Harvest a Pound Every Three Weeks!

StinkBud said:

Pick up a computer UPS at wally's or Staples. The bigger you get the longer it will run your pumps.

Don't worry about your lights, the pump is what is important.

I have a couple of generators but I've only had one power failure.

I plug in my refrigerator instead of my lights anyway.

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I am reading this forum from page one every page. Now I am at page 80 and just came across this post about UPS. Just a comment - it may help: I removed a small shitty battery from UPS and connected a car battery. It sits next to UPS. Lasts forever...

StinkBud said:

That makes total sense. Any motor will pull mega current when they first start. I bet that's what caused the premature failure of my timer last month.

I was looking at the running amps. If that was the case we could run 5 pumps easy. When you factor in start up amps the timer can only handle a couple of pumps each.

I like the idea of building my own that can handle all the pumps I have.

I know they make these relays for lights that the timer plugs into and the lights run off of the power from the relay circuit. That way one timer can control a whole grid of high power lights. I wonder if something like this might be the call for multiple pumps.

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This is me again. Just a comment - You can add a relay to your timer to increase your amperage. Here is one on eBay, $7.59, free shipping. It can handle 30 amps. Just connect output from timer to relay's coil and use the relay contacts to switch the pumps.

Contact capacity 30 amps 250 volts AC means that it can switch up to 30 amps AC and up to 250 volts AC. Great for 120 volts.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/JQX-30F-2Z-AC-110V-Coil-30A-250V-AC-Power-Relay-8-Pin-DPDT-/110928901573

... and you can connect the two set of contacts in parallel and get 60 amps capacity. I just ordered one relay for my pumps.

Any links to calculating UPS size? I was on APC's website but it's kinda confusing to me. Went to Staples but their help...isn't.

I have 6 120V .4A water pumps I'm mainly concerned about. I'd also like to run an air pump and possibly lighting, probably cfl, just to keep my light cycles constant, any recommendations on wattage?

So the water pumps are 48 Va, I'm assuming i divide this by 5 seeing how we're running - 1 on 4 off? so say 10 Va
The air pumps are 3 Va each X'2 = 6va
As for lighting IDK..if I run 50W cfl's on each side that's another 100Va

so say 115va total... does this math sound right??

WeedFreak78 said:

Any links to calculating UPS size? I was on APC's website but it's kinda confusing to me. Went to Staples but their help...isn't.

I have 6 120V .4A water pumps I'm mainly concerned about. I'd also like to run an air pump and possibly lighting, probably cfl, just to keep my light cycles constant, any recommendations on wattage?

So the water pumps are 48 Va, I'm assuming i divide this by 5 seeing how we're running - 1 on 4 off? so say 10 Va
The air pumps are 3 Va each X'2 = 6va
As for lighting IDK..if I run 50W cfl's on each side that's another 100Va

so say 115va total... does this math sound right??

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I assume that you have one timer and 6 pumps so then all pumps run at the same time.Then 120V x 0.4 Amps x 6 pums = 288 VA. This is when the pumps are already running. But at the moment when the timer kicks in and turn all 6 pumps ON, the inrush current will be higher than 0.4 Amps per pump. I am just guessing 3 times more than 0.4 Amps (I will do some measurements tomorrow and post the results). So now we are talking 288 VA x 3 = 864 VA. Typical UPS units have total overload capability of 1.5 x its capacity. So you will be looking for a 600VA unit. The overload capability would be 600VA x 1.5 = 900VA.

UPS will monitor and limit output current very accurately to protect itself. That means the output voltage will drop to an unacceptable level and the unit will switch off if you overload the system. So get a good size of UPS.

There are two more things:
1. The small internal battery would run the pumps only for few minutes. Replace it with a good size, e.g. car battery.
2. Your timer might not like the square wave voltage of "modified wave" UPS. Get a sine-wave or stepped sine-wave UPS.

CFLs have huge inrush current. I would not connect CFLs to UPS. The plants will survive in dark but die without pumps.

Greetings fellow humans! I got the new tent set up and everything moved over. The girls took the move pretty hard but fuck'em they'll get over it! I divided the tent into 2 sides for now. The left side is veg and the right side is flowering. I'll take the plastic divider down in 3 weeks. Then in another 3 weeks I'll add the third system. My goal is pretty basic, Harvest A Pound Every Three Weeks...duh No really, I'd be happy starting out small. Anything more is just gravy baby. I really don't feel like fucking with C02 right now so I'm just keeping everything simple.

Hi Stinkbud,

Let me be the latest in a long line to thank you for all of the time,effort and (mostly), love you have put into this thread. It's almost a year to the day since I tried to end my life because of chronic back pain and depression. With the love and support of my family (and a metric shit-ton of weed), I'm in a much better place now. I'm still off work awaiting surgery so the days get long. My wife pushed me to find a hobby so I could re-engage. My favorites are mostly off limits for health reasons and pain and weed make more cerebral activities challenging. Then a grower friend (who also shares the love) planted the idea in my head, pun intended. The idea of creating something appealed to me though I've never had so much as a plant before. But there was so much information, and everyone seemed to have an agenda.

