Burl Smith wrote:I purchased that light system you recommended but was a little taken back by the quality of the mounting clips, always being afraid they're going to fall if I nudge one, so if I decide to expand I think I'll try the T8's:
These are only 6000K versus 6500K so I might have to be satisfied with the addition of some string.
I know what you mean by the mounting clips being very light duty. That being said, from my experience with them installed in my garage for about a year or so is that they are rock solid mounts. The lights literally weigh a couple of ounces, so they don't really need anything beefy to hold them up. I actually found it really difficult to remove a light to reposition it in the garage.
I didn't even use the mounts for the grow racks. If you look in the pictures you can see I just zip tied them directly to the rack. Again, they're so lightweight I can't imagine them ever falling off.
Yeah, that light system you showed looks like a good deal. I'm sure those will be awesome for you.
That channel I recommended before is always testing lights side by side to see what the best light for the money is. They've used high quality, high dollar led's, and although they do perform better and give a bit more weight of greens per tray, they aren't really worth the small gains in growth vs. the cost of the lights/the amount of electricity they consume/and their lifespan. Especially for a home grower for personal consumption. From the testing they've done, it looks like the lights are fairly negligible when it comes to microgreens. The best light with the most output isn't much better than the cheapest light. More isn't really all that better. I'm not saying that, I'm just regurgitating what I've heard/watched from them.
Here's another video where they compare t5's against the lights I bought/linked above.
"All the details about the lights are in the video! We tested T5 HO Fluorescent's - vs - 18watt LED's - vs - 300watt LED's... The results are worth the watch!"