greyfader
Well-known member
so, do i get the hot chick with it?
if i had a cannabis culture museum i would want a phototron on display.
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LED and BUD QUALITY
- Thread starter Tropical Sun
- Start date
if i had a cannabis culture museum i would want a phototron on display.
I have something I'm working on that will include these LED strips we've just produced. I've got a few ideas for a vertical LED system.
greyfader
Well-known member
4 sided arrays for the centers would be nice!
Omega Gardens is what these were called 20-odd years ago when I first saw them. They were expensive, and looked impressive.
But there were a number of issues with them. The biggest one was that it was almost impossible to get inside to work on the plants – there just wasn't any easy access. So if your plants started growing into the light, you couldn't get in there to move them. There wasn't any room in any case because . . .
. . . . as the canopy grows, so it diminishes! The inside area of a cylinder is Pi x radius squared x the length of a cylinder. As the plants grow, that radius gets smaller and smaller. What starts as a 2m canopy radius may end as a 1m radius. When that happens, you have just lost 4x your top canopy area! It is now exactly 1/4 of what you started with.
The first image shows a rotary garden on a smaller scale that at least has easier access to the plants. But regardless of the system, as the plants grow, they start to crowd each other for space and the canopy gets denser and denser . . . you need really good airflow in there to prevent mould and other issues.
And WTF do you do when the plants hit the lights and you can't raise them?!?!?
The more complicated something is, the more things can wrong with it. But you have to expect that.
You haven't grown with these systems before – that much is clear. I'm not sure why you raise the subject if you have no experience with them. How can you tell us they are better when you've never tried them?
I'm starting to think you have nowhere near the kind of experience that you claim. Or that some of us have already have.
But I digress . . . How do you calculate your figures for a diminishing radius canopy? If you start off with 6.5m2 and end up with 1.625m2 (1/4 of the final canopy area, as explained above), now you only have 650g – not 2.6kg.
But who knows? The REAL trouble with these cylinder grows is that you need a lot of PRACTICE before you can get any decent yields out of them because you must, must, MUST know what your plant finishing height will be before you even start because there is NO ROOM FOR ERROR.
How many trial grows do you need to do with each new strain just to be sure you are not going to burn the fuck out of your crop by the time you finish?
That's a lot of time and effort. Which is a lot of labour and money.
Is it easier to replace a bulb than a LED? Is HPS really half the price of LED? Let's think about this . . .
What is the L70 of an LED? 50,000 hours. That's about 12 years of 12/12 cycles and the LED is still pumping out 70% of its intensity.
HPS bulbs lose about 20% of their output in the first year, which means most growers replace them every year – although some HPS growers replace them every 3-6 months or even every grow!
Cost effective? Perhaps if you're getting 20% more yield. But that's a lot of HPS bulbs. It's a good thing they are cheaper now, because they used to cost $100 or so for a 600W bulb! A CMH bulb costs even more.
And what about the labour cost of changing bulbs on a regular basis in a large warehouse? You need to factor that in,
Now there is the cost of climate control. In a warm climate, or during summer, or in a closed system, or in a large warehouse, you are going to see the effects of HPS putting out 1/3 more heat than equivalent LED. Air-conditioning and climate control cost money – money you haven't factored in.
What about capital costs? Yes, LEDs will be more expensive than HPS . . . unless you are buying a floor full of Omega Gardens! How much are those?
This one is USD$13,500!!!! https://glandorehydro.com/product/rotary-grow-system-omega-garden
^ And BTW, it uses LED
And after all that, it still has NO advantages – and plenty of disadvantages – over a typical, floor-based vertical grow.
Floor-based vertical grows don't run out of head room. You can use any type of growing media – saying you can't use rockwool/DWC/aeroponics is just bullshit. Any system you can think of, I can provide you with a solution for growing vertically.
Now for the numbers! Because I grew vertically for almost 20 years, I can provide real and repeatable numbers.
In a 4'x4'x6' (1.2m x 1.2m x 1.8m high) area I had 1200W of vertical HPS and I pulled ~3.5lb like clockwork. That's over 1.3gpw. And that is with no CO2, growing in coco run-to-waste.
That's actually better than anything you have shown us or indeed hypothetically calculated.
Now I've already shown photos in this thread, but I'll post this one again, just coz I like it, and coz it was one of the early grows using this system.
You can take your starving plants and shove them where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. Healthy plants produce healthy yields and quality.
But wait! There's more!
I'm going to include this because a friend of mine who grows with LED is also getting 3.5lb (56oz) like clockwork. His area is 1.35m x 1.35m – about 20% bigger than my 4'x4' – and he uses 900W of LED.
