Zelda’s looking much better now. Completely perked up since watering, so I’m going to go with underwatered symptoms why she was drooping. With the ewc on top of the soil it’s behaving much better now.
When should I start topping Zelda? I don’t want to do it too soon and stunt her badly.
Diana
Daisey
Zelda
GSC
Indigo
Hygrometer
So it’s been a while since I last opened my PC and to my surprise I see empty of options to use for a rack. There it’s brushed aluminum wall I could get the paint off of and maybe drill through, but it’s not big enough for 2 to fit side by side, so I’m thinking more like I make a rack somehow to set all 5 up even and level. Otherwise I’m going to use the zmean hooks and clips to get them in the tent.
I’m going out for lunch and I’ll be back later once I’ve eaten to try and figure this out. IDK how to make a rack for these if I can get some tips please?
I have gypsum if it can be used in my fertilizer mix with Epsom salt to add calcium if it’s advised. Otherwise apparently it’s good for various uses.
Chains and S-hooks are cheap and would get you up and running until you build a proper rack. You can get aluminum angle stock at most Home Depot type places for your frame.
What sizes should I get for my 4x4? I’m planning on eventually filling it out with 120s until I can get a 550 kit and if by that point @Baudelaire has a kit for a 4x4 with only 1 light I’ll go that route as solstrips really have my attention. Costs are just going towards qb for now. I can always have multiple tents going and these would work great for that should I replace them with a better system later.
I have the clips and lanyard wire with s hooks the zmean boards came with. I’m looking around my house for thick gauge wire for high power electronics. My old PC has a 680w PSU that can run 115v 8A or 210v 4A or something like that. Not to be an odd ball, but can the internal wires be used to connect cords to the boards? I have a lot of wires in that case collecting dust.
Also to be clear I’ll crack open anything in there if I’m advised to. It’s a bsod paperweight with the MB, RAM, and HDD all useless. It’ll be cheaper to get a new PC than fix this POS. With that said if there’s anything to gut and recycle into the grow lmk. Pics for anyone who wants them. Just ask and I’ll get them.
Here’s the 18awg wire I found. Will this work for splicing the driver properly?
The wire is thicker on the meanwell. My 2 prong plug for my Xbox power brick is the same diameter, but it doesn’t have a ground wire
I would just mount a male socket on it so you can use any extension cord to run it where you need to
For now until I can I’ve stripped my 18 awg wire to connect to the 17 awg wire. There isn’t a risk of electrical safety if I do this correct? I can’t find 17 awg compatibility with 18 awg wire.
I should have more than enough solder to work on many future projects 
Wire nuts and tape, no need for solder. You’ll have a safer connection with wire nuts and tape than solder and tape If you’re going to solder wire you should really be using heat shrink tubing to insulate.You’ll just have a lot cleaner connection if you mount a male socket/plug and they are cheap. I use these for all my home made ext cords. You can get cheaper ones for a couple bucks.
Already have it soldered😅 I soldered it and wrapped it in electrical tape tight. No exposed wires to be found and when I can grab some I’ll work on the middle here.
Now I’m going to salvage some wire from my PC to work on the connections to the boards. I just spent awhile before I connected any of the wires as the color coding was unfamiliar to me. I had to look it up 5x to be safe until I found the wire types I was working with.
Shitty soldering job I know, but I was working with what I have on hand. Going out to grab anything more isn’t a option rn. Hardware store is closed and the nearest home Depot or Lowe’s is 20 miles away.
I’m on foot with no car. My options are severely limited
20 awg wire on the pc😅
Well I can’t go any further until I can figure out how to lead the wires to the boards now. 20 awg isn’t the right size to my knowledge and won’t be what I want.
I can splice some extra wire, but I’m not sure what I’ll want to grab. I can splice my heat lamp cord for the output as the wire length is about 10 feet long, but I need to know if it’s going to be bad if I do or not. I keep hearing I should do this and another that I shouldn’t use a method. Before I start a fire tell me want I can do here.
Dude, seriously? You bought some sweet QB’s. @MomOnTheRun (who is the bomb by the way) was kind enough to send you a badass quality Mean Well driver. And you’re going to cut corners now when you could just do things right probably easier? Wire nuts would be the correct and cheapest way. A couple dollar male plug or Ideal connector for about the same price as the plug if you use that cable to clean it up. Consider how much it’s going to be moved around.
