Lurker Alert! First post, first grow, first DIY LED

DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
I joined RIU after spending literally about a week straight of reading LED basics and learning the general steps to a first soil grow. Once I'm an established member I'll start a grow journal. My goal was to go as frugal as possible on this first run while still having a half way decent setup. If it goes well and I enjoy it then there may be some upgrades down the line.

Tent:
$50 ebay 2 x 3 x 5. Cheap quality but it works.

LED - 181 actual watts.
7 Cree CXA 2530s on 3 bars driven by Meanwell 185-700. Cobs running at ~ 40% efficiency I believe. One long Bar that is the length of the tent with a COB positioned approximately over where each girl sits. 2 side bars with 2 cobs each. Cost to build was $171 for the COBs, driver, heatsinks, wire, and COB holders.

Ventilation:
2 clip on fans
1 ventech 4" duct fan - this was my biggest regret. the product is absolute crap. will be my first upgrade.
1 4" carbon filter

Ladies: I'm growing all autos for ease of first grow and also because of the extra CBD from ruderalis. On any given day I have muscle soreness and joint pain from years and years of sports and my current training. I'm growing:

1 Crop Circle Amphetamine (NYC Diesel X Ruderalis)
1 Dutch Passion Think Different
1 Crop Circle Cash Crop (NL x Big Bud)


Any and all feedback is welcome! I'm at day 30 of the grow, attaching a few pics of the setup and the girls. The girls photos are when they were 2 weeks old except for the full shot of my tent, that's from now at day 30. I'll add more photos once I'm established
IMG_1404.jpg IMG_1409.JPG IMG_1474.JPG IMG_1475.JPG IMG_1476.JPG IMG_1578.JPG IMG_1579.JPG
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
Canacan said:
Where'd you get the bars for the cobs?
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Canacan,

I got them from Heatsinkusa.com. I used a 4-40 tap and bit set to drill and tap the holes. if you don't have a drill press definitely be careful that you have the drill upright, I broke 3 bits in the course of drilling all of those holes. I would advise ordering extra bits. I also tapped the holes by hand, I read that others have broken the tap.
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
Hey guys, day 35 update. As you can see i'm doing some light LST. Also forgot to mention I'm growing in Roots Organic potting soil with kind hot soil in the bottom 1/3 of the 3 gallon smart pots. I've just started very light bloom nutes as I'm expecting the hot soil to provide most of the nutes. So far I haven't had any nute burn and my plants have all looked very happy and perky. lucky first grow so far. IMG_1603.JPG IMG_1604.JPG IMG_1605.JPG IMG_1606.JPG
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
Hey guys,

Doesn't seem to be much interest so I haven't been updating but thought I'd post some new pics anyway. The buds are really starting to build now. Some of the fan leaves have yellowed and dropped off, they're starting to thin out a bit. These are at 54-56 days from when the sprouts first broke through the soil. I think they need another 2-4 weeks but as this is my first grow I'm literally just guessing. IMG_1721.JPG IMG_1722.JPG IMG_1723.JPG IMG_1725.JPG
 
TylerTGODKushmaster92

TylerTGODKushmaster92

Member
Man nice looking!! You definitely have that set up nice! Good thinking on the autos. I should have chosen them too for my first grow but temptation got the best of me and I bought some c99. Day 30 right now. You have got everything down good as far as I can see! Awesome job on the diy led.
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
TylerTGODKushmaster92 said:
Man nice looking!! You definitely have that set up nice! Good thinking on the autos. I should have chosen them too for my first grow but temptation got the best of me and I bought some c99. Day 30 right now. You have got everything down good as far as I can see! Awesome job on the diy led.
Click to expand...
Thanks Tyler, I appreciate it! I definitely feel like I'm stumbling through the dark because I don't even know what I don't know lol, but I've been lucky to have some good plants.
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
Thanks man! I think they're starting to get close. maybe 1-2 weeks? I noticed a couple of amber trichomes on 2 of the girls but one is still all clear / cloudy. So I'll just keep an eye on those until I start seeing more of a mix of cloudy / amber. My crop is to fight inflammation and soreness so I'm i'll let them grow until there's more CBD.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
DIYJay said:
Thanks wanderer! I appreciate the encouragement
Click to expand...
Everything looks really good, from the COB LED build to the plants.

I didn't see where you mentioned your light schedule, are you running twelve hours of darkness? Even if they are autos, the 12/12 light schedule will help them finish.
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
ttystikk said:
Everything looks really good, from the COB LED build to the plants.

I didn't see where you mentioned your light schedule, are you running twelve hours of darkness? Even if they are autos, the 12/12 light schedule will help them finish.
Click to expand...
You're right! I completely forgot to state that They're on 20/4 since I put the beans in the soil. I knew you flip photoperiod to 12/12 but I didn't know you can do that with auto's too. Thanks for the tip! I'll do some reading about it
 
DIYJay

DIYJay

Active Member
Hey guys, sitting at day 75 now. A few days ago I started my plain ph water flush. I'm planning to chop them next weekend. I accidentally snapped a small branch off the NL Lights x Big Bud when I was turning the plant to water so trimmed it and hung it up to dry for 3 days. The branches were dry enough to snap so I trimmed out all of the stems that I could get (hate having stems in my stuff) and threw it in a jar to cure. Just from this small branch I pulled off 8.44g so I'm hyped for the big harvest. I'm sure i'll lose a bit of weight from the cure but even 10-15% water loss would still leave it at a quarter from this one branch.
IMG_1849 (Edited).JPG
 
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