OK some of you may remember me creating a problem by putting plants outside for the summer, but them immediately filling that space with new plants.
Now the winter is coming in (zero last night) i needed to come up with a plan for an indoor lighting solution, because i was flat out of window sill space and i needed to get these plants out the cold
So here in my first LED light build
I copied a lot of this from an article i read in the BCSS whereby a guy was growing echeveria in a similar setup. I am not trying to grow through the winter, only provide enough light to prevent eloitation . What i settled on doing was having less lights than the build i saw (to try keep costs down a bit). I funded some of the build by selling duplicate plants and clothes i had not worn on ebay
Cabinet is ikea - good choice because its all metal and can take the weight of my clay pots
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/f...
Lights are 40W LED two per shelf. I decided to go for one 4000K and one 6500K bulb on each shelf to try to provide more of a spectrum. Not sure if that was such a smart move
i mounted the bulbs direct to the shelfs
i also decided to wire inline switches into each shelf so they are switchable
The build i was copying had 10 plugs going into a massive extension. I didn't want that, so i created a junction boxes to wire all lights into one out plug
finished build
and loaded up
I am happy with the look and neatness of the build. I would like to experiment with reflectors to try and bounce the light around and maybe mix the two spectrum's better. I might also look at fitting reflective back and sides to keep the light from splaying out so much. I might also need to lift the plants closer to the lights
Overall pretty happy , lets see how the plants react though
Steve
