Wake n Bake, Nothing Better!

RetiredToker76

RetiredToker76

Well-Known Member
Laughing Grass said:
Holy shit that apogee is expensive! 3-5% difference is reasonable considering the cost difference.
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Yeah, my friend found one used for about 40% off what would be new price, then we split the cost between us. We have no problem trading it between each other when we adjust lights. For the daily check the app is fine. Mostly he found a good deal and snaked me into splitting it with him. I had used the one from work when I was working at the medical grow earlier in the year and loved it. So he didn't have to work too hard to convince me.
 
Rsawr

Rsawr

Smoke and Mirrors
Staff member
RetiredToker76 said:
Yeah, my friend found one used for about 40% off what would be new price, then we split the cost between us. We have no problem trading it between each other when we adjust lights. For the daily check the app is fine. Mostly he found a good deal and snaked me into splitting it with him. I had used the one from work last year when I was working at the medical grow earlier in the year and loved it. So he didn't have to work too hard to convince me.
Click to expand...
How much work do you think it saves VS just looking at your plants while they are under lights and watching them and learning what they need? I guess commercial growers don't have the luxury to mess up, even once. But as a home grower I'd never even considered measuring my light output until I saw Photone was (usually) free. Even then, I tend to just let those readings by the wayside if the ladies look happy.
 
RetiredToker76

RetiredToker76

Well-Known Member
Rsawr said:
How much work do you think it saves VS just looking at your plants while they are under lights and watching them and learning what they need? I guess commercial growers don't have the luxury to mess up, even once. But as a home grower I'd never even considered measuring my light output until I saw Photone was (usually) free. Even then, I tend to just let those readings by the wayside if the ladies look happy.
Click to expand...
I'm a data nerd, so I just love having data. When I learned photography as a teen I started using LUX meters because the class teacher made us because to quote her, "human eyes suck and you won't take good pictures guessing the light." I started using Photone back in 2019 when I got my LED's, I already knew my photography meter wasn't measureing photosynthetic light, so I had never bothered using it but photone at least offered the calculations in a form that didn't require me building an entire spreadsheet to do them. Having a variable intensity knob on my lights basically means that distance means nothing unless I'm always running them at 100% and only adjusting by light distance. If I don't have to use all 145w of wall power in clone, I'd much rather turn the potentiometer down and use 60w, so in that keeping data does save money over eyeballing it.

I slowly increase my light intensity from 100ppfd while in clone to almost 2000ppfd in week 2 of flower. Using either the app or the meter allows me to hit specific benchmarks at specific time periods in the plants development. Week 1 of flower I transition them into producing bud at a higher light intensity but only up to around 1200ppfd because I'm also getting them used to deep red instead of deep blue. In full flower I've pushed as high as 2800ppfd, and at the end of flower I ramp it down in the last week back to around 1000 ppfd.

I haven't really done the electrical data to see how much monitoring has saved me because I started it at the same time I got my LED's, which already saved almost 25% over running floro's and an HPS. Mostly I like to keep spreadsheets and measure my data across grows. Having very limited space to grow, I can't really do side by side comparisons in the same grow, so I have to compare the last 3 grows data to this grows data and compare my final mass numbers. What I think that metering (either phone or meter) allows is for more than anything is consistency. Human eyes are built to adjust to very dim lighting all the way up to full intensity sunlight, so they're horrible as light meters.

The data I keep on an every other day basis.

physical : plant height
soil: ppm and ph of soil slurry
nutrients: ph and ppm of nutrient mix
environmental, Rh, temp, and leaf temp for VPD calculations
light: ppfd and wall wattage

Is any of this necessary? No. I did it by sight without even a working pH meter for almost 6 years. Then I started learning about data based growing, three books and several thousand webpages later, I decided I didn't want to wing it anymore. Overall, between 2015 when I started collecting data and now, I've almost doubled my yield. That's due to everything from my changing my lights (the biggest jump), to my environment, to my nutes; but I don't think it would have happened as smoothly without being able to compare last years data to this years data and making changes as necessary.
 
Rsawr

Rsawr

Smoke and Mirrors
Staff member
RetiredToker76 said:
I'm a data nerd, so I just love having data. When I learned photography as a teen I started using LUX meters because the class teacher made us because to quote her, "human eyes suck and you won't take good pictures guessing the light." I started using Photone back in 2019 when I got my LED's, I already knew my photography meter wasn't measureing photosynthetic light, so I had never bothered using it but photone at least offered the calculations in a form that didn't require me building an entire spreadsheet to do them. Having a variable intensity knob on my lights basically means that distance means nothing unless I'm always running them at 100% and only adjusting by light distance. If I don't have to use all 145w of wall power in clone, I'd much rather turn the potentiometer down and use 60w, so in that keeping data does save money over eyeballing it.

