DIY with Quantum Boards
- Thread starter robincnn
- Start date
smokebros
Well-Known Member
Wow, thanks for the compliment, it means a lot man. Drying is something I'm passionate about, because in my opinion drying is the most important part of growing and the most difficult techniques to dial it. It's often times the difference maker between 'loud' and supbar / average herb.
I setup a separate 2 x 4 tent in my grow space dedicated to only drying and storing jars and turkey bags of herb. It's ventilated with an AC Infinity 4'' inline fan + controller (controller is the most important part), and a phresh filter.
I rely on the AC Infinity controller immensely. The only control I keep 'on' is the high humidity setting, and I keep that at 60%. Meaning that when the tent reaches 60% RH, the controller kicks on the fan to the appropriate setting to vent out until it's back to 60% or slightly under.
My process is as follows:
1. Cut the branches off at the main stem, I actually cut the main stem itself because it creates a natural hook to hang the branch on a coat hanger. I put 2 - 4 branches per coat hanger. Sometimes I use twisty ties to attach the branch to the coat hanger.
2. I leave all leaves on when I dry during during winter, and take some leaves off as needed if I'm harvesting during the summer. It depends on if it's a dry or humid time of year. This is is dependent on how 'chunky' the buds are. If they are huge buds the size of water bottles I tend to take some leaves off. If they're golf ball size colas I usually just leave all the leaf matter on.
3. I dry for 10 days or so, sometimes 12-14. I've found that 10 days in a stable 60% RH environment is kind of the sweet spot.
Once times up, I go in and trim all fan leaves off and put them in a paper bag to discard. Same with the excess stem skeletons. All the buds go unmanicured into a turkey bag. Once they're all in the turkey bag I seal it for 24 hours. I come back the next day and keep the bag open for 12-24 hours. Then I close it again for 24 hours. This process is called sweating. When the turkey bag is closed, it pulls moisture from the inside of the bud to the outside of the buds. When you open the turkey bag for 12-24 hours it evaporates that moisture. I repeat this process as many times as needed until that batch of herb lightly snaps when I break a bud in half, but still has moisture in it. Usually takes 1-2 days, very rarely 3 days.
From there I keep the buds unmanicured in the turkey bag for the next week or two as I trim. I put the final product in a bucket, glass jar, or another turkeybag.
TLDR: Cut as large of branches off as you can. Leave as much foliage on as you can. Extend that dry for as long as possible. Sweat the buds until they're ready for long term storage.
The nug in that picture is from a WIFI 43 x Alien Dog Cherry. Bred by Obsoul33t.
Nizza
Well-Known Member
I have to rave real quick... HLG has outstanding customer service, so far the best I've received in all of my life through buying anything.
Great work everyone and I am a lifetime customer/ supporter now, after my most recent experience!
Ok so any recommendations on running 6x qb3 far red boards off of one driver? I was planning on making two fixtures, each with 3x qb3 far red boards. Each fixture would be powered by one of these which is the recommendation from the site for 2-3 boards
"APC-16-700 - Two or Three QB 3 in Series "
So I'd be getting two of these drivers.
There are also other options.. I just want whatever the ideal driver is. Thanks for the help!
"APC-8-700 - One or more QB 3 in Parallel
APC-12-700 - One or Two QB 3 in Series
APC-16-700 - Two or Three QB 3 in Series
APC-25-700 - Three or Four QB 3 in Series
LPC-20-700 - Three or Four QB 3 in Series "
Great work everyone and I am a lifetime customer/ supporter now, after my most recent experience!
Ok so any recommendations on running 6x qb3 far red boards off of one driver? I was planning on making two fixtures, each with 3x qb3 far red boards. Each fixture would be powered by one of these which is the recommendation from the site for 2-3 boards
"APC-16-700 - Two or Three QB 3 in Series "
So I'd be getting two of these drivers.
There are also other options.. I just want whatever the ideal driver is. Thanks for the help!
"APC-8-700 - One or more QB 3 in Parallel
APC-12-700 - One or Two QB 3 in Series
APC-16-700 - Two or Three QB 3 in Series
APC-25-700 - Three or Four QB 3 in Series
LPC-20-700 - Three or Four QB 3 in Series "
Last edited:
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
240W x 4 HLG QB288 V1 = diodes for days!
Thanks @Rocket Soul for your suggestions and everyone else on this thread for ideas and help along the way.
Will hang the 2nd light this weekend and start the next set of ladies into flower.
