BlueCollarBob- Bumbling Through My First Grow

[Bandit420]

Just back from visiting some friends. We chatted a little about getting close to harvesting my first grow. I mentioned buying a tent and etc. to dry in. Also, said I might get a light and try a small indoor grow when I'm done using the tent for drying. My buddy gets up, goes to the basement and brings this HPS light up. He told me to take it and and use it if I can. If not, no foul. He said it has a newish bulb. I haven't studied lights much and the little nosing around I have done has been LEDs. So, time to study up.

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Nice score Bob!
You have a solid and well cared for 14 year old HPS/MH all in one light. These have been discontinued but inside parts like the ignitor which is what usually breaks down can be bought and swapped out if it ever stops working but these ballasts are workhorses and can accrue a lot of hours before that happens.
You can use a 400 watt MH lamp for veg then a 400 watt HPS for flower. In the final two weeks before harvest you can switch back to the MH for a ripening blue spectrum that can enhance resin production.

The caveat to these lights are they need to run hot to get to full brilliance. You'll have help with the glass between lamp and canopy acting as a heat shield so it won't burn up the plants and on the exhaust you'll need an inline fan to pull heat out.
What you don't want to do is have cool air go thru one side of the vent, passing over the lamp, and cooling it down reducing it's effectiveness. So ya figure a way to remove heat but not cool the lamp if that makes any sense.
It will cover a footprint for flowering around 3.5'x3.5' and you'll want it around 12-20" above canopy during flower. For seedlings and veg, much higher at 30"-40". It will easily grow plants up to around 3-4' tall

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Nice score Bob!
You have a solid and well cared for 14 year old HPS/MH all in one light. These have been discontinued but inside parts like the ignitor which is what usually breaks down can be bought and swapped out if it ever stops working but these ballasts are workhorses and can accrue a lot of hours before that happens.
You can use a 400 watt MH lamp for veg then a 400 watt HPS for flower. In the final two weeks before harvest you can switch back to the MH for a ripening blue spectrum that can enhance resin production.

The caveat to these lights are they need to run hot to get to full brilliance. You'll have help with the glass between lamp and canopy acting as a heat shield so it won't burn up the plants and on the exhaust you'll need an inline fan to pull heat out.
What you don't want to do is have cool air go thru one side of the vent, passing over the lamp, and cooling it down reducing it's effectiveness. So ya figure a way to remove heat but not cool the lamp if that makes any sense.
It will cover a footprint for flowering around 3.5'x3.5' and you'll want it around 12-20" above canopy during flower. For seedlings and veg, much higher at 30"-40". It will easily grow plants up to around 3-4' tall

Thanks for the good info Bandit! I was wondering what the switch labeled MH was for. I've poked around a little bit on venting excess heat off of the lamp. Of course the inline filter I bought for the tent is 4" and the shroud is set up for 6". I could probably reduce it, if the fan itself is sufficient. Over the Winter, I may be in a situation where I'll want to retain some of that heat. Guess I'll find out.

Lot of unplanned stuff happening here, lol. I like building things and was thinking that I would make a project out of building a grow room and maybe a hydro system down the road. Then I decided I wanted to dry these outdoor plants in a tent. That got me to thinking, I might as well research and get input from you guys for an LED light and try growing a couple plants in the 2X4 tent when I'm done drying the outdoor stuff. Try to get a little experience while I figure out what I really want to do. Then this light drops in my lap. I still might end up buying a decent LED. Decisions, decisions...

 

[Zen_seeker]

Just click "watch on youtube"

I don't have an account and am able to watch it.

How do you think they know your old enough? When you installed the app it made your account. No thanks. Nothing I need to see that bad.

 

[GrumpAzz]

How do you think they know your old enough? When you installed the app it made your account. No thanks. Nothing I need to see that bad.

Meh.. it's pretty much a nothingburger at this point. A YouTube account is pretty low on the list of things I'm worried about.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

Butter Waves is drying in the tent. Daughter and her friend helped trim They sampled the scissor hash and both think this is going to be a good smoke.

Trimming seemed to take forever, lol. I need to look up an electric trimmer like recently mentioned in @Stoneyluv's thread. Guess I could dry trim and get a trim bowl. Not sure, yet.

I think I'll look up the electric trimmers recently mentioned in @Stoneyluv's thread. Or, I might go dry trim and get a bowl trimmer. Not sure which way to go, yet.

 

[Stoneyluv]

hell yeah, nice trim job!!!!! lookin pretty awesome in that tent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in case you're interested these are the two i used...

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

they have their upsides and downsides, but can save significant time.

 

[BlueCollarBob]

hell yeah, nice trim job!!!!! lookin pretty awesome in that tent!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in case you're interested these are the two i used...

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

they have their upsides and downsides, but can save significant time.

Thanks for the links!

 

[BlueCollarBob]

I have the inline fan set to switch on at 62% RH and off at 59% RH. The fan ran all night and RH was only getting down to 54%. I lowered RH on basement thermostat this morning and everything lined up pretty quickly. Now, I just need to figure out the right high/low RH targets and max fan speed to slow the curve. I suspect I may raise the RH set point on the basement dehumidifier when the moisture content in the buds drops low enough. We'll see...

I'm not running inline fan to temp. Temp is pretty close. So, I'll just tweak RH if dew point swings significantly. Sorta hoping I'm running "close enough" for good drying conditions.

6" fan is aimed at the top left corner of the tent. I just manually entered a low set point of "2" for fan speed. "2" was just a guess. Sounds like we only want light air circulation and not directly on the buds to prevent drying too fast.

Current situation in the dry tent:

 

[Pipecarver]

Nice score Bob!
You have a solid and well cared for 14 year old HPS/MH all in one light. These have been discontinued but inside parts like the ignitor which is what usually breaks down can be bought and swapped out if it ever stops working but these ballasts are workhorses and can accrue a lot of hours before that happens.
You can use a 400 watt MH lamp for veg then a 400 watt HPS for flower. In the final two weeks before harvest you can switch back to the MH for a ripening blue spectrum that can enhance resin production.

The caveat to these lights are they need to run hot to get to full brilliance. You'll have help with the glass between lamp and canopy acting as a heat shield so it won't burn up the plants and on the exhaust you'll need an inline fan to pull heat out.
What you don't want to do is have cool air go thru one side of the vent, passing over the lamp, and cooling it down reducing it's effectiveness. So ya figure a way to remove heat but not cool the lamp if that makes any sense.
It will cover a footprint for flowering around 3.5'x3.5' and you'll want it around 12-20" above canopy during flower. For seedlings and veg, much higher at 30"-40". It will easily grow plants up to around 3-4' tall

"ripening blue spectrum that can enhance resin production." ah ha there is a good use for blue lights. maybe switch out reds for blues the last 2 weeks or add through the day & leave reds alone....good talk....Blues eh?