Hello all.
I would just like to start this thread to keep track of my grow. I hope to meet a few new people and learn a thing or two. A bit of information about this grow, I am from South Africa and this is a legal grow for personal use. I have grown many outdoor plants mostly just bagseed and random seeds but have never tracked or taken my grow seriously in any way. I decided to get a proper grow going and started by getting a space to grow. I chose a unused room and got a grow tent, the tent size is 1200mm x 1200mm x 2000mm. Next I managed to get a LED delivered but I think I made a bad choice, it’s a Chinese LED Unit and it says that is 1500 watt or 150x 10 watt LEDs. But when I switched it on about a quarter of the board doesn’t work and I highly doubt this could even be that strong for its size idk. That leaves me with 3/4 of a light and the supplier won’t get back to me. If anyone has any advice about this or a good recommendation for a light available in SA that would be great. But this will have to work for the meantime. I have no filters or anything smell is not a issue but I do have a few fans, one intake, one outake and a larger fan to circulate air in the room. I decided that I want to grow some Auto flowers to start but I didn’t have much choice as most of the local seedbanks were out of stock, I managed to find a company that sells Oasis Genetics and thought why not. I am not sure about this as my experience was not that great I ordered X2 Gypsie Widow and X2 UK cheese I really wanted to grow the cheese but the breeder informed me they only had one left. They did give me X2 Aurora Borealis seeds in return and one was free. I got all my growing medium from hydroponic.co.za I bought 5 10 litre pots and 60 litres of Freedom farms soil. This soil was recommended by many local growers and it has all the amendments. I also bought organic nutrients Biobizz grow and BioBizz Bloom. All seeds were germinated with the paper towel method on a heat mat. All the seeds except for the UK Cheese germinated so that will be replaced with a purple haze from a local breeder. The purple haze is currently being germinated and I have X2 Gypsie Widow and X2 Aurora Borealis already out of the soil. I will post some pics tomorrow morning. Thank you!
This was effectively decriminalised recently right? I remember watching testimony by an ex UK Gov Drug adviser David Nutt. Very good watch glad SA has at least some sense unlike our gov who fired Nutt for his advice…
I cant help much with lights, but this thread is good if you wanted to venture into building a light
There’s a good thread started a few days ago with info about tracking grows digitally
Good luck with the grow!
Welcome! 
Well it is legal to grow for personal use and to smoke in a personal place like your home. It is legal to possess up to 600 grams per person, with a maximum of 1200 grams per household. Public possession is limited to a maximum of 60 grams. So I will be keeping within the 1200 per household because I share the home with somebody. Also I will check that out about the lights and for now I will just be using a app and this thread to keep track!
And thank you!
I’m sure someone here could help you trouble shoot that light, above my pay grade but others are like led wizards lol
Your best bet for led lights in SA is https://growopz.com/ the only cheaper or better option is to build them yourself
Haha I hope so!
Thank you for the suggestion I will look into these.
I would not mind building one tbh.
Then check this thread: Cheap LED Strips : A Viable Alternative - #438 by cdnBuddy
You can buy all the parts and import them. Does depend on the exchange rate though and courier costs which might be more now. Also there is import duty but if you list the parts as electrical components it should be lower than listing them as lights.
Throw up some pics of the light, we might be able to walk you through some basic trouble shooting. Do you have a multi-meter?
Cheers
G
Alright so here are some pics of the light. Also I don’t even know what a multi meter is tbh!
As you can see half the LEDs on the left dont work. Also the fan on the far left has sort of stopped spinning now it just sort of jumps in place.
I did open it to see if any wires were loose everything looks fine, there isn’t much inside just 4 power supply units I think and the board with the LEDS on.
Fans do that when the blades get blocked. There is actually a test called the ‘locked rotor’ test. I’ll bet a small loop of wire has intruded into the fan blade area.
Love the unit label… I can put a CE mark on a pickle… The FCC basically means it probably will not jam your radio. Not sure of the last Agency mark - maybe China?
No UL, no TUV or anybody else.
Usually these designs vent air out of the ends, is yours like that?
If so you might be able to see in.
When you get some ‘down time’ on the light you need to take it down and open it up.
First order of business is to sort out that fan blockage as that’s 33% of your active cooling.
Now that I’m thinking about it, the two problems might be related. Wouldn’t be surprised to find that the wire involved with the fan is the supply or return from the driver to the LEDs. You might be able to peek in through a slot and see the problem and move it out of the way of the blades (with the power unplugged) without opening the unit. But I would want to open it for inspection and tidy up the wire management.
Cheers
G
Thank your for the advice! And yes it does sort of vent air out let me start by trying to fix the fan then I will worry about the rest! I am comfortable with opening it and will take some pictures!
Could this maybe be related to one of the four power supply units?
Probably, a lot of thos have a 12V output and the fan and LEDs run off the same PS. Good thought Malcolm.
My fault, I was expecting to see an external wire snagging the blades (not inside the fan guts). Carefully put the fan back together…
The fan body, where the screws that attach the fan to the metal work. take a photo of the side of the fan. There are two standard flanges, solid & open. They should be using solid for that mounting style. Open flange can be problematic (for this mounting approach) as it is easy to distort the body and stop rotation.
Open bench test. With the fan reassembled and connected but not screwed down. Power the unit up and see if the fan spins freely. Standard safety precautions, double check to make sure nothing is shorted especially around the AC connector, switch etc.
Cheers
G