My 8hr flowering experiment

ANC

ANC

Well-Known Member
We have a wide variety of climates. It gets more muggy up towards Durban side in the north east, with drier conditions on the west coast due to the cold sea currents, I stay in wine country, so it is very green and pretty, a bit like France. Except we had a drought this year, we have never had water issues for all my life until now.
 
torontoke

torontoke

Well-Known Member
Sounds awesome
So much of the world I would love to see and my fear of airplanes will forever stop me from seeing most of it.
A friend of mine goes to South Africa every summer. He met his wife there and her family is still there. Amazing photos they bring back every trip.
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
torontoke said:
Gonna offer him rubber cheques too.
That's ok collaborate sounds dirty when u say it ;)

So what's an arduino anyway I'm behind in the times.
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They run about 20-30 bucks, with about another 50 - 100 you could pick up the other components you need (relays, microchips, other hardware, wifi if you want). Program in c++, counts time in seconds, so id essentially program a calendar to match what you want to do, personally instead of 3 eight hour cycles i think 2 with a 4 hr offset would be a bit easier to manage, and mught allow for one in veg while the other is flowering (traditional non gas light method).
Torontoke, take a look at what vegaswinner (go green led?) has done also look into the garduino. Also check youtube vids by aquaporn (now how dirty you feel?)
TT, happy to work with you and happy to share, i almost think you could eliminate the need for your chiller if things were scaled properly and maybe fewer watts in summer, more in winter so excess can heat house.
 
torontoke

torontoke

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
They run about 20-30 bucks, with about another 50 - 100 you could pick up the other components you need (relays, microchips, other hardware, wifi if you want). Program in c++, counts time in seconds, so id essentially program a calendar to match what you want to do, personally instead of 3 eight hour cycles i think 2 with a 4 hr offset would be a bit easier to manage, and mught allow for one in veg while the other is flowering (traditional non gas light method).
Torontoke, take a look at what vegaswinner (go green led?) has done also look into the garduino. Also check youtube vids by aquaporn (now how dirty you feel?)
TT, happy to work with you and happy to share, i almost think you could eliminate the need for your chiller if things were scaled properly and maybe fewer watts in summer, more in winter so excess can heat house.
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Thanks for taking the time to write all that out sir.
I appreciate the feedback and advice from everyone, and will be looking into this arduino business more when the time comes to scale up the grow again.

There are so many unknowns when it comes to light timing that I just want to try everything but with plant counts and other limitations right now I can only try so much.
Eventually I will know the exact yield value of every minute of light and can dial in and focus on exactly what works best for me.
The arduino could also come in handy for a light design I've been kicking around in my notebook with a rising and setting light peak period. I'll get more into that another time when I'm closer to building it.

No need for a chiller here either but once there's 3 or 4 more lights perhaps this will be the next hurdle again.
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
torontoke said:
The arduino could also come in handy for a light design I've been kicking around in my notebook with a rising and setting light peak period. I'll get more into that another time when I'm closer to building it.
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Been there done that, still doing it....multi day deminishing light transition (i can set the number of days to transition from veg to flower, again non glr technique so not sure how you could incorporate that) and i have what i call peak offset which i input the number of hours after the main light comes on to turn peak light on and this is also the number of hours to shut off the peak light beforemthe main light goes out. If you look at aquaporn, he uses the dimming control on the driver to simulate sunrise and sunset.
 
torontoke

torontoke

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
Been there done that, still doing it....multi day deminishing light transition (i can set the number of days to transition from veg to flower, again non glr technique so not sure how you could incorporate that) and i have what i call peak offset which i input the number of hours after the main light comes on to turn peak light on and this is also the number of hours to shut off the peak light beforemthe main light goes out. If you look at aquaporn, he uses the dimming control on the driver to simulate sunrise and sunset.
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Well I'm glad my idea isn't as crazy as I first thought if someone else is doing it too.
I was thinking of building an 8 board light with 8 fr cobs. The cobs would fire up for 15minutes before the first boards and stay on. The first 4 boards fire up for 2 hours then all 8 for 4 and the red shut off. Last 2 hours the last 4 boards are on with the fr that stay on til 15 mins after all boards are off.
Confusing and tough to lay out but hopefully u can decipher the idea.
Still only 8 hours but with a gradual rise and set.
 
SSGrower

SSGrower

Well-Known Member
With that number of components you will probably want to use something called I2c protocol (and a thinggy called a shift register), it will facilitate controlling 144 devices or more with a single arduino. Go through the adafruit tutorials too, this will take you time, but I'm confident you'll be able to do exactly what you want. Tricks will be to compartmentalize it so adjustments and troubleshooting are easy.
 
torontoke

torontoke

Well-Known Member
SSGrower said:
With that number of components you will probably want to use something called I2c protocol (and a thinggy called a shift register), it will facilitate controlling 144 devices or more with a single arduino. Go through the adafruit tutorials too, this will take you time, but I'm confident you'll be able to do exactly what you want. Tricks will be to compartmentalize it so adjustments and troubleshooting are easy.
Click to expand...
Looks like I gotta lotta reading to do this weekend.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction sir
 
torontoke

torontoke

Well-Known Member
Took a few pics as the light was going off
The reveg grandpasbreath is going to put out pretty good this run.
Tuff to tell from the angle of the pics but she is 40+" and has a few wands forming
IMG_2719.PNG
The false teeth is a frosty bitch
Taking a pic to show just how much is tough with the light on
IMG_2718.PNG
Space monkey reveg is filling in all the early stretch
IMG_2720.PNG
 
hillbill

hillbill

Well-Known Member
All this complexity is just not me! However, the lights have been at 10 1/4 on and 13 3/4 dark for two months with excellent results! No decrease in yield nor in potency. Just less electric. And my plants are finishing faster. This boy is done with 12/12.
 
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