Plant shelf All elements are cheap 1" by 2" construction

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from below

>>1119103
not for your marijuana

>>1119103
Imagine a line parallel to the upright legs but located in the centre of the structure.
Your shelf will twist around this axis.
Typical remedy is a diagonal brace or some sheet material between the rear upright legs.
There will be no change in the amount of mass the shelf can hold however it will be more liable to self destruct under a light breeze.

>>1119229
It's not for Cannabis, but to preserve perennial plants over the winter

>>1119247
>diagonal brace or some sheet material between the rear upright legs.
Good point, thanks. I will add that.

The main load is on the bottom floor
Other than that there's only the lights on top

1x2 isn't going to support much weight. The lights are probably light enough but your bottom shelf seems unnecessary and weak.

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>>1119267
Noted. I'll add a few more crossbars.
The total weight won't be much
It's mostly for clones in small pots

Just found an even more efficient LED light
Osram SubstiTUBE Advanced UO 120cm with 2400 Lumen @ 16W
That's 150 Lm/W

I think this is the most efficient commercial lamp of any form factor that you can buy.

High pressure sodium lamps confirmed dead.

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>>1119103

With bulbs, lumens don't matter as much as temperature (5000K or higher) and wattage. (It gets more complex but worry about that for now)

It looks like overkill, honestly. But if you like stuff that will survive a nuclear explosion, go for it.

Add a support in the center of the bottom if you'll be using more than a couple 1gal pots.

Pic is similar to my first setup from 12 years ago. Now half my basement is a garden. Not nearly as fun a garden, because it's all legal, but a lot more sophisticated and edible. idk just ease into it. Keep it cheap.

Maybe look into ballast/reflector combos for standard bulbs. I think they're $10 at ace hardware. Will save you a lot on bulbs. Or recycle any socket and use spotlights.

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Do you guys know a lot about grow lamps? Winter here does not give a lot of sun, and I want my plants to survive, too. For now I'm just pointing a regular lamp not meant for plants at all toward them. Are there any bulbs that are helpful for the plants, without being very expensive or requiring a very fancy fixture? Ideally I'd keep using something that looks like a regular lamp, this is in my living room after all.

Pic related.

>>1119933
>Osram SubstiTUBE Advanced UO 120cm

>$25+ bulb

Fuck that. As it was, the last time I did a cost-benefit analysis for work regarding replacing the T8 fluorescent bulbs with LEDs, the T8s were still more practical (cheaper in both the short and long runs) when using LED tubes costing a third of that price.

Though that was for 8-12hr/day, 5-day/week use. I suppose they might be more favorable for growing plants. Although, at that point, you're better off using "tuned" plant lights. The ones that ditch white light in favor of just the wavelengths plants use to grow.

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>>1119969
Nice and clean looking shelf, man.

>lumens don't matter as much as temperature (5000K or higher)
Yes. This Osram bulb is 6500K.

I know Lumen just measures the human visible spectrum, and plants can't use all the wavelengths. Unfortunately Kelvin is all most manufacturers give.

I experimented with saltwater T5 bulbs over 20000K. They're basically just blue, dipping into ultraviolet. They do work but not much better than plain cold white 6500K bulbs.

>wattage
Not useful in my opinion, because it doesn't measure efficiency or wavelength. The perfect metric for plant lights is PPFD,
pmol/m^2/s. This gives you the amount of light that's actually usable for photosynthesis. Virtually no manufacturer gives PPFD numbers.

>>1119984
Agreed! They're too expensive for regular lighting.
These will be on 18/7/365 in Germany, where the kWh costs about 0.30 USD.

>>1119982
Pic related shows a typical spectrum for plants.
Red light tends to cause plants to stretch more
Blue light tends to cause compact, bushy growth.

Just get "cold white" (high Kelvin color temperature)

High pressure bulbs like HPS (High Pressure Sodium) or MH (Metal-Hydride) used to be the standard for growing and they still are in terms of price, but I've grown to dislike them.
HPS bulbs don't have a long life and they degrade from day 1.
After 6 month they already get noticeably dimmer
HPS has no blue in its spectrum, only orange / red
MH does have blue but is less efficient

Depending on how expensive your power is,
go LED or fluorescent...
T5 HO (High Output, often found in aquarium stores) is good
"PL-L" compact fluorescents are also very popular and cheap
My other small shelf has 2 conventional T5 bulbs and they're great.

>>1119984
P.S.
>$25+
As Osram is a German company, they're a bit cheaper here even after our high taxes
about $16.50

>>1119265
You're going to want to put some flat white walls on the sides. You'll gain a lot more light that way,

>>1120071
Good call. I have some leftover white polyethylene foil somewhere, from another plant shelf. It's dirt cheap and reflects well

>>1119103
>>1119108
Can I just ask what program you used for these drawings?

>>1120065
Hey, I was in my early 20s growing... something... in my basement. Didn't know I'd get addicted. To horticulture, I mean.

Wattage isn't really useful, but lights are too deep a rabbit hole unless you got the grower's bug.

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interesting stuff guys . I'm currently just using the natural light I get to grow my indoor plants. I do want to grow edible plants such as mint and whatnot. I'm definitely gonna try to build this type of structure and see how it goes. A cardboard box that fits right over this that has an aluminum foil coating should help with the seeding process.
>>1119969

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another pic of my entire indoor garden. I just planted some Ivy and gonna try and make it grow all around my room. All I did was put some adhesive hooks on the wall and placed the pails on them .