TrevorLahey's Trailer Park 2021

Indoor Growing Growroom Diaries
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#92

So yesterday when I woke up and checked the plants I saw this:

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Three plants were all droopy and sad and their pots were super heavy and saturated. This is not the first time this happened. My usual fix for this problem is to stick a towel under the pot to wick out the water. It would still take a week or so to see improvements and has caused some pretty big setbacks in previous grows.

This time I realized something, the reservoir went dry ~24hrs before I discovered this issue. I let it run out because I was waiting for my new nutrients to arrive in the mail. But the pot was still super heavy, even saturated.

Low O2 in the root zone, maybe???

Well the worst that could happen is I kill 3 plants.

So yesterday I mixed up a new reservoir with the new MC 2 part that had just arrived, and turned the watering frequency up to 4 times a day, and crossed my fingers.

Today:

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Just look back at pretty much any of my threads/runs and you’ll see that this has been a recurring problem for so long, and I always mistreated it as an over watering issue. So many setbacks and time lost, when all I needed was to counterintuitively water it more

Wow…

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#93

The plant on the right hand side looks like it took some kind of shock. Tip of the leaf seems kind of crisped?

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#94

Yep, that damage I’m assuming came from the same issue that caused the other one to drop.

In comparing the above two pics, there was definitely an improvement in color overnight, so hopefully things are back to normal.

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#95

Gonna ask here before I make a thread. Does anyone have any links or resources for a really cheap DIY rosin press? I already have the shop press kit just need the plates and heater. I might even be able to source the aluminum plates and machine them myself.I might even be able to source the aluminum plates and machine them myself. I just think $400cad for just a set of plates and heater is way too much, there has to be a cheaper way that’s better than repurposed hair straighteners.

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#96

I think I saw Reikox a while ago made some plates up, there is definitely a thread about making them here somewhere.

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#97
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#98

Perfect! Now realizing I’ve read that before I just smoke alot so bain damage.

Here’s what I found on Amazon.ca:

So I need a set of plates. I live right down the road from a large custom machining shop and they cut custom lengths of just about anything so I’ll call tomorrow and see what they have for aluminum bar stock. 2.5"x2.5" or should I go bigger/wider? I have a large H frame and a few different jacks, even a couple hydraulic ones.

And of course I have a full garage of metalworking tools so I can make up all the brackets and welding work from what I have on hand. I see you can make a “cage” with springs and stuff, will have to look into that.

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#99

I had to dig deep in the bookmarks for that lol. A lot of stuff that seemed important at the time I just don’t need. Damn stoner brain.

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#100

Appreciate it!

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#101

No worries! Gave me the motivation to go and clean up my bookmarks!

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#102

Components look good, 25 amp should give a fast heat up.

If you buy aluminum from the machine company, get them to skim the two surfaces that will come together, you will be surprised how uneven the surfaces are on blank stock.

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#103

I’m wondering if I would really need two PIDs, I’ve read build guides where people only used one and just trusted both plates to be close to same temp (and verified they were).

The only cartridge heaters available to ship from Canada are the 80mm 300w ones. Not even sure if one PID and relay could handle them? Would also require a larger set of plates than 2.5". So 3"x5"?

For the plates the shop is closed today I will try to call Monday and get a quote. I don’t know if they even have 1" bar stock but they’ve had anything else I’ve ever ordered from them.

Not as enthusiastic about it today as I was last night, lol. Just seems like a whole lot of shit to source to try to get the right stuff not to mention it’s still gonna cost me $150+ when my current $15 straightener rig works decently. I’ve been getting results with it, but it’s starting to break apart again and I was just wishing there was a decent upgrade path that didn’t cost 10x more than just buying another flat iron and retrofitting it to my vise rig.

But I’m really digging the rosin lately, seems to be the only way I can actually get the medical benefits I seek from this plant.

Which reminds me, time to go do a dab and play with my plants:

Day 55, still ~ 2 weeks on these I think

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Day 25 these new ones seem to have some energy

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#104

Those two plants near the middle have some kind of tip thing going on, is their PH OK?

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#105

Nutes may have been running a little hot I dialed it back to 80% this morning but not really worried about it I like to push pretty hard these plants can take it lol.

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#106

Continuing down the rosin press rabbit hole, I’ve been looking for the cheapest options possible, as that’s what I do, and have happened across a cheaper PID option:

But it’s not exactly a clone of the Inkbird, and all the info out there for wiring PIDs up seems to be all about the Inkbird and not these REX-C100 units which have different terminals in the back. One of the reviews said they had a hard time figuring out the chinglish language instructions so I’m kinda weary of going this route, but it would allow me to do a dual PID setup, as it stays within my set budget for this project.

For the heaters, it appears as though the only cartridge heaters on Amazon right now are 80mm, they say they are 300w each (which is actually too much for this project) but the reviews say they’re actually 150w which would be perfect. The problem here is that they are a little bit longer than 3 inches, and the biggest set of plates I want to make would be 3x5, so I’m wondering if it would be okay if 1/4" or so of the heater stuck out of the hole in the plate with maybe a silicone straw around it or something for safety?

Here are the heaters:

The gears keep on turning, I’m really hoping for a good price on 1x3 bar stock when I call the machine shop tomorrow.

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#107

Just realized I could put these through the sides of the plates instead of the back and have zero issues. That’s why I make rants like above sometimes just need to put my ideas somewhere tangible.

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#108

You beat me to it… should work out sideways… as for the PID, it shouldn’t be that hard to figure out the wiring. Its what, six wires max? Two for power, two for the thermocouple and two to the solid state relay.

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#109

Now that I’m looking at it, it looks pretty straight forward to interpret one from the other. I wonder why a couple people said they couldn’t figure it out.

REX-C100:

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Inkbird ITC106-VH:

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#110

Seems pretty clearly labeled to me…

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#111

Called the machine shop first thing this morning and left a message asking for a quote. The guy called me back confused, he thought I was looking for steel flat bar I told him no I was looking for aluminum, he said he’d check if he had it then he hung up the phone.

Called again got an answer machine and waited all day for a call back, nothing.

So there goes that idea. Its not something you can just order online either without going way over budget, so I might have to wave the white flag here.

Plants!!

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