Ya that’s how mine was as well (external). Mine was obviously bad because the 0-100% gradient was weird. It basically acted like a switch going from 0 to 35% with no gradual dimming. I just cut mine off and it’s been running like new since. Haven’t had the time or downtime to hook up the replacement potentiometer yet but I did order one haha.
Huh! That’s easy, maybe I’ll even ask a friend who’s comfortable with electrical to go snip it for me and raise the light up while I’m gone. My partner is watering for me but I know she wouldn’t want to do that. I should be pulling around 750w through my Kill-A-Watt with both tents turned up but I was measuring 400w lately, which means the 550 is only at around 200-250w instead of almost 500. Nice saving money but it’s time to grow some fat buds now, whew I’m glad it’s probably that simple.
Now I can go ahead and keep on with the plan to get all the rest of my lights up and running in different tents. Eventually I want the 550 in 4x4 flower with the Buddies back in there mounted on some aluminum rail for side/under lights, for 525w plus UV.
Then the 3x4 veg tent is gonna get the new Viparspectra 150w instead of the QB kit that’s too hot, the lensed spread should be great for the little ones.
And that 135w B-Spec QB288 kit will get mounted in the middle of the rail fixture I have to bolt together with two QB96 light engines splitting a 320w driver flanking on the ends, and active cooling on everything with some USB axial fans from AC Infinity. And I’m going to integrate a T8 linear fixture in there for a Solacure bulb, so that’ll be a fully DIY’d full spectrum beast! 450w of great spectrum and spread, with two nice hot spots for big pots each with 2x2 of space, or to run 4 smaller pots under each QB 96, with spill balance picked up by the QB in the center. I need to run a few numbers on overlap and PPFD evenness but it seems like it should work well. That’ll be Flower Tent #2 for my personal herb as the 4x4 becomes the Coop Run tent for Vortex, and maybe even a repro of my own after that if I’m doing ok on the stash at that point.
Currently my top candidates for a seed increase post-Vortex from my own collection are probably:
-Guava HP x C99 by @paintedfire420
-Abominable Snowman by Snowhigh (SnowCap Delta (Snowcap x AGold/C99) x Pure Kush/Uzbek)
-Sour Strawberry x C99 from @CADMAN
-Durban Poison IBL from Alaska, originally ACC/Heime but kept by another guy up there, or his cross with an original Jack Herer, or honestly hitting one with the other however that worked out from popping a few seeds, or something like that.
-or any of the older vault packs I recently received from @santero, especially some of the C99 or Uzbek crosses that I’d love to explore at length, or the Cannabliss Black Domina x Perun (Darwin Seeds old Afghan)
Basically I’m thinking I want to do a seed increase on the sort of fast fruity sativa hybrids that I love to have around all the time, so I can be perpetually popping them from F2s and share them around, maybe we’ll find next elite indoor sativa cut together!
I also want to explore more of the legendary power of C99 as a cross and the way it seems to bring strength and speed to most things. That Guava C99 is so well-liked here in posts from a few years ago I managed to trade for a pack and want to bring it back if they pop for me, since even the breeder said he’s out of them. Hopefully someone else out there is already sitting on OP or F2 whatever of them, but I don’t want to see this one go after the pictures of the rosin presses y’all got from her.
Found a photo from a week ago of Big Don continuing to self-top after the initial main stem split, she just keeps going into double nodes every couple up the stems.
@Dirt_Wizard thats kinda badass. Does the big don split on the side branches also?
Double dog 
Strawberry dare ya with whipit cream 
I’m growing 4 of those right now and they are strong and vigorous little suckers 
likely the pot, snip off one lead or desolder or whatever like above and you’ll know if thats the cause, just do so when the light are turned off
Very good advice, thank you
its just 10vdc low amperage but still, and just trow some electrical tape over the ends once off if some metal is showing otherwise snipped flush is usually good enough.
Been through about 4 pots myself, either the reduced light output or some flickering occurs is the give away
That’s great to know, I have seen them failing referenced but nobody has put it that straightforwardly, they’re more disposable than drivers or panels, that’s just fine! They’re relatively cheap and now that I know, it’s not a problem to keep extras in the light parts bin
Thanks to @Mr.Sparkle and @syzygy for the advice, when I got up this morning I pulled the dimmer knob off the box after powering down the light, and it turned out to be a snap-on panel with the dimmer and some Wagos underneath, so it was super easy to just disconnect the leads from the potentiometer and leave them on the 10V leads from the driver until I get a replacement to put in. Nice design by HLG, I really enjoy the commercial grade fittings for wires like these. But for now I’m back to full flower power at 500w! Timing couldn’t be better, here’s the girls at F36:
possibility is the other side of the potentiometer may be alright just depends on how it failed, but resoldering that outside lead to the other outside pin and re attaching may return the pot to operation, recently did that to one of mine, though will say they usually fail completely
I am going to order a few of these cheap ones from HLG, I think, and just swap them as soon as anything weird happens, $3 for a pot and a project box and Wagos for the electronics box seems worth the pots being maybe kind of ehhh if they’re this easy to swap.
You can also get a rj11 or 12 connector than you can run a ac infinity controller to control it.
Do tell more @Hotrods_and_hounds . How does this work?
@Cbizzle you have to order the connector box from hlg to replace the potentiometer then the ac infinity controller has a adapter to plug into and it will do the ten settings and everything else like the other lights. I ran into that when I was looking for a controller for my 600 r spec. Or if you order a new light from hlg you can have it already installed vs having to switch it out.
Awesome, thanks man
