Grow lights, heaters etc, on a budget

My growing lights are in my Home Office. Its 20C there (i.e. central heating) so I've never bothered with a growing cupboard.

Maybe I should? Or maybe others can do without - if they can put the lights in a centrally heated room?

 

I have had my lights now for a few years - as I have no knowledge of electrics/diy I first purchased a Garland Light Garden - which is great (thinking of getting another this year) - then my son bought me a T5 4-bulb 3ft unit which hangs under a shelving unit - not enclosed - the T5 is the stronger.

I also use the lights under my kitchen cabinets - bought replacement bulbs which were advertised as T5 - and not understanding too much - but assumed they would be similar to the unit I have though not as strong. This is OK once seedlings are in cell trays - stops legginess.

Heat mat is also essential for chillies especially and other hard-to-sprout seeds - at the moment I have parsley on it waiting to sprout.

S

 

Good point - I have a reptile heat mat that I use for extra heat for germination & the chillies seem to love it, popping up faster than my ability to move them out & under the growlight.

 

Excellent find. When I got mine, I looked on Amazon first (always my preference over eBay - in fact eBay is always my last resort). When I eventually upgrade my setup I'll look there.

You'll find that the usable coverage from the array is pretty much the size of the array. I.e. the light is very focused for maximum efficiency. There is almost certainly a technical term for what I'm about to explain, but I don't know it, so I'll just do my best All light sources (except lasers) radiate out in a sort of cone. The more degrees away from the straight line from the source, the lower the intensity of light. With the LEDs, that angle is very small. I find that the usable area of coverage is probably the size of the panel, plus an extra inch max all round. So just over 1 square foot. That said, directly under the array represents peak daylight, so just outside of that area, I reckon, represents early morning/evening, so still ok if you have say two trays, and you can be bothered to rotate them such that one gets 12 hours directly under the array while the other is getting 12 hours in the much lesser light to the side, it will be fine.

So based on this, if I was starting my lightbox project from scratch, based on what I learned from the one I've already done, I'd put both panels in the same cupboard, and just don't be too over ambitious as I was, starting too many seeds off in one go (@Kristen forewarned me of this, yet I did it anyway - I'd follow that advice if I could rewind time )

60w is quite a lot of power for a small setup. Have you thought about the running costs, and safety (I don't know how hot that would get in a confined space). It will also take up more cupboard space. In mine, I use the lower shelf as the 'night zone' for seedlings, and also for storing other stuff like water sprayers and more seed trays. It means I get quite a lot for little space. I get away with that because I have a 15w heat mat which takes no space at all (its about the thickness of a thin sheet of cardboard, maybe 2mm. With the seed trays sat on top of it, it keeps the compost lovely and warm, and gives good germination rates as the heat is very evenly spread.

Whatever you do for heating, remember to keep the lids on the propagators.With the heating on they'll dry out very, very quickly if you don't.

 

Cheap as chips for what they are. I got mine from here:
http://www.reptiles.swelluk.com/rep...14/heat-mats-450/habistat-heat-mat-26228.html

EDIT: Mine has no thermostat, but it just doesn't get that hot. Left on for hours and hours, it just gets warm. It warms the compost to about what you'd expect on a mid summer's day.

 

Ah the old spider plants I haven't seen one for years. I might get one sometime. As I recall, they just don't care what you do with them. They just live through everything.

 

If paying by credit card then they will refund you if the transaction goes wrong ... I've had two wrong ones (in hundreds on eBay). Both times either eBay / Credit Card company refunded me.

Load of clearly commercial companies (i.e. they have 10,000+ positive feedback, and given that not everyone leaves feedback then way more sales than that). They are using eBay to save having to build ecommerce website. Many have High Street stores. I doubt any of those are any worse to deal with than Amazon Marketplace or the like. Prices can be very good though, IME.

 

That would be the Consumer Credit Act 1974 doing its job. I think it only applies to transactions over £100 though.

For me personally, it is not eBay itself that's the problem. It is PayPal, which is now owned by eBay, and is absolutely dire to the extent that in my opinion, it should not be authorised for use by the body that says yay or nay to companies that want to handle card payments (can't remember the name of the body off the top of my head).

PayPal once took £200 out of my bank account, with no explanation. I challenged it immediately, but was given no opportunity to speak to anyone. Just a fully automated processes. I got an automated response saying simply that my money would be refunded and the case was closed. No explanation as to what happened, no consideration for the fact that I might have incurred charges from the bank or anything. When I mentioned it at work, all of the lads, who used eBay much more than me, took the attitude 'yeah, that happens sometimes, but you always get it back if you ask'.