Grow Room Micro Auto Adventures with Mr. Sparkle

[Mr.Sparkle]

Introductions:
My Name is Mr. Sparkle or at least that is my pseudonym.

Background:
I have been growing with photo-periods off and on for enough time to consider myself experienced, but im not an expert. This will be my first foray into autos just to see what they can offer in comparison to photo periods and if they are worth to throw into the mix.
Also i have oddly enough instead of going bigger and bigger in people grows over time have consistently gone smaller and smaller till where i'm at today.

Purpose:
To enjoy this hobby and to learn and share as much as i can with an open mind, while challenging myself to do better, thus is why im trying some autos, and keeping an open mind.

Setup:
Current setup is two PC's, they're typically referred to as the Boxes, But have the names of Ashla and Bogan to differentiate the two, I'll let you figure out the reference if you desire.
The differences, Bogan is slightly smaller at around 0.85 sqft, and runs 4x350ma COB leds in a cooler spectrum, and are mounted to CPU heat-sinks, it is typically used as my vegetation box with a 18hr on 6hr off cycle, but has and can been used for flowering and will be used for the autos for now due to the light cycle but id like to see how they would run in on a lower light schedule like the other Box.

Ashla is the other box its slight taller and longer and comes in right around 1 sqft, and runs 2x700ma COB warmer spectrum leds mounted on eBay heat-sinks, with a 12hr on, 12hr off cycle.

Other than those differences they are pretty much the same as in they both run a higher pressure 120mm PC fan with homemade carbon filters that are magnetically attached for ease of removal and refill, 80mm stripped CPU fans for circulation. They're both are controlled by Arduino's which get consistently upgraded, but they have real time clocks for light timers and other functions, relays for the lights and water valves, custom made soil moisture sensors for automation, pulse width modulation control for fan speed changes between day and night, and LCD screens just to display certain measurements or values such as date, time, temperature, humidity and soil moisture.

They're setup to run as a no waste bottom feed tray setup, with homemade fabric pots in 400ml or 800ml volumes, and i currently run a 50/50 mix of coconut coir and perlite with dolomite lime at around 1-2 tbsp per 4 liters of soil, it gets reused till it breaks down or i need more, for nutrients i currently use General Hydroponics MaxiBloom at 600ppm/EC 1.2 fed out of a 3.5 Liter reservoir just to keep it simple, i use to grow organic but this method is just simpler in my current setup.

Genetics:
I'll try anything so long as they are not ridiculously over priced but i prefer fruity, floral, herbal like strains with positive, productive, active highs, the skunky, pungent, couchlock, numbing strains aren't my thing but will try anything that interests me.

Currently i have 1 Royal Queen Seeds Quick One in bloom which i got as a freebie through The Vault Seedbank which is a supporter here, and 2 dutch passion Automazars, but they aren't gonna be judged too hard as i broke the seedlings tap roots by accident, we wont go there...

I still have some automazars due to a recent deal, but also have some Dutchpassion Think Different's, and some Sweet Seeds Dark Devil Auto's. I'll be starting some shortly after i clean out Bogan of some reveg photo periods that im keeping till i try their end product, as im currently trying to go through all my Photo-Period seeds to find some nice keepers to breed with.

Here are some pictures of the boxes with some recently finished Photo-period plants.

Bogan with an inside shot

Ashla with an inside shot

and some recent finished Photo Periods

Female Seeds BubbleGummer

Female Seeds Ice

Female Seeds Blueberry Cheesecake

Female Seeds C99

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Here Are Weekly taken shots of the current Autos, they move around the box but are the top three in the last photo, where they need some water.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Here's the shot for week 4-5 depending on how you count, the autos being the ones on the right side, had a couple issues early, which will hurt them in the end but there coming along

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

The autos are doing horrible, well maybe not horrible but definitely no where near optimal, all due to a couple of issues i ran into as Bogan "the black box" isnt as dialed in as Ashla, and even some newer troubles as well.

First issue is either the sensor got bumped, dislodged from the soil or forgotten from being put back in, which triggering my "dead sensor" coding for the arduino which caused them to go a little bit dry but was caught before any true issues occurred.

Second with the reservoir dump tube being on the left, and having a completely full tray, the issue was that when the box decided it was time to water, it would dump some water and wait to checked the soil again, but because the tray was full it limited the water from easily free flowing to all the pots keeping them equal, thus causing the left hand side to be slightly over watered and the ones on the right to be somewhat dried, which chain reaction caused the reservoir to dump more frequently, which emptied the res over a weekend that i was away, so i came home to soggy and dry plants.

Also throw in a slight nitrogen deficiency as i was trying to see if i could get away with only bloom nutrients for Bogan as it would of made things just a tiny bit easier, but am running into issues with all of them.

So there not doing the best, my other box "Ashla" is doing alright, its currently sparse as i removed a couple plants , 3 males and a clone, but i wont say more as it doesn't relate to the purpose of this forum being auto-flower specific

Here's a pic from last Sunday, hopefully we will get things on the mend before the next batch of seeds

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Nothing to report, apart from the issues in the previous post, but it will work out, ill start some new seeds possibly today, also removed one of my re-vegging plant that was from my other box, the final product wasn't to my liking, plus it stunk up a room when it over powered a weak seal on a jar.


But here is the weekly pic

Bogan:

 

[GodAmJT]

Pretty sick set-up!!!!! I enjoy how clean it's configured!! I had wanted to build a PC box a little while back, but never envisioned anything quite like this!!! How large are the cases, roughly?? Say, typical PC case size, or are they a little larger?? Your plants look big because of the perspective!!!

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Thanks, they are just typical mid tower ATX cases, and its because of the small pot size that the perspective makes them look big.

But the black case "Bogan" which is being used for the autos is a Corsair Carbide 330R Case, out side dimensions on it are around 19" x 8" x 19", but inside is smaller, My other case is a Antec P280 its about 2" taller, 2" longer, and .5" wider on the inside compared to the corsair.

My typical plant has a 5" tall pot, then they are typically 9"-12" from soil level when grown out, or at least kept to that height due to clearance reasons.

 

[GodAmJT]

Have you ever considered splitting the feed line, and running a 1/2" line across to the other side for an even spread across the trays? Seems like it might work, or at least feed the outer plants better.. I love the automation, btw!!

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Yep have considered that, or making it a central distribution, ideally i would of went with individual dippers or just 1/4" OD tubing to all the pots, but the thought of the spider web of hose for all the small pots seem a little ridiculous plus im always running different number of pots, so id be plugging lines and un-plugging them. Plus my pressure head is next to nothing as its gravity fed with maybe 8" of differential to the valve on the one box.

Its working now, but might make some tweaks in the future.

And thanks the automation has taken abit to do but was definitely worth it.

 

[Mr.Sparkle]

Started some new autos today along side some photo-period seeds, but they should be sprouted and potted by the end of the weekend.

List:
1 Fem Auto Mazar - Dutch Passion Seeds Things will hopefully go smoother for this one.

1 Fem Think Different Auto - Dutch Passion Seeds

1 Fem Auto Dark Devil - Sweet Seeds

1 Fem Auto Chemdog - Auto Seeds Was a freebie and is least interesting to me out of what i still have, so im just running it to see if its worth while or it will get the chop early if it doesn't impresses me.