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Simple Wooden Grow Light Stand

A project log for GPOD

A project to drive NeoPixels (or similar serial RGB LEDs) with an Arduino Nano as a "grow light" for the dark winter months.

rossgk-tangiblesRossGK Tangibles 09/02/2021 at 18:580 Comments

A Simple Wooden Stand

This stand version uses some scrap 1" x 2" and 2" x 4" wood mainly, plus a couple of dowels to assemble the base.   I used a strip of thinner plywood for the vertical mostly because the bolt I had on hand wasn't very long.   What ever thickness of wood you use for the vertical piece, you should also use for the two little spacer pieces. In this case I used half-inch plywood, so some scraps of that worked well for the spacers too.

Buy a bolt of sufficient length for getting through the top cross piece.


I did a quick model of the full assembly in Blender as that lets me make an assembly image pretty easily from arbitrary angle.  You can see the spacers between the bottom 2x4" pieces, and the top cross-beam 1x2" pieces. In both cases the spacers are glued in.  The spot where the top cross-beam meets the vertical is held with the single bolt.  With a wing-nut, you can tighten it up plenty tight to stay in place.  The multiple holes allow you to move the vertical cross-beam as your plants or seedlings grow.

For tools you mostly need a drill and a saw for this design.  A few clamps are helpful to hold things together while glue is drying.  But some masking tape works pretty well for a clamp in a pinch.  Everything here is pretty light, and the end product needs only support the light weight of the SPLEDS (no pun intended, but accepted).

You can see step-by-step images in the github space. The wdStdMake_xx files show this stand in progress.

There are many different ways to attach your SPLED arrays or rings or strips to the top cross piece.  I used a couple of staples per ring in my unit shown, but could have just as easily used zip ties, or string, or small screws perhaps.   They are such light weight that some double-sided tape or a dab of silicon glue would work too.  Oh - hot glue is a good choice too probably

The result is quite functional and I dare say a little bit attractive too. I was happy with the result and expect to put it into service growing some lettuce shortly.

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