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cassandra_10

Floralight Garden

Cassandra_10
19 years ago

Hello, I posted the following in the Florida forum and Greenhouse forum, should have posted here first!

A neighbor gave me a Floralight Gardening system that she has never used. She didn't have the instructions or the box it came in, but said it is the $600.00 model. I have emailed the company to ask if I could order a user's manual, but no response. I've got it all put together except for the hoods. My question is: Does anybody have one, and if so, how do the light hoods fit on? There's a bag of parts with little wheely things, the hoods are supposed to slide up and down for varying the height of the light source. The hoods are made for two florescent tubes each. I've seen these in gardening catalogs and always wanted one for indoor gardening, but until I can figure out how to set up the hoods, it's a temporary cat condo. Thanks for any info!

Here is a link that might be useful: What it looks like

Comments (5)

  • gawdly
    19 years ago

    No clue how to do it, I just wanted to say that you've got a pretty awesome friend in that neighbor!

    Sam

  • Cassandra_10
    Original Author
    19 years ago

    LOL! Actually, she's a malcontent, her boyfriend gave it to her as a present, but she's always mad at him for some reason or another. She was going to put it on the curb for bulk pick-up, just for spite ~ I got lucky when she asked if I wanted it. I still haven't heard from the company that sells it, I think I'll have to telephone in order to get a response.

  • gawdly
    19 years ago

    Well, maybe not a good friend, but a good find then!

  • korney19
    19 years ago

    The bag of parts should have 2 carriage bolts per light fixture, 2 palm wheels and 2 teflon type washers, plus 2 "bent" metal washers.

    If you have everything else assembled, lay a lamp unit, upside down, on the plastic shelves, with the bulbs facing up. insert the carriage bolts (they have a rounded head with no slots or anything) thru each end of the fixture, from the inside (rounded heads face the center of the lamp, so the threads are pointing out) until the square shoulder of the bolt fits completely into the square hole in the lamp end.

    Then, on the outside of the fixture, place the plastic/teflon washer over the threads until up against the fixture. While holding the carriage bolt from the inside of the lamp so it doesn't pop out, push it thru the chrome double tubing/track.

    Then add the bent washer, with the bent edges facing the light fixture, as to surround the double chrome track. Install the big wheel and you are done.

    So, in layers, it should look like this:

    1. carriage bolt
    2. light fixture metal end (w/square hole)
    3. plastic/teflon washer
    4. chrome double rail/track
    5. bent washer w/bent ears facing light fixture
    6. palm wheel, used to loosen & tighen to raise/lower light fixture.

    After everything's assembled & in place, loosen the palm wheels enough to rotate the lights back to their normal position.

    I've been using the 4ft Tabletop Floralights for about 5 years now, two of them, supported on each end by shelving units, one above the other. I finally upgraded to the 3-tier high-intensity (4 bulbs per light) model just last week to ditch the shelving, and the tabletop models will be put back in their boxes for now until I can get rid of them.

    The tabletop version uses the same light fixture, washers, palm wheel, etc, and all the floralights have nice wide reflectors--around 11-12 inches wide I believe for the 2-bulb and 16" wide for the 4-bulb models.

    The nice thing about the Floralights is that you can raise one end of the light more than the other if needed, and the tops of the light fixtures are wide enough for more pots & trays! The only advantage of the tabletop model over the tiered ones is that you can raise the lights higher (a few more inches at least) than the 2 or 3-tier models. Plus they fit on a table or workbench.

    It's just by chance I was in this forum & saw your post; I'm a tomato forum regular but was looking here for a way to overdrive these 4-bulb units! Any problems just e-mail me. Hope this helps.

    Mark

  • Cindy Lane
    4 years ago
0