LED punk grow

[koles[cz]]

Hi everybody!

Just started new round in my cabinet. This is my first show here on IC and I willl be sending updates on weekly basis.

Let's look at the setup:

So the box is old office cabinet 40x80x120 cm (approx. 15x30x48 in) with some tuning (one round hole on each side to take the air in and one on the top as an exhaust, diamond foil inside).

The air circulation is secured by a PC fan in the top hole. I don't use carbon filter as it would require much stronger fan and I like the box running quietly. True, the smell while flowering is quite loud, but I keep my appartment's windows open in a way it takes most of the smell outside.

The light source is a chinese LED panel with some 100 diodes that come in different colors and together they make the "classic" pink/red light. It takes like 180 W. I'm thinking of upgrading to COB chips, but they are still expensive in Europe - especially with the postage and taxes. Hopefully the price will drop soon as I would very much prefer the natural light color For the first week or two I deployed 2x 18W tube as you can see in the picture.

The seedlings are in a Canna Terra Proffessional soil - it's the best soil I tried so far and I already tried almost all standard commercial brands on the (european) market in my previous rounds. Sometimes I mix my soil with coco, but not this time. I may add some more perlite to the mix when transplanting.

Anyway, let's check the gear I hopefully be growing. It is sort of wild mix of regular seeds I purchased from other growers and on the internets..

(from fellow grower - some F2s and crosses)
DJ Short F13
DJ Short Grape Krush
DJ Short Mexican Highland Sativa x Blueberry

(from another grower)
Sour Diesel x Big Bang

(my cross)
Satori (Nirvana)x Nepalese Jam (ACE)

Sin City Platinum Delights (GSC x Blue Power)

Almost everything sprouted but some are much quicker than others. The first magnificent seven were put in a soil today. And the rest will follow when the root is long enough. My aim is to flower 8 or 6 females.

 

[koles[cz]]

Looks like everybody's on board.. I had 100% germ rate, still having two Grape Krushes on wet paper towel. One of them is not gonna make it (it popped but is stunned for a few days now), the other one is just slow will eventually joun the rest, counting 15.

What's in a box:

3x F13
3x MHxBB
3x SDxBB
3x PD
1x SAxNJ
1x GK

 

[koles[cz]]

Another week has passed and the crew is thriving. Only the Grape Krush batch turned weird, one having crippled leaves (middle of the back row) and the second one is tri-leaf seedling (front). F13, MHxBB and SAxNJ are stretching, showing some sativa heritage.

Haven't decided about the growing method yet but probably will go scrog if the number of females will be six or less and bush if there are more. I'm going to prune at least some of them anyway, as I plan to keep them low and bushy.

Still under the tubes. However, I'm almost finished with the new DIY LED panel, waiting only for fans to be delivered and mounted. Will post specs and pics later. If it works I will be using it instead of the china panel described in the first post.

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

so what did you do for the new panel ?

Also sounds like a good mix of genetics, looking forward to seeing what you get.

 

[koles[cz]]

so what did you do for the new panel ?

Also sounds like a good mix of genetics, looking forward to seeing what you get.

Hey Sparkle! I like diversity so always go with bunch of different varieties. It's sometimes hard to tame them though

Stay tuned, I'm gonna post the specs of new panel in the next post, just need to take some pictures.

 

[koles[cz]]

OK the punk part starts here

Everything is mounted on aluminium case. 2 drivers, the big one for COBs and small one for fans.

MW Well HLG-120H-C1400A
+
1x CXA1850 5000K
2x CXA1850 3500K

MW APC-12-350
+
2x Arctic chipset cooler with small heatsink

And that's it! I know the design and manufacturing is far from perfect, however the first impression is rather good. When lit up the light is subjectively very strong.. 'been using the sunglasses and still not comfortable to watch even from distance. It takes 155 W off the wall.There are two main issues I need to take care of: the fans are driven too hard (this was the weakest driver I could score, but still too strong), so third fan will be added. Which is actually fine becuase the case gets quite hot. I have been running the light only for a few minutes only.

 

[blynx]

Nice build on the lights!

Are you going to flower out all the plants at the same time? Sex them first, then flower?

 

[koles[cz]]

Nice build on the lights!

Are you going to flower out all the plants at the same time? Sex them first, then flower?

Thanks!

Actually I have only one box and need to sex them somehow.. Some strains show preflowers even in veg stage, so I partially count on this, but I think I will be just transplanitng them all to bigger pots after two or three weeks of vegetative growth and then flip. Right after they show sex I'll move them in final containers. It's not ideal and I'm open to any better ideas.

 

[ReikoX]

 

[koles[cz]]

Reiko, hope you got a lot of popcorn this could be a long ride if everything goes well


Seedlings seem happy, except the GK runt with damaged leaves.. As soon as the panel is ready (one more fan to be added) I can't wait to splash them with more light!

 

[HuffnPufferfish]

50w a piece? how u cool that?

 

[koles[cz]]

50w a piece? how u cool that?

That's something I need to figure out first Well, everything is mounted on aluminimum case, so some heat will sink there. Plus the three fans (to be) with heatsink - although it's
very little - will help with that. At least that's my idea.

We will see in few days. I'm planning to test it over the weekend.

The COBs are disgned to work at high temps like 85 C, right? At least I figured it out while reading through the datasheet > http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/C...Modules/XLamp/Data-and-Binning/ds-CXA1850.pdf

 

[koles[cz]]

The new light is up and running

Now with three fans everything is running smoothly. The case still gets quite hot that I can only touch the furthermost edges, but I guess the temperature is no near the COB limit. Attached a thermometer to monitor the air temperature flowing off the panel and it won't surpass 30 C.

I will be transplanting the seedlings to bigger pots in few days.

 

[koles[cz]]

4 weeks in, so far so good (enough)

Transplanted the biggest plants only few days ago and the roots already penetrated the pots Noted fresh new growth too. I'm getting close to the point of topping them.. basically want 6-8 tops on each making it to the final stage

 

[koles[cz]]

I have run out of gallery space and cannot upload any more pictures atm


Text update follows

Topped few biggest ones, transplanted rest of the plants to mid-size pots. The Grapekrush runt is ouf of business, the second (tri-leaf) is doing well. 14 crew members, some carry signs of mild micro deficiency - adding some extra Ca, Mg + other micros

Correction: fan out temperature 40 C, plants at 25 C

Seems it will take another two weeks on veg to develop nice branches, fine i'm not in a hurry

 

[Mr. Sparkle]

You'll have more space once you past 50 post fyi

 

[koles[cz]]

That's good news, Mr. Sparkle, thanks for the info!

I was checking your thread and that arduino controller is cool stuff. Have arduino one stashed somewhere, bought it few years ago when it was cool But I'm not into wiring / c that much.. I was rather hoping to run some js! Tried tessel.io (first verssion), made a prototype of simple environment monitor. Great platform in overall, unfortunately, the tessel hardware didn't meet my requirements for reliability a sturdiness. Now my eyes are on BigClown