Leaderboard

Hi all! It is currently 30 seconds after having ordered My Humboldt Seeds Sugar Breath (Fem Photoperiods), and a 30:1 CBD Auto. My setup is held in a 240x120x200 Tent, inside are Two HPS Fixtures With Two Nextgen 400/600w electronic Ballasts. I am hoping to start germinating during the week. I hope this is the start of a very successful grow!

Went to the Transkei for a few days and left the ladies alone for a bit. Got back to find great growth on both ladies. Doing LST on the bigger of the two and once they are both on an equal level in height I am going to put up a DIY scrog net and grow out as much of the 80cm³ space as possible using the 4 mainlines I have created between the 2 plants.

The into: The light isn't the best but with the actual draw of 270W and the use of SMD LED's cleverly grouped paired with varistors I can guarantee and equivalent output to a 250W HPS*. Also the heatsink makes up R600 of the cost and has an infinite lifespan and the fans should also last upwards of 5 years. Therefore upgrading to better LED's later would be cheaper. I really don't think there is a better budget equivalent. Feel free to share if you do. * Only because 60W of the panels are driverless COB's and they need to be regulated with an electrolytic capacitor and I don't want to do that. But i will be replacing them with 40W cool white and then these should perform better than most HIDs of equivalent Wattage and run cooler. *Also the varistors aren't mounted yet they are on their way but they significantly reduce flicker on all the SMD panels. The parts: 1x Heatsink - 400mm x 200mm x 40mm (BidorBuy) R600 11x LED panels (Aliexpress) R400 20x Varistors (Aliexpress) R100 2x Fans - 120mm 220V (BidorBuy) R250 6x Off brand Wago 5 slot connectors (Aliexpress) * 2m Wire (Hardware store)* 1m Thermal Tape (BidorBuy)* *Percentage used should be ~R100 The build: (WW - Warm white CW - Cool) Wipe all surfaces that are to be mounted together. Lay the LED's carefully on their faces and apply thermal tape to the back where the LED's are located as this is where most of your watts will be lost to heat. Position the LED's on the LED panel in a configuration that suites you. I went with 4x 10W WW on the corners, 2x 20W CW om the width outer middle and 2x 60W RB on the lenght outer middle. Also 1x 30 CW in the centre and 2x 50W WW beside it for a total of 270W. Peel the outer plastic of the tape and fit LED's to heatsink. Get your varistors, 7D471K for 10-30W and 10D471K for 50W-100W, and solder them on the points located over the 4pin chip marked DB1 on each panel. Also solder power wires to each panel. Next drill holes through the bottom for cable management and from the sides into the fins to cable tie the fans to the heatsink. (There is probably a better way but this will work and the fans will hold nicely. I have tried superglue). Finally wire everything to a power plug and remember to earth the heatsink. Test and see if all panels light up and everything works. My build isn't finished as I'm waiting for a drill but that is how I'm going to finish it. To hang it would probably be easiest to use the same holes you drilled for the fans. Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

By cutting away the first node, do you mean you topped them? Keep a close eye on them as the whole plant will be affected if the new growth is unhappy. Also... New growth is the greatest source of guaging how happy and healthy the plant is.

Once they have a root after being in a glass of water, I have tried: Final 20L Cup -> Final 20L Cup -> 5L -> Final 20L Going from water glass to final works the best. I did a Barney's Farm Blue Cheese that was well classy. Californian Snow is pretty juicy too. Newer strains coming out definitely have the potential, also FastBuds - Blackberry, Gelato or Gorilla Glue. Currently running 1 Blackberry trial.

