Smart or dumb? Plant on a turntable.

tat2ue

tat2ue

Well-Known Member
shookone said:
I put my plant on an old broken turntable. The idea is that there will be no area of the plant that gets minimal light.

Right.




Thoughts?
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My only concern is that the plant is going to get dizzy...lol

But seriously it's like a light mover in reverse....moving the plant and not the light..good idea
 
rollingrock

rollingrock

Active Member
DJ SPIN THAT SHIT lmfao, nice idea but not sure if it will work??? on the other hand any bugs on your plant aint gunna stop on very long lol
 
S

shookone

Member
ADLpotter said:
man let me buy that technics! haha
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Don't think you want it. About the only thing this 1200 is good for anymore is spinning plants!!

Also, the turntable is actually spinning faster than in that image. 45RPM to be exact...

Thats pretty fast. Was thinking about adding some resistance to the circuit to make it a little slower. 2RPM would be awesome!
 
stelthy

stelthy

Well-Known Member
Great idea yes it will work :) keep it on slow though, and add a 125w envirolite instead of the small cfl's the PAR will be alot better :) lol, I wont be using my 12 10's like that tho :) ps dont get ur deck/s wet tho, coud be desasterous, very good idea tho I LIKE IT :) ~ Stelthy :)
 
Fditty00

Fditty00

Well-Known Member
Awesome! I wake and bake, turn on my PC and what do I see? A lil plant doin the Harlem Shake! + rep to U! I needed that.

Oh, that will work fine.
 
B

Badfish73

Member
+rep for being a fellow tree dweller!
I'll just copy/paste my reply from there.

Okay I'm dating myself here, but I saw this on Mr. Wizard when I was a kid. The plant was placed on the outside of the turntable and ended up growing up and inward towards the center. Basically the plant thinks that the centrifugal force is gravity. Since gravity is pulling down and centrifugal force it pulling out, the plant grows up and in.
Who knows, it may prove to be an easy way to train your plant? Put it on the outside and rotate it a quarter turn every week. LST without touching the plant.
 
God Dam

God Dam

Member
really cool idea dude......pawn shops prolly have a sh*t load of those for cheap.
i want to see a flick like you did with your pic except like 6 of them all spinning.
 
MrBlanco

MrBlanco

Active Member
Way cool. I was thinking about doing the same thing but with the plant only turning a few times a day.
 
tat2ue

tat2ue

Well-Known Member
rollingrock said:
dam we got a true veteran smoker with the 8 track lol, (only kidding bro)
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Have to stick with the 8 track....I can't afford one of those new high tech gizmos they call a cassette walkman. I was lucky to get the 8 track ten years ago...it was the last one on the shelf...:bigjoint:
 
BlueFish

BlueFish

Active Member
Badfish73 said:
Okay I'm dating myself here, but I saw this on Mr. Wizard when I was a kid. The plant was placed on the outside of the turntable and ended up growing up and inward towards the center. Basically the plant thinks that the centrifugal force is gravity. Since gravity is pulling down and centrifugal force it pulling out, the plant grows up and in.
Who knows, it may prove to be an easy way to train your plant? Put it on the outside and rotate it a quarter turn every week. LST without touching the plant.
Click to expand...
Thinking outside the box is good, but unfortunately your idea absolutely will not work. You create a centrifugal force by spinning something. While it's spinning, inertia tries to make the object continue on the path it was taking. Because it's spinning, this force takes the form of a tangent ray in the direction of the motion. Because every particle is moving at the same time, there are an infinite number of these tangent rays if you were to draw the force on paper, and they work together to produce an overall outward force.

Anyway, physics lesson aside, the key is that this force is only present when you move the object. No motion, no force. By turning the plants a quarter turn a week you would be providing a minuscule amount of force for an even shorter period of time. It would be like trying to get your plant to bend over by thumping the pot on the side every day.

With that out of the way, I think the OP is very clever, but I have the same concerns about speed. While it's small, 45 RPM is fine, but when it gets bigger, those forces are going to get amplified through the larger plant and it is possible that it could be damaged. Modifying it to spin slower will also cause stress on the motor, especially with such a huge weight on it (it was designed with vinyls in mind, not a bucket of wet dirt). By increasing resistance you're not just reducing the speed of the motor, you're reducing the overall output as well, which means the torque will be reduced by the same percentage. My guess is that the turntable would burn out in a matter of days if not hours or even minutes.

You could very likely build something like this pretty cheap, though. All you need is an electric motor you can tune down to 1-10 RPM, with sufficient torque to spin a wet pot without burning out. You could use simple little caster wheels mounted on a rigid wooden frame to support the weight of the plant and further reduce stress on the motor. Ball bearings are obviously a better choice, but that's a lot more work and more expensive too.
 
S

shookone

Member
BlueFish said:
Thinking outside the box is good, but unfortunately your idea absolutely will not work. You create a centrifugal force by spinning something. While it's spinning, inertia tries to make the object continue on the path it was taking. Because it's spinning, this force takes the form of a tangent ray in the direction of the motion. Because every particle is moving at the same time, there are an infinite number of these tangent rays if you were to draw the force on paper, and they work together to produce an overall outward force.

Anyway, physics lesson aside, the key is that this force is only present when you move the object. No motion, no force. By turning the plants a quarter turn a week you would be providing a minuscule amount of force for an even shorter period of time. It would be like trying to get your plant to bend over by thumping the pot on the side every day.

With that out of the way, I think the OP is very clever, but I have the same concerns about speed. While it's small, 45 RPM is fine, but when it gets bigger, those forces are going to get amplified through the larger plant and it is possible that it could be damaged. Modifying it to spin slower will also cause stress on the motor, especially with such a huge weight on it (it was designed with vinyls in mind, not a bucket of wet dirt). By increasing resistance you're not just reducing the speed of the motor, you're reducing the overall output as well, which means the torque will be reduced by the same percentage. My guess is that the turntable would burn out in a matter of days if not hours or even minutes.

You could very likely build something like this pretty cheap, though. All you need is an electric motor you can tune down to 1-10 RPM, with sufficient torque to spin a wet pot without burning out. You could use simple little caster wheels mounted on a rigid wooden frame to support the weight of the plant and further reduce stress on the motor. Ball bearings are obviously a better choice, but that's a lot more work and more expensive too.
Click to expand...
That's a lot of info. Thanks. So you think I should stop the record?
 
S

shookone

Member
Also I should point out that the Technics 1200 was built with more in mind than just vinyl. It's not the highest torque turntable out there, but it's pretty high. Enough to support a smallish plant. I've only got CFL's at the moment, and the plant pictured is actually going to be my mother. It's my first plant.

I stopped the turntable for now. I'm having other problems with nutrients n stuff. I'm such a noob.

I may do an A/B study with some clones later on to see if it makes any difference. I'll yall know. ;)
 
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