Diary PCBuds mini-grow

[PCBuds]

I bet real close to 300 grams dry.

Yeah, your guess is probably gonna be closer.
The sticks and stems are probably holding a lot of water.

 

[Itsmychoice]

Thats a nice haul off a single plant. How many watts are shining in the box

 

[PCBuds]

Thats a nice haul off a single plant. How many watts are shining in the box

Roughly 300 Watts are getting to the strips.
My power supplies are about 85% efficient and I've got some power loss along the wires, as well as my fans and air pump, so my total draw from the outlet is higher.

I forgot to plug in my Watt meter and check the total.

I've got about 50,000 lumens total in the closet when I have the strips turned up to max. (my max is the test current and each strip puts out 1200 lumens at the test current. I have 44 LED strips.)

 

[f-e]

Well if we are all having a punt, I'm going with 210g (Half of 420)

We could make it a competition. I have half a bottle of soy sauce I don't need


50,000 lumens on the lowest reading meter known to mankind. About 1500ppfd, everywhere. Bruce was on the phone, asking if he could borrow it

 

[PCBuds]

Well if we are all having a punt, I'm going with 210g (Half of 420)

I'm going to guess closer to 400g than 300g, so more than 350g.

We could make it a competition. I have half a bottle of soy sauce I don't need

I've got half a bottle of Maple Syrup in the fridge that has expired.
I will wager that.

50,000 lumens on the lowest reading meter known to mankind. About 1500ppfd, everywhere. Bruce was on the phone, asking if he could borrow it

Well, I'm not really familiar with ppfd and don't know how my strips and closet measure up to that scale.
I'm just going with the numbers from the spec sheet and the numbers you gave me for my light meter.

 

[f-e]

In terms of what PPFD really means, I'm not that interested. Something about the flux density of useful photons. What it is though, is an industry standard measure. Lux meters are great for outdoors, where they all work well enough. Put them all under LEDs though, and they all start to disagree. Giving us readings that can't be shared, unless we all use the exact same model of meter. You and I can do this, as we both got the exact same meter. The cheapest there is. So there is no reason for someone not to buy the 10$ meter and duplicate your numbers. Just not with any other meter.

Now we seem to of dropped lux as our standard index value though, and decided to use PAR instead. This is because professionals have got involved with dope, and they bring more exacting standards to the hobby. We are not going to ignore them, or get them using lux meters. We must now follow. It's the only consistant measuring devices we can get. Though, if you put your lux meter beside a PPFD meter, you can start writing down what each says under LED lighting, to see how to use your lux meter to find this PPFD number that people are sharing. However this only works for the meter you use to make the comparison.

While your meter says 20,000 I have another says 25,000 and another says 40,000 so when asked my lux reading, I can't say with any degree of useful accuracy. They all do this at 600ppfd of Lm301 LED on the warmer side of white.

Interestingly, adding 660nm reds won't do much at all to my lux meters. More interesting though, is that adding 660nm red won't do much to the PPFD reading either. They can't really see it very well. They guess the quantity present, based on what else they can see. For this reason, many meter readings (like nearly all of them) actually need some finger math to correct them. Just as the lux meter needs some finger math. So why would you buy one meter that needs correction, instead of another meter that needs correcting. It's all crap still. At least we are settling on what we would like to talk about though, even if we can't actually measure it. PPFD

 

[PCBuds]

In terms of what PPFD really means, I'm not that interested. Something about the flux density of useful photons...
... It's all crap still. At least we are settling on what we would like to talk about though, even if we can't actually measure it. PPFD

That's why I have a hard time really knowing what my numbers are.
I like to use the spec sheet for my strips.
My strips are 180 lumens per watt and 1200 lumens each at test current so I can calculate with some degree of accuracy how many lumens are in my closet.

My old LED Walmart SILs are only 80 lumens per watt, so I would need 675 Watts worth of SILs to get the same amount of light in my closet.

I don't really use the light meter much and I kinda forget what numbers I was getting.
All I do is keep an eye on my power meters.

It's the current (the blue numbers) that I watch.
If my current reads 4.2 amps then I'm at the test current and I have a pretty good idea of how much light is going into the closet.

My plant can handle all 44 LED strips at test current so I just use the Ammeters as my gage.

