bluntthirty
New member
Hello all,
I figured this is an appropriate section for me to just lay out what I am working with currently..
Actually I'll take a step back first and show you all what I have been using for the past three or so years:
I call that my old crate. It was built in a spare room as a simple place to flower out some strains for me to smoke and for me to go about learning about this craft. It is empty now, save for the Adjust-a-wing reflector still hanging in there. It's a 2x4 skeleton, 2 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. Its outer skin is panda film I think, though I can't be sure because I bought it so long ago. Black on the outside, white on the inside. It is thick enough to be sturdy and thin enough to be easy to work with. Inside I ran one HPS bulb (I don't remeber the brand), powered by a 600 watt Lumatek dimmable electronic ballast. I have nothing negative to say about my ballast, as it has served me wonderfully. It powers on quickly, even the few times the power flickered or failed for a few minutes while the light was on. Never burnt out a bulb either. My experience with it was good enough that I bought a second Lumatek 600 watter for my new setup. Which leads nicely into...
My newly built, but not yet 100% completed (what can I say, I'm a busy guy) 'tunnel.' Here it is with it's hardboard sides removed:
First I shall address the feature that I'm sure caught your eye first; The hardboard sheets that make up the reflector do not line up perfectly. This is because I assembled this thing alone and 2 hands proved to be not quite enough to hold the sheets in place, maintaining the curve of the other, while screwing it in to the framework. I did the best I could under the circumstances, so it is what it is. Anyhow, the unit is 8 foot long and 4 foot wide (suspiciously similar in dimension to a sheet of plywood... hmmm...) the deck sits between 3 and 4 feet off the ground. Since I did all the wood construction before I had the plumbing and buckets etc etc I had to guesstimate the height I would need for the plumbed buckets to clear the reservoir. In a rare circumstance my guess was bang-on. There are 8 buckets, each plumbed to an equalizing manifold (1" pvc) that runs down the center under the deck. Here is that manifold:
7 of the buckets look like so:
One of the buckets, though, is my control bucket. Here's the lucky bugger now:
The smaller pipe (1/2") is connected to my pump that sits in the reservoir directly below. The pump is (er.. will be) plugged into a timed outlet set to pump into the control bucket for 'x' amount of minutes every 'y' span of time. I have not decided on a pumping schedule yet, so I am open to suggestions if anyone has any sage advice on the matter. The water will pump into the control bucket and once it reaches 2.5 to 3 inches it will being to flow into the equalizing manifold (the pipe with the strainer you can see on the right), which leads to, you guessed it, all of the other buckets! Gravity will sort out leveling for me, and once the water level reaches the top of the pipe on the left it will begin to spill down that sucker right back into the reservoir. Now, I know it looks like my overflow pipe is hardly taller than the manifold pipe, but that is just the perspective of the picture playing tricks on our poor eyeballs. The top of the overflow pipe sits about an inch under where the bottom of the net pot will be, but can be adjusted with some elbow grease if need be.
Continued in next post, due to image limit...
I figured this is an appropriate section for me to just lay out what I am working with currently..
Actually I'll take a step back first and show you all what I have been using for the past three or so years:
I call that my old crate. It was built in a spare room as a simple place to flower out some strains for me to smoke and for me to go about learning about this craft. It is empty now, save for the Adjust-a-wing reflector still hanging in there. It's a 2x4 skeleton, 2 feet deep, 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. Its outer skin is panda film I think, though I can't be sure because I bought it so long ago. Black on the outside, white on the inside. It is thick enough to be sturdy and thin enough to be easy to work with. Inside I ran one HPS bulb (I don't remeber the brand), powered by a 600 watt Lumatek dimmable electronic ballast. I have nothing negative to say about my ballast, as it has served me wonderfully. It powers on quickly, even the few times the power flickered or failed for a few minutes while the light was on. Never burnt out a bulb either. My experience with it was good enough that I bought a second Lumatek 600 watter for my new setup. Which leads nicely into...
My newly built, but not yet 100% completed (what can I say, I'm a busy guy) 'tunnel.' Here it is with it's hardboard sides removed:
First I shall address the feature that I'm sure caught your eye first; The hardboard sheets that make up the reflector do not line up perfectly. This is because I assembled this thing alone and 2 hands proved to be not quite enough to hold the sheets in place, maintaining the curve of the other, while screwing it in to the framework. I did the best I could under the circumstances, so it is what it is. Anyhow, the unit is 8 foot long and 4 foot wide (suspiciously similar in dimension to a sheet of plywood... hmmm...) the deck sits between 3 and 4 feet off the ground. Since I did all the wood construction before I had the plumbing and buckets etc etc I had to guesstimate the height I would need for the plumbed buckets to clear the reservoir. In a rare circumstance my guess was bang-on. There are 8 buckets, each plumbed to an equalizing manifold (1" pvc) that runs down the center under the deck. Here is that manifold:
7 of the buckets look like so:
One of the buckets, though, is my control bucket. Here's the lucky bugger now:
The smaller pipe (1/2") is connected to my pump that sits in the reservoir directly below. The pump is (er.. will be) plugged into a timed outlet set to pump into the control bucket for 'x' amount of minutes every 'y' span of time. I have not decided on a pumping schedule yet, so I am open to suggestions if anyone has any sage advice on the matter. The water will pump into the control bucket and once it reaches 2.5 to 3 inches it will being to flow into the equalizing manifold (the pipe with the strainer you can see on the right), which leads to, you guessed it, all of the other buckets! Gravity will sort out leveling for me, and once the water level reaches the top of the pipe on the left it will begin to spill down that sucker right back into the reservoir. Now, I know it looks like my overflow pipe is hardly taller than the manifold pipe, but that is just the perspective of the picture playing tricks on our poor eyeballs. The top of the overflow pipe sits about an inch under where the bottom of the net pot will be, but can be adjusted with some elbow grease if need be.
Continued in next post, due to image limit...
