Long Flowering Sativas: Micro-Grow Box Design Thread

Douglas.Curtis · Aug 30, 2017

Growing head stash, 16 Week+ sativas, requires significant space and time. Micro growing is a sane solution for many and the design of the cabinets is infinite. What have you done to cater to the giant stretch and long flowering aspects of sativas? Have you found adjustable lighting to be a must, or do you have some fixed lighting tips for sativas to share? Do you have a non-standard shaped micro-cab, specifically for sativas?

Please use this thread for the discussion of Micro-Grow cabinets, designed to help tame the wild beast which is sativa. All lighting styles are acceptable. Adding as much detail as possible about your lighting is helpful. Any sativa specific insight into why a particular light, angle or distance is particularly helpful.

Please keep mentions of grow style used to a minimum, sativa specific details are welcome. Linking a detailed grow log would be an awesome alternative.

Everyone loves to see cabs in action, I know I do.

"Micro" qualification is anything smaller than the average 'small' grow tent.

Let's get the sharing of tiny nugs, at special occasions, to increase. Nearly everyone has a spot for a micro-grow cabinet. :tiphat:

Douglas.Curtis · Aug 30, 2017

Does anyone run a vertical scrog, LED, long flowering sativa cabinet?

jonhova · Aug 30, 2017

I frequent the ACE sub forum quite a bit and in that there are quite a few growing malaw, hazei, gt and zamaldelica in small tents. Anywhere from 12-20 weeks. Check out some of the threads there to get a good idea of growing in a small space.

Pot size is very important. You limit pot size to prevent it from overgrowing your space which it will. You up pot strategically.

Douglas.Curtis · Aug 30, 2017

jonhova said:
I frequent the ACE sub forum quite a bit and in that there are quite a few growing malaw, hazei, gt and zamaldelica in small tents. Anywhere from 12-20 weeks. Check out some of the threads there to get a good idea of growing in a small space.

Pot size is very important. You limit pot size to prevent it from overgrowing your space which it will. You up pot strategically.

Thank you, I'll definitely take a look there.

It makes sense about the pot size, any mums I keep are bonsai and it makes a big difference on plant size.

Dropped Cat · Sep 1, 2017

I flower narrow leaf types, as you may have read.

Recently retired my Zamaldelicas, but flower some
thunk from time to time.

110 days is typical.

My rig, scratch built with some interesting details:

Dimensions:

Flower with 165W PL L, veg with 72W PL L.

4" Vortex Fan VTX400 with matched scrubber, Variac transformer
for fan speed control.

More details available, plus pics of grows and yields, been at it
a few runs.

Great thread!

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 1, 2017

@Dropped Cat
Beautiful

Love the PL-L lights myself, great spectrum and coverage for the wattage

So, with the Zamaldelica, you used smaller containers to reduce height. What was the tallest bud formed, that you can remember, and what were the distances from the light. Light to canopy distance, at time of flower.

Terpene · Sep 1, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
Saw your impressive results with the 16w screw-in LEDs and was hoping you had some tips you could contribute to a build thread.

If you were able to mount your lights at any angle, to take advantage of both canopy coverage and side-lighting, would you change anything in your current design?

I'd like to hear your thoughts in the thread. You're more advanced in this arena than most folks in the micro-forum, sativas are different beasts.

Best advice: STOP USING CFLs / PLLs - LEDs are 2-3x as bright per watt!

I wouldn't worry about trying to angle the lights, since they're all sold as floods (and you'll be cutting the plastic diffusers off anyway) the coverage is about 160 degrees off the bulb.

How to convert bulbs to grow lights:

Side lighting? Meh. If you're doing what I did with the 7' tall Ace Seeds Mauritius x Ethiopian then side lighting would help, but I got nice buds up to 30 inches off the diodes, so thats way taller than most micro setups are going to be concerned with (especially for just the canopy).

Best setup with minor cost in my mind is STILL generic 3/4/5/6/8 light bathroom vanity strips with a plug wired to the end. Not quite as cheap as Blynx's cleat sockets, but less technical knowhow required and lets be real, the vanity strips look sooo classy.

My micro setup (4 inch cleat sockets screwed into an armoire with 4 inch PC fans for heat extraction):

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 1, 2017

Terpene, you make a very strong case for LEDs

lol

I have a cabinet which is 2 feet wide, 6 feet tall and only 13 inches deep. Considering an LED, vertical scrog setup. I figure I can get upwards of 4 feet of the cabinet as usable height. Give or take.

Figure 240w would do it or would I need more coverage for that? I'm guessing I really will have to angle the lights for this one, lol. I see where you've shown it's not necessary, with regular cab space.

Dropped Cat · Sep 2, 2017

My PL L set up is 8F cooler than the LED screw ins, took a few days to nearly
cook my flower room, lol

The PL L is rated 87 lm/W.

The LED screw is 80 lm/W.

Non climate controlled area, so there is that to consider.

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 2, 2017

I could see lining the door with PL-L Lights, they would definitely have the penetration for the 13" space.

I've worked with them before, I'd probably mount the ballasts on the outside of the door.

I know the heat from the PL-L's is concentrated at the base of them, airflow is a major consideration. With the Screw-In's I'd have a wall of heat (multiple lamp base points) flowing up the door. With the PL-L's I'd have concentrations of heat at each socket.

Thinking the cool, incoming air should flow into the cabinet from behind the plant and screen. Between the screen and wall.

Dropped Cat · Sep 3, 2017

Seems legit, my ballasts are mounted outside the box.

