Inside Out Trees, Silo Op, custom RDWC, water cooled

[Ttystikk]

Yep.

Inverting my original design simplified the process for cannabis.

The original design was for food. I wanted to provide a cost-effective solution to urban gardening. Everyone would have 4 sq. M of space plus an additional 1 sq. M for things like potatoes or squash.

The past fifteen years have changed my perception on existence.

“By all means, marry. If you find a good wife, you will be happy. If not, you will become a philosopher.”

- Socrates died 399 by way of Democratic vote.

I tried the light in the middle and plants arranged around it. I had to manually rotate the plants daily.

Later, I built a light rotator with an old mountain bike and a windshield wiper assembly from a Honda Civic and it worked really, really well. Much better than a stationary light.

LED lights are a big step up even from my old light rotator!

Now I'm working on the next step after that.

And so it goes. Each of us contributing what we can for the benefit of others and with a bit of luck, for posterity.

 

[Aristoned]

Socrates died by eating hemlock. It was organically grown, LOL

Making people grow their own food is a problem because specialization is one of the things that makes an advanced civilization work so much better than an agrarian society.

Read that again.

Socrates death was put to a vote, he was accused of “corrupting the youth”.

Trust me when I say, without any misinterpretation, Democracy literally murdered Socrates.

 

[Ttystikk]

A panel painted flat white would be better than mirrors... just saying. Mirrors lose a lot of reflectivity, as the light has to pass through the glass twice!

Cross posted from the LED and Bud Quality thread in the LED and other lighting section:

Well over 30 years ago I had a single ended thousand Watt HPS on magnetic ballast mounted horizontally in an early "wing" style fixture. This wing was suspended in a swivel from one end of a 5' long bar with a gallon milk jug full of water hanging from the other end as a counterweight.

The bar was mounted to the crank arm of a bicycle hanging from the ceiling. The crank was pulled backwards by the chain, which went through a high gear in the pancake at the back. Turning the rear bike tire (the front of the bike was simply sawed off) was a shaft connected to a windshield wiper assembly from a Honda Civic, driven by a low voltage battery charger. This gear reduction arrangement meant the light fixture would rotate once about every 3 and a half minutes.

The fixture was positioned just 18" over a carefully SCRoG'ged canopy to be dead level across the garden of 12 plants in bloom; half a dozen each in early bloom and the other in late bloom. Every three weeks the finished crop would be replaced by 6 more bloom ready plants.

The entire canopy and grow area was more or less the shape of a stop sign about 8' across when viewed from above. The perimeter was made up of a bunch of 5' tall stakes, each standing up in a pot full of old dirt. The area thus enclosed was about 45ft².

Taped to each post was reflective mylar plastic, the roll went all the way around the perimeter of the grow. The entry was where the beginning and end overlapped slightly; I just moved the pot with the post. This mylar film was classic hard bounce, a mirror you could use to shave. Because the light source moved, every reflection did as well. Every plant got blasted with the thouie at close range for about 30 seconds once every 3 1/2 minutes and the rest of the time it got light from up to 5 feet away, along with light reflected from the entire perimeter.

I tried white panda film at first but it was not nearly as effective because the light hit it and scattered. The mylar bounced it straight back into the canopy.

Every plant in there absolutely LOVED the arrangement and grew on average a quarter pound of frosty, juicy Northern Lights x Skunk.

I found out later that a plant can get more light than it can continuously use and then work with that energy for up to three and a half minutes or so before it needs another blast. My arrangement hit that sweet spot without me knowing; I had created the perfect partly cloudy day!

I still think about that old system regularly because I'm sure there are more lessons it can teach about the performance benefits of moving lights, intermittent pulses of very bright light, the benefits of hard bounce reflective materials when using a moving light source and possibly more.

Think about it; that ONE thouie (along with an extensive pre bloom veg that delivered a batch of bloom ready plants every three weeks) produced on average half a pound of top shelf cannabis a week. And the fucking bulb was four years old! I didn't even know I had to swap out lamps every few months!

 

[Ttystikk]

@greyfader this is my vertical grow thread. I've been working with LED and vertical gardens for some time now. I'm always interested in having a discussion with people on this topic.