I slowly increase my light intensity from 100ppfd while in clone to almost 2000ppfd in week 2 of flower. Using either the app or the meter allows me to hit specific benchmarks at specific time periods in the plants development. Week 1 of flower I transition them into producing bud at a higher light intensity but only up to around 1200ppfd because I'm also getting them used to deep red instead of deep blue. In full flower I've pushed as high as 2800ppfd, and at the end of flower I ramp it down in the last week back to around 1000 ppfd.

I haven't really done the electrical data to see how much monitoring has saved me because I started it at the same time I got my LED's, which already saved almost 25% over running floro's and an HPS. Mostly I like to keep spreadsheets and measure my data across grows. Having very limited space to grow, I can't really do side by side comparisons in the same grow, so I have to compare the last 3 grows data to this grows data and compare my final mass numbers. What I think that metering (either phone or meter) allows is for more than anything is consistency. Human eyes are built to adjust to very dim lighting all the way up to full intensity sunlight, so they're horrible as light meters.

The data I keep on an every other day basis.

physical : plant height
soil: ppm and ph of soil slurry
nutrients: ph and ppm of nutrient mix
environmental, Rh, temp, and leaf temp for VPD calculations
light: ppfd and wall wattage

Is any of this necessary? No. I did it by sight without even a working pH meter for almost 6 years. Then I started learning about data base growing, three books and several thousand webpages later, I decided I didn't want to wing it anymore. Overall, between 2015 when I started collecting data and now, I've almost doubled my yield. That's due to everything from my changing my lights (the biggest jump), to my environment, to my nutes; but I don't think it would have happened as smoothly without being able to compare last years data to this years data and making changes as necessary.
Click to expand...
Interesting! I usually just run any and all cheap lights I find. I tend to adjust them by how green the babies are in veg, AND how the seedlings react to my initial 250 ppm feed. I think my methods may be janky...
 
StonedGardener

StonedGardener

Well-Known Member
Offmymeds said:
When's the reveal party?
Click to expand...
My daughter would like me to pop-iid the night of " Day Of The Dead " .....we're having a party.....I told my daughter that I can contribute a shit-ton of deceased loved ones.....I don't know if she thought the comment was funny...I did. I got a gut
feel about what's inside that f'ing bizarre " box" . Once I see it , I cant un-see it
.....I hesitate......it's got a strange vibe.....hope it's not bad ju-ju .
 
Laughing Grass

Laughing Grass

Well-Known Member
RetiredToker76 said:
I'm a data nerd, so I just love having data. When I learned photography as a teen I started using LUX meters because the class teacher made us because to quote her, "human eyes suck and you won't take good pictures guessing the light." I started using Photone back in 2019 when I got my LED's, I already knew my photography meter wasn't measureing photosynthetic light, so I had never bothered using it but photone at least offered the calculations in a form that didn't require me building an entire spreadsheet to do them. Having a variable intensity knob on my lights basically means that distance means nothing unless I'm always running them at 100% and only adjusting by light distance. If I don't have to use all 145w of wall power in clone, I'd much rather turn the potentiometer down and use 60w, so in that keeping data does save money over eyeballing it.

I slowly increase my light intensity from 100ppfd while in clone to almost 2000ppfd in week 2 of flower. Using either the app or the meter allows me to hit specific benchmarks at specific time periods in the plants development. Week 1 of flower I transition them into producing bud at a higher light intensity but only up to around 1200ppfd because I'm also getting them used to deep red instead of deep blue. In full flower I've pushed as high as 2800ppfd, and at the end of flower I ramp it down in the last week back to around 1000 ppfd.

I haven't really done the electrical data to see how much monitoring has saved me because I started it at the same time I got my LED's, which already saved almost 25% over running floro's and an HPS. Mostly I like to keep spreadsheets and measure my data across grows. Having very limited space to grow, I can't really do side by side comparisons in the same grow, so I have to compare the last 3 grows data to this grows data and compare my final mass numbers. What I think that metering (either phone or meter) allows is for more than anything is consistency. Human eyes are built to adjust to very dim lighting all the way up to full intensity sunlight, so they're horrible as light meters.

The data I keep on an every other day basis.

physical : plant height
soil: ppm and ph of soil slurry
nutrients: ph and ppm of nutrient mix
environmental, Rh, temp, and leaf temp for VPD calculations
light: ppfd and wall wattage

Is any of this necessary? No. I did it by sight without even a working pH meter for almost 6 years. Then I started learning about data based growing, three books and several thousand webpages later, I decided I didn't want to wing it anymore. Overall, between 2015 when I started collecting data and now, I've almost doubled my yield. That's due to everything from my changing my lights (the biggest jump), to my environment, to my nutes; but I don't think it would have happened as smoothly without being able to compare last years data to this years data and making changes as necessary.
Click to expand...
My first couple grows I tracked everything... then it occured to me I was using the data for anything. I was growing non-recirculated DWC... What a pain in the ass lol. Now I'm almost automated, I only have to change the res once a week.

IMG_2398.jpg
 
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