Well done!! Now just hit us with some pics of the setup and the advice can start rolling in Do you have circulation fans? An exhaust fan? Keeping the ladies fresh air supply fresh is paramount to success

Fuck yes. She's sitting tall at 100cm - Please ignore that she only has 7 mains, I wasn't paying attention and shit happened

Hahaha yeah, Frakenbuild is right but once I get my hands on a drill I'll make the wires look pretty. As for the diodes, they seem to be generic China 3528 LED's driven at about 0.5W with a lumen output of 110-120lm/w at those power levels. Not bad and I think totally reasonable to flower under. Maybe not in it's current state but as soon as the varistors arrive with the added efficiency. I don't have PPFD or PAR values but I have previously flowered under 22B LED bulbs with moderate success of 0.7g/w with 4 weeks veg in a 10l pot. As far as I can tell these are very similar diodes driven at very similar currents. For the Aliexpress shipping I did go through SAPO and it wasn't bad. It took 6 weeks for everything but I expected it so it wasn't that bad. I was also just happy that everything arrived. Thanks for the welcome, I'm looking forward to sharing my future buils. Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

No buzz, she takes 9-10weeks. Sent from my VTR-L09 using Tapatalk

Quite the franken build, I like the idea of driverless - makes life far easier. Although as I have mentioned before, with LED lighting it is all about the diodes, not all diodes are equal. While I am sure it will output some decent light and I am sure you could grow some cannabis under it, you can even use a flood light LED to grow cannabis - although I wouldn't recommend using it for flowering - I wonder how efficient it is compared to diodes commonly used for the horticulture industry. How much of the output the plants can actually make use of - the PPFD basically. For clones and seedling I think it would be great, for flowering - I guess you will try it out and let us know? Keen to see a grow diary. Regarding the shipping from AliExpress, what did you use in terms of shipping? The couriers are often super expensive and the other options are terribly slow and unreliable as they go through SAPO. Eager to see some more DIY stuff coming from you and welcome to the forum! Enjoy your stay

Congrats man! So two strains, how many of each plant in total? What medium do you plan on growing in? I assume coco or soil since you want to look into automatic watering systems. I was looking at setting up a dripper system, but was having issues with leaks or lack of pressure for the Pressure Compensated valves so trashed the idea and am going to be giving the Blumat Tropf system a go. I still have my arrow drippers which I could sell to you, along with some piping. It will probably be the cheaper automatic watering system, compared to a Blumat setup.

They've taken well to the transplant a few days ago... 3 Indica strains looks perky while the Sativa looks more relaxed but all are fine. With the wind being nasty as it is this time of year in Cape Town, the one positive I noticed from this is their leading main stems are waaaay bulkier than the previous plants I started with a few months ago! So the wind doing its thing "training" them to bulk up and be more resilient of mother nature. Cut the 1st node away on all of them as the leaves turned brown like nute burn although they've only been fed Kelpak seaweed extract every 2 weeks...

Daaaamn go big or go home neh?

They looked a bit dreary after transplant last night but up and perky this morning! Wind is mofo in Cape Town today tho but hey they gona grow up outside and will have to get used to it...will move them indoors at night. Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk

They look lost in those huge bags Gave them water to settle in...

Cool! I'll transplant them a bit later.

Nah, should be good not filled to the top. I wouldn't worry about it. Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

Got some soil to fill grow bags but think I bought one bag of soil too little... Grow bags is 30cm high and has 35cm circumference...at a rough guess is almost 40l Is 10cm from the top too low? Should I fill up some more? Also got 15 chilli plugs while there...about 6 different strains....LOVE my chlli!

Will transplant them to permanent homes this weekend

Need to get some more soil to fill up the grow bags over the weekend and move them to permanent homes. Little bit of burn on some leaves, not sure if its the Kelpak feed every week but will tone the dosage down lower than recommendation on the bottle. Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk

The going is good! They love the sunlight!

Coming along well! Kelpak doing its thing.... Didn't go this well on my 1st try...that said, temps were much cooler when I started 1st grow a few months ago. The bigger 2 are 3 days older than the smaller 2

I'm in Cape Town Mitchell's Plain but really don't mind taking a drive 40kms in whatever direction...online also fine but I much rather go to the shop as its nice talking to experienced growers in some nurseries...you always pickup a few neat tips from different people.