Simulating sun rise/set AND SAVING ELECTRICITY

I didnt understand you .5 - x-x thing... and Ive never taken cs 101, to have it move at the exact right speed to get to the other side in 12 hours and then stop and go back the other way... id think youd need to program it to do that, I dont know how to connect my computer to anything that would do that and I dont even know what sortof hardware you would use. Im not too worried though, I like my system better with lights running on analog timers, 2 smaller ones on for 12 hours and 1 bigger one on for 8 hours. I think it would work better in my oppinion and its easier to setup. that being said I kinda wish I had the skills to set up something that would run on programs and sensors rather than analog timers. My ideal setup would have exhaust, humidifier, dehumidifier, lights, heaters, fans, and co2 bottle all operated by a program that I can completely adjust how I want it, I just have No idea how I can do that? It seems pretty archaic to being running things off of shitty timers, even the expensive timers are pretty low tech. If I were going to learn how to run a setup that way Id probably just start up a business selling to growers cause it would total control and no guesswork.

Thedillestpickle said:

Yea I think you could if You have some skills with computers and stuff... I would never be able to make one that does that myself.


I think you have a great idea, I was thinking of something similar myself, except not really worrying about having the direction of the light change as just the intesity. I think there is something to be said about replicating conditions of outdoors, although that doesnt garantee this will have a positive effect. I guess it depends on if plants have a wake up period, and if skipping that by having tens of thousands of lumens being shot at them when moments ago there was total darkness gives them stress or not? I dont know the science but Id think theres a chance this will be good for plants. and unless your running a huge show you should have fun with it, and try new things, I see it as a hobby, If you brewed your own beer would just want to brew the same recipe every time? no youd experiment...

Heres what I had planned(actually I may do this) :
You have a grow area of say 5x10 feet, you have three lights set up along its length. The two lights on the ends are 600watt HPS and turn on first, these give the red spectrum of light which is strongest at sunrise and sunset, after two hours the light in the middle, a metal halide turns on and puts out the blue spectrum which is strongest at midday. So this method focuses more on the type of light and change in intesity and less on what angle the light is coming from.

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Yes! This is very much like what I had in mind, obviously not exactly the same.
I do wonder if the changing of the angle VERY SLOWLY would help though, seems like this could be something they've grown a custom to over the years. Obviously you don't want to simulate every single thing in nature, like tornado's, hurricanes and such. But this is different,it's something that naturally happens everyday.

Also you would have to include the prevalence of cloud cover on any given day....there are SO MANY VARIABLES in any outside growing senerio...so this is the kicker..YOU USE THE BEST PLUSES NATURE HAS TO OFFER AND MINIMIZE THE NEGATIVES..IE: if noon sun on a July summers day stimulates growth why not do that 24 hrs everyday rather then simulate a two week long series of thunderstorms which have been a part of many of my outside grows. We can learn from nature that cannabis can take a lot of climatary conditions...so if you mimic nature and whats best NORMALLY for your plants ( 72 Degrees/40 % RH/ 16 Hrs avg light 9000 Lumens/ft2) and that matches the best growing condition for a certain mold/mildew that Naturally lives in your area (indoors OR outdoors) then you will have a very nature like natural moldy plant that will mimic dieing...so it's a balance to go the best possible conditions you can..thats why man invented greenhouses becasue there is nothing like having 8 or 9 1000 Square foot greenhouses with a few thousand plants ..that way you and nature can come togeather and really grow so good shit and a lot of it..and when it gets real hot in the summer you just paint the glass with that wash off white paint of a few months to keep the temps under 90 degrees .. I am telling you NATURALLY you will grow a lot of stuff....and thats how real science does real mass scale genectics on thousands of plants over many generations. It would take around 10 years and at least a few hundred greenhouses working year round the produce the kind of results I would like to see in this field...

Blunt Master Flex said:

Now that I have your attention, I had a thought pop into my head the other day and I think this could be big.
If we are in fact trying to simulate outdoors as much as possible, then would simulating a sunrise/set affect be beneficial?

So,you have four lights IN A ROW obviously these lights have plants under all of them, for this example lets name these lights A,B,C and D. And for the sake of simplicity, lets say the time your flower room will be lit is between 12PM and 12AM. Light "A" would come on from 12PM and turn off at 9PM, lights "B" and "C" would come on at 2PM and turn off at 10PM and light "D" would turn on at 3PM and back off at 12AM. That is just an example, may not be the best combination of times.
This is just a thought and I am not saying in any way that this is definitely going to help your plants, but maybe? If the yield was comparable to running all those lights on for 12 hours it would be HUGE! The lighting schedule above would lower electricity consumption (with the lights) by about 30%!
I would like to test this out, but don't have a room big enough to try this right now. I am limited to 2000w and it seems that you would need at least three lights to try this. But I figured I'd throw it out there and maybe somebody else might give it a go.

