You stated £3 that suggests you’re in the uk.
Ime led growing on a budget doesn’t work because of the temps, hid is a better choice in cooler climates.
Yesterday i seen a brand name 250/400/600/660w digital ballast for £22, that’s light and heat in one.
Led,s better but unrealistic with £3 to your name.
That I am interested in. Let me have a look what they’re selling for in the UK. some prices vary much continent to continent. Appreciated.
I’ve used a few blurples before. I’ve even torn old mars hydro lights apart and stuck citizen COBs in. So it’s definitely worth a look at some cheapie ones for now. Upgrades can come after we’re smoking our own smoke.
It’s not a problem on temps. We have a steady heat in the apartment bro. And the tent is likely Gonna be in the bedroom. HPS in a tent as small as 80x80cm seems like waiting for problems. Especially with canopy height alterations. Takes a lot of capability away from the space imo. It’s less than £3 today 
least it’s not in minus £ though.
Aha one of these! Good thinking using that, borrowing equipment is going to be the way to get things started on a budget for sure and I bet he won’t want it back once he sees you actually growing in it
I feel that, my electricity is up there for the US, $0.35 or more per kWh so I went LED even though CMH was appealing for the temperature help in the winter. Been moving my wattages down and realizing I could be more efficient and save money in the long run.
If you can wire one yourself heck yeah go for it with some Bridgelux strips! Can save money on a heatsink by using an old road sign or a commercial aluminum baking sheet, those are cheap to free used and a great way to get a frame/thermal management. There’s a sponsor here who sells lights of his own design and one of the styles is the sheet pan, so you can source it locally and save on shipping by just getting his LED boards, look at these for a little inspiration, it works really well by all accounts. I like his touch with the premade ones of cutting a hole for a small computer fan to draw the hot air out of the recessed sheet pan and push it up across the driver all at once, very minimalist.
Alternately these are pretty cheap and @PhlizonGrowLight is a sponsor here with a decent rep so far, they seem to be moving hard into the same bracket of the market as Mars Hydro and the like, quality inexpensive lights
@PhlizonGrowLight can we sponsor my guy here with a little board to get rocking in the tent? Looks like you have some of the best lights available on Amazon UK how about getting some UK Flowerists talking about them?
He doesn’t want it back anyway. He just needs to come and collect my ladders to be able to get it out the loft. He knows they both (him and my cousin) will see a decent smoke at the end anyway.
Our electricity is 29p/kwh with a 53p daily standing charge. That translates to about 36c/kwh. Ridiculous.
I’m definitely capable of building a light fixture. (engineering student) and have used both solstrips and bridgelux before. It’s not worth importing solstrips imo with tax and handling charges etc. Ends up costing more £/w than eb strip builds. (components can be shipped free from digikey)
I’ve also looked at some phlizon grow lights. The phx4 240w looks like it would do the job perfect but at £300 it’s not a viable option at the moment as you can imagine. I wouldn’t expect they would just send one though to a randomer on a forum. As nice as that would be lol
Alot of great ideas so far. There are Facebook groups, and marketplace, where everything is free. There’s plenty of things you may be able to re-purpose. Alot of aquariums with “lights”, etc. You can also just put up your own post, “looking for”, you never know what you find or who you meet. Most neighborhoods have their own groups.
Not much chance of sourcing grow stuff in the village we live in. Have had a look on marketplace and seen a few beat up old HPS lights going for silly money, but that’s about the lot. I like the idea of aquarium lights for seed starting and early Veg etc. Can’t see them producing much flower though bro?
I was basing that on experience growing with both led and hid in the uk.
Led costs me more to run than hid except for in summer.
Led is worth the extra to me but it’s not the cheapest option to grow some personal.
You can get things for free, and trade up. If it doesn’t work, toss it. My buddy got a coral reef setup, and traded up for a bigger tank, with everything. Could’ve sold it for whatever. Just an idea. Free lights, can turn to 10 bucks each, and you’re one step closer.
Oh yeah, I wasn’t suggesting that. Staying in-country for ordering is always the right idea unless you really gotta, I just wanted to highlight the SolSheets design as a low- to no-cost design for saving money on the angle irons you had mentioned, maybe you could turn that savings towards more strips or a bigger driver, supplementary spectrum etc. Another free material I’ve seen people use for DIY frame/heatsink is that aluminum drywall framing stud, or even the steel stuff in smaller builds.
My first cheap setup was with screw in cfl’s. Led bulbs are really cheap now, and would work with a bit less power. Each bulb has its own ballast and if one burns out you still have a bank of other bulbs running.
DR.budgreengenes has perfected the micro-home depot-parts grows.@thevalleyphantom
Your buddys 80cm (2.9ft) tent should handle a single 315 ceramic halide in flower cycle.
315CMH is really nice, and with an aircooled hood you can really manage that heat in a small space.
Htgsupply has a cmh for 32 bucks with remote ballast and wing reflector. The 3000k bulbs are on sale for 5 bucks. You can get the “euro reflector” for 7.50, which is a 6" duct aircooled hood with glass.
40$ for a new cmh and hood, and throw in a few extra bulbs while your there. (each bulb is rated at 90% output at 8k hours, which is like 10x flower cycles per bulb)
Free shipping at 75 bucks is easy to do with all the other things you can add that are on sale (timers, trays, root plugs, clone gel, panda film, grow bags, saucers, ect ect ect)
EDIT:LED shop lights are pretty efficent now too, (over 100lm/w) if you have room for 4 foot ones.
Otherwise using them vertically in the tent corners for supplemental low side lights.
https://www.htgsupply.com/products/hypar-315-watt-cmh-bulb-by-agromax/
Yeah dude they are giving away 315CMH for pennies! I’ve considered getting one to see if the heat would be useful at that price, I could go pick it up at an HTG store on the bus from my house
@Dirt_Wizard
I admit i ordered that setup in addition to a mess of PAR t5 bulbs just to have a spare of everything haha.
Each 315 is best for about 3’ sq in flower.
With that euro hood for 7.50 you can run a line of them on 1 fan across a 40"wide table.
Sea of green like our dutch forefathers intended lol
Sorry for the delay. Life’s been busy. Some really good Ideas here. My plans changed from the tent to an office tambour. (Due to lack of space)
I managed to build a light for £84.06 so far 
flood and drain system will be in progress soon 
and then seeds popped and away. Get a little stash together of bud ready for when the new baby takes all my money 
I built a box with pvc pipes 1/2 inch and put radiant barrier film around it…the box is open at the top and bottom and works with a chimney action sucking air from the bottom and out through the top that takes care of ventilation.
Lights are 150 w 3000k led bulbs (3) which I use for flowering and I have a separate veg area with a 50w 6500k led.
I’m happy with the result… though I live in a equable climate so temp is even all year around 
Mine has to be stealth now unfortunately due to a baby on the way and various health professionals needing to come around for appointments. So I’m not sure I could make a PVC frame clad box very discreet have you got a link so I can see it please?
I’m planning on using 120mm fans for intake/extraction/circulation. And the light I’ve built is using bridgelux eb gen 2 280mm strips (3500k) and running on a meanwell xlg240-la driver. So a 240w space for around 1/2metre² of space…it’s definitely overkill but will dim so I’ll be fine.
You’re a lucky man living somewhere equable. We’re in a Lancashire valley below 3 consecutive bodies of water. So to be blunt. It’s bloody freezing 
as soon as the summer is done.
