150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[sugabear_II]

user name

i had two strains - actually if you look back to page one I was posting under the name polar_bear and you can see the results of that grow. It was good I think it just got out of control and I ended up with more popcorn airy buds than I should have and less defined cola's.

-suga

 

[sugabear_II]

To expand more on my experience with the 150 and a V-scrog I found that I ran out of room vertically for the plants with only 29" height. I would like to try a vertical scrog like prenda inside a c13 cabinet again with just the 150 and 4 plants.

-suga

 

[Vern Equinox]

To expand more on my experience with the 150 and a V-scrog I found that I ran out of room vertically for the plants with only 29" height...

At what height did you go 12/12, what was height after stretch was over, and was lateral stretch noticable/O.K./outta frigging control? What strain did you use as well. I'm trying to gauge things in my cabinet so I don't run outta height!

Thanks suga.


EDIT: I'll stay on target, Pipedream. Is this thread intended for single 150 watt light grows, or growing with 150s (max wattage of any bulbs in grow)in general?

 

[Pipedream]

Vern, We try to stay very flexible here. I myself sometimes throw in a couple of high-wattage CFL's to supplement my 150 if the girls grow too high.

If you are worried about stretching, try this to keep your plants short and bushy.... Keep your internodal lengths as tight as possible. To accomplish this, make sure your day and night temperatures don’t vary by more than a few degrees, and when changing your lighting from 24/0 to 12/12, do it in three stages each a few days apart. Both will help keep the normal stretch to a minimum.

 

[sugabear_II]

hey vern,

a picture is worth a thousand words right...


so here we go this is a pic of the full cabinet at day 50 I had two strains - oregon90 on the left is mostly indica and blue satelite x jack herer is maybe 50/50 indica sativa. As you can see the whole thing was full of green. I have two 2 gallon buckets and then I had screens roughly 1.5' long by 1' wide set at an angle.





I flipped 12/12 after 21 days veg plants were maybe 8" - probably too tall at that point. after almost two weeks sex was apparent and the two females were selected. at this point the scrog screens were added and stretch continued for another week or so.

the main problem i encountered was the tendency for the branches mid way down to grow horizontally into the center shading the lower sections of the v-scrog. the end result was a bunch of pop-corn on the bottom. Also the main stem on both plants out grew the screen and i had to do some serious bending which i think hurt yield.

I guess my lessons learned would be not to over do the slant of the screens. this was probably 45 degrees. this put the top of the screen too close to the ceiling of my cabinet and the bottom of the screen too far from the lamp.

I did alot of trimming but still it got out of control quickly and overgrown. In general I think it's good to concentrate your growth into no more than 6-8 branches when scrogging. It is easy to let too keep too many nodes and end up with a bunch of airy buds.

I think if I had more veritcal room this would have also worked out better since I could have gotten a dryer hose to suck air directly from the top of lamp - again I couldn't do this in my little cabinet. Also I could have allowed the top of the plant to grow up above the screen without fear of it getting burned by the lamp or chewed up by the fan.

The most important rule of scrogging IMHO is to allow for the stretch of the plant, during the first two weeks you need to plan to have enough stretch to fill your screen and then after that you need to plan for the bud growth above the screen.

Plants grown in hydro tend to be much more branchy and bushy in a scrog situation. Growing a plant in hydro that had 2~2.5x stretch I would flower at 5" tall with maybe 3-4 nodes to fill a 1' square screen.

Then after that you need to plan for another 6-12" of space for bud growth above the screen. I've seen many a scrog where they filled the screen and only had 2-3" left between the screen and the light - whoops - no where for the buds to grow!

 

[green_grow]

are these fair prices ? ... 150w hps bulb, ballast and socket for about 48.oo (u.s) plus taxes. no shipping charges as they are local. how about in-line fans ? i have found a vortex 4" 172cfm online for 125.oo (u.s.) plus shipping. this seems a hefty price and would represent the most expensive component of my grow. would like to find one locally as i dont want to buy on-line unless i have to . what sort of businesses sell in-line fans ?

 

[sugabear_II]

green_grow

$48.00 is certainly a fair price for a 150 hps.

And $125 is also reasonable for a vortex inline fan. inline fans are always very expensive. Generally you can only find these types of fans at hydroponic stores, sometimes you can find them at HVAC places or industrial supply places like Graingers or even big farming supply places however they may not sell direct to public. A cheaper alternative is a shaded pole blower (squirel cage fan) usually made by dayton, however these are not as quiet as an inline nor as efficient at moving air in ducting.

I use a 134cfm dayton and it works well it was around $50 from graingers but other's have complained of graingers not selling to them.

hope that helps.

-suga

 

[Vern Equinox]

greengrow, make sure to budget $10-$25 for a good fan speed reducer, as you may not need the cfms as much as the stealth of a quieter op. (not a light dimmer switch; ruin the fan)

Suga's right on with the info and pricing. Another option might be an inline bilge pump fan, for pumping out nasty odors in boats. Hydro stores sell them for 3 X what you can get them for at boat centers/supply houses. I'll see if I can find a link; I was just reading about this on a forum somewhere...


I Googled, and these look good for even a small closet grow:

135 cfm for $27.43 and 235 cfm for $31.35 Throw a speed controller on...done!




http://www.outdoorsuperstore.com/st...y~manufacturer~RULE~model~IN+LINE+BLOWERS.htm

 

[Guest]

Ya thats cheap for a 150! I convert security light 150s into remote ballast, then hang that little reflector and re-attach the glass. Costs me $30 more than what youre paying.

Vern Im curious, how are you gonna hang both the 150s without them interfering with one another and/or moving around touching the buds? Cool tubes? I like the way your design implements more vertical space. I might set something similar up this fall.

