hairyman
Year of the Dragons
Pc water cooled gear could perhaps be adapted or used as is I guess perhaps a cpu cooling unit,,,I don't like things that buzz lol,,it's coming together nice, looking forward to this
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Indoor Senseimillan Presents Grow Log 9/17 (Crystal Candy Auto / Auto Jedi Kush)
- Thread starter Senseimillan
- Start date
My phone light meter shows a steady 47,000 lx at 10" running at 205 W. I'm going to use this number as my baseline.
According to this calculator the light should be generating around 55,000 lx @ 1m if I understand correctly. So I'm trying to figure out PPFD using that number with the same factor as the sun (0.0185) gets me about 1016 PPFD and conservative factor (0.0165) gets me 907 PPFD which is still in the sweet spot I'm looking for. However I'm only going to be running max 24" and min 12" from the canopy so PPFD is likely denser. Anyway, it's running too hot so I'm also going to make alterations to get the heatsinks and driver outside the cabinet which should increase my internal height by 1 inch or so and lower temps into the acceptable range.
I dont like things that buzz either, drives me nuts. Next time I will hook up two drivers and run at 50% load so no buzz. Also can't wait til this project is operational and I can get pissed off learning arduino instead of getting pissed off figuring out light technicalities hahaha my brain is so fried from this endeavor. At least I learned a lot in the process.
My QB 304s are running at 360 watts from the wall, so about 85 watts each. I can lay my hand on the heatsink. its warm but not hot. I believe I checked with my ifrared thermometer and they run about 110F. If they are hotter than that, I'd double check everything
@pop22 @BigSm0 Hoping you can help me out with something or tag someone who can. I test fit these, run them up full (310 watts by my Kill-a-Watt) and my heatsinks get hot to the touch. My thermometer I placed my thermometer 2 inches under the lights, where plants are likely to reach in this small space, and temps were at 103° F and rising so I turned it down to 205 watts and temps are around 95° F. Ambient room temp was 78° F. The cabinet is not enclosed, as it has no doors yet, and I just have my circulation fan blowing on it. @Robincnn assured me Slate 2 heatsink could run a QB304 at twice this much power and be safe, so should I be concerned?
Also, when I open my pot full, there is an audible buzz emitting from the driver or pot, I can't tell. Is this normal?
L0wbob2017
Mixing light is fun!
well i get what u mean and what u want to archieve but just think about the different stadiums of the plant where u cant give her that full 900-1000 PPFD.
Sure the bigger the distance the lower the PPFD but this is a play between height of the plant in relation to PPFD at this level at a certain dimmlevel.
Thats why you should read the plants and try to get the max lightoutput without harming the plant.
There should be no buzz! Is the pot buzzing? if so, replace it!
@pop22 @BigSm0 Hoping you can help me out with something or tag someone who can. I test fit these, run them up full (310 watts by my Kill-a-Watt) and my heatsinks get hot to the touch. My thermometer I placed my thermometer 2 inches under the lights, where plants are likely to reach in this small space, and temps were at 103° F and rising so I turned it down to 205 watts and temps are around 95° F. Ambient room temp was 78° F. The cabinet is not enclosed, as it has no doors yet, and I just have my circulation fan blowing on it. @Robincnn assured me Slate 2 heatsink could run a QB304 at twice this much power and be safe, so should I be concerned?
Also, when I open my pot full, there is an audible buzz emitting from the driver or pot, I can't tell. Is this normal?
Hope you plan on running CO2, going over about 750 PPFD without CO2 enrichment is not worth it, the difference in gain for the plants in minimal. Also, PPFD is not the end all measurement of your lights effectiveness. When your that close the light has not had the distance to widen the beams of each LED, so its like hitting your plant with 304 lasers......... you cook them quick! The closer the light source, the less ppfd you need. Got a member here Rourke or something like that that grows with flourescents and bangs out incredible crops. Garantee you he isn't even getting 400 ppfd at 2". Dial that light down and you'll be fine. high ppfd is not needed in a small space
Back in the workshop tonight, getting reorganized after building that light. An alternate plan forming in my head about what to do about the temps.