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PS I do use the dimmers on all my ballasts all day..they start off at 50% HID and 0% CFL Fill and at peak day time I run (usually if no babies are under them) at 100% HID and close to 100% CFL -- since I use a mixture of HPS and MEH I also mix in various CFL combos of 5K 2K 3K that are mounted vert..I picked up some stuff from this board but one thing thats interesting is mixing diff spectrums so that they blend a few inches above the plants..I not only listen to my plants but I also watch how they lean and give them what they want (you have to be real quiet becasue when they are small they can't talk to loud)

Thedillestpickle said:

I didnt understand you .5 - x-x thing... and Ive never taken cs 101, to have it move at the exact right speed to get to the other side in 12 hours and then stop and go back the other way... id think youd need to program it to do that, I dont know how to connect my computer to anything that would do that and I dont even know what sortof hardware you would use. Im not too worried though, I like my system better with lights running on analog timers, 2 smaller ones on for 12 hours and 1 bigger one on for 8 hours. I think it would work better in my oppinion and its easier to setup. that being said I kinda wish I had the skills to set up something that would run on programs and sensors rather than analog timers. My ideal setup would have exhaust, humidifier, dehumidifier, lights, heaters, fans, and co2 bottle all operated by a program that I can completely adjust how I want it, I just have No idea how I can do that? It seems pretty archaic to being running things off of shitty timers, even the expensive timers are pretty low tech. If I were going to learn how to run a setup that way Id probably just start up a business selling to growers cause it would total control and no guesswork.

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well yea obviously we dont want to recreate the exact same conditions or we would be leaving the males in there to pollinate!

I think this is a good time to mention my idea with spinning plants..... Its not "natural", but it would be really cool if it were to give me a wicked GPW.

I actually built a platform that holds 1 plant and has its own motor that spins the plant at 7 revolutions per minute, its heavy duty and I can stand on the thing and it moves no problem.... Id like to slow it down more to one and a half or two revs a minute, but im not that educated on electricity or motors perhaps I can fit a smaller motor to the gear box/sprocket im using right now. or I can figure it out with a resistor or something. My plan is to grow the plants straight and tall topping once to get 4 colas and training them to bamboo poles fastened to the pots to stay within a given cylindrical radius designated to that plant(so that it doesnt touch anything as it rotates. I was super stoked on the idea and made a prototype already unfortunately I have people living above me and the churning noise it makes seems to seep through the walls... So I cant use the prototype but I might try finding a quieter littler motor(wouldnt need to be very big to run this with the gear box it has).

there was a thread where this was brought up about rotating your plants everyday to get even lighting and alot of people were saying your plant would waste alot of energy just moving its leaves around and though you would have a more even bud in the end it would be smaller. I think my spinning rotisserie bud contraption solves this issue. I should point out I plan to grow my plants in a vertical setup rather than horizontal, so youd have to imagine there are 3 lights hanging one above the other vertically and surrounded by five or six plants, each spinning on a motorized platform. Imagine how close you could get a plant if its spinning? you would have to get the plant really close to get any light burn, so you would have intense light getting to all sides of the plant and from all angles of the dimension that the plant is rotating on. Id really like to come up with a solution for the noise issue with my motor so I can actually put this to the test. Oh yes and with the three vertical lights I could still do my sunup sundown imitation with turning the top HPS on for an hour than the second HPS on and wait an hour than the MH comes on(for sunrise, and opposite for sunset)
I think if it works at creating big nugs and heavier harvest as I suspect it should the real benefit will be for people looking to grow a very limited number of plants(say 5 or 6) as they can max out each plant giving it way more intense light than is normally possible

what do you think? crazy or genius?

mccumcumber said:

You wouldn't need a program to make the light mover move over an area in 12 hours that is mechanical, and very easy to do. What you would need to have is some sort of timer that goes from 0-0.5x-x-0.5x-0 where x is the amount of watts your light is. And to have it do that over a specific period of time. I'm pretty sure that can be easily handled with a digital timer and digital ballast though, if not the computer program to implement it is just a simple java program, anyone who has taken cs 101 could do it.