Anyways, I would like to share a couple pics of my now 2nd scrog! Its called g-scrog. Ghetto screen of green. I basically cut a chickenwire square without measuring , taped the sharp edges, then leaned it against the plants & taped it to the lid so I could still adjust the water.

These just went 12/12 the other day.
April 8th


April 14th

 

[Vern Equinox]

Vern Im curious, how are you gonna hang both the 150s without them interfering with one another and/or moving around touching the buds? Cool tubes? ...

That's a damn good question, and one that bothered me for a long time (relative to the rest of the work into the design). I couldn't just hang them both from the top, as the heat from the upper bulb would burn the lower bulb's power line. Even if you shielded it somehow, you have this big wide shadow running down the length of the business end of your 150, cutting down lumens.

I also needed a more elegant way of attaching my chickenwire tubes than just suspending them on hooks from the ceiling, so I had what I refer to as an "epotphany"; I made a frame inside the cab using 1/4 inch threaded rod (#20 x 72) hacksawed to size. I used 12 pieces to complete the frame, including two bars mounted horizontally in the center line to support the upper and lower lights (the lower bar supports the bottom two, upper bar, the upper two lamps) and connected everything with cable ties. (There's basically a 2 inch perimeter that is outside the frame; enough space to pull shade leaves behind, etc.) Then, the ballasts are remoted outside the cab, hanging on hooks mounted underneath the sound-proofing box, which is sweet because the ballasts are passively cooled by the air being pushed through the carbon scrubber! (No, not an accident!) I drilled four holes through the wall large enough for the 14 gauge Romex wire and pushed it through and up the wall to the center lamp support bars, and spiraled it around the support until it is in the perfect position. (Other light, just continue spiraling the Romex until you get the far side light into position). Leave a little slack in the lines, and you can adjust the lights a little here and there. I left the sockets' flexible leads exposed so you can wind them around the support bar to reposition light in a fix. The main branches/budsites I'm tying down to the screen (loosely, from the inside) with plastic covered twist ties until vege/stretch is over. If buds start forming and growing into harm's way, I'll cover the bulb with an inner tube of 1 inch wide chicken wire to keep buds at a safe distance from the heat.

I'll draw a diagram that'll clear things up a bit, I think.

 

[green_grow]

vern ...those bilge fans look great, but how would you power them ? i am assuming that they would be 12v as they are designed for boats, but the little 3" one draws 2.9 amps, and the highest rated 12v adaptor i have seen is 1.0 amp. what is a fan speed reducer and how is it different from a dimmer switch; where would i get one ?

 

[Vern Equinox]

I found this on Google.com, searching "12 volt adapter 3 amps"; I'm sure there's more. Check Fleabay.

http://www.powerstream.com/ac-1245.htm

"This inexpensive 12 volt AC/DC switching power supply adapter is useful for any application requiring UL/CUL approved 12 volts at 4.1 amps or less, but can supply surges up to 6 amps."


The dimmer switch works for lights, but will damage your fan motor after prolonged use. You can get a solid-state fan speed controller at Lowes or Casa dePot for $10-$15 and it will not hurt the fan motor.

USER NAME, that is definitely McGuyverish in its construction...nice! What do you expect to yield off that screen setup?

 

[green_grow]

perfect ...thanks !

 

[senseless]

i wanna join the club! i have two 150w lights.

og kush
3 clones, scrog, swc hydro, pure blend nutes.

do you think my screen is overgrown? im unsure if i should tuck fan leaves away so the buds get light or if its better for the fan leaves to get light? do the buds themselves absorb light and photosynthisize?

day 30 flower

day 7 veg from clone

 

[Pipedream]

About 3 years ago a friend asked me to build her a can-type carbon scrubber. I used one of those bilge blowers and incorporated it right into the canister. The blower is made by DetMar and can be purchased for about 20 bucks at westmarine.com or any of their local stores. For power I picked up an old automotive battery charger at a garage sale for $3. She's been using it ever since with no issues at all. The only down-side that I see is that they are not the quietest fan to be had. Oh yea, I forgot to mention that I also put a few-thousand mic' capacitor across the output of the charger to smooth out the voltage for the fan, but you really don't have to.

senseless, nice job! If you look in my gallery, you'll see I'm a big fan of trimming leaves. (no pun intended) However, I don't grow with a screen. And yes, the green areas of the buds do photosynthsize. In fact, if you remove too many leaves from the plant, the buds will produce new foiliage right at the bud site. In some cases, these new leaves will have a fair amount of crystals, but in others they will be visually smooth. In either case, they make great hash and can even be smoked when times are really tough. Here's a plant that was totally trimmed of fans over a three week period. In the close-up shot you can see the new leaves growing from the buds....

 

[Guest]

135 cfm for $27.43 and 235 cfm for $31.35 Throw a speed controller on...done!

http://www.outdoorsuperstore.com/st...E+BLO WERS.htm

Good find on those fans vern. Does anyone have any experience with these fans? Would they work well with a scrubber attatched to them?

 

[Pipedream]

Read the post right above yours!

There isn't much difference between the various makers and models available.

 

[Vern Equinox]

Good find on those fans vern. Does anyone have any experience with these fans? Would they work well with a scrubber attatched to them?

Look at the post right above yours...Pipedream did exactly what you want to do.

That's a great site Pipedream. Some canister inlines there look better than what I posted...look quieter, like a canister! Also, I thought that leaves growing outta buds like that were just mutants, but it's nice to know there's a cause/effect relationship.

 

[Guest]

wow I completely missed that. Sorry

 

[strain_searcher]

Good find on those fans vern. Does anyone have any experience with these fans? Would they work well with a scrubber attatched to them?

those fans are so loud