Side lighting?

[Anansi]

I'm considering whether to add side lights to my grow room. I searched the archive for a previous discussion -- alas, no joy. My overheads are 300W full spectrum LEDs. Experiences with side lighting? Pros and cons? How much does it improve yield, potency, etc? What type lighting fixtures are best? Any other thoughts? Thanks for your input.

 

[YYCannabis]

Almost my entire grow comes from “side lighting”. I only use top-down lighting for the first couple of weeks until my plants are about 6” tall, then adjust my lights to the sides. Now, my light is pretty unique since it’s my own DIY build and not an off-thes-shelf product.
As for quality of buds?...it kicks ass.
Size of buds? I get great plump growth even from the little stuff hidden deep in the plant because i can get light to places that top-down lighting can’t reach 😉

take a look at the pics and you can see what my setup looks like. I should be harvesting one plant hopefully around Christmas time. I’ll probably be posting results here on GWE.

Cheers
YYC

 

[bboyfromwayback]

That setup is insane! Has to resemble the sun hitting a plant on a mountain top lol no larf there

 

[YYCannabis]

One of the pitfalls to my setup is that the lights are on only 2 sides. I MUST make it a point to turn my plants 90 degrees every 24 hours. For the autos i grow, they get very fat in veg...too fat for 4 plants comfortably...3 would be ideal...so I’m currently extending the spine of the frame by another 14” to help get light out to the full width of my current girls in there. The catch to that is now my light strips will be spread further apart, so ill be stretching the 600w to a slightly bigger area than i designed them for. I might have to order another 6 strips to keep my specs in check. 😁

 

[bboyfromwayback]

Good problem to have lol

 

[Anansi]

Nice setup. Plants seem to like it. Thanks for sharing. I noticed you had two different colored strips. What's the spectrum for each? Where do you get your strips?

 

[YYCannabis]

My build guide is at https://ledgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5083
I am using 5000K and 3200K..300 watts of each color. Each strip alone is only 30 Watts which is why i run them so close to my plants.

 

[Anansi]

YYCannabis Nice DIY lighting project. The Cutter site is cool, but too many options for me to figure out. I'm not industrious enough to take on such a project, but it was interesting to see what was available. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Rwise]

Now if your going to do side lights, then you got to look into turn tables so the plants rotate while the lights are on.

 

[YYCannabis]

You are 100% correct. I need to turn mine every day. But since I only grow 3 or 4 plants at a time, it’s not such a big deal. If a person was doing a large scale grow, some type of mechanical rotators would be needed.