In the Valley LED Strip Build

Cool man ill be watching, been interested in the infrared lights to initiate sleep.

I love it!

Big Green Thumb said:

or add a little side lighting!
View attachment 4026004

Click to expand...

whats good people,

They seem to be taking the transplanting well, and got the small ones in final pot. planted the best 4 of them. They were praying before the lights came on, so they are happy.

I dont think im going to top, strip or anything to these. Might top the small ones at the 3rd node, not sure yet. Plan is to veg these till Nov 12th, they should be a good size by then. I know once they hit that KindSoil, they going to grow like crazy. I also mist heavy before lights out.

They also seem to like the FR (farRed) at night too, see no adverse reactions yet.

Lights schedule is good, they also seem to like the warm-up and cool down periods at the start and end of the day. Giving them 55 watts-3k for 4 hours, then 125 watts 3and5K for 9 hours, then back down to 55watts 3k for 4 hours. Id like to eventually set up arduino or something to control lights, so manual for now.

the back plants are 16 inches tall, the front small one is 11inches. But again, I think the back, Left is a male, so cant wait to flower and find out, lol.. And if im right, i might be on to something with predictions of these things.

ok, have a great Wednesday

Hey guys,

so here is my next purchase, Its a timer to control my lights like I want them. Sunrise/sunset timer. this is going to fit my system perfectly.

https://www.amazon.com/Multi-Function-Programmable-Controller-Strips/dp/B00SST8RAA/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1508954734&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=TC420+LED+time+controller+5+channel+timer,+24+hour+sunset+schedule+timer+switch

Hey guys, I have to admit. Im not happy with this light. Or its the whole soil thing. My mars300 and coco CRUSHES this setup of these strips and soil grow. Although its just Foxfarm and Kindsoil, Im sure they havent hit the kindsoil yet, as I transplanted 2 days ago, but DAM, im depressed right now about this run.

here is a comparison from my mars300/coco and the strip/soil at 30 days.

horrible, i think im going to actually transplant the smaller ones into coco tomorrow. I should of just bought another mars300 and changed it like i did and had 2 in the tent, its just the dang heat issue with even 1.

So, as you can see, i topped all of them yesterday, at the 6th node, and did my leaf reduction (my style, do it all the time) by taking almost the entire leaf off, but the middle pedal, it doesnt stress the plant almost at all.

Ill see what happens i guess, but ugg, depressing.

well, just did a test, these strips are actually better, so, its the dam soil medium. Coco was Boss, thats for sure.

not by much, but cant be the lights. Im going to crank it to 200 watts tomorrow, full 200 for all hours except 1 hour before and one hour dark, then the FR of course.

Going to transplant 1 small plant into coco tomorrow to, so have a side by side for those.

hopefully these take off in a day or 2, we'll see

What fox farm soil? Ocean forest?
Yeahi mixed that with some coco and some perlite. Going good so far. Looks like your mars was rockin them plants in veg

Rolla J said:

What fox farm soil? Ocean forest?
Yeahi mixed that with some coco and some perlite. Going good so far. Looks like your mars was rockin them plants in veg

Click to expand...

Yo Rolla, Yeah, Ocean Forest.. I was going to do the soil/coco mix but, decided i was going to go soil/kindsoil route. It worked well last time i did it. But like i said, these have no extra nutes except 1ml of calmag per 16oz water. Just floored by the difference, and expected by 35 days in, to be a bit different.

tomorrow i going to transplant 3 of the green cups into coco, and leave 1 in the soil mix. Just hope the transplant goes good, seeing i just transplanted them 2 days ago already. the tap root was like 8inches long at 3 days from seed. it was tuff getting them out of the solo cups because the roots were already hanging out the bottom. Im surprised they are actually growing because they took an asswhoppin.

that AN PH perfect was kickin ass, or the light, IDK.

Thanks for stoppin thru Rolla J,

as for the mars, man, the current grow is the same size the others were at 15 days FROM SEED, lol.. Hey, Ill know soon enought tho, these little sprouts are going right back into the green cups. I wanted to do 9 small cups to begin with, and got off track of the plan, which is nothing new,lol..

Just like this strip build. Iwas going to go with QBs, but couldnt really spend all the money at once, and nneded to get something going.