He is getting a reliable 1.7-1.8gpw (his highest is 59oz) and the quality is as good as anything else around. This is another old photo from about 4 years ago. Since then he's ditched the UV bulb and replaced the original High Light LED panel on the left with HL420 Gen2 lights. But it gives you an idea of what he's doing.
In a 4'x4'x6' (1.2m x 1.2m x 1.8m high) area I had 1200W of vertical HPS and I pulled ~3.5lb like clockwork. That's over 1.3gpw. And that is with no CO2, growing in coco run-to-waste.
That's actually better than anything you have shown us or indeed hypothetically calculated.
Now I've already shown photos in this thread, but I'll post this one again, just coz I like it, and coz it was one of the early grows using this system.
You can take your starving plants and shove them where the sun don't shine as far as I'm concerned. Healthy plants produce healthy yields and quality.
But wait! There's more!
I'm going to include this because a friend of mine who grows with LED is also getting 3.5lb (56oz) like clockwork. His area is 1.35m x 1.35m – about 20% bigger than my 4'x4' – and he uses 900W of LED.
He is getting a reliable 1.7-1.8gpw (his highest is 59oz) and the quality is as good as anything else around. This is another old photo from about 4 years ago. Since then he's ditched the UV bulb and replaced the original High Light LED panel on the left with HL420 Gen2 lights. But it gives you an idea of what he's doing.
I was thinking about taking my mars bars apart and trying to rig them like a 1k hps. Stop trying to steal my ideas man!
I want to mount the strips to a hexagonal tube . . . if I can find a hexagonal tube. The idea would be to run 2x 480mm strips end-to-end on each side (x6) of a 1-1.2m tube. Then run each strip at about 50W for 600W vertical. Computer fan or similar on the bottom of the tube to force air up through the middle for heat-sinking. Ah, I've got it all worked out in my head but just need time and the right bit of tubing to do it. I was actually thinking of designing a hexagonal heatsink in to parts, but it's a bit hard to describe here so I'll just keep it in my head for now.
The simple short-term solution would be to use square tubing, so I might try that first.
greyfader
Well-known member
how about round, cheap, and already built? being metal it would be a heat sink also.
the 6" diameter would give a circumference of 18.8496 inches. times 60 =1130.976 sq inches total mounting surface.
i know you're down under and use metric but i'm sure hardware stores there have the equivalent.
the 6" diameter would give a circumference of 18.8496 inches. times 60 =1130.976 sq inches total mounting surface.
i know you're down under and use metric but i'm sure hardware stores there have the equivalent.
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CocoNut 420
Well-known member
Tbf your TV or kettle is a fire hazard, its not unusual for people to be left with a pile of ashes because of a appliance left plugged in.
But yeah heaters are naturally a fire hazard but statistically a low risk.
For heat in the tent It depends on the season i've got a couple of 150w tube heaters and a small oil heater plus my dehumidifier gives off some heat + lowers humidity.
It's very humid where I am all year round and it's generally cold its not ideal lol.
Atm
I've been intending to wind down for the winter because its expensive to keep things on point but I just love growing...maybe next winter I'll wind down?
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At those temps, i get why one might want radiant heat.
The problem is round. The strips are flat and need a perfectly flat surface to mate to. And I'm not a panel beater! I did think of using string lights, like these Buddies, to wrap around a tube, but they're not as powerful or efficient as the strips: https://growlightsaustralia.com/product/buddies/how about round, cheap, and already built? being metal it would be a heat sink also.
the 6" diameter would give a circumference of 18.8496 inches. times 60 =1130.976 sq inches total mounting surface.
i know you're down under and use metric but i'm sure hardware stores there have the equivalent.
i can offer those LeD Stripe lights :
720w
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1000W
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720w
View media item 18715848
View media item 18715849
View media item 18715850
1000W
View media item 18715851
View media item 18715852
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
Its a bit weird that you come into a thread asking for advice regarding how much this method will yield; but then a few posts later decide that it will yield 2.6 kilos without having even tried yet. As if youve already have those 2.6kg.
Youd actually need to yield 2.6 before claiming it.
greyfader
Well-known member
you could pop rivet flat strips of metal to the round surface. fabricating a hex shape from metal is going to be expensive.
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
Why not standard square alu tube? @Prawn Connery ?
With your strips it would be easy to make a 500w per meter light if you have aircooling.
With your strips it would be easy to make a 500w per meter light if you have aircooling.
greyfader
Well-known member
what? if i have 12 eggs i will certainly get 12 chickens!
the most obvious flaw in the phototron is that, as the plants grow towards center, the ever-decreasing radius of the canopy blocks light and creates more shading below the tops.
Rocket Soul
Well-known member
The strips are 50mm but with adding tickness of the alu tubing and hole position i would rec 60mm wide alu square tube, 3mm thick.