I'm sure that if I had all my LED strips on the ceiling, all the numbers would be completely different and the plant would react very differently and probably burn, even though there would be the exact same amount of Watts and total lumens in the closet.

I don't really need to know what all the number are, I just need to know what works and what doesn't, so just keeping an eye on the current is all I need to do.

 

[PCBuds]

The humidity is pretty good under the dome.
These are the numbers with the lights on...

The humidity jumps up pretty high when the lights shut off.
These are the numbers an hour after lights off...

The RH is kinda high during lights off, but I'm not going to worry about it.

I'm am thinking about the shock of removing the dome when she gets too big, so I'll start adding more holes to the dome when she looks like she's filling up the space.

 

[PCBuds]

I weighed my plant again...

So she weighs 940 grams now and lost 490 grams of water in one day !!
Wow

I still think I can get over 350 dry grams out of her though.
I think that there's less than 590 grams worth of sticks and water left in her ??

 

[PCBuds]

Well if we are all having a punt, I'm going with 210g (Half of 420)

We could make it a competition. I have half a bottle of soy sauce I don't need

Your turn aliceklar

Perhaps you have half a bottle of ketchup or mustard that you can wager.


I already changed my bet from 1 pound to 350 grams, so Itsmychoice wins if it comes in at less than 350 grams.

Perhaps a wager from 300-350 grams would be a good bet?
Unless you're siding with f-e and his meager expectations of my plant.

 

[PCBuds]

I'm kinda thinking that my plant doesn't have as much water in it because of the low humidity and strong lights?

She didn't have as much foliage as a normal plant and I think my buds are heavy with resin as opposed to water?

 

[PCBuds]

She was almost touching the dome, so I moved the hygrometer and lifted the dome up a bit.

 

[PCBuds]

I installed the new contactor...

The AC input had 2 metal tabs on both line and neutral so I broke one off of each and covered the exposed metal with silicone...

The other metal tabs sticking out are just 20 volts, so I don't mind if they are exposed, and I can use them to clip on more lights if I want.

 

[PCBuds]

I found out where the bad connection was that was making my door and left wall dimmer and making my plant grow crooked.
It was one of the quick connectors...

I removed the wires, sanded them, and reinstalled them with dielectric grease in a new quick connector.

My walls are equally bright now...

 

[PCBuds]

I found the screws to take my old contactor apart without having to use a hammer.

The contacts are all rusty...

I'm going to clean it up and put it back together.

And sorry exploziv, I'm going to put some dielectric grease on the contacts.
That should protect the contacts and stop the rust.

I really think that it will be an Improvement to the design.

Dust might cling to the grease, but I think that's better than rust.

 

[PCBuds]

I just realized that there isn't 3 separate switches (or 4 if you count the NC contact) inside the contactor.
It's all one big contact.

I thought that all four contacts were isolated from each other.

I thought that I could hook up 120AC to one contact and 12V DC to another one.

It's a good thing that I didn't do something like that. Lol

I could have done a continuity test of the contactor with it energized, but I don't know if I would have thought of that first ?

It also means that the +20 Volt outputs of my power supplies are connected together.

I think that means my power supplies are "bridgeable" ??





I noticed this sticker on the side of the old contactor...

I searched "Ith=25Amps"

It looks like I'm fine with my 17 Amps maximum that I'm running through the contactor.

 

[PCBuds]

Gotta like this last line. Lol

My dad used to say that to me.
I'd say "don't worry, I'm sure I'll break something while I'm fixing it." Lol

And besides,.. the contactor was broken, and now I know how it works.
It's really quite simple inside.

 

[Sampas92]

Let me in, i have some baggies of ketchup from MC!!
Around, 240 gr dry, only buds.

I loved those foxtails buds

Peace

 

[PCBuds]

Let me in, i have some baggies of ketchup from MC!!
Around, 240 gr dry, only buds.

I loved those foxtails buds

Peace

OK,.. I wrote you down for 240 grams.

I will trim it and dry it the same as my last plant.
This is what I've got left from that plant...

 

[PCBuds]

Just for comparison sake, this was my previous plant.
It yeilded 180 grams.

I forgot about this post by f-e...

I'm almost positive that my plants don't have that much water in them.



This is the plant I just cut...