Heck, for all i know, I might not even be watering enough. gave them each 16oz water tonight, so maybe they get bulky overnight, HUH..

ok bro,

Whats up,

so, Im back hating the strips, lol.. I have them full power, not bad, but not great.

I might have to get some COBs, or something. To get the par i want these to have, they have to be like 12inches from the canopy, and these are throwing alot of heat directly off the LEDs,

I originally designed this box to have holes in-between the lights, and top fans to draw air THRU the holes and out the top. I had a feeling heat was going to be an issue, but didnt expect it to be that much. I cant have the heat blasting at 90f onto the plants.

I might go the QB120 route. I can squeeze 4 of them in this box. I should of did that from the beginning. But then rolled up on the strips, SMH,

$40 light rig turned into $200, feel like i bought a mars reflector96 depressed, LOL..

I have a few avenues i can take with this,

Trippendicular build, fer shur! That's, like, totally not grody, Valley. Now I'm, like, looking at MY lights and I'm like, oh my god, they're rachet AF! Gotta up my game.

(apologies for the lame attempt at Valspeak, won't happen again )

edit: I guess I should have read this journal to the end before replying. Sorry to hear that you're not happy with the lights, but that comes with the trailblazing territory. I'm sure you'll get it worked out.

You've already got the build dialed in for strips, so why not just replace the strips with known quantities? Bridgelux or Samsung. If you used thermal transfer heat tape to secure the strips to the lights just run them until they are hot and run a guitar string under them to remove them from the Al channel.

HEY Rider, whats up man.. Thanks for stoppin thru. thanks for the props man. i think its a slick build. The paint sisnt come out well, but the plan was to expoxy it, just dont have the time really to do it, YET. Also, I going to drill the hole like i was going to. Once i flip these over, and see how they do in flower and get aclimated to the kindsoil, see how they do. I thnk i had small leafs because they light is to close. So i have them at 24inches now, they hella bright. Plus i have 2 in coco/soil mix now. those will be the true test of this light.

That was always the open option if they did work out, to replace with other strips, and if I dont do that, I might go 10w cobs, like 30 of them, like RollaJ. The strips are held in place with Scotch* double sided tape, which I have to say, works very good. not one fell off yet. Thanks tho for the tip!

SO, the plan is to drill around 15 holes between each extrusion, install 2 more fans, and have them sucking the hot air from around the lights and up thru and out the box. My soil is really warm, so that might also be why they are slow growers.

Yo, lil update. what a 2 weeks difference, not looking to bad. the little containers are rockin. They stretched alot do to having light high enough for the others in the scrog. I did it on purpose to see response and slow down to the lights distance. Personally, I dont like the lights. I love my mono diodes with lenses. Going to let this one ride it out. I think the back left side is a male, like i called early in the grow. 8 days since flipping to 12/12 for all of these, and the front right is female, 90% sure, back left is a male, 90% sure, the back right I think is female, 50% sure. The smaller containers, I think the 3rd in the pic is a male, and the first I think MIGHT be a male. Im thinking about cloning the front right one. This is the 4th time ive grown it, and i like its structure and when it bugs its pretty uniform to the stock.

Might convert this light into a mono diode, with 256pc 3watters, with lenses. Pretty sure i can run them CV of 3.3 and run in parallel. SO it will be actual watts from the wall, and can get 3watts out of them if i want, and not the .25 watts Mars has outta the 5 watt diode.lol..

going to turn the whole inside to a heatsink with several cut u channels, and install 4 more fans. going to be a task, but should be a badass light. Im just not a fan of these smd diodes is all..

Hey people,

so, things are going along OK. Can pretty much confirm a male, the back left by the temp meter. But, I knew it was a male, but needed to run it to confirm my method of sexing before flip. I also think the one in the green container is male also, but hasnt showed sex, as its only like 17 days from seed. but pulling the male out today.

The light seems to be doing pretty good to be honest. But i lowered the light 12 inches. Getting 40,000 lux, around 730PAR. Those are pretty good numbers. My DIY par meter says 880. Thats pretty dam good if you ask me. running 190watts, 11.5Volts

With allllll that said, I have a Perfect Sun Mini on the way, lol.. Im also wont be using AN nutes, I have Mega Crop Nutes on the way. Will let this grow out using AN, but the next run with be MegaCrop from GreenleafNutes.

