The perfect perpetual micro grow

[weed-whacker]

so I will have 4.5 sq ft of flower space and I want to harvest every month will be using a strain with a 7-8 week flower time, growing from clone that will come off the mum and veg for 4 weeks the light is all DIY led so I can break it up however I like

will be growing in soil or coco if that matters


would it be better to have

a single 1.5x3 ft flower chamber and put 2 plants in it, perpetually adding 1 per month

or 2 seperate flower chambers each 1.5x1.5 sq ft

?

 

[Alec420]

Here's a very detailed video on perpetual harvest

IMO it would be neater to have two separate flower tents
If you want answers fast from the video, look in its description. It breaks down the video into sections

 

[GuyLeDuche]

I hate to disagree with the Grow Boss lol, but wouldn't sharing light be more efficient? I would think both plants would benefit from the overlapping light rather than blocking them off separately. I could see it if they were different strains maybe, with different needs...

 

[weed-whacker]

Here's a very detailed video on perpetual harvest

IMO it would be neater to have two separate flower tents
If you want answers fast from the video, look in its description. It breaks down the video into sections

cheers actually i was planning a single flower cab until i saw that vid a few weeks ago

@GuyLeDuche (lol)

sharing light sure or more light reflected off walls back onto plant is there a diff?

thanks for the responses and votes keep it coming, I wanna build this cab(3rd build) and just keep it for the next 20 or so years so do it right

 

[GuyLeDuche]

sharing light sure or more light reflected off walls back onto plant is there a diff?

Well, here's a few rough reflection numbers for thought:

Flat white paint: 30%
Mylar: up to 70%
Diamond Film: 90%

So I would consider the light ray's travel distance to be about the same, reflected or not, but less is getting there thru reflection loss.

 

[HalfBee]

Seems an odd size, can't you go 3x3 and then do a 1.5 x 3 double scrog?
Each side 30 days from the other or such. So a side finishing up and one just starting.

If you do bars - one on each side- and lower the 'new' side down, but angle it so only 60% of light is on new area.
It helps the popcorn on the side finishing up by adding more penetration, but gets new area to stretch a bit more so
you can train it into that side of the scrog. After harvest you mirror the procedure the other direction.

This is just my theory, as I'm building my cabinet yet, it's included in my master plan.
Perpetual you wanted, for that you need regularity and knowing your genetics.

Paging Mr. Murphy... You can't ignore his law...

 

[weed-whacker]

Well, here's a few rough reflection numbers for thought:

Flat white paint: 30%
Mylar: up to 70%
Diamond Film: 90%

So I would consider the light ray's travel distance to be about the same, reflected or not, but less is getting there thru reflection loss.

Yeah I was def thinking to use mylar but that dimond film sound real nice

Still i totally see your point, a solid vote in favour of single flower cab with 2 plants a month apart

 

[weed-whacker]

Seems an odd size, can't you go 3x3 and then do a 1.5 x 3 double scrog?
Each side 30 days from the other or such. So a side finishing up and one just starting.

If you do bars - one on each side- and lower the 'new' side down, but angle it so only 60% of light is on new area.
It helps the popcorn on the side finishing up by adding more penetration, but gets new area to stretch a bit more so
you can train it into that side of the scrog. After harvest you mirror the procedure the other direction.

This is just my theory, as I'm building my cabinet yet, it's included in my master plan.
Perpetual you wanted, for that you need regularity and knowing your genetics.

Paging Mr. Murphy... You can't ignore his law...

my total space will be 4-5sq ft that is how much i need for personal and also the limitations of my lights

the size is pretty standard for cabinets really eg

http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/30270137/

 

[HalfBee]

I can envision it... seems a bit high unless you got really stretchy sativa.
Throw in a couple of tomato cages or other canopy management or you'll never keep those doors closed.

Are you going to seal the front behind the doors with diamond film with zipper door?
No matter what lights you put in there it's hard to keep it inside.

 

[weed-whacker]

I can envision it... seems a bit high unless you got really stretchy sativa.
Throw in a couple of tomato cages or other canopy management or you'll never keep those doors closed.

