Condo Growspace
 

I moved into this condo 4 years ago- I tried using just the windows for natural lighting and quickly realized that the southern exposures I was so excited about were pretty much only good for growing Phals/Oncidium and only right up against the windows. I have about 4 weeks total each year where the sun is at an angle where it is not blocked by buildings and trees that provides sufficient lighting for high light orchids. Since I grow mostly Cattleya, after suffering no blooms and weak growth that first year I began supplementing with LEDs. Eventually I had a mess of plants and lights hanging around as I really started dialing in my grow space environmental controls and developing my knowledge base on LEDs.

Here is the synthesis of my trials and tribulations and leanings the past 3 years growing indoors.

I built this shelf in an afternoon with some minor modifications:
Build Plans

Here it is mounted to my windowsill the day of with temporary lighting:
https://i.imgur.com/7RGOEmj.jpg

Here is the top shelf with my lights finally installed:
https://i.imgur.com/7Lp4Bsr.jpg

Lights:
Topshelf (2x) HLG Saber 100w

Bottom shelf
65 watt panel
Dimmer

Ventilation Fans:
AC Infinity MULTIFAN S7-P

I will be placing shielding (furniture grade plywood) around the shelves to block the lights from burning my eyeballs. I will also be staining, and sealing the shelf once we start our next project: painting and installing new floors in the condo.

Yes I know I could have done this cheaper with Chinese lights from amazon but HLGs products are manufactured in the USA or by Samsung and they have good customer service and warranty. A lot of the chinese lights are built with "authentic" components that don't meet spec so yes they might be samsung diodes but they're the rejects from the assembly line. I also considered the orchid hobbyist lights but I prefer to run stronger lights at a higher distance than right up close to the plants to get the intensities I wanna grow at to increase lighting diffusion and also ease of access to plants. I might try them on the lower shelf since the HLG 65 only covers half the 2'x4' space.

Nice setup.

Great shelving! Only thing wrong is you haven't started another set of shelves yet.....you know you will need them🤣

Yes I have allocated another space for another (smaller) shelf :biggrin:

I gave away/sold 75% percent of my original 7-ish year old collection over the past 3 months. I've been purchasing quality divisions, seedlings and younger plants to grow out.

That is very nice. :)

I have a bunch of young plants, too. Finally went back to growing mostly Cattleyas.

Great choice on the lights.