Equipment check

[Sir PsychoHashy]

So they say Dr blue, have you finished a crop with it yet?

 

There's a few members here who have completed, and posted, grows using them.  Lookinggoodguys did a particularly good one with temp measurements and plenty of details, plus a lot of sidetracking from other members.  Plus there's a couple of diaries on the go now.

 

I would agree that in terms of bang for your buck nothing beats a 600w HPS, and I don't reckon these 315's are going to beat them either.  But for the drop in elec use and temp output, with the added bonus of a far better spectrum, being close to the performance of a 600 is beyond impressive.  But in a situation where heat and power use were not a big deal, I would still opt for the 600's, only problem is that those things are issues for me.

[Gazza2001au]

While i was looking into CMH i think i recall someone mentioning the CMH run cooler over a HPS light because the inner tube is ceramic and not glass like a HPS light and the ceramic does not heat up no wear as much as the glass or quarts whatever it is

[billygoat]

Grow light:

From what I've read LED is the way to go.

 

 

You sure you can read ?

[hydrochronic]

Hello,

 

I am new to this. I only started smoking a few months ago and have only consumed cannabis products on a handful of occasions. After casually chatting to my mother about trying it, etc I discovered that she is a user (the things ya learn). Anyhow, I had a friend who was supplying but he's moved away and apparently his supplier does not want to be known (fears of getting busted, etc). So I've decided to grow my own. I figure it will be a good way to get high quality marijuana (in terms of potency and safety). Also, I don't like the idea of supporting a criminal organization (not because of their 'illegal' 'drug' enterprise but because the funds are often used to support violence, etc).

 

Over the past couple of days I've been doing some pretty heavy research into cultivation and equipment. Also, I've ordered some seeds from Southern Cross (awesome service btw).

 

I was just hoping to get some advise on the preliminary equipment I have chosen. Money isn't really an issue - if I need to invest in equipment then I'm more than happy to sink my hard earned cash into it if it means that I get some quality gear (and don't have to buy twice). With that being said, I'm not going to be growing on an industrial scale, just for our families personal use and I'd like to save on things that I don't care about (e.g. brand names).

 

I was looking around my house for the best grow spot and couldn't find adequate space in any of my ideal locations. So, I've decided to build a new shed with enough space for a grow. The shed will be shared with the lawn mower and a couple of garden tools but will be quite spacious (3x1.5x2.4m, width, depth, height).

 

The primary vendor that I've found most of this stuff at is hydroexpert.com.au. Not sure if anybody can recommend anywhere else in the Sydney area that has better price/range/service?

 

Grow tent:

This has been my biggest source of grief. I've been looking at all the different brands and it's pretty hard to differentiate. I've seen a couple of posts regarding toxic tents. This seems to be an outdated issue that primarily affected cheaper ebay (and grow lush) tent's but considering that it contains plants that I and my family will later ingest I'd like to make sure it's safe. Also, when it comes to size I'm thinking to go as large as I can (probably about 1.5x1.5m). With that being said, having a smaller tent may not be a bad idea when/if I upgrade to a larger tent in the future I can use the smaller tent for a mother or for pollinating (for seeds).

 

The main competitors are:

a) Hydro Expert's 1.4x1.4x2m tent - $200

GrowLab (owned by HomeBox) GL145 V2.0 (1.4x1.4x2m) - $340

c) HomeBox Evolution Q120 (1.2x1.2x2m) - $340

 

I'm not sure if the price delta between a and b/c is justified. I'm cautious of c because of the panda-type material which I feel would smell noxious/PVC like and could be bad - this may well be unfounded/wrong. Light leaks aren't really a concern considering it's going in a shed, however, I would like a decent quality fabric, zippers, general construction that will last. I'm probably leaning towards b at the moment.

 

Grow light:

From what I've read LED is the way to go.