Mount the fixture pointing down if I follow your train of thought.

A pic of what you're designing would help move things along.

Good thread

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 3, 2017

This is the basic mock-up I was playing with, for screw-in LED's. The A-B boxes on the side are a question on whether (for such a small cab) crossing the light angles, to opposite corners, would provide more even coverage. Or, B, where the lights are close to each other, pointing in opposite directions.

Make sense?

https://imgur.com/a/NpQs0Save

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 5, 2017

On the one hand, PL-L's have a higher lumen/watt rating. On the other, half of their light is reflected and not all of it is properly used. Screw-in LEDs have a narrower focus and minimal lumens wasted to side losses.

Screw-in LEDs have a higher heat rating, due to the multiple ballasts which are not remote, like PL-L lamps are.

LEDs have much deeper penetration ability, where PL-Ls are limited to a few inches of high intensity. I'm new to LEDs, not PL-Ls

Both types of lighting are very damaging to vision, about a foot away or closer for PL-L, much further away for LED. Make sure you turn off the lamps and use incandescent lighting when you're working up close and personal. You'll curse yourself in 10 years if you don't.

Screw-in LEDs can be bought off the shelf, even in rural Amuhrika. PL-L ballasts and lamps require a hardware store, at least, and sometimes special order. Especially for lamp mounting brackets.

Pros and cons all around.

NoTell · Sep 5, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
On the one hand, PL-L's have a higher lumen/watt rating. On the other, half of their light is reflected and not all of it is properly used. Screw-in LEDs have a narrower focus and minimal lumens wasted to side losses.

Hi Douglas,
The screw-in LEDs I am using are Philips 13W rated at 1521 lm (117 lm/w) and Osram 20W rated at 2452 lm (122.6 lm/w), so at least compared to the newer bulbs PL-Ls have a lower lm/w rating. I am in Europe though.

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 5, 2017

NoTell said:
Hi Douglas,
The screw-in LEDs I am using are Philips 13W rated at 1521 lm (117 lm/w) and Osram 20W rated at 2452 lm (122.6 lm/w), so at least compared to the newer bulbs PL-Ls have a lower lm/w rating. I am in Europe though.

Hey NoTell,

Greatly appreciate that info, I'll have to check what's available in the states, Osram and Phillips are usually higher quality than I've been buying. heh

How hot does the 20w Osram get and how many LEDs are mounted to make up that 20watts?

thesloppy · Sep 5, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
Terpene, you make a very strong case for LEDs lol

I have a cabinet which is 2 feet wide, 6 feet tall and only 13 inches deep. Considering an LED, vertical scrog setup. I figure I can get upwards of 4 feet of the cabinet as usable height. Give or take. Figure 240w would do it or would I need more coverage for that? I'm guessing I really will have to angle the lights for this one, lol. I see where you've shown it's not necessary, with regular cab space.

I ran a ghetto-ass cab with measurements very close to that, using a vert 400w HPS dimmed 50% to 200w, in which I would occasionally flower 14-15 week sativas. I think I've got a pic of it buried here somewhere. Ah-ha:

and with some lanky hazes in her:

I eventually figured out to take the top of the cage frame from that 6" fan and mounted it above the light, and used those cages to support a 2-foot tall sleeve of chicken-wire around the bulb and fan, which kept all the leaves and buds away from both and worked really well. The heat could be pushing it, with a 200W HPS in a small cabinet in the middle of the summer, but it never failed on me, and I grew in that cabinet for 7-8 years perpetually....as such, I imagine 250W of LED would be pretty safe in terms of heat.

...all that said, I got a tent about 4X the size a month ago, so those poor ghetto cabinets are in the trash heap now, and that's about all the help and/or pics I have to offer.

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 5, 2017

Awesome, thesloppy, excellent job and thanks for sharing it.

Congrats on the upgrade, hope everything goes well in your new tent. Didn't have any thoughts of keeping one of the old cabs for breeding projects?

thesloppy · Sep 5, 2017

Douglas.Curtis said:
Awesome, thesloppy, excellent job and thanks for sharing it.

Congrats on the upgrade, hope everything goes well in your new tent. Didn't have any thoughts of keeping one of the old cabs for breeding projects?

You caught me...I actually did keep one cab for veg, but pulled out the vert HPS and replaced it with an horizontal 80w LED (of the old 'MarsHydro 300' variety), but it's only been up and running for a week or two. That particular setup does NOT seem very conducive to growing tall sativas, as you're supposed to keep the light 18" above the canopy which eats up most of the free space in the cabinet.

Douglas.Curtis · Sep 5, 2017

thesloppy said:
You caught me...I actually did keep one cab for veg, but pulled out the vert HPS and replaced it with an horizontal 80w LED (of the old 'MarsHydro 300' variety), but it's only been up and running for a week or two. That particular setup does NOT seem very conducive to growing tall sativas, as you're supposed to keep the light 18" above the canopy which eats up most of the free space in the cabinet.

lol, right on.

Have you considered scrogging? Definitely improves yield when you're unable to work with headspace.

Very theraputic during the stretch, training to the screen a few minutes twice a day. Once stretch is over, it's just keeping the feed right and raising the light as the mini forest grows up.

HuffnPufferfish · Sep 5, 2017

you can put the 'driver' of screw in leds outside your room, if you wanted to, but they dont do much in terms of heat compared to the chip itself

its the same thing they did with cfl back then, only to notice its the cfl itself producing the heat, the electronics dont get hot

Long Flowering Sativas: Micro-Grow Box Design Thread

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