Cheap DIY setup ideas.

Indoor Growing
#9

This took off a lot faster than expected. I haven’t ever really got on with soil grows before now indoors. Outdoors has been okay with autos.
I usually either use coco or hydroponics systems.
Everything needs to be kind of light weight whilst I try and heal. I’d have no real problems hand watering coco with a bucket. Everything is on one floor here so no lifting into loft spaces at least.

The lighting is probably the main thing I need to focus on. I’m wondering if it’s worth using something like a Wilma style system so if I do have bad days and can’t really walk too much. Which does happen a lot. Would gain me a week or 2 a time without too much input maybe?

Rather than buying pH and PPM meters again it may be worth paying the few extra £ and using advanced pH perfect line whilst I get back on my feet. Sorry for not replying individually, I’m trying to jump on when I get a minute here and there at the mo.

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#10

Oh man, I totally feel your pain… In a 3 joint area I have a couple slipped discs, a couple bulging, 1 herniated on the inside of the disc, one degenerating disc, nerves pinched throughout and arthritis is setting in.

You have seeds, bonus, soil is pretty cheap and while plants don’t like it they CAN grow under an incandescent light bulb, albeit not very well… But the sh*tty thing is, you have a several months ahead of you before you’ll have a harvest my friend.

I truly do wish you the best, I hope you find some relief!!

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#11

Ok, so it’s not ideal… but since you’re on a barebones budget, it will work.

You can get a reflector lamp and use a CFL or LED bulb, preferably two with a splitter, and it’ll grow you some smokeable bud on the cheap. For flower you would definitely want the “soft” light vs daylight bulb. You would want to veg your plant a few nodes, then switch to flower. This isn’t going to be able to give you a huge plant, so keep that in mind before switching to flower as it’s going to double or triple during stretch.

The absence of a timer, if you have the dedication and alarm on your phone to set to make sure you plug in and plug out at the same time every day equaling 12 hours, you’ll be good to go.

If your seeds are autoflowers, disregard the 12 and 12 and let it rock.

I’ve done this years ago just to see what it would do, and it grew some smokeable bud. It’s going to be larfy, it probably won’t be the prettiest, but it will definitely get you high.

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#12

Cheapest way to do a timer nowadays with remote management is smart plugs that go between the device you need on a timer and the wall socket, they’re cheap as chips and you might be able to find a free one or two if you ask around, some power strips even come with them built in now for not very much cash.

If you can scratch up 50£, something like this would get you going with 96 watts of grow light as four bars you could position nice and low to the canopy and get better results. I bet these would actually grow some decent herb if you used them well and added some extra intensity with warm lighting down the road for flowering:

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#13

If you are looking for cheap lights I would recommend checking your local used markets. Where I am, I see super cheap HPS, or CMH lamps for sale all the time. There’s a guy selling 315w horizontal CMH complete lamps (bulb, ballast, reflector) for like $40 each or less. I also see used LED’s for sale but people usually seem to want more for them and I don’t think I’d pay a lot for a used LED not knowing how many hours it’s been used (etc). The cheapest new LED I’d recommend is the Mars Hydro ts600. I use a couple for veg and they work well. A buddy flowered with them and did ok too. They only do maybe a 2x2 area at most but can be had for like $60 if you watch for a sale.

A used HPS or CMH would yield better for a similar price. But the only potential issue there would be if you are planning to use it in a small tent. A HPS or CMH light might add too much heat unless you can air cool it.

I wasn’t sure if you plan to use a buddy’s tent? Or were just mentioning a buddy had one and you were thinking of something similar.

If you don’t have a tent, you could look at making your own diy room cheap. Use some of those 4x8 sheets of foam insulation board (that are silver on one side), or just buy a roll of Black & white poly plastic and make a room/walls out of that.

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#14

Consider decarbing and eating your cannabis, the effect lasts longer and you’ll need less.

Decarbing at 100 degr. Celsius (212 F) for different lengths of time. my personal findings

If you grow auto’s then you don’t need a tent. :+1:

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#15

you can do a dwc setup for about $60 without the lights. a bottle of grow and bloom cost about $20 each and control the ph automatically, saving that expense. you only need one now too. the advantage of dwc over soil is that it needs replaced or refreshed, never done coco so not sure about that. you can get by with a cheap chinese light to start with, the one i have now was $25. i’m gonna make a light on one of the pages linked above this but i would not recommend that to save money unless you have everything lying around. if you wanna see a cheap setup, look at this. notice the reflector in the first pic. that was also a while ago. good luck.

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#16

Ok…never thought of that. Feel so dumb. ty!

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#17

It’s my cousins partner who has it. Massive pothead. Never grown though so it’s sat wasted in a loft. We’re in a small apartment so need something compact and also have a 2 year old that needs to be watched like a hawk before he either eats or destroys what’s in front of him :rofl:

I could probably get hold of a 600w hps no problem but I’ve used LED for a long time now. Since electricity prices got so high anyway. I’d want to be running about 300w all in fans/filters/environmental/lighting if possible. I’m more than capable to build a light. Looking on digikey it will cost around the £150 mark to build a 150w light. Including angle and fixings etc which doesn’t seem too bad.