I used my phones light sensor to compare the lux of my Amare Technologies SS150CRs that I had a successful grow with last year. They were not as bright as I expected, in pure light output the Quantum Boards blow the SS150CR away. But the Amare produced amazing chunky buds (Blue Dream and Vanilla Kush) and as I recall the plants stretched like crazy , touching the lights without any bleaching. They were grown in zero stress sub-irrigated no-till probiotic soil. That's a mouthful.
Anyway, point being, I dialed the QB304s down to 190 watts which gives me similar lux to 2x SS150CRs in a 2 x 4 configuration. Temps in the cab are still 91, going to solve that by building a new cab for this light, open some strategic holes in the top of this cab, and mount heatsinks on top. Should be a lot easier now that I've done it once and allow the heat to escape the cabinet via convection.
Also toying with the idea of just mounting 2x SS150CRs in this cab and moving on to just enjoying growing out these autos. That sounds realllllllly good right now. Way too many late nights trying to wrap my head around this.
Wouldn't hurt to compare the temps...
I used my phones light sensor to compare the lux of my Amare Technologies SS150CRs that I had a successful grow with last year. They were not as bright as I expected, in pure light output the Quantum Boards blow the SS150CR away. But the Amare produced amazing chunky buds (Blue Dream and Vanilla Kush) and as I recall the plants stretched like crazy , touching the lights without any bleaching. They were grown in zero stress sub-irrigated no-till probiotic soil. That's a mouthful.
Anyway, point being, I dialed the QB304s down to 190 watts which gives me similar lux to 2x SS150CRs in a 2 x 4 configuration. Temps in the cab are still 91, going to solve that by building a new cab for this light, open some strategic holes in the top of this cab, and mount heatsinks on top. Should be a lot easier now that I've done it once and allow the heat to escape the cabinet via convection.
Also toying with the idea of just mounting 2x SS150CRs in this cab and moving on to just enjoying growing out these autos. That sounds realllllllly good right now. Way too many late nights trying to wrap my head around this.
Wouldn't hurt to compare the temps...
L0wbob2017
Mixing light is fun!
imo you can take the measurements the "wrong" calibrated sensor of your smartphone gives you and orientate on this value to set up your QB's for the start. Since you got the nice dimming feature you should use it, in seedling stage you dont need that much light so you could save some energy/heat.
Also a thing to remember is that a "burple" (blue&red) light compared with a "white" light at the same wattage will always look slightly darker than the "white" light because your eyes got a higher color perception in green wavelengths. So you cant trust your eyes in terms of brightness ( just for the first guess )
a good LUX-meter costs about 20 bucks and is worth any cent and you can even calibrate your smartphone for "mobile" measurements ^^How you gonna control humidity in this small space?
I gave up trying to make an accurate calculation with my smartphone sensor, rather I used the same sensor and dialed back the QBs to be at equivalent level of output as the SS150CRs. I think this puts me at a 'safe' light level, as I grew with the SS150CRs and had excellent results.
Also a thing to remember is that a "burple" (blue&red) light compared with a "white" light at the same wattage will always look slightly darker than the "white" light because your eyes got a higher color perception in green wavelengths. So you cant trust your eyes in terms of brightness ( just for the first guess )
Thanks, the SS150CRs are not blurple by any means, they are a highly sophisticated full white spectrum including far red and IR during flowering mode. It will be very interesting when I get to do side by sides with these lights as the terpene production and flavor production under the SS150CRs were incomparable.
I am currently in the design phase for a low profile carbon scrubber. I have a 6" hyperfan I plan to run at half amps giving me around 150 CFM, and the room that the cab is in has central air/furnace, and choice of a/c, 25 pint dehumidifer or 70 pint dehumidifier. I have enough light to furnish 4-6 2 x 4 cabinet builds. This is my working prototype/testbed where I can iron out kinks and figure out what's going to work. The goal/purpose is to build a two-tier cabinet on wheels that can fit through any standard door frame and just needs water and one outlet.
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