Fridge Grow/Clone Box (part deux)

Here is a view from the bottom of the res looking at the rain drain.
35 - 1/8" holes and one in the end plug.

A quote from a well known guy on ICMAG about the Phillips 315w lights....

Quote:
Originally Posted by rives
You can search the large CMH thread for tenthirty's posts to verify this, but if I recall correctly, he found the 315s to be pretty equivalent to 600w HPS.
After thinking about this more, I don't recall if this came up in our PMs or if it was in the thread. Hopefully tenthirty will pop in and clear things up, or you can PM him. As I recall, when he initially made the change from 600's, he thought that they were fairly equivalent but after using them for a while he decided that the 315's were significantly better. HPS works very well, but the spectrum is a long way from what plants most efficiently make use of.

As I said up above, the 315's are vastly superior to 400's

THAT...^^^ really gets me stoked !!!

The new grow lamp by Phillips came today !
Big sumbitch compared to what I was running.

Are you excited to get some seeds I just love opening that envelope and seeing those arts and crafts lol

Yea... I feel like I should be doing something, but there's nothing to do yet.
Before I fill it up with water for a test drive, I am gonna flop the fridge over on its side, remove the legs and put 4 1/2" casters (that I have laying around) on the bottom.
2 stationary wheels on the rear and 2 locking casters on the front.
I am also gonna leave the MH/HPS ballast mounted right where it's at for emergency backup/redundancy.
Now, in case of a CMD failure, I can quickly unlock the front wheels and pull it out and switch a few wires and the lamp and right back in business till I get the CMD lamp replaced.
I also want to be able to roll it out to inspect the nylon stocking filters on the 2 intake tubes.

Question please, are you expecting the heat to be lower in this bulb than your 400 watt was ( 400 verses 315) , so are you going to get light output simular to a 600 watt but only have half the heat ?, excellant idea on the back up systems, building on what you already have, such a great idea, and the casters,,,,, everyone needs to get to thier stockings once in a while

Tim Fox said:

Question please, are you expecting the heat to be lower in this bulb than your 400 watt was ( 400 verses 315) , so are you going to get light output simular to a 600 watt but only have half the heat ?, excellant idea on the back up systems, building on what you already have, such a great idea, and the casters,,,,, everyone needs to get to thier stockings once in a while

Click to expand...

Yea, the heat is supposed to be considerably less than the MH/HPS 400, so even less when comparing to 600.
I am amazed that this bulb will put out that brightness and color spectrum.
Supposedly you dim the bulb via the ballast to 210W during the veg stage then back to full power for flowering.
This not only changes the brightness, but the color spectrum as well.
Very interesting stuff !

Oh, and good thing about the heat as this bulb will NOT fit inside my DIY cool tube.....

Got the wheels on the fridge... WAY nicer and the 2 front wheels lock well to hold position.
Hooked up the aeration system and everything is ready for some H2O and a test drive.
Maybe this afternoon?

I fired this baby up today !
I poured 4 gallons of water in the res to pump it up to the flood tray.
4 gallons was pretty full for the res, but when it all pumped out, the tray was only like half full.
I added 2 more and then 3 more to get the levels all right.

Here's with the tray actually a little too full.

With the top on...

And last but not least... the Rain Drain !

well thought out, its a real work of craftsmanship!

Tim Fox said:

well thought out, its a real work of craftsmanship!

Click to expand...

Thanks man... preesh !

The old res normally held 4 - 5 gallons.
This system is holding 9 gallons now to keep the depth up till the roots start hanging down, then I can reduce to 8 gallons.
This will help prevent wild PH swings as well.

fishdeth said:

The old res normally held 4 - 5 gallons.
This system is holding 9 gallons now to keep the depth up till the roots start hanging down, then I can reduce to 8 gallons.
This will help prevent wild PH swings as well.

Click to expand...

how are you going to drain and refill the nut res ? when the cooler down low holds less than the tank on top?,

Tim Fox said:

how are you going to drain and refill the nut res ? when the cooler down low holds less than the tank on top?,

Click to expand...

I have to get another shutoff valve to put on the drain line.
Then, I just shut off and unhook the drain from the res and put it in a bucket and turn the drain on.

I purchased a JUMBO windshield reflector today and cut it to size and attached it to the tray lid with 4 stainless sheet metal screws.
Then I removed the lid and flipped over and cut out the holes for the baskets.
I cut it to fold over the front side, but left a 1" tab to tuck in between the floor cutout and the tray.
I had already cut out the peep hole in the tray lid, then I cut a hatch in the reflector for easy access to the drain and for root inspection.
You can't see it but I painted the outsides of the tray black.
Should be pretty dang "light tight" !