 

The main competitors are:

a) Mars Hydro II 900 - $580

Viparspectra 600W with veg/bloom switches - $239

c) Viparspectra 600W with veg/bloom dimmer - $290

 

From what I've read/watched Mars has shitty customer service. Viparspectra has great reviews on amazon and they're really price competitive. Dimmable seems like a good idea in-case if the lights are burning the plants, etc. Currently leaning towards c.

 

Fan/filter:

 

The Hyper Fan 150mm (6") with a Phresh 150x500mm 475CFM carbon filter is what's currently on my mind. Any other suggestions? I've seen centrifugal fans mentioned a bit but haven't dived into that yet. The kit including 6m of ducting and some fittings is $449.

 

Thermometer/humidity meter

 

Just picked a basic $30 for now to get me going.

 

Timer

 

Looking at a relatively basic digital timer. It's $50.

 

 

Ultimately I will setup some sort of digital monitoring system. If I can't find one that fits my needs (web GUI/phone app for monitoring and controlling temps, lights and maybe watering) for a decent price then I'll make one (that's my professional field). This may already have been done (haven't really checked for any open source solutions yet which would be nice). If it has then I'll check it out and may just use that (no need to re-invent the wheel, right?). If not then it should be a fun project

 

I'd like to get growing ASAP so I better start building that shed...

 

Anyhow, thank you for your advice and thank you very much for welcoming me into your community.

others have covered most of it, i will chime in and say avoid the cheap LED lights like the 'viparspectra' ones they are pretty crap. 

Mars hydro I thought was good value when I first got interested in LEDs but I am not so sure now. LED can easily outperform HPS or MH but the initial investment is much more expensive. 

unless you're prepared to do the research I would stick with a 600-1000w HPS, if you have the time and want to increase your efficiency look at COB LED builds like these. 

http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=MAU5+KITS

 

I did a bit of research on tents and I decided to get a gorilla 4x4 tent - they look like the best made although they are nearly triple the price of the competition, i don't really care about that when it comes to quality. They are taller, thicker material, bigger vents and have some infra red blocking lining in the roof, plus a few other nice features sold me. I might be able to grow a bit taller and get an extra oz which would easily pay for the increased cost of the tent IMO. They also come in 5x5 if you want that size. 

 

Heard nothing but good things about the 200mm hyper fan so that's what I will be getting too. 

 

I got the rest of my gear on ebay, thermometer/hygrometer, pH pen, pH test kit (backup), EC or TDS meter, 60-100x microscope and some syringes for measuring nutes. 

 

What kind of hydro system are you going to use? I would suggest coco and run to waste for your first attempt as it's the most forgiving and then make a decision from there once you have a grow under your belt. Keep it simple and don't go overboard on the nutes, canna coco should do the job for nutes. 

 

If you have the time you can look into Arduino for monitoring and automation. 

 

Good luck sounds like you're off to a good start. Don't mind helping those who are prepared to put in some effort themselves unlike most who show up around here and expect to be fed answers. 

 

You sure you can read ?

what kind of useless comment is this? 

Edited March 18, 2017 by hydrochronic

[Gazza2001au]

others have covered most of it, i will chime in and say avoid the cheap LED lights like the 'viparspectra' ones they are pretty crap. 

Mars hydro I thought was good value when I first got interested in LEDs but I am not so sure now. LED can easily outperform HPS or MH but the initial investment is much more expensive. 

unless you're prepared to do the research I would stick with a 600-1000w HPS, if you have the time and want to increase your efficiency look at COB LED builds like these. 

http://www.cutter.com.au/products.php?cat=MAU5+KITS

 

I did a bit of research on tents and I decided to get a gorilla 4x4 tent - they look like the best made although they are nearly triple the price of the competition, i don't really care about that when it comes to quality. They are taller, thicker material, bigger vents and have some infra red blocking lining in the roof, plus a few other nice features sold me. I might be able to grow a bit taller and get an extra oz which would easily pay for the increased cost of the tent IMO. They also come in 5x5 if you want that size. 

