Lighting

UPDATE: We have added an additional light and have split them up into two manually moveable fixtures. This more evenly distributes the light and has been a great success.

We also modified the air-cooled light ventilation system. Now, fresh air from outside is directly ducted to the fixtures. We recycle the heat from the air cooled lights to heat our home. Using fresh outdoor air rather than moist garden air to cool the lights has greatly reduced the humidity we were intoducing to our home. A four inch inline fan and carbon filter were added to handle the humidity in the garden.

UPDATE: Our Air Cooled lights have been modified to be manually moveable. We chose not to "re-invent the wheel" and went with garage door technology. LIGHT MOVERS are commercially available, but far too expensive for our consideration ;(

We purchased some garage door track from a local installer. We paid $30 for the two tracks. We purchased the garage door rollers at a local hardware store for $7 a pair. Total cost was less than $50.

We also replaced the Mylar wall covering with White/Black plastic. The Mylar was becoming quite fragile.

Air Cooled lights are a necessity in our opinion. They help to keep growroom temperatures in check.

Heat from these lights is diverted into the living areas of the home. (after filtering out odours)

Installing BOTH High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide bulbs in the enclosures save time/trouble with not having to swap out bulbs. (Caution: only operate one bulb at a time)

Ropes and pulleys are used to raise and lower the lights. Chain is used to secure the lights once they've been positioned.

ELECTRICAL

This is a lighting and control panel.

At the bottom of the picture are two 1000 watt HPS Ballasts. Above them are two 1000 watt MH Ballasts.

Above them and to the right, in the beige box, is an 8 CHANNEL PC PARALLEL PORT RELAY CARD. (~$80) With this device and an old spare computer, it is possible to control up to eight devices. Such as, water pumps, circulating fans, ventilation fans, ozone generators, etc. This is a very economical alternative to STAND ALONE electronic timers, which are rather expensive. (~$150 to control 1 circuit)

The GRAY BOX above is the timer for the HID lights.

Update: Added an additional HPS & MH ballasts.

Due to monetary restrictions, we were forced to share ballasts. As we had three lights, but only 2 of each type of ballast, we would run two MH plus one HPS during the GROW stage. During the FLOWER stage we would use two HPS with one MH.

Now we will have the proper spectrum during all phases of growth ;)

The three light switches at the top left TOGGLE the fixtures between HPS and MH.

The three light switches below these TOGGLE power to the three fixtures.

The electrical outlet near the top right is used to power an ozone generator. This helps to keep the common areas surrounding our garden odour free.

Update: Added an additional HPS & MH ballasts.

We rebuilt from scratch. We had a metal rack custom built to mount the ballasts to.

The computer that controls the garden can be seen on the shelf above the lighting centre.
Two industrial timers can be seen below the computer. Each timer controls two HD lights.
The four switches below the timers TOGGLE power to the four fixtures.
The four switches below TOGGLE the fixtures between HPS and MH.

Update: Replaced all ballasts for DIGITAL.

This is a screen capture of the software used to control the system.
It runs in MSDOS, and can give new use to a tired old computer. ;)

The application loads the on/off relay data from a text file. The relays may also be toggled by pressing the corresponding key on the keyboard.

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