#prayforjuanita 
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I took a mental health day yesterday. It was quite needed, I hadn’t taken a day off since my birthday in July. I slept late and started the day with a breakfast burrito. After a couple of dabs, I got the trim up on the cabinet.
After that, I got all the tools I had borrowed from my dad and ran over there to return them. Then I went and got the last of what I needed to finish building my soil. So, that should be happening this weekend. By the time I got home with dinner, I vegged in front of the TV and watched “The Boys” on Prime Video.
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Got everything measured out for the soil. 15 gallons of EWC, 3 gallons of mineral mix, and couple gallons of ammendments. I need to grind the barley in the bag, but will do that right before mixing the soil up.
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I’m the same way 8-10 hours a day 7 days a week most of the time. Hard workers, then we come home and play hard too! 
hope you feel better from that day off!
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Decided that the Ghost Rose plants on the top shelf need more than the 27 or so Watts than they currently have. So, I went digging around in my spare parts box and had everything I needed to build a light.
First I started off with four SolStrips and a 120 Watt MeanWell driver. Then I grabbed a Sonoff POW and a potentiometer for dimming.
Next i grabbed some aluminum angle from my old lights in the workbench. I used the existing holes to mount the strips, I just had to cut them shorter. I also cut two pieces mount the driver.
Then I screwed the heatsinks to the aluminum angle and riveted the driver to the other two pieces. Those were a little too thick to rivet together, so i used some nuts and bolts.
Finally I wired the strips, the sonoff POW, the potentiometer, and the plug. I reused the old hanging hardware and it was ready to fire up.
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I present to you the Veg Rack 2.0! I removed the two strips on the top where my autos were and moved them down to the bottom where my mothers are. That will give my mothers more light and a better spread as well. Then I installed the new light, turned down to about 28W
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Looks like a lot of work for just 1W gain 
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Confucius say - the wise grower slowly increases the light level, esp with leds 
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Right?
Been there, done that! Since the spectrum is also different, in don’t want to shock them completely. Expecially with autos that are already praying.
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We have walked the same path, several thousand miles apart 
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@ReikoX, I like the red door, and blue door.
Is that like a Matrix red-pill, blue-pill reference?
Probably not… but it struck me as funny.
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Put in another long day in the workshop. I started the day out by flopping the Ghost Rose autos. Flopping them after the lights went out seemed to work pretty well. They both had hollow stems, all I had to do was squeeze them until they flopped on their own. Here they are a few hours after the lights came back on, already pointing back upward. The light has been increased to 40 Watts.
Next, I sewed the fabric beds. First I placed the pattern on the felt, and pinned it in place. Then, tracing the pattern, I cut out the pieces for each bed. Next I sewed each one together, and fit the beds around the PVC frame. I sat each one in the trays and put them in the flower room.
While I was mixing up some soil, I decided to run a test with all the lights on. With the AC Infinity T-8 speed set at 5 and no circulation fan, it got up to 90°F. I’ll add a circulation fan and turn up the fan speed later and see if that doesn’t improve things.
Finally, I mixed up six cubic feet of soil. It’s basically a Coots mix with a couple extras. I started out with some compost, one cubic foot of Malibu Biodynamic Compost, one cubic foot of Oly Mountain Fish Compost, and two cubic feet of homemade vermicompost. Next I ground the 12 malted barley and mixed with the six cups crab/shrimp meal, six cups neem meal, and six cups kelp meal. This was then sprinkled over the compost and then mixed well. Next I added four gallons of charged biochar and then mixed it well. Then the same thing was done with the three gallons of mineral mix (two parts basalt, one part gypsum, and one part oyster shell flour). Next I added four cubic feet of sphagnum peat moss, that was rehydrated with some water with reetha as a wetting agent. This was sprayed and mixed a couple more times. Finally, I added two cubic feet of rice hulls and two cubic feet of pumice and mixed it up one final time. I then had to carry the soil downstairs two five-gallon buckets at a time. I sprayed each bed between each ten gallons to get an even moisture.
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You know this thread was already impressive enough and then you had to go and sew your own fabric beds?!?!
Nice work and its gotta be a great sense of accomplishment when you look in your rooms and know it was your hands that created everything in there.
I love the bed sizes, certainly makes things flexible. How many gallons of soil would you estimate in each one?
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Each bed has four cubic feet (30 gallons) of soil.
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Got the circulation 16" circulation fan hooked up. This one will oscillate in a figure 8 pattern. It definitely moves some air even on it’s lowest setting. I ran a few more temperature tests. I was able to keep the temperature around 77°F at the soil (78°F at the probe) using only the 5000K lights (360 Watts).
I cranked everything up to 100% (1200W) and was up to 84°F at the soil (85°F at the probe). This got me thinking, if I do run everything full blast, thats like 50 Watts per square foot. Pretty bright for LEDs. At 35 Watts per square foot, thats only like 70% power. Better hook up my dimmers. So, between running dimmed and plants using up some of that energy, i should be alright.
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Great work! Now you’ll get to enjoy the fruits of your labor. Well thought out and well executed it’s been a pleasure watching this come together.
Looking forward to watching the grows 
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You planning on running additional CO2? Those temps + high light intensity might be perfect for it.
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Oh wow, yeah 50w/sqft will fry some plants. I bet even at 35w you’ll have some leaf turners and taco’ing. I can’t go past 30w really on my QB’s without having that same issue. Usually running 20-25w/sq. ft.
That fan looks/sounds nice! What kind is it?
Sounds like you’re pretty close to being done!!
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I have a CO2 monitor I’ll be using, not certain if I will be adding CO2 or not, I know just me hanging out in there can push the CO2 numbers from 350 PPM up to 700+.
Its called a Hurricane Super 8. Here is an Amazon link, I got it local for $20 less.
Little bit of wire management, caulking the trim, and some touch up paint.
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Your do an impressive job in your space!! Congratulations 
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