 

Heard nothing but good things about the 200mm hyper fan so that's what I will be getting too. 

 

I got the rest of my gear on ebay, thermometer/hygrometer, pH pen, pH test kit (backup), EC or TDS meter, 60-100x microscope and some syringes for measuring nutes. 

 

What kind of hydro system are you going to use? I would suggest coco and run to waste for your first attempt as it's the most forgiving and then make a decision from there once you have a grow under your belt. Keep it simple and don't go overboard on the nutes, canna coco should do the job for nutes. 

 

If you have the time you can look into Arduino for monitoring and automation. 

 

Good luck sounds like you're off to a good start. Don't mind helping those who are prepared to put in some effort themselves unlike most who show up around here and expect to be fed answers. 

 

what kind of useless comment is this? 

 

Hydro u make some good pointers, the PH pen having a back up, i have bought the cheap $15 PH pen's from ebay before and it has broken more than once and i have been left without a PH pen my only option was to buy the same shit from a shop for $45!!! and have that break too

 

i have a PH stick works brilliant and has for the past 2 years i recently done a calibration and she was spot on, PH stick cost me from memory about $70 well worth the bit of extra change than keep buying the ebay cheapies

[hydrochronic]

Hydro u make some good pointers, the PH pen having a back up, i have bought the cheap $15 PH pen's from ebay before and it has broken more than once and i have been left without a PH pen my only option was to buy the same shit from a shop for $45!!! and have that break too

 

i have a PH stick works brilliant and has for the past 2 years i recently done a calibration and she was spot on, PH stick cost me from memory about $70 well worth the bit of extra change than keep buying the ebay cheapies

 

I saw a few videos on VaderOG's youtube channel (very respectable breeder) where he was starting some seedlings and after about a week it didn't seem right and they looked a bit shit, turns out his pH pen was out of calibration and so he recommends having one of those dropper kits or something as a backup as they are always accurate.  It caught him off guard though and he's been growing for years so about once a week or so I've been checking pH with one of those kits too jut to be safe and make sure my cheap ebay pen doesn't get out of sync. Things like this can cause all sorts of problems for a new grower so I think it's a good tip. Once I finish a few more runs I'll probably invest in one of those fancy pH sticks and get an EC stick as well to replace my ebay crap but for now it's holding up  

[DrBlueThumb]

I might do a grow with a 315w CMH/LEC supplemented by 250w HPS. Anyone think I should try it?

Also I just sprouted my first Dutch Passion Durban Poison under the 315w and I'll be posting a journal soon so for anyone that tunes in you'll be able to see how harvest stacks up against the 600w HPS if you hang around that long.

Edited March 18, 2017 by DrBlueThumb

[sydneycoyote]

Thanks for all of your responses!

 

I was quoting everybody originally but the post was way too long. I've addressed everybody individually if I wanted to say something specific and then made some general comments about what I'm looking at now.

 

.............................., (I hope I got the correct number of .'s), yeah I know it's probably easier to manually check and even if I did have a 100% automated system I would still check it all the time just out of excitement and to get a whiff... If I do rig something up it will just be because I enjoy doing stuff like that, not really because it's something that will save me time/effort in the long run.

 

Tunkers, thanks. I will definitely be documenting the grow in the form of a journal or something similar. I'm sure the community will be an invaluable resource to help me out along the way and it's the least I can do to potentially help out others in the future

 

PsychoHashy, I was considering partitioning the shed into two sections, one for gardening equipment and one for the grow equipment. Is there any reason in particular that they should be separated? Ducting shouldn't be an issue, I'll just cut a hole in the external wall and put a little metal roof thingy over it to stop water/debris from entering. I'm set on the 200mm Hyper fan now. It puts out way more CFM. I did some calcs and at 30% speed the 200 would be changing the air in the tent about twice a minute. I plan on building the shed very well (like a mini house) so I'm not concerned about light or noise leakage. Also, we have pool equipment near where the shed will be that puts out a heck of noise. What you say about the HomeBox evolution is interesting. I was actually thinking about cockroaches getting into my tent and it freaked me out (I really really hate cockroaches). Do you know if the GrowLab Evolution series has the floor sewn into the rest of the tent?