Sorry to say but those solder connections are not very good at all even if it was a good idea…It won’t be permanently fixed, that’s why multi-strand wire is used, it’s flexible. If you solder a connection you remove its ability to flex and greatly increase the chances of a break at that point. That also happens to be where all 3 of your connections are so when a break occurs there it increases the chances of shorts.
Something to think about and I guess this is the whole point here. You have a couple hundred bucks in gear to set up a decent lighting rig. Why try and rig things up with recycled parts when you can do it right and safely for very little. Get the correct wire for your boards and fix that power cable mess. You can get by without a rack for now and you may find you like having them available as satellites better. It would totally suck to see you wreck your new rig by cutting corners on inexpensive items.
@Undead-Toker IDK why I was doing the opposite, but Tonight I can’t get the stuff you mentioned. I could still do that probably if you think what I did will be bad. Lmk as if it’s not too terribly expensive I can ask for it tomorrow while I’m in Salem. Plenty of hardware and electrical supply stores to choose from.
Spending $100 on the supplies to make the rack isn’t really an option RN as my estimate is about 50 tops as I’ve asked for a lot lately and I still need to eat. My budget is more friendly towards buying the wires and connectors to make it all work together rn. They’ll free hang once I have the wiring set up, but until then the zmeans will be in the tent.
She was the one who told me electrical tape to hook up the wires, but I’m not using the correct gauge wire anyways. The wires to the driver are short, so I’ll need to be told specifically what I’ll need to get this running properly.
I’m just short on hand rn and if I’m told I can do what I did I will and I tried it and I don’t like my handiwork with my soldering iron out of commission. The tip got bent.
If you read my posts earlier you’d see I’m not even hooking that up to any power until that’s wired correctly and safely. I made an attempt with what I had and it didn’t work. Now please let me stay humble in asking for help instead of starting a fight while I’m clearly asking for help with it😅
What’s the point of no till or organic soil if you aren’t using organic nutes? Don’t understand that.
There is nothing different about autos you two. They are just faster. Just LITFA and don’t top or pull off leaves.
Yea, that’s why I wouldn’t even worry about that and just concentrate on getting the right stuff that will get you up and running for not much at all. And in your tent with things now having the QB’s available as satellites might work out for you better than a rack. For your rig being satellites and moving around I would use the biggest multi-strand I could fit securely in the board.
I don’t have the schematics or anything to give you advice on how to wire it, but they are pretty basic instructions. Not a difficult assembly someone else can help you more there. My knowledge is general. Used to work in the field and now as a hobby.
If I were doing the assembly I’d use the biggest multi-strand that can be used with that board (if it was racked I’d use the same rule for single wire). And I’d probably use Wago connectors on that side. You could use wire nuts but the Wago’s are pretty cheap, look better and are a lot easier to take apart and put back together if need be. For the power side I’d still recommend a male plug. It’s a lot easier to move stuff around the less that’s attached, not having it hard wired makes it more practical.
It helps if you have the right tools no matter what you’re doing. You wouldn’t need any tools for wire connectors, and just a screwdriver for a plug. I could tell your iron was way to hot when I saw the melted wires lol.
Please don’t think I am or was trying to start anything. That’s not me. I’ve just seen you struggling along with some other newer growers and occasionally pop in with a suggestion. A lot of what I see with you new growers is deja vu, there’s not much I haven’t seen (talking about the bad things) along the way.
This is one of my DIY hobby projects about 95% done. I make my own guitar pedals…and guitars.
How you have your lights set up now will work for awhile so you can get the proper wire…yes, electrical tape works in a pinch on the board side though on the thicker wire side, you’ll want at least caps on them though Undead-Toker is right, wago’s are a better option for the thinner wire and a wire to wire connector for the heavier gauge wire…both really cheap and more secure in the long run
I know your excited though really check out those threads I linked a bit earlier for set up idea’s and scenario’s as you may not want a frame until later on as many do when they start adding more components like dimmer switches, different boards. strips etc. I am in the camp that I like the option to move them freely though little by little, saving up for more additions…eventually lol
I hear ya…foliars are one thing and directly in the soil is another so for me, just covering bases to get an idea where he wants to take the grow though I have some seen do it with some pretty great short term results
I can go out to grab them tomorrow. TBH I couldn’t hook that up if I tried. No wires to lead to the boards.
Grabbing the plug adapters now. What awg wire should I get? I see 14 awg wire and lamp cord wire as choices😅
I was told not to use the 14 and 18 awk to a 17 awg meanwell driver, so I’m out to try and get a 17 awg wire now😅
