes. I prefer to use the next wattage down (the 125watt) because... They are cheaper, put two together and you have more light at less cost, less fragile, standard base socket and did I mention less fragile? I use them just hanging vertically from a socket on a cord. Also the 200W runs pretty hot (not like the MH or HPS but still they are hot) My personall opinion and unfounded non scientific reseach says they run hotter than a 48" 4 tube light and if you have pots above them they will dry them out in a hurry. Again this is just my personal research and opinion, yours will very.

I still falls off at the same rate. ">

If you are considering large cfl's I would strongly recomend you at least think about a small MH or HPS. Not only are CFL's very fragile and tend to not last anywere near their rated life (Made in China) they are also only about half as efficent as MH. On a watt per lumen basis hps and mh give of twice the light and only half the heat. ie a 100W MH would give off the same light as a 200W CFL and only a quarter of the heat. The big kicker is a small MH is only about $50-$75 more and replacement cost on the bulb is only about $30 Vs $85-$150. Unfortunaltly not that great for shelving systems as all the light is coming from one source. HPS is even more efficient but have an icky colour of light.

it always falls off at the same rate. The difference is a florescent tube is long and narrow, so the 'point' of light is really many points of light. But the rate of decrease remains the same from each point source of light no matter what type of lamp produces it. It is an inverse square; so three feet is 9 times less intense and two feet is 4 times less intense...than the intensity at the source, and four feet is...?

...and gravity propagates forward at the speed of light. If the sun disappeared now, the earth would behave as if it had a gravitational body holding it in orbit for how long?

...and the efficacy of earth made O-Rings and foam insulation on interstellar space craft can be summed up best by what Simpson-esc buzz word?

While the bulbs may be cheaper to replace, a decent reflector and ballast are a cost one doesn't need with a 125W CFL, as the ballast is built-in and it screws into a standard Edison base.

I see about 18-24 months out of them, and if I'm not mistaken, MH and HPS bulbs should be replaced about that often, no?

Which is what I said.

J. Del Col

Yes, you did. And I agree. Although I think I understand more clearly now and can rephrase the idea we both agree with so it says this:

given two bulbs that produce the same desired lumen output at one foot from the bulb, the first bulb being a fist-sized incandescent and the second being a 4 foot long tube, the difference in the size of the lumen footprint between the two bulbs is what makes one more desirable than the other. The first bulb produces a 1 foot by 1 foot space of desired lumens, the second produces a 1 by 4 foot space of desired lumens.

However, what really through me for a few minutes in what I read here:

was the difference between "inverse" and "inverse square". One makes the statement false; although not so far wrong in the short distances we are talking about under a bulb, that it was worth jumping to this lovely thread. The other thing that threw me was the need to state how distance and intensity are related in the equation. "Twice" and "Three times" mislead me, (again the distances we are talking about are small, so as a handy rule over distances of a foot or two, it works well enough). Anyway, I managed to puzzle out the paragraph and make sense of it to my own satisfaction. Sorry to do it in front of everybody, I should have just roamed around the greenhouse talking to myself until I figured it out. That would have been the more peaceable choice.

This is an interesting thread. Don't stop on my account.

I stopped selling the standard base ones because they couldnt take being mounted horizontal. A mogul socket is quite cheap anyway ($10). I usually recomend changing MH or CFL bulbs at a year or less( but i sell them for a living). Realisticly MH would burn for at least 3-4 years but light output would go way down over that much time and bulbs are cheaper than electricity. The city only changes HPS streetlights when they burn out and i hardly ever see them doing it. Yoe don't "need" a reflector for MH or HPS either but I sell one with CFL's most of the time too. It is only a one time expense and ballast last so long they are almost a one time cost as well. I'm not saying CFL's are no good just that for the cost and power use it is worth thinking about MH/HPS. I actually even have a 125W 25000K bulb in my grow room right now. It makes the room nice and blue. If you are using multiple CFL's a small HID light kit is way cheaper than 4 125 CFL's.Plus you have enough light for more orchids.

Really? Mine are horizontal.

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Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids -

They started to sag after a while. The mogul based ones can take weight no problem.