 

kickarse, I do have a garage but there are a couple of problems in my situation: a) my garage is pretty full, it needs to be really stealthy, I don't want a friend coming over and discovering this massive timber structure and the distinct smell of weed filling the room, c) ventilation would be a real issue as all external facing walls are double brick and facing the street.

 

DrBlueThumb, thanks to your comment I had a closer look into LEC. WOW, I'm sold. It's pretty much everything I was looking for in a lighting solution. Gives me much more confidence than LED.

 

Gazza2001au, yeah that's true regarding the size of the tent. 1.2m is probably best. I looked up XPS (extruded polystyrene) and you're right, that shit is expensive! It'll cost about $400 in insulation alone (and that's for the half of the shed I will be using to grow). How essential do you think this is from the get-go? I was watching Grand Designs about a week ago and they showed polystyrene being used as insulation, however, they were recycling polystyrene packaging (after it had been broken into it's little granules) - I wonder if this would be viable. I presume the insulation is to maintain a stable temperature in the shed. Just so you know, the shed will be made of a timber frame with OSB/ply and then some sort of cladding so it will be relatively well built but I wouldn't exactly call it insulated...

 

billygoat, well I'm fairly sure I can considering that I wrote my original post and then read it. Then I read all the replies, wrote this reply and read it. So I'm pretty sure that I've got the whole reading thing down at this point. In all seriousness, I was considering LED because I had seen numerous journals and comparisons in which LED did very well. I know it's not going to deliver the highest possible yields but the power and heat benefits were worth the sacrifice in yields for me. However, since learning more about LEC that's my current first preference.

 

hydrochronic, yeah the Gorilla looks sweet but I really can't justify the $300 extra at the moment (it's ~$600 for the 1.2*1.2*2.1m tent). Do you know much about the "Gorilla lite" series? It's about $380 for the same size which is still expensive but more reasonable. I don't really understand the IR blocking layer. I'm under the impression it's to stop choppers with IR cameras from being able to pick up your heat signature. But considering that the tent is going to be inside a shed I'm not concerned about IR leakage. I might go for the Gorilla at a later stage if I want another tent for a mother or pollination (and then use the Gorilla as my main tent). I'm not planning on running hydro, I'll go soil for the first few times and if I get curious I'll give hydro a go.

 

 

Current ideas:

 

 

Grow light: as I said above, LEC seems like the way to go. I'm thinking about getting a 630w (2 * 315w) fixture and then only putting 1 bulb in. That way I have the flexibility of going to 630w in the future. Also, there isn't much of a price delta between the 315w kit and the 630w kit, especially if you consider that the 630w kit includes 2 bulbs (each one worth about $200) so even if you only run it with one bulb you have a replacement bulb sitting ready to go. The two fittings available are http://www.hydroexperts.com.au/Armour-Series-LEC-Fixture-630W-2-x-315W-Philips-CDM-Elite-Lamp-Included and http://www.hydroexperts.com.au/Ceramic-Metal-Halide-CMH-Grow-Light-Fixture-630W-2-x-315W-Philips-CDM-Elite-Lamp-Included. The 2nd is $40 more expensive but I'm not sure which is better. Anybody have any experience with either of these?

 

Tent: Currently the GrowLab GL120 v2.0 is the leader. I note PsychoHashy's comments regarding the HomeBox Evolution. However, considering the LEC's are high PAR lights maybe the HomeBox makes more sense? I really do like the Gorilla series but I'm just not sure it's justified.

