40+ lbs with 12 Plants in 2 Rooms on a Flip

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Renfro

Renfro

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So I dug into my stash and drug out a few of the 1500 watt ballasts to play

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For perspective I took a photo of the 1500 watt MH bulb with a 5 gallon bucket for scale, it's kinda retarded lol imagine that thing moving back and forth down the aisle. :hump: I figure I will have to set the delay as short as possible at the ends of the light rail, if it sits in one spot too long it might become an issue. Definitely gonna need to keep the light rails clean, if they get greasy from the little motor the wheels can slip. I haven't used the light rails since I took the SE HPS lights out of my veg room so I will have to pull a few of those down and clean em up.

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I was gonna plug it in and fire it up for grins but of course the vertical socket cords I have handy are Hydrofarm plug and the ballast has the Sun system type plug and of course I have several adapters but they are all the wrong ones lol So the test fire will have to wait a minute unless I find something handy. I won't actually install it all until after this crop is out of the way, it's too tight in there right now plus I don't want wood crumbs from drilling holes in the floor joists to get in the buds. So sometime next month I will have them up and running if all goes as planned. and they will run for the whole crop, 1500 watt HPS until about day 45 - 50 and then I will switch them to the 1500 watt metal halides.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

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Your idea of running the light rail between your trellises will work awesome.

Many years ago, I built my own circular light mover using an old mountain bike and a windshield wiper motor from a Honda Civic lol The cord didn't get twisted because the lamp hung from a swivel. I ran a vertical sheet of smooth mirror finish mylar around the whole grow area.

That single 1000W HPS was mounted horizontally under a grow wing reflector, and the gearing I had set for it made the light travel a full circle in about 3 and a half minutes. I ran the lamp only 6" above the canopy because it was constantly moving. The spread yield thing misses the fact that a moving light overcomes shading effects so you do get more yield.

I had enough space inside for a dozen plants trained to the size of a big trash can lid, and they were in two stages so I'd pull about a pound and a half every 3 weeks.

This was close to 30 years ago now. Good times!
 
Renfro

Renfro

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So I took a reading off that 1500 MH, it feels like I am getting a tan standing there, this reading is from the trellis rig side canopy area in room A, it's bout 20 inches from the center of the aisle (where the lamp is hanging). The reading is between 1030 and 1100 umols, hard to hold the sensor perfectly still.

So yeah, it's bright getting those readings down both sides of the aisle. Will need the light rail mover for sure, I might not end up with an aisle between that fat fucker moving back and forth and the sides of the plants growing out into the aisle. This winter run is gonna be epic lol, the plan for room B is to fill it up with Divine Gelato #3 and the oddballs will probably be mimosa since she makes strongest branches and likes to grow straight upward and not outward.

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Depending on the heat I will probably only run this planned setup on the winter runs, swap the lamp/ballast to 1000 during summer runs but still have the mover.
 
Renfro

Renfro

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Day 27 update in room A.

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I really wish I had let them veg a few more days before flip, but thats the trickiest part of this setup, predicting the stretch. It's easy to end up too tall or too short. I so wish I had 10 foot or higher ceilings lol. Those mimosa oddball plants at the ends of the aisles really grew up into the ceiling :roll:

I left a couple of the 1500's running in room A for shits and giggles. I didn't do a center plant on these rows and they needed a little more veg time so I figure there is room for the stationary 1500's. We will see, I let one run for a couple days without issue and I added the other one today. Those lights were just 600's before. lol
 
Polyuro

Polyuro

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Renfro said:
Day 27 update in room A.

View attachment 4677991View attachment 4677990View attachment 4677992

I really wish I had let them veg a few more days before flip, but thats the trickiest part of this setup, predicting the stretch. It's easy to end up too tall or too short. I so wish I had 10 foot or higher ceilings lol. Those mimosa oddball plants at the ends of the aisles really grew up into the ceiling :roll:

I left a couple of the 1500's running in room A for shits and giggles. I didn't do a center plant on these rows and they needed a little more veg time so I figure there is room for the stationary 1500's. We will see, I let one run for a couple days without issue and I added the other one today. Those lights were just 600's before. lol
Click to expand...
I envy your ceiling height!
 
Polyuro

Polyuro

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About 7.5’ before cribbing down for light fixtures. Classic KC 1950’s ranch with the old hardwood framing/joists that’s strong as shit but flammable as fuck...
 
Bignutes

Bignutes

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Polyuro said:
About 7.5’ before cribbing down for light fixtures. Classic KC 1950’s ranch with the old hardwood framing/joists that’s strong as shit but flammable as fuck...
Click to expand...
Tin offset with air gap like they do for flue vents but flat
 
Sif1

Sif1

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Renfro said:
Man I am scared of Nanolux products, had so many problems with their products in the past.
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I might order a sample 10 lights from China and give them a run. But what you have said scares me. Yrs ago i purchased these random lights from China as a sample, havn't had any problems with them. Then I purchased Hellions from Australia in Feb which are meant to be one of the best and had heaps of issues. Maybe its environmental, power surges etc. I just don't know.
 
Renfro

Renfro

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For me the problems of having to swap out dead equipment outweighs the cost of buying stuff I think will be more reliable. If you just have 2 or 3 lights it's not so big a deal but the more you have, the more there is to fail and it ends up that you are messing with a dead ballast every couple weeks or so, thats gay lol. When I ran the nanolux DE's I was replacing the replacements under warranty and it was a PITA so I ended up phasing them out for Phantom and Sun System ballasts (they haven't had any failures yet).
 
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