I’ve made edibles before. My fiancee wants to move on to vaping. I’ve made plenty before using peg400, Pg, VG and either RSO or rosin. I’m not a noob by any stretch. I can grow and extract and build stuff etc no problem. It’s the limited ability to work and make the money that’s the big issue at the moment. But id rather start sooner than later if that makes sense. We smoke about 3.5g a day between us.

@sfzombie13 a little DWC may be the way forward. I have been toying with the idea of collecting paint tubs from work to use as pots.

The wet vac idea when I was handwatering 36 x 10l coco pots would have been genius. That’s definitely staying in the memory bank for the future :nerd_face:

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#18

i saw on the thread about cheap led lights that one person got 2 vivisun vs1000s on sale for ~$130, 100w each. one would probably do that tent you’re gonna get. i had a hid bulb once that was able to change from mh to hps without changing the ballast. i think it cost about $300 but it was 1000w. it came with two bulbs and about half that would be perfect for you, but then you’d have the low energy efficiency of hid opposed to led.

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#19

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I’ll throw in another bump for cheap Chinese lighting (mine were from wish)… They’re kinda cheesy, but I grew some great weed with them.

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#20

just saw this you may be interested in.

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#21

You stated £3 that suggests you’re in the uk.

Ime led growing on a budget doesn’t work because of the temps, hid is a better choice in cooler climates.

Yesterday i seen a brand name 250/400/600/660w digital ballast for £22, that’s light and heat in one.

Led,s better but unrealistic with £3 to your name.

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#22

That I am interested in. Let me have a look what they’re selling for in the UK. some prices vary much continent to continent. Appreciated.

I’ve used a few blurples before. I’ve even torn old mars hydro lights apart and stuck citizen COBs in. So it’s definitely worth a look at some cheapie ones for now. Upgrades can come after we’re smoking our own smoke.

It’s not a problem on temps. We have a steady heat in the apartment bro. And the tent is likely Gonna be in the bedroom. HPS in a tent as small as 80x80cm seems like waiting for problems. Especially with canopy height alterations. Takes a lot of capability away from the space imo. It’s less than £3 today :rofl: least it’s not in minus £ though.

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#23

Aha one of these! Good thinking using that, borrowing equipment is going to be the way to get things started on a budget for sure and I bet he won’t want it back once he sees you actually growing in it

I feel that, my electricity is up there for the US, $0.35 or more per kWh so I went LED even though CMH was appealing for the temperature help in the winter. Been moving my wattages down and realizing I could be more efficient and save money in the long run.

If you can wire one yourself heck yeah go for it with some Bridgelux strips! Can save money on a heatsink by using an old road sign or a commercial aluminum baking sheet, those are cheap to free used and a great way to get a frame/thermal management. There’s a sponsor here who sells lights of his own design and one of the styles is the sheet pan, so you can source it locally and save on shipping by just getting his LED boards, look at these for a little inspiration, it works really well by all accounts. I like his touch with the premade ones of cutting a hole for a small computer fan to draw the hot air out of the recessed sheet pan and push it up across the driver all at once, very minimalist.

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Alternately these are pretty cheap and @PhlizonGrowLight is a sponsor here with a decent rep so far, they seem to be moving hard into the same bracket of the market as Mars Hydro and the like, quality inexpensive lights

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083SDVKTQ

@PhlizonGrowLight can we sponsor my guy here with a little board to get rocking in the tent? Looks like you have some of the best lights available on Amazon UK how about getting some UK Flowerists talking about them?

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#24

He doesn’t want it back anyway. He just needs to come and collect my ladders to be able to get it out the loft. He knows they both (him and my cousin) will see a decent smoke at the end anyway.

Our electricity is 29p/kwh with a 53p daily standing charge. That translates to about 36c/kwh. Ridiculous.

I’m definitely capable of building a light fixture. (engineering student) and have used both solstrips and bridgelux before. It’s not worth importing solstrips imo with tax and handling charges etc. Ends up costing more £/w than eb strip builds. (components can be shipped free from digikey)

I’ve also looked at some phlizon grow lights. The phx4 240w looks like it would do the job perfect but at £300 it’s not a viable option at the moment as you can imagine. I wouldn’t expect they would just send one though to a randomer on a forum. As nice as that would be lol

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#25

Alot of great ideas so far. There are Facebook groups, and marketplace, where everything is free. There’s plenty of things you may be able to re-purpose. Alot of aquariums with “lights”, etc. You can also just put up your own post, “looking for”, you never know what you find or who you meet. Most neighborhoods have their own groups.

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#26

Not much chance of sourcing grow stuff in the village we live in. Have had a look on marketplace and seen a few beat up old HPS lights going for silly money, but that’s about the lot. I like the idea of aquarium lights for seed starting and early Veg etc. Can’t see them producing much flower though bro?

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#27

I was basing that on experience growing with both led and hid in the uk.

Led costs me more to run than hid except for in summer.

Led is worth the extra to me but it’s not the cheapest option to grow some personal.

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#28

You can get things for free, and trade up. If it doesn’t work, toss it. My buddy got a coral reef setup, and traded up for a bigger tank, with everything. Could’ve sold it for whatever. Just an idea. Free lights, can turn to 10 bucks each, and you’re one step closer.

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