Are you going to seal the front behind the doors with diamond film with zipper door?
No matter what lights you put in there it's hard to keep it inside.

yeah i am thinking to double trellis and probably add an internal frame to give a lip to the grow space to help with teh door seal


will run ventilation over top to the carbon vent chamber- im working on a sketchup now just wondered if its worth having 2 separate compartments

 

[weed-whacker]

yeah i am thinking to double trellis and probably add an internal frame to give a lip to the grow space to help with teh door seal


will run ventilation over top to the carbon vent chamber- im working on a sketchup now just wondered if its worth having 2 separate compartments

 

[HalfBee]

Well... if you want perpetual you have to have something ready to go into flower when you pull one out at harvest time.
But the veg area you should keep small, about same size as your under scrog area in flower space. Train it to be short and bushy in veg area, put under scrog and let stretch to fill during flower.

So far it sounds good... but then what doesn't when talking about growing...

 

[weed-whacker]

Well... if you want perpetual you have to have something ready to go into flower when you pull one out at harvest time.
But the veg area you should keep small, about same size as your under scrog area in flower space. Train it to be short and bushy in veg area, put under scrog and let stretch to fill during flower.

So far it sounds good... but then what doesn't when talking about growing...

so after a bit of deaighn and lots of thought ive had a few idea changes




this seems unnecessarily large and wasteful of vertical space as you mentioned before, instead I will have the 2 flower chambers on the bottom, veg on the top left and electrical/ventilaton on the top right

Ill cut the door in half so it will have 4 sections each with thier own door

basing sizing off this

http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/10323603/#/70218029



so id have the veg and both flower chambers vent into the drying area and then suck through to the electric section where all my drivers and stuff would be and finally out through a hyperfan pushing into an inline filter


I figure that pushing into the filter will reduce noise, using an inline filter means I wont have any extra duct work coming out of the cab teh hyper-fan is pretty good and adjustable too.


I honestly like the idea of 2 flower chambers to do side by sides( i plan to play around with a few spectrums) and also to keep bigger plants from crowding out the little ones

as well as that I love sativas but should probably grow a hydbrid as well, I figure i can put a fridge rack etc in the veg to keep two bonsai moms and under the rack the clones can root in the shade

ive been thinking a lot about how to run the ventilation so there is no light poisoning as well as crunching numbers hole sizes to get everything ventilating evenly

so far i am thinking 2x 6" passive intake into each flower, 1x 6"passive outake from each flower directly to the drying chamber (and I have 2 high preausre pc fans that I can add there if needed) then have a single (probably around 4") intake to veg and a similar size outake that i will play around with the size of to get temps right

all of this flows through the drying chamber which will basically be 10cm wide and the depth of the cubboard

question: will this be too much air flow for drying buds? should i just have the veg flow through drying and run flower directly to exhaust chamber?

 

[HalfBee]

The drawing board is so much fun... until you try to do it...

Why two flower chambers? If it's one area the light 'spill over' from the other side is better than the reflected light from a single boxed area. Perhaps whatever partition you use between the two flower sections you could make removable to try it both ways.

Scrog - I've since changed my mind on that with my own setup. Read the mainlining thread over in the Organics - Old School forum. It's a bit more 'hands on' up front in training but looks great for small enclosed spaces.

The drying area seems a bit narrow. Are you planning to hang your colas or put in some screen shelves and lay everything flat? Hopefully someone else will chime in about whether it's a good idea for the dry area to be in the same air path from the humid veg & flower sections, rather than outside air at the beginning of the air flow.

 

[weed-whacker]

here is what im thinking now

using the 6"hyper fan and phresh filter
and the pots are 20L air pots

2 in flower 1 month apart
1 in veg- take cuttings 2 weeks before she goes to flower and repeat

I couldnt be stuffed drawing ducting but obviously it will run from the blue thing(hyper fan) to the grey thing(inline filter)

I wanted to push into the filter to further reduce noise from the fan and so opted for the inline so that I can just put a vent grill ontop

the intakes i'll use the scrub ninja style light proof vent inlets

the veg cab will have a 4000k cob running at 25w(im debating throwing in a couple watts of 450nm as well)

the flower cab will have 2 cobs at 47w each plus 65 watts of other leds totalling around 160w

im not real good with sketchup but i wanted to know exactly how much wood Id need and also to see if any one had opinions or saw any issues before i get started?

the one thing not in this version is that I plan to add a lip around the flower and veg area so the door will close light tight with weather stripping or course


here is the basic idea






Ill use the drying chamber as a light trap to separate veg and flower, run the air from veg through drying into the utilities

Ill also be mounting all my drivers and timers and what not in the utilities as well as the AC power

I might go for some extra soundproofing in the utilities too, not sure but I think real world tests will tell

also the hole sizes I approximated based off what Ive read about airflow so that there is plenty or resistance to be sure the fan pulls predominantly from the flower area.