 

[greyfader]

@greyfader this is my vertical grow thread. I've been working with LED and vertical gardens for some time now. I'm always interested in having a discussion with people on this topic.

hey! nice thread! so you may remember heath's 10x10' rooms with 4 plants grown upright. one in the center of each wall and 1 light in the center with 4 lights in the corners.

i think he used a 1000 watt mogul socket hps in the center and 4 600's in the corners. he got excellent yields.

i have friends in oregon who regularly pull 10 lbs+ with this setup. 3400 watts total.

growing upright uses less floor space than scrogging. i cannot get 4 54" scrog frames in a 10x10 and still have room to work around the plants.

i would like to learn how to build a led array that would properly illuminate 4 vertical plants in a 10x10 this way.

one friend in oregon would use a 3 week veg period with topped plants so they could keep them short and fat. typically they would veg them in place flipping the lights back and forth between two adjacent rooms. one on and one off 24/7. so even in veg the plants got 12 hours of light per day but they would leave a small bulb on continuously during the veg phase to prevent flowering until ready.

here is a depiction of the plant/lights arrangement.

 

[flower~power]

have friends in oregon who regularly pull 10 lbs+ with this setup. 3400 watts total.

? Wow

 

[flower~power]

I spent a lot of time growing big plants indoors combination, vertical, and horizontal. HPS never could get those kind of yields though Even with more wattage

 

[greyfader]

I spent a lot of time growing big plants indoors combination, vertical, and horizontal. HPS never could get those kind of yields though Even with more wattage

did you use a ppk system?

 

[flower~power]

did you use a ppk system?

Nah , I was just hand watering trying to do everything by instinct just did OK I like the idea of vertical and horizontal combined and I know who you are. you’ve been an inspiration.

 

[Ttystikk]

hey! nice thread! so you may remember heath's 10x10' rooms with 4 plants grown upright. one in the center of each wall and 1 light in the center with 4 lights in the corners.

i think he used a 1000 watt mogul socket hps in the center and 4 600's in the corners. he got excellent yields.

i have friends in oregon who regularly pull 10 lbs+ with this setup. 3400 watts total.

growing upright uses less floor space than scrogging. i cannot get 4 54" scrog frames in a 10x10 and still have room to work around the plants.

i would like to learn how to build a led array that would properly illuminate 4 vertical plants in a 10x10 this way.

one friend in oregon would use a 3 week veg period with topped plants so they could keep them short and fat. typically they would veg them in place flipping the lights back and forth between two adjacent rooms. one on and one off 24/7. so even in veg the plants got 12 hours of light per day but they would leave a small bulb on continuously during the veg phase to prevent flowering until ready.

here is a depiction of the plant/lights arrangement.

View attachment 19160188

I'm assuming the lights in the corners have reflectors? I do dig people who can draw a useful diagram!

I've heard a lot of pretty wild claims about yield. Ten pounds from 3400W with 4 plants? Each plant is 2.5? I'd love to see that setup!

It CAN be done with LED. There are some "buts" involved. Good thing I'm a butt man;

1. Don't fall for the "LED is more efficient" hype and go down from 3400W.

2. You may want to run the room a bit warmer, because the source of LED light's efficiency is less heat and more PAR- but as we are slowly figuring out, the plants have ways of using nearly all the energy available to them if conditions are right. Depending on who you ask, LED lit rooms like it best in the low to mid 80s F. This gets your leaf temperature where you want it. A bit of a bump in RH will satisfy the VPD Gods and that's your target environment. You will want to supplement CO2 and you'll get the benefits.

3. As you already know, LED lighting is a lot more directional than HID lighting and so the lighting design will have to be updated to, um, reflect that. Puns ARE intended! LOL

The lights in the corners can be two 300W fixtures, one each angled towards the nearest plant. Ok so that's 300W lights x 2 in each corner (x4) for a total of 8 boards and 2400W. The good news is no reflectors needed. You will want longer fixtures so that the light can get the plants from knees to head.

The light in the middle could be a lot of things but if you just want to work with one style of LED (I recommend it), consider 4 more of the same 300W fixtures, each aimed at a plant.

If you've been keeping score, you'll have noticed this adds up to an even dozen 300W fixtures, for a total of 3600W.

But wait! People running HID lighting always forget the wattage draw of their ballasts, usually about 5-8% of the lamp if they're digital- and nobody should be running mags anymore; those fucking things suck juice, run hot and make those funny lines in your pics because they flicker 60 times a second.

