One Plant Grow indoors. Light to use?

Indoor Growing
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I agree that easy peasy should be the goal I just have a slightly different idea of what that means :joy:

:call_me_hand:

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My Blue Dream turned out pretty good, nice fade at the end. The rosin turned out pretty nice, has a grapey smell to it. Interested to see how the Gelato x Blue Dream seeds I made turn out heh.

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lol :wink: thatā€™s very kind of you but Iā€™m just a dumb newbie.

Try watching the Migro channel on Youtube. They test a lot of retail lights if youā€™re not interested in building one yourself. I personally donā€™t prefer HLG because their light is too concentrated and they run very hot, causing you to have to hang them very high above the canopy, but they make high quality lights. Mars Hydro and Vivosun or any of the other junk Chicom Amazon brands are a waste of your money, so please donā€™t use them. :wink: The Spider Farmer lights are low efficiency by 2021 standards, but they will still grow decent weed. Theyā€™re just no longer the price/performance champs they were when they first came out.

These days, LEDs are best used to evenly light the whole canopy, and you get much better penetration when you have fewer shadows. Whatā€™s the easiest way to get less shadows? A larger amount of spread out light sources. Thatā€™s one reason why strip builds are the best these days. Also they run cooler so you can run them closer to the tops of your plants and turn down the wattage if needed without sacrificing light intensity.

With strip lights, you wonā€™t need any side lighting. In a 3x3, you might be able to get several small boards and hang them individually, or you could go with a 2x4 which is easier to light since you can just put a single 320w strips fixture in there and get perfect coverage from wall to wall, end to end.

Most of the name brand LED diodes used in the fixtures (Nichia, Samsung, Lumiled, Epiled, etc.) have too much blue in them, so you really want to get 3000k for both veg and flower because they still have plenty of blue in them to keep plants compact, but you get way more red (and some Far Red which promotes much faster growth and fatter flowers, in the case of Bridgelux diodes).

When it comes to yield, most of it is due to the strain choice and skill of the grower. You could flower out a ā€œcritical+ā€ strain your first ever run under 300w in a 4x4 and get 2lbs, but whoā€™d want to smoke it? :wink: And most of the hype strains donā€™t yield much and theyā€™re not great smoke, so keep that in mind. But with an average yielding strain with a hempy bucket and Jacks 3-2-1 following the recipe exactly, under a quality LED light, you could easily pull 10-18oz of nug from a 2x4 or 3x3 your first time.

Youā€™d need no more than 320w in a 2x4 and 400w in a 3x3 if you got extremely high quality LEDs. And like Corey said, buy the best LEDs you can with the most even coverage for your space. You donā€™t want to have to hang them high because then you lose so much light.

Donā€™t waste your time with bulb lights. These days the high quality LEDs pay for themselves in about a year, sometimes less compared to a bulb based solution if you replace the bulbs at the recommended interval of every 6 months. And quality LEDs will last 10 years or longer with 90% of their original output.

Hope that helps! Happy harvests.

:rainbow:

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@nube heā€™s not here but you are the man when it comes to building a kick ass light

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I just bought a spider-farmer Iā€™m se 3000. It is is supposed to cover 3 x 3. Iā€™ve only heard good things.

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Thanks @nube for all the great advice. I tried to go down the road and thought about building a strip light fixture. I didnā€™t get a lot of help with getting the right parts so it fell quiet. If you can help with what and where to order, I would be happy to document and build a fixture. I would love to build a grow box/room for the grow. This way I can get full ceiling height.

Any and everyone that can offer advice for the light build, Iā€™m all in. I can build it, as long as I am instructed along the way :).

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K so I think I will be building a strip light. This is where I will need help on which strips and power supplies to use please please please. Going to do a spinal setup and use extruded aluminum frame work. This way the 2x2 with the flat surface on one side can be used as a heat sink for the strips. I want to have the power supplies outside of the tent/room so I can keep the room cooler.

I hope this sounds right. Hope to hear you guys chime in with some suggestions.

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Thanks for explaining all of that nube. Really cleared things up alot. Alot of good points in that explanation! I would never even considered diode brand names with the amount of blue light they put out. Absolute great explanation!

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I bet thatā€™s one heck of a cross!! Sounds really good!

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Iā€™m coming in with ya just soaked a blue cheese bean running it solo in the living room

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Thatā€™s awesome man! Tag me if you document it. This is cool. Iā€™m not the only one doing this. Great choice on the variety!

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What size tent? If youā€™re going with a 3x3, you can build a kickass light with 20 of these using a single HLG-320h-20a:

https://www.futureelectronics.com/p/8115969?utm_source=octopart.com&utm_medium=cpcbuynow&utm_content=instock&utm_campaign=Octopart_Ext_Referals

Follow my instructions on the other thread for links of what to build and how to build it. The only thing that will be different is the number of strips used, but everything else is the same as the Bridgelux 3x3 builds on LEDGardener.com except you will be getting the A version of the driver so you wonā€™t need an external pot (dimming knob). The heatsink is the angle aluminum I recommended on the other thread. Just cut it to length and build the frame.

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Thank you :slight_smile: Thatā€™s what I was looking for. I can build and understand some stuff but when it comes to what actual part numbers to pick for strips or drivers, well thatā€™s where I tend to fall apart.

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Hey jones. Have you started a journal? @dezmondg your seeds are in transit. I canā€™t wait to have a couple guys to tag whoā€™s doing the same thing. A lot of people want to do this. Itā€™s cheap and affordable in any any setup. And pretty damn simple

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One plant grows just might be a new trend for home growers

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It will be fun. Iā€™ve been planning my basement and where I will be putting the room. Got some cool ideas to share soon.
@corey thanks for the heads up. I will let you know when I see them.

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No still waiting for it to pop up I just planted it yesterday

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Got the seeds! Thanks a bunch. Iā€™ve been getting things figured out. I really want to try organic and build my own soil. Been watching a ton of videos and learning a lot of cool stuff. Also havenā€™t decided in lights yet. Soon. Very soon :slight_smile:

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Right on brother!