Chevy's 65W organic LED Jack Flash micro scrog

Chevy cHaze · Oct 29, 2013

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hi everyone,
It's me Chevy Chaze [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]

I'd like to share this little run from Seed with you, let's see how it goes !

This cabinet was setup by me not to be as stealthy as possible ( I have an extra room I can lock, so no worries about people wandering in by accident), but to be as quiet as possible. It's only separated form another appartment by one wall, so the goal was to get it down to a mere whisper when running on max.

The Cabinet itself is made out of metal (basically looks like an old military style ammunitions box turned upright), has wheels and a couple other nice features.
It is made by a german company and comes equipped with a carbon scrubber/inline fan contraption (fan sits inside the scrubber) and a 250W cooltubed HPS with digital ballast( that I switched for an LED Unit because of heat issues and to further decrease the already small electricity bill from the 250WHPS). I did NOT build the cabinet myself, I just bought it and then gutted it and set it up to my specifications.
Size is roughly 40cmX60cm and height is approximately 110cm.
A Hans Panel with 65W (if run in full flowering mode, I'll get to that in a bit) will serve as a light source.
This thing was already pretty silent, but I wanted to see how I could get the decibels down just a bit more.
PolyUrethane foam, extruded and pressed to mats/sheets along with really heavy bitumen sheets was the answer for me.
Here's the cabinet, the black stuff is bitumen sheets I used them under the PU as to prevent all sorts of ratteling/humming and whatnot.

Yes, hot glue is the solution to 75% of the problems we are facing today[/FONT]
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Chevy cHaze · Oct 29, 2013

Here's the cab after the last sheet of PU over bitumen:

Yeah I know it's not perfectly aligning, but I had to make do with what I got from a buddy.

Chevy cHaze · Oct 29, 2013

In order for the setup to not transmit any vibrations to the floor beneath, it is put on, again, PU and a thick massive wooden board:

This is the most important thing to not get any humming or vibrating noises, especially noticeable during the quiet night hours when the house is asleep.

Chevy cHaze · Oct 29, 2013

Now let me show you the interior!

You can see the carbon scrubber above the LED Panel and the mylar lining( that's not on properly I must admit)

Here's for a more closeup view of the bottom, the cloning "room" with its two fluoros and the air intakes:

and here the top compartment:

I'm using little super strong neodym magnets to hold my mylar, so I can adjust it if needed.

Chevy cHaze · Oct 29, 2013

here a closeup of the vantilation and lighting:

The panel has three modes that can be selected by a switch: seedlings/ clones, mothers, and full flower. in each mode a different number of different LEDs comes on. When running it in seedling mode it cunsumes app. 25W of power:

mother mode looks similar, although it's slightly different, and here's FULL FLOWER, damn those aliens are abducting me again:

Well, that was pretty dry stuff, but now we're getting to the good stuff:

The Actors have arrived on set !

Guess I'm gonna call them the three stooges. One was pretty fast with germinating, number two is getting there and number three? Looks like she's a stoner already !She ? Yes, that's because I used feminized seeds. They're feminized Jack Flashes form Sensi.

Once these little girls have moved on a bit, they'll go into the cabinet and will later be transplanted to Plagron royalmix ( all organic as far as I know).

Well that's it for now, back when there's news from the girls.

See you soon, take care everybody and keep it g(r)oin' !
And keep the noise down dammit !

jenery · Oct 29, 2013

Taking a seat, great beginning, good luck!

Chevy cHaze · Oct 30, 2013

Jenery, thanks for stopping by!
I guess the girls will soon be ready for some repotting and more light.

Nabat · Oct 30, 2013

Wow! Nice set up!I'm curious to see how it works your led Panel..oi!

Chevy cHaze · Oct 30, 2013

Hi Nabat ! good to see you around here.
I'll post the next update tomorrow !

Cheers!

Dr 4 four · Oct 31, 2013

Chevy! I've been waiting for someone to show us what that LED panel can do. I've been following the ledgrow site for some time, but couldn't see spending $240+$50 s&h. So I thank you for making this thread. Also is that the older model without the white LEDs?