3400W of HID lighting will therefore pull... drumroll please... Right around 3600W.

Now you've got yourself an apples to apples conversion. But the Watts are the same- so why bother? I think that once you get the room dialed in you'll find a bit more yield and if your experience is anything like mine, quality will be noticeably improved.

If you're buying a dozen lights (hanging them vertically will be no problem) from a reputable dealer, you should absolutely be able to get some kind of discount. Alternatively, you could buy all the components and build them yourself and even then you should get a quantity discount on parts.

As usual, hang panda film on all the walls and the ceiling and for extra credit, see if you can float a layer of it a foot or two above the floor whenever people aren't in there. Every little bit helps.

This is just the front of mind stuff but it should get you started. I'd love to see what you put together and I'll be happy to help in any way I can.

 

[Ttystikk]

did you use a ppk system?

PPK?

 

[greyfader]

I'm assuming the lights in the corners have reflectors? I do dig people who can draw a useful diagram!

I've heard a lot of pretty wild claims about yield. Ten pounds from 3400W with 4 plants? Each plant is 2.5? I'd love to see that setup!

It CAN be done with LED. There are some "buts" involved. Good thing I'm a butt man;

1. Don't fall for the "LED is more efficient" hype and go down from 3400W.

2. You may want to run the room a bit warmer, because the source of LED light's efficiency is less heat and more PAR- but as we are slowly figuring out, the plants have ways of using nearly all the energy available to them if conditions are right. Depending on who you ask, LED lit rooms like it best in the low to mid 80s F. This gets your leaf temperature where you want it. A bit of a bump in RH will satisfy the VPD Gods and that's your target environment. You will want to supplement CO2 and you'll get the benefits.

3. As you already know, LED lighting is a lot more directional than HID lighting and so the lighting design will have to be updated to, um, reflect that. Puns ARE intended! LOL

The lights in the corners can be two 300W fixtures, one each angled towards the nearest plant. Ok so that's 300W lights x 2 in each corner (x4) for a total of 8 boards and 2400W. The good news is no reflectors needed. You will want longer fixtures so that the light can get the plants from knees to head.

The light in the middle could be a lot of things but if you just want to work with one style of LED (I recommend it), consider 4 more of the same 300W fixtures, each aimed at a plant.

If you've been keeping score, you'll have noticed this adds up to an even dozen 300W fixtures, for a total of 3600W.

But wait! People running HID lighting always forget the wattage draw of their ballasts, usually about 5-8% of the lamp if they're digital- and nobody should be running mags anymore; those fucking things suck juice, run hot and make those funny lines in your pics because they flicker 60 times a second.

3400W of HID lighting will therefore pull... drumroll please... Right around 3600W.

Now you've got yourself an apples to apples conversion. But the Watts are the same- so why bother? I think that once you get the room dialed in you'll find a bit more yield and if your experience is anything like mine, quality will be noticeably improved.

If you're buying a dozen lights (hanging them vertically will be no problem) from a reputable dealer, you should absolutely be able to get some kind of discount. Alternatively, you could buy all the components and build them yourself and even then you should get a quantity discount on parts.

As usual, hang panda film on all the walls and the ceiling and for extra credit, see if you can float a layer of it a foot or two above the floor whenever people aren't in there. Every little bit helps.

This is just the front of mind stuff but it should get you started. I'd love to see what you put together and I'll be happy to help in any way I can.

the lights in the corners and the whole room would usually be covered by a 4' wide piece of reflectix, running horizontally along the walls. high reflectivity.

i do have some experience with leds. for the last 6 years i have been using led lighting over scrog nets.

this is a 10k sq ft warehouse i designed, installed a 480 site system in the main flower, a 48 plant pollen and seed production room, and a 144 site vegging room, all ppk. i used 240volt 18 watt screw in bulbs with cree 6500k diodes. we had them shipped to us with the diffusers not installed.

i was the director here and operated it for a bioscience company in nashville, tn for 3 years.

the plant you see here is purple mesa cbd. it tested at 18% cbd at 8 weeks with less than .03% thc. we produced for finished flower and averaged about 30 lbs per week.

and here is a 2.4 lb thc plant i grew at home using walmart bulbs. this is bluestar og from bluestarseedco.

i used 5000k bulbs up until the end of the third week of flower then switched those out for 2700k bulbs and some incandescents.

i have grown many plants over 2.5-3 lbs at my facility in oregon. the photos link in my signature below shows quite a few of them. also, you will see a lot of detail of how a ppk system works there.

i scrogged there because i was using DE fixtures. it was my last effort with hps. i had 49 lights there.

the thread itself is full of info on the system as well.