Will be using this strip light for Veggie grow.

Fired up for the PerfectSun Mini, ..

InTheValley said:

Hey people,

so, things are going along OK. Can pretty much confirm a male, the back left by the temp meter. But, I knew it was a male, but needed to run it to confirm my method of sexing before flip. I also think the one in the green container is male also, but hasnt showed sex, as its only like 17 days from seed. but pulling the male out today.

The light seems to be doing pretty good to be honest. But i lowered the light 12 inches. Getting 40,000 lux, around 730PAR. Those are pretty good numbers. My DIY par meter says 880. Thats pretty dam good if you ask me. running 190watts, 11.5Volts

With allllll that said, I have a Perfect Sun Mini on the way, lol.. Im also wont be using AN nutes, I have Mega Crop Nutes on the way. Will let this grow out using AN, but the next run with be MegaCrop from GreenleafNutes.

Will be using this strip light for Veggie grow.

Fired up for the PerfectSun Mini, ..

Click to expand...

Thought Perfect Sun going out of style......Shift to QB's, Cobs and strips..

These are strips, albeit cheap ass Ebay strips,lol.. I just dont like the penatration of them. I almost went with QB120s, then changed my mind. I almost went with COBS, then changed my mind. To do them right, its expensive. I dont have a budget for them. When i did this build, i was able to buy stuff here and there, but not at once, or i would of gottn the mini months ago.

Its alll about spectrum and PAR. Perfect Sun is pretty dang close to the suns spectrum. Im also a Mono diode fan.

Ive seen This light pull at least 1gpw, and with my knack for scrog, it should rock a 2x2 just fine, and know Im going to have great quality fruit.

I modded a Mars300 with lenses and my own spectrum, and it was a freakin monster. Pretty much on par with Neils perfect sun mini. I almost decided just to get 2 more Mars300s and do it again, but Ive always wanted a PerfectSun Mini, since they hit the market. SO, Im getting one. I know for a fact, this current run should be 3 times bigger, and if i used my Mars300 it would of, but half of it went out, and my solder iron sucks, and dont feel like messing around with it.

InTheValley said:

These are strips, albeit cheap ass Ebay strips,lol.. I just dont like the penatration of them. I almost went with QB120s, then changed my mind. I almost went with COBS, then changed my mind. To do them right, its expensive. I dont have a budget for them. When i did this build, i was able to buy stuff here and there, but not at once, or i would of gottn the mini months ago.

Its alll about spectrum and PAR. Perfect Sun is pretty dang close to the suns spectrum. Im also a Mono diode fan.

Ive seen This light pull at least 1gpw, and with my knack for scrog, it should rock a 2x2 just fine, and know Im going to have great quality fruit.

I modded a Mars300 with lenses and my own spectrum, and it was a freakin monster. Pretty much on par with Neils perfect sun mini. I almost decided just to get 2 more Mars300s and do it again, but Ive always wanted a PerfectSun Mini, since they hit the market. SO, Im getting one. I know for a fact, this current run should be 3 times bigger, and if i used my Mars300 it would of, but half of it went out, and my solder iron sucks, and dont feel like messing around with it.

Click to expand...

Hope you like the light. Curious how stacks up on par map ....

i am doing Samsung F series strips vertically and horizontally.

goal equals, get rid of hps...

https://www.rollitup.org/t/help-me-build-4-vertical-strips-for-my-tent.953004/

well, that was interesting. 3 of the 4 in the small containers are male. same strain, bagseed. The tallest is now 25inches tall, lol,, 21 days from seed. grew 10inches in 5 days.

so now, its just going to be the big pot, which is flowering nicely, slo, but nice iguess. I got 3 clones from her, and sitting in water till my megacrop comes in then i will put them in that solution mix for a few days, then into coco/soil mix. Good thing is, This chick will flower under the PerfectSun Mini, so should get a nice run off her. Im tryin to get her used to the harsh light that PerfectSun has, so harding her off right now with 800 par, ( 50,000 lux)