Chevy cHaze · Oct 31, 2013

Hey Dr,
Thanks for stopping by.
I've been using this baby once already, so I know it's working well( Hope that didn't take the excitement away hehehe).
I must say it's the old model aka pre-august 2013. bought it in july and had no clue a new improved one would be coming out so soon. the temps got so high here, it just came in time to replace the 250W HPS I was using at the time and prevented my old cabinet from turning into an oven. True, It is kinda pricey at first look, but well worth it in my opinion.Especially when you compare it to a lot of other lights out there, where the money was put more in a "legit" looking casing and branding than in the LEDs themselves . The new one's probably worth it even more than the "old" one I got,it's the same price...Wish I could have waited a couple weeks hahaha. Damn, I didn't see that coming...the same rules that apply to consumer electronics, also work for LED growlights hahaha now that's evolution.

This one is really set to use as little electricity as possible without compromising yield too much ( remember though, we're only talking a bout 40cmX60cm). Yeah you could probably yield more using traditional lighting, but at probably double or triple the elctricity costs.
I wanted to see what was possible in a rather small encased environment, to supply only myself, with as little power consumption as possible. Not sooo much because of the electricity bill, but more because- hey it's the 21st century, right ? It's not like we're heating our caves with open fires in the neanderthal anymore hehehe.
Naw, I like a good hps or mh, this is just to show what can be achieved and to further dial it in for myself.
update coming later today bro!
peace out,

Chevy cHaze · Oct 31, 2013

Hi all,
Here's the promised update.
Not too big of a change since last time, but anyways: promised is promised

Here are the Ladies after I planted the jiffies into some plastic party cups ( black ones, didn't want any light to get to the freshly developped roots).Number three has sproued too, so 3 out of 3, now that's a 100% germination rate right there hahaha.
I definitely waited to long with number one, she's gotten a bit skinny/tall already, the tap root outgrew the jiffy by approximately 2cm damn ! Hope I didn't hurt her...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=49545&pictureid=1157636

The medium in the party cups is the same royalmix I'm going to use for the whole cycle, just flushed with water REALLY well. Royalmix is a pretty "hot" mix, so I flushed every cup with at least 20 times their volume of un-phd tap water (I made holes in the bottom of the cups).
This should be well enough to keep the girls form getting burnt and allow for a good transition to their final root habitat for the rest of the cycle.
They won't need lots in their first two weeks anyways, if they'll need any nutes at all.

Switched the panel off for the pic btw... at the moment it's sitting 50cm above the little plants, running on seedling mode/ 25W. ventilation is on 24/7. temps are at 22°C constant and rh is at 60%.
After a couple days and a little more green on the girls I'll lower the panel to really start up photosynthesis.

back with more soon !

take care everyone, hope you stick around and all the best from here

SmottPoker · Nov 1, 2013

Looks awesome Chevy! If I may ask, how much did the pre made box setup cost? I've looked for ones like that but most of them seem to be in the $700 range.

I'm also excited to see what an LED can achieve. You mentioned you have done a run before with your LED? Do you happen to remember how your yield was compared to anything else you have done?

Chevy cHaze · Nov 1, 2013

Hey Smottpoker,
Cool to see you over here.
The complete kit was pretty much in that price range. Even a bit more. Not sure if they sell the box only, but the complete kit( box, ducting, scrubber/fan, 250HPs iwth digital ballast, Blumat irrigation system and a lot more) was like 900EUR. A lot of bread, especially when you gut the whole thing and add your own stuff plues an LED Panel hahaha.
The price was worth it for me, as the whole thing is mobile too. grab it by the handles and you can move the whole thing during dark cycle in one go.Just unplug it, and go! A wooden cabinet would have been a lot cheaper, but harder to move quickly.