Thanks @Rocket Soul for your suggestions and everyone else on this thread for ideas and help along the way.
Will hang the 2nd light this weekend and start the next set of ladies into flower.
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Cookie-Monster
Well-Known Member
Here is the 3D printed fan shroud to active cool your Slate II Heatsinks. here it is in action!
and here is the file https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4063022
and here is the file https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4063022
Airwalker16
Well-Known Member
Man!!!! I wish I had a 3D printer SO BAD
Airwalker16
Well-Known Member
Trying to figure out how your build is put together. That light is pretty well thrown together. What are those metal pieces between the boards and what are those threaded hand tightened nuts in them for?
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
I really like the V1 deal: running V1 boards at 60ish watt per with some alu backing might be the absolute best deal around, including china, for US peeps with slight diy chops. Bravo at Steve and the hlg crowd! Hope the deal lasts, and even maybe some more spectrums.
Theyve gone down in price a lot, have a look on google...
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
Thanks! If you scroll backwards you can see a couple pics of the boards before I hung them. The QBs are mounted to a 300x1000mm heatsink > https://alberko.com/index.php/1064as.html. So the 'metal pieces between boards' is just the gap. Similar to the original Slate 6(?) design except I decided to space mine evenly across the heatsink.
The thumbscrews that you are seeing are just 'feet' that I added like HLG's kits have. They are just there in case I need to lay the fixture flat, and help keep the diodes or connectors from touching the ground.
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
I have to total up all my receipts but I am pretty sure I am still under a $1/w!
Only had a few mins to check before lights off, but I was hitting 780/800 PPFD across the tops of all 3 plants now, whereas before under my single QB running at 135W I was only getting that to the 2 colas directly under the middle of the board. So excited to see how the plants respond.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Its whole different game building with soft run boards, it opens up so many possibilities. If you have a look at the specs at hlgs web: half power V1s are very similar in efficiency to full power V2s, but with the added advantage that you can run them much closer to your tops, better spread, and if you need to spread your boards over more cannopy you can allways up the power a bit. At 60w theyre supposed to be able to run without heatsink, id suggest alubacking between 60-80w but thats me.
ilovereggae
Well-Known Member
One note there. I did email HLG about needing heatsinks when running this low. They said that technically anything over 50W they suggest it. (Catalog pages for v1 says > 60w, v2 says > 75w, but the QB guide page for all 288 boards says > 50W so I decided to play it safe.)
For me the cost of aluminum sheets, even 12 gauge baking sheets + angle alum was going to cost me @ $40 per 240W fixture. I scored those heatsinks for $43 each inc tax (picked up from warehouse to save on shipping altho in LA traffic that was 3 hrs of driving so kind of a wash). Plus I figured like you said, this way if I decide to upgrade to 320W driver I can run them @ 80W each and have no worries.
Thanks again!
LarsVegasNirvana
Well-Known Member
The QB18 supplement strips contain 3 different colors of red, including far red.
LarsVegasNirvana
Well-Known Member
I've got a 260w kit (240h-C2100A) and I want to run four boards on the driver instead of just two to increase my efficiency and spread. As I understand it four boards would put me outside of the constant current range for the driver, so I'd have to wire a combination of parallel (to both heatsinks) and series (on each heatsink) to keep the driver happy. Would this cause a problem? Or should I just buy more drivers? The way I see it if one of the boards fails then the other side of the parallel connection would just be back to the current level it's at now as a single 260w kit.
I think you need a 240 / 1050 driver to run 4 of the 288 boards.
Rocket Soul
Well-Known Member
Yes, you should be able to run two strings of 2 boards in series on those 2 drivers. But you need to use boards which have the same voltage as your original 2.
Another way would be a new 1050 mA driver. But that would be a high voltage setup which you dont wanna get zapped by.
hillbill
Well-Known Member
135w v1 3000k arrived yesterday and was easily assembled by this older guy with virtually no electronic chops. Ran 126 watts out of the box. Turned up to see where it would stop and that was 171watts. Running nice at 136 watts. Just now beginning to replace some 6 to 7 year old A51 panels with mostly white Cree diodes. Sure runs quiet!
pop22
Well-Known Member
There is absolutely nothing in the spectrum of a CFL that can't be had in LED, and they are very inefficient compared to LED. Also, if you are going to make the statement " significant evidence" about anything, then you should provide links to said data, otherwise it's still conjecture.
pop22
Well-Known Member
Not enough to make upgrading worthwhile. about 5%. I'll be running my 304 V1s for a long time yet!