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First off, there is alot of good information here. I think most of the ideas are worth trying out. I think that indoor growing is progressing more quickly now than probably at any other time and there are ALOT of ways to manipulate the variables to get what you want. To McCucumber, I have been thinking about your idea for some time now. I'm a currently a science student so i've had to take alot of physics/calc/ and programming. My question to you, is how can I incorporate this? I've taken Java 101 and Python 101, each having its own benefits but it seems Java would obviously be the choice to create a program that could "run" your growroom. However, I dont know if my teacher wasnt knowledgeable, or just naive, but he didnt teach us much of anything besides working with arrays, formatting, and simple output. Also, how would you connect your computer to all of your equipment? (I think someone half asked this already..) Perhaps some more reading and investigation is in order because I think creating a program to help run your growroom (lights/times/heat/atmosphere/humidity) would be extremely beneficial. Not because plants should be grown in a labratory (whatsoever), but because isnt this what we all buy these expensive timers/movers/ and meters for? It could really consolidate and provide a perpetually perfect environment for whatever strain you were growing. Sorry for the novel, just my two cents.

einsteinus said:

Also you would have to include the prevalence of cloud cover on any given day....there are SO MANY VARIABLES in any outside growing senerio...so this is the kicker..YOU USE THE BEST PLUSES NATURE HAS TO OFFER AND MINIMIZE THE NEGATIVES..IE: if noon sun on a July summers day stimulates growth why not do that 24 hrs everyday rather then simulate a two week long series of thunderstorms which have been a part of many of my outside grows. We can learn from nature that cannabis can take a lot of climatary conditions...so if you mimic nature and whats best NORMALLY for your plants ( 72 Degrees/40 % RH/ 16 Hrs avg light 9000 Lumens/ft2) and that matches the best growing condition for a certain mold/mildew that Naturally lives in your area (indoors OR outdoors) then you will have a very nature like natural moldy plant that will mimic dieing...so it's a balance to go the best possible conditions you can..thats why man invented greenhouses becasue there is nothing like having 8 or 9 1000 Square foot greenhouses with a few thousand plants ..that way you and nature can come togeather and really grow so good shit and a lot of it..and when it gets real hot in the summer you just paint the glass with that wash off white paint of a few months to keep the temps under 90 degrees .. I am telling you NATURALLY you will grow a lot of stuff....and thats how real science does real mass scale genectics on thousands of plants over many generations. It would take around 10 years and at least a few hundred greenhouses working year round the produce the kind of results I would like to see in this field...

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I'm not sure that I'm following this post correctly. Of course you're not gonna be able to simulate clouds (nor would you want to ever?) and where did the simulating thunderstorms for two weeks come from? I'm strictly talking about the effects of the sun, not all the bad things that may happen to your plants in nature. July summer days have sunrises and sunsets.

Ok first off the light mover:
http://www.lightrail3.com/light-rail-5-0-commercial-drive/
Look at the kit. You can adjust the motors speed (if you can't do it on that specific model I'll show you another one that can I literally just googled the first light mover) to whatever would be ideal for your room. If it moves too fast and you can't adjust the motor you could just buy a slower motor (less rpms), or an adjustable one, I know for a fact that they do make those. I have no idea why you think you would need a program for that.

Onto the dimming. I'm pretty sure you can figure out the pseudo code, I'll do an outline for you:
You need to get a timer that will hook up to a computer, basically it needs to have a very basic os so it can understand some sort of code. You may have to resort to using machine code, which would blow, but isn't too hard if you know hex. You won't find this at a hydro store, but they most certainly do exist. You could probably find them online. You could also ask your electrician. I'm actually almost positive they already have mechanical timers that will do this for you. I think they are called three way timers, but in the case that they don't.
Hour counter, make a program that keeps time, preferably one that does it by the hour. Have the hour count go up to 24.
ballast strength, make a program that controls your ballast's strength. The new digital ballasts have 5 options I think. So you would make it so it could read from 1-5
int ballast str= x = 0
int hour=0
while hour > 0 < 12
x = 3
if hour > 1 < 11
x=5

For veg

int ballast str= x = 0
int hour=0
while hour > 0 < 18
x = 3
if hour > 1 < 17
x=5

That'll cover the basic stuff. Again, I'm almost positive they have mechanical timers that will do that for you already, but in the case that they don't there's the pseudo code. I'm also pretty sure there are some digital three way timers you could buy at your local hydro store, but I don't really shop for that sort of thing, so I don't know for sure. I agree with you that being able to hook up a grow room is the way to go, but you need to know a little bit about hardware to do it. Specifically circuits, once you can create a circuit that understands what you are telling your mechanical shit to do you're golden. I unfortunately do not know too much about circuits; however, I have a few friends that do. Maybe I'll get off my lazy ass some day and turn that pseudo code into a real program... it would be a fun little experiment... I have no need to grow indoor for a little while, so when I run out of weed it'll probably be my motivating factor of when to get off my ass.

