Lighting Project Cheapo LED Grow Lamp

[Banjacked]

@DABaracuss

You wanted a pic of the blurple with and without the plastic, well here you go.

The two blurple strips on the right are with, the two side by side without. Not much difference, eh. That's why I wonder if they are 24v strip and that can be figured out with the first panel as that's hooked up to a PC power supply which has a +12vdc and a -12vdc output, and when you add that together you have a 24vdc supply. The worst that can happen is a little smoke and a fizzle.

Oh, flowers still growing, as you can see, I think she's doing ok.

 

[DABaracuss]

Looking sexy in there man but be safe for sure.. Don't burn down the house..lol

 

[Banjacked]

Trust me, I know what I'm doing...



Hmm, another phrase up there with "Hold my beer and watch this!"

 

[Banjacked]

I know it's been a while, but after a couple of hiccups caused by me not reading labels and getting REALLY bad compost I found a good one which has led to this wee beastie, my 5th ever plant.

She's a White Haze Auto, 8 weeks old, first week and a half on 18/6 under a single LED replacement bulb, spent a few days under the LED panel on 18/6 before being left on 12/12 for the last 6 weeks or so. There's 13 such bud sites, most are bigger, they seem to be filling quite nicely. As you can see from the lack of pistils changing colour, there's still likely a good 3-4 weeks left to kill her, and considering I almost did that when I accidentally topped her by dropping the light, an early death is still quite possible.

 

[Banjacked]

There's a slight change since the last post, now almost 12 weeks or so from breaking ground. Hopefully not too much longer.

Given that's a 1 gallon pot, and a little bush barely 2 feet tall, I think it shows that the cheap LED strip route can work for those on a budget and/or are starting out and don't want to spend a lot, which is why the next step has been made and a whole €27 has been spent on 10m of 5730 superbright, 120 led/m again, and a new power supply as eliminating the blurple should give me a much better output. Should have that in time for next plant, and if the mood takes me I could drop 2 seeds of the same strain and see what the difference is in identical pots and dirt in the same environment and regimen, only the light used would differ. but I THINK the results from an "all warm white" panel would be better than 50/50 "warm white" and blurple.

 

[Banjacked]

Ok, new panel has been made and initial tests give me 150% more lux than than white/blurple mix.

So now the fun begins because I thought I lost a seed so dropped another in water. I wasn't happy with how that second one looked when it cracked but planted it anyway and dropped an RQS Blue Cheese in water "just in case".

Then the first one appeared above ground, a little digging around showed the second one has a nice root, and the cheese is in a pot meaning that instead of one plant I'm maybe going to end up figuring out how to have two Pandora and a Cheese going at the same time.... Oopsie!!

Here's the first Pandora, literally 3 days above ground. She'll be transplanted to another pot once she's a little bigger provided the other Pandora in the same 2 gallon pot breaks ground.

 

[Banjacked]

Oops, forgot to update so here's Pandora as of this morning. Now as I experiment and learn I have found out one thing that is critical, and that's the first two weeks. The Pandora, although slow for assorted reasons like having to transplant her and a K deficiency, was started under my infamous 14w 6500K replacement bulb and then put under the "new" panel mentioned above but next to her is the Cheese which went straight under the "old" panel from the scratch. To say there's a difference is an understatement, the Cheese is rather stretchy and has suffered quite a bit of bending, tying and tucking to try and control the height. Now, I know genes play a part but this is solely down to the light in my opinion as there's been no topping or anything this time and whilst the Cheese has gone into flower earlier (expected given she wasn't disturbed) things are not exactly "tight" which tells me that the first two weeks are crucial, the higher Kelvin light plays quite a part in things.

So this has me thinking about the next light, as in throwing some "Cold White" or 6000K into the mix with the 3000K strip, and have it set up so, like with a dodgy blurple "grow light", it can be set up to run only the 6000K initially to keep her squat and then fire it up full everything after 3 or 4 weeks which, in theory, not only saves energy and therefore money but will stop things shooting vertically and given that I only need to rip out and replace the crappy blurple strip so that change is a bit of my time and, maybe, another €10 which, even on my low income disability payments is still less than I spent on beer on Sunday (but it was bloody good beer so worth it).

So there's the status, going to look for some sort of K booster for obvious reasons as just "adding more nutes" could backfire even though she's looking a tad better than earlier. Oh, and before anyone asks, the long pot in front is strawberries. I have the temperatures, the light, just enough space so, well, why not?

 

[Banjacked]

Been a while, and whilst pics posted in the Stoner Chat thread I though I better update here too.

This is Pandora as of yesterday, still under the cheap as chips panel. I reckon she's doing ok and the pistils are coming out nicely

 

[Pro-T]

Hey, hey, hey! Didn’t realise you were on here. Pulling up a chair if you don’t mind......

 

[Banjacked]

Hey, hey, hey! Didn’t realise you were on here. Pulling up a chair if you don’t mind......

You're more than welcome, the other place was vacated thanks to a bunch of imbeciles who would follow me around purely to attack anything I said, and that's their loss as all they will end up with is those imbeciles as members sitting there attacking themselves.

Wasn't wasting my time there any more