HTAM

I had a shroud of that plastic SAJ's talking about that ran the perimeter of the grow area I used. It brought the reflective surface closer to the plant even though it was a lower percentage of return. I also liked that I could work in the room (mixing nutes or medium, transplanting) and not have the glare of 1000 watts lighting me up.

Really durable. I'd use it again.

farmergiles

The 600w and lower are pretty well sorted for interference nowadays as far as I can tell, they are still having problems with the 1000 watters I think.

Darn it there goes my easy money.

The lowbay has the ballast attached? This isn't the best setup for cooling though you could remove the ballast and rewire it outside the tent/cab for better heat dispersal.

I've heard of people having problems with digi ballasts and those mh bulbs that run on sodium gear.

__________________
Cultivate a stoic calmness

Cerebro

Bugger! Shit gets complex.
Can you tell me; can i remove the aluminium interior reflector of the cooltubes?

__________________

farmergiles

Yep, sure can.

__________________
Cultivate a stoic calmness

Cerebro

I think i'll do that
I'm looking at a 250x1000mm phat filter and an AllVent fan at about 400L/s also 250mm; and the cooltubes are 150mm.
Have we got any good guides on ducting here?
Do I attach a duct to the cooltube and run an inline fan straight out
and sort the rest of the air with the centrifan, carb filt etc?
or do i join ducts and just use the AllVent?
Back to tent sizes for a bit.
What size would i need to veg 4 clones until flower?
If clones from a propagator went under 400wMH while vegged clones flowered what size would they be, assume a few tie downs. Maybe in their own box. Or,

Seedlings - bottom left
Propagator - top left
Vegging Clones - RHS
a few flouros sounds sensible? opinions?

__________________

farmergiles

Oh noes the possibilities exponentiated again !

I'd go with one space for flowering with hids and another for cloning, potting up and vegging with cfls.
If you have part of the veg space running another hid you need another ballast and another heavy duty fan system.

I suppose you could run both cabs off one big fan but that means more ducting, possible issues with balancing the system and also means if you control the fan speed you can only do it relative to the temps in one of the cabs (they're on a different schedule).

I'd go for one vegging/cloning space with appropriate shelving, running cfls.
For most of the year you can get away with passive extraction- you might have to fit a cheap bathroom extractor or something for a couple of months in the summer. Odour control isn't as critical for a vegging space (though they can still smell it's not as pungent or as obvious).

If you're running sat doms you might not want to veg them very long at all.

There's the question of timing- Say I'm flowering 4 plants in a perpetual harvest, two started then the next two started 30 days later. The plants have a 60 day flowering period. Say my nice vigorous cuts take 10 days to root and pot up. So if I take cuts at the same time as I switch two plants to flowering that leaves 20 days to veg them so they're ready when the next space is freed up in the flowering space.

With sat doms you'll have more time spare because flowering is longer and you won't want to veg them too long as they tend to keep growing under 12/12 as they flower anyway. So if there's a 70 day flower period and you only want to veg for 15 days you might have the veg chamber empty apart from the moms for a while anyway.

You don't really need the power of mh for vegging for an op on this scale imo.

Edit- what might be the highest ambient temp in summer?

__________________
Cultivate a stoic calmness

Cerebro

OK; so I'd just take cuttings off a mother between 2 and 6 wks prior to harvest
I'm pretty glad to see a plan coming together fg not too much further now
I like the idea of cfl's in the gataga cab. I'd like to try HPS and MH's too, so I'm still wondering about a dig ballast with mh for early flower and hps for late flower with that 10% lumen boost. Or just going with a SonT hps, still with a digi ballast. I reckon I'll keep it simple with just a SonT.
What do you guys think about having a 2nd light for when the canopy reaches over the top of the cage in a vert grow? Maybe a 2nd cooltube, in a standard horizontal position?

__________________

farmergiles

You can get those double ended cooltubes.

However if you're going vertical you could have a cheap set up with no shade just the e40 bulb socket(s).
Depends on the ambient temperature really. If you can do it, having no glass is more efficient anyway.

The option of using mh or sodium is bonus. The new maxibright ballasts (dunno if you get them over there, they're regular mg ballasts) run sodium or mh bulbs, I think quite a lot of modern magnetic ballasts do both. So you don't have to get a digi.

__________________
Cultivate a stoic calmness

Pharm Girl

Got a 6' moving light rail...doin' nothing!

__________________

.....The Time has Come to 'Walk the Talk'.....~

......A message for ALL from the Deer Tribe...~

It is a great journey —
but you must do the walking
and have the willingness to change
and make the leap into
the next level of human evolution.

Become an inquisitive free thinking
individual that takes
responsibility for your life
and the spiritual accountability to live life to the fullest.

Fuck the Monkeys

kitch

:sigh: I love you guys!

__________________

Cerebro

ambient temps get to 30C quite often, occasionally 35+C, but that's outside, not sure if i'm in a shed, or a basement, or what just yet.

__________________

farmergiles

You'll probably need the 'tubes then.

That aluminium ducting everyone uses isn't normally totally air tight.
Best way imo would be to have the carbon filter in the cab/tent, connect it directly to the fan, then via ducting to the cool tube(s) then via more duct to exhaust.
I'd avoid having the can then the tubes then the fan as you'd almost certainly pull some unfiltered air into the fan.

Or have the cooltube(s) first, then the fan mounted just outside the cab/tent connected straight to the carbon filter (remove sleeve and fit inside carbon filter). This might be a tad less efficient but still all the exhausted air would be filtered.

You could have separate fans for the cooltube and filter. Best have the cooltube fan pushing air in, through the cooltube and to an exhaust- ie isolated as much as possible and also optimised for pressure (not sucking unfiltered air outside the space).
I'd just go for the one fan doing everything in the flowering cab tbh

__________________
Cultivate a stoic calmness