GDP & Quantum Boards - smokebros style

[smokebros]

nice. i get great growth rates in tupur. pretty impressive no matter what media i think. ive got a 6000 kelvin COB rig and a 1k mh burning right now and im about to have to fire up another 1k as they are EXPLODING since i got my VPD dialed in. that would be my number one suggestion for any grower. dial your vpd and then work around that. makes a huge difference. i gotta go hand water now. i cant wait til my blumats come in so i wont have to hand water EVER AGAIN!!! lol

Which blumats did you order? I'm really interested in trying them out.

 

[DesertHydro]

regular size ones. you may want the bigger ones since you are in bigger pots or you could just put two small ones per pot. theyre pretty versatile.
ive got 22 coming in on monday and already had 20+. im tired of hand watering. my fabric pots dry out with a quickness where as my plastic grow bags take longer and theyre all on different schedules. feel like im gonna miss one in a hurry and kill it lol.

dead simple setup for automation. theres a learning curve for sure so be sure and do your research but are FANTASTIC when dialed in

 

[Buck5050]

@DesertHydro can get some more pictures of the setup? Bluemats spikes are gravity fed right?

 

[lukio]

looking great, man! fisheyes for the win

Hmmm blumats...also been tempted, they seem rather popular...i quite like my drip feed set up but its tricky to get the waterings perfect when running lots of different strains.

Vaders got a new series on the go!

 

[DesertHydro]

@DesertHydro can get some more pictures of the setup? Bluemats spikes are gravity fed right?

yeah sure. the pics here are of an automated top off res i made. its a bit complicated to set up. its easy but theres a lot of moving parts. the reason behind this is that if your res runs dry you will have to retune every single blumat dripper or they will flood fully and dump your res when you refill. a simpler option is to just have an oversized res elevated a couple feet off the floor that is in no danger of running out unless you are a complete turd lol.

the two holes in the bottom of the bucket form a loop that feeds the blumats and as inline filters. the line coming out of the side top is the overflow that will run down to the main res and a timer will come on a couple times a day to keep that small bucket filled all the way.

you can skip this whole process if your res is big and in no danger of running out.

 

[DesertHydro]

sorry, didnt mean to hijack your thread smokebros

 

[smokebros]

sorry, didnt mean to hijack your thread smokebros

Actually, If you have any more information on that setup I ask that you DO post it. I've been trying to figure out a way to automate my system and this may be the solution to my problem. I appreciate the information man.

 

[smokebros]

Vaders got a new series on the go!

I love it when I login to Youtube and see 6 unwatched videos ready to que up. Time to sit back, relax, and see what's going on in the deathstar.

 

[DesertHydro]

ask and you shall receive.....

im going off the top of my head here. i used to run these back in the day before i decided to complicate my world with active recirculating hydroponics. now every year i grow i lean more towards simplification and self sustaining, smooth running trouble free systems. now im moving back to half and half or close to. if they can hang with my big commercial system or close enough i will be switching back for the most part.

i once left my grow for almost a week and went to disneyland. i was shitting my pants the whole time thinking i was gonna come back to a room full of death but i came back to a room full of happy healthy plants praying to the light. if your res can hold out long enough or you could automate your top offs with a float valve or dosatron setup this would be the ultimate goal. would save countless hours that you could put back elsewhere into the garden.

the biggest thing with these is the small learning curve. follow in someone elses footsteps and dont just wing it. wont work out well. once they are dialed in they are mostly hands free with a few exceptions. there are limitations to the system. the longer your main manifold line is the higher your res needs to be. for every 10' linear you need 1' of elevation on your res. simple enough. i usually go overkill if possible just to be safe. you can mount a small bucket like mine on a shelf and automate top offs or simply have a BIG reservoir on a home made stand a few feet off the ground. whichever you have the space or resources for. brute trash cans, tuff totes from HD or lowes all work well just size to where you dont have to top off every day or put a float valve/top off system.

the feed line that comes with them is garbage. its stiff and shitty to work with. its like the black 1/4 drip tubing but a little bit thicker. they have a red soft rubber version but its like a dollar a foot which isnt bad if youre doing a small run. im using hydrofarm half inch id tubing and then just using the 3mm barbed fittings poked into that. its pliable and easy to work with, plus you can get a hundred feet for 20$. The brown drip line that actually drips to the plant are short, the ones supplied with the kits. i bought a 100' roll and i make longer lines so i can move my pots a foot or so in any direction.

the little adjuster dials are extremely sensitive. you turn it a little by accident when fucking with your plants and you could potentially cause it to drain your res through that dripper lol. they make protective covers and they are dirt cheap. 2.50 for 25. worth the peace of mind. this brings me to my next point. keep saucers under each individual plant. if you have a dripper that is running away on you it is too hard to figure out which one did it if they are all sitting in runoff and have soaked it up. YOU WILL PROBABLY FLOOD YOUR SHIT A COUPLE TIMES WHILE DIALING IN. it happens. i line all my tents with pond liner now. again cheap peace of mind when youre gardening upstairs lol. if you are careful and follow directions during the dial in it probably wont ever happen but i like to prepare for the worst case. if you have a giant res topping off a smaller one you can regulate the flow with a valve down to a few drops every few seconds as an extra precaution. dont let that scare you off. they are worth the effort for sure.