The LED panel produced 55gram alltogether on my first run. One northern lights plant from seed and two jack flash cuts I got form a friend. The JF cuts were taken two weeks into flowering though ( not a good move) and never forgave me putting them back into veg I fear.They looked like two buds on a stick at harvest, so I guess there should still be room for improvement.If you take away the couple of watts that go into the little fan of the LED panel, that's close to 1gram per watt, which was my initial goal. Never got close to that with my 250W HPS. Then again, you have to take into account that the 250HPS would probably have yielded more if I could have given the plants more room. grow area was also 40cmx60cm, a real tiny setup.
Let's see how much I can pull this time!

SmottPoker · Nov 1, 2013

Wow man yeah 55G on 65w is solid.
And yeah the convenience of something being built right is always worth a bit more. But as long as it works right?

The best I've achieved on hps is about .96GPW
I've wanted to try some LED for awhile but for some reason always hear bad things.

Well either way I'm stoked to see how this one turns out for you!

Chevy cHaze · Nov 3, 2013

Hi all,
Here's a quick update.
I really should have treated #1 individually and not make her wait in the jiffy for the rest of the gang to sprout. This went to her head a bit.
I'll give her another day or two to get back up, if she can't make it on her own, I'll give her some support. She really has just started, so I would say it's all still ok, she can make it.
#2 and 3 are doing good.
I figured all the previous pics were too big, what do you think ?
Well, this one's smaller, let me know what's better.

The LED panel is now closer to the plants, approximately 25cm/ 10". Panel is still in seedling mode/ 25W. temps are at 22C/72F, rh is around 40%. Light cycle will remain at 20/4 for now.

More soon, as it happens.

take care everyone and stay safe

Chevy cHaze · Nov 5, 2013

Hi everyone,
Here's the next update.
Number two fell over too, hope it's not damping off, but I don't think so, other than that they're going well.
Maybe I was a bit too generous with the water...
what do you guys think ?

sorry about that piece of wood in the way, it's supporting them, slightly stupid shot to ask you guys what you think, when you can't really see too much...

temps were at 22°C/72F, rh 60%. I turned the heat up a tiny bit now...

And here's another one with the panel so you can see the distance to the plants, still in seedling mode/ 25W.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=49545&pictureid=1159290

Let's see how they do over the next couple days

take care everyone, next update coming soon.

blynx · Nov 6, 2013

They look like they may be a bit over-watered.

At this young stage of growth I try to let the soil get kinda dry before watering again.

Are they under the led or flouros?

Chevy cHaze · Nov 6, 2013

Hi blynx,
Yeah you're probably right. They looked already better today and are almost back to normal. I'm still supporting their tiny stems, just for safety, but they're holding their heads up by themselves now.
They are under 25W of LED (seedling mode of my hans panel). raised the temps a bit, so they are now at 24C/75F (day) and 20C/68F ( night), rh is at 60%.
The soil is still good and moist, so I'm going to wait a couple days before watering again.

Thanks for the feedback blynx!

Chevy cHaze · Nov 6, 2013

lil' update

lil' update

Hi peeps,
Here's a little unscheduled update.
I made some changes to the cabinet, mainly the ventilation ducting.
to further decrease the db level of the running cabinet, I exchanged the normal ducting on the inside of the cab for sonodec ducting that I still had leftover.
While I was at it, I thought I'd give you a closeup of the fan/scrubber contraption I'm using.
Here's the cab taken apart with the sonodec already in place:

this is the whole fan/scrubber thing

aand this is the interior, that part that is attached to the ducting in the end:

and here's everything back in place:

The cord you can see dangling around is of course unplugged and belongs to the LED panel.

The whole cabinet now runs at 40db measured at a distance of 40cm from exhaust port ( the loudest spot).

Other than that the ladies are back on track it seems, as blynx already noted they probably got a bit too much water. Thank god no damping off .Whew, what a relief. always a pain in the ass to get beans in a secure manner to where I live.

All the best, stay safe and keep it g(r)oing.

Chevy's 65W organic LED Jack Flash micro scrog

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