DIY Grow Lights

This past weekend I finally got around to building a grow light rig for our seedlings.

Here is what our setup used to look like:

 

 But in looking around the interwebs, I found this forum post.  Yes, it is a pot-growing forum, but good luck searching for "DIY grow lights" and finding anything but tips on how to grow weed in your closet!

It's a basic design using cheap materials, and pretty neat and tidy with the cables running inside the PVC.

My personal modifications were to support the lighting rig with four PVC uprights, with holes drilled at intervals to raise the lights as the seedlings get bigger (since my wife probably wouldn't like to have the lights hanging from the ceiling in our laundry room!)

Here are some quick pics of how it turned out (click for enlargements):

There is definitely some refining to do:  I need to build a hood (instead of the cheesy tin foil hanging out on top), and frankly the upright supports are a bit rickety.  But for now I'm pretty happy with it.  Especially considering I was on "daddy duty" when I put it together.

It's almost planting time!