this link will teach you anything you need to know and its all broken down into nice little downloadable sections. https://www.sustainablevillage.com/downloadable-instructions
they used quite a few of my old grow pictures in their downloads. i was flattered haha.

cool thing is these things are insanely scale-able. you could do a warehouse with these you would just have to use a booster pump to keep constant pressure in the lines and then you could skip the gravity reservoir. i may go this route in the future as i expand with them.

a few key points

no organics in the lines! if you wanna add kelp or moasses, fulvics, shit like that they HAVE TO BE HAND WATERED. they cause junk in the tiny feed line and they will clog.

drip clean is recommended, i also like to go through and massage the lines to each dripper every few weeks when im bored and make sure there are no clogs forming.

clean chem nutes are a must, good thing is with a constant drip with no runoff you lower you feed level and less water is wasted. the nutes you are running are fine. ive done h&g, jacks, v+b etc all with great results. use what you know and have. if you have additives that you suspect may slime up the lines just hand water them occasionally. if they mix well in the res and dont leave a slime they are probably fine. i like to run a dead res with bleach to keep any nasties from forming in my res/lines since i like to do a giant set it and forget it res.

if you wanna do a weekly/bi-weekly flush just hand water your pots. wont throw off the blumat at all. it will just stop dripping until the extra moisture equalizes to the point you had set. i i really wanted to get crazy i could plumb up a standard drip system for my weekly flush but im already saving so much work here i think it would be better off spending the time getting to know your plants so to speak.

most people like to do a "loop" on their feed line rather than a straight line and a cap at the end. that encourages air bubbles to get trapped. if you do the loop with both ends to the res the bubbles will rise up and out.

inline filters are cheap insurance. i just bought 5 1/2" inline from hydrofarm on amazon for like 15$. dont want a piece of coco cock-blocking a dripper.

this system is badass if you want a simple to run, nearly hands free grow. im definitely not advocating showing up once a week lol, but it most certainly can be done. i think the ultimate setup will be undersized aeration/fabric pots with an aerated coco blend like tupur. i have been following DJM's advice like the bible this round. environment is #1 and everything else will fall into place.

my plants are growing fast as hell right now and thats on my shitty, water when i can schedule. when these get installed and keep them at optimal range 24/7 shit is gonna BLOW UP.

this is 2.5 days growth, hand watered, 85 degrees and 70+% humidity. follow the VPD chart and you will kill it almost every time. catastrophes excluded of course lol. these had a root zone pathogen that im still battling but the bleach is getting it taken care of. i reused old drip lines from an old pump/manifold system that had been sitting with water in them for months(dont judge me) and it infected everything.

 

[DesertHydro]

and i just got the go ahead from she who must not be named to go buckwild in the spare. gonna be 5 COB rigs and three QB builds(tentatively) each one covering a ~4x4. planning everything out right now. ive got some new clones to test out

pond liner the whole fucking room, ive already ruined the hardwood in there from 3 floods lol. took me 3 to learn

 

[smokebros]

6/6 clones rooted so they got transplanted into coco today




GDP #1 stalk


GDP #2 Stalk


Created a PVC pipe frame using 1/2''. It makes a world of difference with inhibiting the tent from "sucking in" around the canopy from negative air pressure and reducing square footage.


Plants are loving life right now. 74°-78° with light on, 64°-68° with lights off.



Lineup photo of the nutrients and tools I'm using for this grow.

 

[DesertHydro]

they seem to be happy as all hell. whats your honest opinion on what it would take to legitimately cover a 4x4 with QBs. plan was for about 650w through a single hlg600. just don't know how many panels for solid coverage. I know bare minimum is 4 just like they build their light that supposedly replaces a se1k I just don't know if I believe it or not. I'm thinking push it to 650 with bigger heatsinks and more airflow on it.

if its more than 4 boards I would probably switch to photonfantom boards since they are 30% cheaper and I could do 6 of those for the cost of 4 qbs

 

[ANC]

Efficiency is useless when we don't use our lights correctly.
You should never be lighting the floors of your trays, if you do, you are throwing money down the drain.
Even full canopies mean either veg longer or increase plant numbers.

 

[smokebros]

they seem to be happy as all hell. whats your honest opinion on what it would take to legitimately cover a 4x4 with QBs. plan was for about 650w through a single hlg600. just don't know how many panels for solid coverage. I know bare minimum is 4 just like they build their light that supposedly replaces a se1k I just don't know if I believe it or not. I'm thinking push it to 650 with bigger heatsinks and more airflow on it.

if its more than 4 boards I would probably switch to photonfantom boards since they are 30% cheaper and I could do 6 of those for the cost of 4 qbs

My honest opinion: The setup I'm currently using (w/ four Quantum Boards) is the optimum lighting setup for a 4x4 tent. The nugs that I grew during my Critical Kush/Sour Diesel run were rock hard, as if they were grown under a 1K HPS. Also, for the majority of that grow I was only using two QB's and not four, albeit I had a Chinese LED putting out 135 watts before the second QB kit took its place. I expect more density this time around since 4QB's are being used from start to finish.

