Rate my setup

[christ_hears]

20201010_220342.jpg (69.49 KiB) Viewed 3120 times

These are 2 24. in 20w 5000k florescent tubes... my question, do I have them to close to the top of the container? All sorts of different seedlings in there. Any suggestions would be appreciated

[One Windowsill]

Are they t12 tubes? 1½ inch diameter?

[christ_hears]

Ummm, not really sure. They are just the normal size bulbs I've seen... they are definitely not t5s

[Steve-0]

Looks like a nice set up to me. Let them grow!

[Vingames1]

Don’t overthink it. If they’re red move it up if there green leave it

[Lumptoast]

Where did you buy your grow light setup? I’d love to get something similar.

[Shane]

How many lumens per square foot (fc) reach the seedlings? You can use phone apps to measure this

[Conophytum]

I’ll rate it....... A 10/10!!!!

[christ_hears]

Shane, i did not know you can get light meters on your phone! thats pretty cool... ill have to check that out. i dont know how many lumens actually make it to the seedlings, but i will post some update pictures

[From0to10in2weeks]

Shane, i did not know you can get light meters on your phone! thats pretty cool... ill have to check that out. i dont know how many lumens actually make it to the seedlings, but i will post some update pictures

I'd be also very interested in what how much light in lux (lumens/m2) reaches your seedlings. Adjusting the light is the biggest unknown in my first endeavour raising seeds.
But my recommendation is to buy a cheap lux meter instead of a phone app. Not only are they more accurate but you also don't need to stick your phone inside of your grow house...

https://www.amazon.de/Beslands-Lichtmes ... 07T23MJTQ/

Best.

[Shane]

[...]But my recommendation is to buy a cheap lux meter instead of a phone app. Not only are they more accurate but you also don't need to stick your phone inside of your grow house[...]

I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with your light meter. I had a rather low opinion of them as people have posted about some which IMO clearly don't work. But I would be curious to hear what you have to say because they're all different and the phone apps have clear limitations

I'll share my experiences with using phone apps. My opinion is that they are very accurate. However, they are also highly directional. What I mean is the phone must be perpendicular to the incoming light to get a good reading. So on the balance they are really only accurate in situations with a single light source and be considered to be approximate in other situations. I've also had trouble measuring light level under shade cloth with my phone

[From0to10in2weeks]

I'd be interested in hearing your experiences with your light meter. I had a rather low opinion of them as people have posted about some which IMO clearly don't work. But I would be curious to hear what you have to say because they're all different and the phone apps have clear limitations

I'll share my experiences with using phone apps. My opinion is that they are very accurate. However, they are also highly directional. What I mean is the phone must be perpendicular to the incoming light to get a good reading. So on the balance they are really only accurate in situations with a single light source and be considered to be approximate in other situations. I've also had trouble measuring light level under shade cloth with my phone

I am not sure why you think that light meters won't work accurately. Sure there might be faulty units and/or with poor calibrations out there. But it's a decades old method and uses a diffuser to avoid directionality problems. And the photodiode used to detect the light is probably much simpler and larger than the image sensor of your phone. The lack of a diffuser and the comparatively narrow "field of view" make IMO and experience the phone apps much less reproducible. Besides, I like having the detector in the grow house under realistic conditions and keep the display unit outside in my hand.

For reference, I measured the illumination from a new LED bulb with known output (800 lumen) and illumination diameter (25 cm) at a given distance (30 cm). And it matched what I calculate from the above info.
We had a sunny morning with high clouds diffusing the light today. Around 11 am I measured 36,000 lux behind a double panelled SE-facing window with eglazing. Sounds about right. Note, Berlin is with respect to latitude halfway between Edmonton and Calgary in Canada...

Best.