 

[greyfader]

PPK?

i am the inventor of the ppk system. i was known as delta9nxs then but changed my online name for security reasons. i found that delta9nxs and my real name had been connected somehow. i had used some of the same passwords for more than 20 years.

the ppk is a recirculating closed-loop soilless system that does not use chillers, high-speed water movement, constantly running water pumps, or air pumps. i came up with the idea in 2009 while recovering from a liver transplant and have been refining it since.

it grows plants at about the same metabolic rate as a well-tuned rdwc or undercurrent but without the failure points. highly redundant and suited for commercial production. you will never lose a plant in this system unless you get bugs.

it is both top-irrigated and sub-irrigated. the top irrigation is achieved by small pumps that typically have a total run time of about 6 minutes per day.

it is a set it and forget it system. the solution stays extremely stable in regards to concentration and ph.

so, i now have 3 years of scrogging in oregon, 3 years more in nashville, and 3 years at home. 9 years straight and i'm about tired of it. and i'm now 74 years old and need to reduce my labor inputs. i cut my teeth growing upright trees and prefer it to scrogging. i know this can be done with leds.

so, i'm listening! i have never built a led fixture using anything but screw-in bulbs and want to learn how to construct a modern, state-of-the-art fixture. i'm a tool user and have a lot of electrical and electronic experience.

here is a link to the whole thread with theory and discussions. there are many other threads on this device here on the mag. search under delta9nxs to see them. many are now without pics as i had to delete to make room for more.

Something wicked this way comes

this thread is intended to show the "state of the art" ppk plumbing. since i started on this journey more than seven years ago the basic operating principles have remained the same but we have all gone through many iterations of plumbing. most of these, i now realize, were derived from our...

www.icmag.com

 

[Ttystikk]

the thread itself is full of info on the system as well.

I didn't see a link? Oh, it was the next post lol

 

[Ttystikk]

Posted elsewhere first but it belongs here!

Growthers, don't let the motherfuckers get you down.



I've been in this game for about 4 decades now; the assholes were always here, just as the good people have always been there. I've made lifelong friends- and I've also very probably been ripped off for over six figures when all is said and done.



People are indeed like plants; you have to weed out the bad to get to the good. There are plenty of good people in the industry and now that it's harder to make a FAST buck in cannabis, a lot of the cretins are crawling back under their rocks. Good riddance!



This industry/hobby/lifestyle is OURS every damn bit as much as it is theirs and I think more so; it always ran on the spirit of giving or at least paying forward. Dirtbags, thieves and scammers never build anything that lasts. Builders will always be in demand.



Yes, the grifters will always be around but cutting off contact with others and withdrawing is letting them win- and we can't let that happen.



Keep your head up, growther! Pulling your next great crop is always the best revenge.

 

[Aristoned]

Posted elsewhere first but it belongs here!

Growthers, don't let the motherfuckers get you down.



I've been in this game for about 4 decades now; the assholes were always here, just as the good people have always been there. I've made lifelong friends- and I've also very probably been ripped off for over six figures when all is said and done.



People are indeed like plants; you have to weed out the bad to get to the good. There are plenty of good people in the industry and now that it's harder to make a FAST buck in cannabis, a lot of the cretins are crawling back under their rocks. Good riddance!



This industry/hobby/lifestyle is OURS every damn bit as much as it is theirs and I think more so; it always ran on the spirit of giving or at least paying forward. Dirtbags, thieves and scammers never build anything that lasts. Builders will always be in demand.



Yes, the grifters will always be around but cutting off contact with others and withdrawing is letting them win- and we can't let that happen.



Keep your head up, growther! Pulling your next great crop is always the best revenge.

This community belongs to us, not some two-bit, grubby-handed smuggler.

After seeing what they’ve done to us over the past decade it is time we shut them down.

No more poison sold as “medicine”.

These fucking people, same story since the dawn of time.

Cheers!