I think eventually a point of diminishing returns is met head on when concentrating too much light into a limited space. Will 650W vs 575W be that point of diminishing returns? Probably not, but I (personally) wouldn't exceed that.

Up until recently I've had the QB's dialed down to 400~ watts because of how powerful the output is. Around the time I switched to 12/12 I cranked the QB's back to maximum output.

I haven't used Photonfantom lights before, but I am familiar with the company. I occasionally watch the 420 Resistance on Tricky D's channel and thats where I learned about them. Over the past year the supply/demand has made it pretty hard to find QB's, so if Photonfantom has what you're looking for at a lower cost then I wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger.

I'm not sure what power costs are in your area so I'll use a common/average kWh rate. Adding an additional QB kit to a 4x4 would bring the max wattage output to around 862 watts. You'll need to do a calculation to determine value in the extra light(s). You wouldn't need to crank all of the lights to 100%, but you'll need to factor in the cost for procuring the addition light and whether the increase in production will offset that cost.

Here's an apples to apples example:
575W @ 18 hr/day @ 12kWh = $1.24 per day ($37.80/month & $453.64/year)
862W @ 18 hr/day @ 12kWh = $1.86 per day ($56.67/month & $680.07/year)

I found a couple PPFD charts that I took screenshots of earlier this year for the QB's. What I like is how well they spread the light... at 18'' above canopy there's 430-500~ PPFD at the edge of a 2x2 footprint per kit. Multiply that by two kits in a 4x4 space and you have an overlap effect in that edge area, in turn doubling up the PPFD in that area to the 900-1000~ PPFD amount - which is comparable to the PPFD of the 1x1 footprint directly below one light. This leads me to believe that two kits (4 QB's) simply kick major ass in 4x4 tents and provide as much light/if not more light to areas indirectly beneath the lights as they do directly underneath.




Also, @DesertHydro thank you for the post about the blumats. It was very well explained, thought out, and I know it must have took quite some time to type that out. If I don't convert to a flood/drain in the future, the blumats will definitely be in my garden.

 

[DesertHydro]

Thanks for the in depth reply. I may just start with four boards and see what happens. Just build one to test before I jump all in. I like the idea of a single driver. It's so much cleaner of a build than wires going everywhere with multiple drivers.

Do you know right off hand the difference between the qb288 and 304 or whatever the numbers are. I know it's the side count but I'd one better than the other or what's the deal there

 

[smokebros]

Thanks for the in depth reply. I may just start with four boards and see what happens. Just build one to test before I jump all in. I like the idea of a single driver. It's so much cleaner of a build than wires going everywhere with multiple drivers.

Do you know right off hand the difference between the qb288 and 304 or whatever the numbers are. I know it's the side count but I'd one better than the other or what's the deal there

I believe it's just the number of diodes. The QB288 have 8 rows of diodes, 36 in each row. I'm assuming the QB304's have 8 rows with 38 diodes in each row.

 

[DesertHydro]

do you always run just two plants at a time? i think a tightly packed coco SOG would kill it with these boards. penetration galore since they would only be 18" when done and single colas.

 

[smokebros]

do you always run just two plants at a time? i think a tightly packed coco SOG would kill it with these boards. penetration galore since they would only be 18" when done and single colas.

I typically would run 4+ plants at a time in my 4x4 years ago. I would try to fill up the entire canopy SCROG style and then flip it. I've never ran a true SOG style ever. If I do end up converting to a flood/drain style system I'm 100% certain it would be a SOG.

Eventually I need to start utilizing all the growing space available in my tent. If I could do it over, I wouldn't go with 10 gallon smartpots and I'd change quite a few things. Unfortunately I'm stuck with this setup until these plants are harvested. I'd either go flood and drain or blumats w/ 5 gallon nursery pots.
I have three smaller plants in hempy buckets in my tent too, I haven't talked about them yet. They've been pretty hands off needing water every 4-5 days. They're in 2 gallon buckets with perlite on the bottom and coco on top. So I guess hempy buckets are something to consider too, but I'd like to see how the next 7-8 weeks go.

But yeah, I definitely agree that having a solid/flat canopy would indeed kill it.

Here's some photos from 2011. Strains were Chernobyl, Chocolope, and OGK #18.

 

[lukio]

nice pipe work!

ive found my plants in veg, particularly the OG's hate my lights turned up...when i flip i turn em up over 2 to 3 weeks...they really do kick out some photons!!

Shame Vaders vids have been so short! informative but short - still great though

 

[ANC]

I use S hooks and chains for my lights, I just drop the lights 2 or 3 links every few days, backing off if the plants start praying too soon before lights off.