 

Fan/filter: Hyper fan 200mm seems to be the go. Only question is the size of the Phresh filter: 500, 800 or 1000mm? The kit with the 500 is $550 and the 800 and 1000 are the same price at $650. The fan itself has a CFM of 710. The 500 filter is rated at 750 CFM whilst the 1000 is 950 CFM. I presume that the resistance of the filter will increase with age and thus the CFM will drop so the larger the filter the more headroom you have. However, consider the low RPM that I will be running this fan at I'm not sure that the 800 or 1000 are worth it. Any thoughts?

 

Again, thank you everybody for your responses. Apologies for this being such a large post, I've just got a lot to say

[Gazza2001au]

 

Current ideas:

 

 

Grow light: as I said above, LEC seems like the way to go. I'm thinking about getting a 630w (2 * 315w) fixture and then only putting 1 bulb in. That way I have the flexibility of going to 630w in the future. Also, there isn't much of a price delta between the 315w kit and the 630w kit, especially if you consider that the 630w kit includes 2 bulbs (each one worth about $200) so even if you only run it with one bulb you have a replacement bulb sitting ready to go. The two fittings available are http://www.hydroexpe...e-Lamp-Included and http://www.hydroexpe...-Lamp-Included. The 2nd is $40 more expensive but I'm not sure which is better. Anybody have any experience with either of these?

 

Tent: Currently the GrowLab GL120 v2.0 is the leader. I note PsychoHashy's comments regarding the HomeBox Evolution. However, considering the LEC's are high PAR lights maybe the HomeBox makes more sense? I really do like the Gorilla series but I'm just not sure it's justified.

 

Fan/filter: Hyper fan 200mm seems to be the go. Only question is the size of the Phresh filter: 500, 800 or 1000mm? The kit with the 500 is $550 and the 800 and 1000 are the same price at $650. The fan itself has a CFM of 710. The 500 filter is rated at 750 CFM whilst the 1000 is 950 CFM. I presume that the resistance of the filter will increase with age and thus the CFM will drop so the larger the filter the more headroom you have. However, consider the low RPM that I will be running this fan at I'm not sure that the 800 or 1000 are worth it. Any thoughts?

 

Again, thank you everybody for your responses. Apologies for this being such a large post, I've just got a lot to say

 

Yes the extruded polystyrene is expensive but if u think $400 on insulation is expensive i donno why your considering the most expensive Light,Tents,Fan,Filters on the market?

 

anyway, a wooden shed is only ideal if its water tight and no water leaks on the inside because wood is good at holding moisture and mold, u can line the inside with plastic sheeting but it will be a task keeping the moisture out, i would just start off with a metal shed from the beginning

 

the 200mm fan and a 1000mm filter will be ideal it will last longer and if u cram every tiny spot inside the tent with bud u know no one will smell it

 

also the extruded foam over expanded foam is easy choice expanded foam has lots of voids that can fill with water and moisture, should only cost about $30 for .6x2.4m lengths of 30mm

[sydneycoyote]

Yes the extruded polystyrene is expensive but if u think $400 on insulation is expensive i donno why your considering the most expensive Light,Tents,Fan,Filters on the market?

 

anyway, a wooden shed is only ideal if its water tight and no water leaks on the inside because wood is good at holding moisture and mold, u can line the inside with plastic sheeting but it will be a task keeping the moisture out, i would just start off with a metal shed from the beginning

 

the 200mm fan and a 1000mm filter will be ideal it will last longer and if u cram every tiny spot inside the tent with bud u know no one will smell it

 

also the extruded foam over expanded foam is easy choice expanded foam has lots of voids that can fill with water and moisture, should only cost about $30 for .6x2.4m lengths of 30mm

 

It's not really a matter of cost as much as it is value. If it's something that I could go without initially and just monitor the temps then that is obviously what I'd prefer to do. But if you think it's something that is worth the investment then it's not an issue.

 

I've currently got a metal shed from bunnings and that's what I'm looking to replace. The wooden shed will effectively be a little house so I don't think water ingress or moisture will be much of an issue.

Edited March 19, 2017 by sydneycoyote