The Project

So tent size is 1500 wide, 3000 long, and 2300 heigh.
Light Fittings are 970 x 210.

Looking at growlights Australian web site I remember now the line of thinking... 1.5x3m tent with two ul-tri-mate bundles would be a good match. They're site says at 100% (1500w of light) I should get about 1200ppfd @ 400mm

I bought all this great quite a while ago and I had my reasons at the time but they slipped my mind until now

This tent might end up my mother/veg tent in the future and two slightly smaller tents could be the flower chambers. I can then get 2 more fittings and use these existing one's and have 2 flower chambers with 4 fittings each. Something like two of 2.4x1.2m tents.

I think I want to swap my 5x5 for a 4x8 ft too. 4x4 Seems like perfect size for 4 plants and perfect fit for most big qb panel lights. I've got 2 480w qbs in a 5x5 and they didn't cover well enough, had to put 2 150w panels in. Those 2 480s would cover a 4x8 by themselves.

ScroteCombover said:

I think I want to swap my 5x5 for a 4x8 ft too. 4x4 Seems like perfect size for 4 plants and perfect fit for most big qb panel lights. I've got 2 480w qbs in a 5x5 and they didn't cover well enough, had to put 2 150w panels in. Those 2 480s would cover a 4x8 by themselves.

Click to expand...

It's also a bit harder to reach across and maintain the canopy as well, especially if you've got it pushed up in the corner of a room. I've got the luxury of space here, lol but bought a tent with no access from the back.

I do like this tent despite that though, it's was very easy to put together.

I'm starting to get there guys...
I've created a little controller using a pico2 and a relay board. It has 8 10a 250vac relays so I have made 2 relays dedicated to the pumps (flood & drain) and each of the remaining 6 relays dedicated to each light fitting.

I've made a simple web UI for it so I can adjust a few things like the photoperiod via my phone.

I've also put some logic in for the control bucket. The float switches have a debounce in the logic so they have to be made or unmade for X seconds (settable by the webUI) before they influence the pumps.

Default is 5 seconds but I'll probably run it at 3 seconds to start. The debounce is designed to stop the floats kicking the pumps on/off due to waves and system surge (pump turns off and pipes drain back into the system).

It will most probably be an 8 bucket system, with an additional control bucket.

Here's a photo of the webUI.

You can select the light relays individually just so the system is a bit more adaptive. Like if I move it to a smaller tents I can just used 2 lights for example and just turn off the other 4 relays.

I've also got an ultra boring video of anyone is interested. Just me testing the float switches and watching the lights turn on.
Currently, the lights turn on one at a time to avoid inrush current and just being more gentle in general. The delay between lights coming on is 10-20 seconds. I might make that adjustable in the webUI as well.

In the video you can see the first bank is on because I manually made the turn on for testing. Also, the output to the shell says bottom float open when I close the wires and vice versa. I haven't figured out float orientation yet, and I've actually got a different type coming in the mail so when they get here I'll swing it around the right way.

Oh my video file is too big I think.
I'll work on that and post it later

Quite happy with the datasheet on the driver's too. I mean in a space like this in the past, I would be running something like 4 600w hps globes. That would put me in the 10a area before ventilation/pumps.

The datasheet for these is saying around 1.2a each @ 100%. So I'm looking at about 7.2a at the wall and hopefully way better light coverage for less heat. I've got the advantages of not many houses around these parts, and the grow is a fair distance from the house, so I'm going to initially try with no carbon filter and a smaller fan. All up, I feel like this will be well below the standard 10a Aussie circuit. I might need to run a second circuit though to complete my second flower chamber and dedicated mother/veg.