Edit: Found one! http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/electrical/timers/electronic/120-240-277v-20a-spdt-outdoor-lighting-control-no-case

It sounds a lot more complicated with the light mover to be honest, but this would be a good way to put the theory to test. If the plants do have a "waking up period" and if you used a light mover the way we are talking about it seems the plants that are on the far end of the room (the ones that get intense light at the end of the day) would be bigger or more healthy than the ones getting it first thing in the morning.

And yes this would be a good way to do it in my situation since I can't have 3 or 4 lights.

Well you have your light dimming at the very end as well. So long as you have good reflection in your room you ought to be fine.
Edit: yeah, 3 or 4 lights wouldn't be cost effective either. Instead of spinning your plants, you could just spin the light, apparently that's super beneficial as well. I have no idea how or why spinning a plant would benefit it.

cool idea. wouldnt a light mover do a similar thing

mccumcumber said:

Well you have your light dimming at the very end as well. So long as you have good reflection in your room you ought to be fine.
Edit: yeah, 3 or 4 lights wouldn't be cost effective either. Instead of spinning your plants, you could just spin the light, apparently that's super beneficial as well. I have no idea how or why spinning a plant would benefit it.

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Its very simple. First of all you have to understand that Im talking about vertical lighting. Check out the vertial board for example of what vertical lighting is all about, basically you have a light suspended on chains hanging at half the height of your plants and the plants are positioned in a circle around the bulb, theres no hood, so you have 360degrees of light and plants all around that light getting lit on the side. Its very efficient and produces impressive GPW. The idea is very simple, you have those plants positioned around the vertical light just as you would in a normal vertical grow. Each plant sits on a base that has a bearing and a motor and it rotates slowly, I imagine 1 revolution every 15 seconds would be a very good speed. Its exactly like a chicken swarma rotisserie you see at greek shawarma stands. I live in Canada, not sure where you live but if youve ever heard of Sammy Souvlaki you will know what im talking about. Its very simple so I hope that explains the concept. It could significally increase your GPW, I imagine a sativa topped above the second node and supported upright by a tomato cage would be an ideal plant to use this setup with. I need to work on my prototype spinning platform as it is very noisy and I cant use it because of this.

Im not sure where you got the idea that spinning the light would do anything? unless you mean putting it on a light mover that has a circular track... that may do some good as it will allow light to hit the plant from many angles.

I hope that makes more sense now. If not I will find a picture of a shawarma rotisserie and youll understand

I know what vertical lighting is, I've done a few runs of it myself... Are you scrogging, cause that's the way to go for vertical. It will take away your need to rotate your plants, and your yield won't suffer, if anything it will increase. You also don't want to start moving your plants around during flowering. I know theoretically it sounds like a good idea, but practically it's just a haven for a shit ton of problems.

If you have a separate veg room then you can take cuttings that have only been vegged for a week or less and make multiple layers in your vert room. It's the most efficient way to go, and your utilizing the FULL POTENTIAL of your vertical lighting, rather than just having a bunch a plants on the ground.

Also, I just read about the spinning light thing, apparently it creates spherical lighting that closely represents the sun...

If you're not into scrogging, but you're into gpw heath robinson is someone you ought to check out. He's the reason why I did a vertical lighting grow in the first place. I found his thread a year ago and I was amazed.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/149998-heaths-flooded-tube-vertical.html

It's a lot of work, but thats the best gpw I have ever seen.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/149998-heaths-flooded-tube-vertical-21.html
^that's the flowers at week 6, page 24 has the final harvest. He got 46 ozs off of a 600 watt hps. I didn't even think that was near possible. I know I'll probably never get anything close to that, but it's definitely something to strive towards.

I know, he also has a thread where he only grows two, but he switched to lots o plant method to increase gpw.

If you have some patience and veg out your one plant then you'll be way happier. Especially if your new mom has some good genetics. Growing trees is way more fun, and I prefer it, but it's less efficient.

If you are dead set on one plant then veg that shit for a while and have it fill out a huge screen. That would give you maximum benefit as well.

Edit: I think the sun goes 12/12 along the equator and areas near it?

Haha I just read it... fuck yeah!