Then I found the Stinkbuddies. The way you dealt with the haters and turned them around with humour and wit impressed me and drew me in. I appreciate and share the tinkerers mindset, and I love that you've embraced the changes and modifications of a system that took on a life of its own. It's taken me over a month to read the entire thread and it's the first thing that has engaged me enough to put in the effort. My wife is so happy to see me doing something that the finger test came back wet.

All this, and I've learned enough that I can stop spending over 1K each month. Between my back pain and the wife's fibromyalgia, we go through half a pound a month, without any hash.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work

P.S. It doesn't get said enough, but your photos are goddamn beautiful.

Marcus.Greenman said:

Hi Stinkbud,

Let me be the latest in a long line to thank you for all of the time,effort and (mostly), love you have put into this thread. It's almost a year to the day since I tried to end my life because of chronic back pain and depression. With the love and support of my family (and a metric shit-ton of weed), I'm in a much better place now. I'm still off work awaiting surgery so the days get long. My wife pushed me to find a hobby so I could re-engage. My favorites are mostly off limits for health reasons and pain and weed make more cerebral activities challenging. Then a grower friend (who also shares the love) planted the idea in my head, pun intended. The idea of creating something appealed to me though I've never had so much as a plant before. But there was so much information, and everyone seemed to have an agenda.

Then I found the Stinkbuddies. The way you dealt with the haters and turned them around with humour and wit impressed me and drew me in. I appreciate and share the tinkerers mindset, and I love that you've embraced the changes and modifications of a system that took on a life of its own. It's taken me over a month to read the entire thread and it's the first thing that has engaged me enough to put in the effort. My wife is so happy to see me doing something that the finger test came back wet.

All this, and I've learned enough that I can stop spending over 1K each month. Between my back pain and the wife's fibromyalgia, we go through half a pound a month, without any hash.

Thanks again, and keep up the great work

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Thanks bro! You really are too kind. You're the reason I keep coming back here. I'm really not interested in helping commercial growers. They tend to care more about total harvest amount or grams-per-watt. I want to help the home-grower. The guy that wants enough medicine to help himself and maybe a buddy or two.

I'm sorry to hear about your health problems and glad you find some relief from cannabis. The fact that you can help your wife makes it even more special. Going through depression is hard. I've been there!

On the other hand I also support the Robin Hood style of growing. That's where you take donations from rich collage kids so that you can afford to give medicine to people in need. I actually look up to these kind of growers because they can afford to help a lot more people than just a small closet grower. Of course most large scale growers give nothing to the needy.

Trolls/haters - I love them too. They are the lonely, sad, angry and mentally ill people of the world. Don't be angry with them, pity them. When people fire off the hate bullet just put on your carbon/kevlar vest of love...

Good luck bro!

I checked the pump inrush current. Just very briefly, I do not want to steel this tread. The inrush current was exactly 3 times of the rated current but lasted only 7 ms. The 2 times current lasted 100 ms. So in your case WeedFreak, with 6 pumps the total max inrush current will be 0.4A x 3 x 6 pumps = 7.2 Amp and the power 120 x 7.2 = 864 VA. I think 600 VA to 700 VA UPS might work.

1947 Boy said:

I checked the pump inrush current. Just very briefly, I do not want to steel this tread. The inrush current was exactly 3 times of the rated current but lasted only 7 ms. The 2 times current lasted 100 ms. So in your case WeedFreak, with 6 pumps the total max inrush current will be 0.4A x 3 x 6 pumps = 7.2 Amp and the power 120 x 7.2 = 864 VA. I think 600 VA to 700 VA UPS might work.

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Thanks! I kept coming up with something around 900VA, but that was always figuring 20% expansion room, which falls right in line with these calcs. I'd still like to figure out some way to keep some type of lighting going..IDK..I'll think it out over a bowl.

If this damn snow doesn't stop I'm not gonna get this system up and running, I'm going to be shoveling until may...

As promised, here are a couple of photos of my set-up built by using Stink's plans. So far I have only 3 plants started from seeds so the cloner is sitting empty waiting for cuttings. I painted the yellow top with black spray and then with white over the black.



The veg unit was originally a single tote, but I made it a double with some small modifications.



And here are the flowering units, still work in progress.



The flowering room is 9 x 9, veg room 5 x 7. I have one 1000W HPS in flower and 250W MH in veg, but so far using an HO florescent, 4 tubes, 2' long.

I have a couple of questions:
1. Is it a good idea using only one rez for the two veg units? What are the pros and cons?
2. How many gallons of nuts are you using in flowering rez?

Thanks.

1947 Boy said:

As promised, here are a couple of photos of my set-up built by using Stink's plans. So far I have only 3 plants started from seeds so the cloner is sitting empty waiting for cuttings. I painted the yellow top with black spray and then with white over the black.

View attachment 3346773

The veg unit was originally a single tote, but I made it a double with some small modifications.

View attachment 3346774

And here are the flowering units, still work in progress.

View attachment 3346775

The flowering room is 9 x 9, veg room 5 x 7. I have one 1000W HPS in flower and 250W MH in veg, but so far using an HO florescent, 4 tubes, 2' long.

I have a couple of questions:
1. Is it a good idea using only one rez for the two veg units? What are the pros and cons?
2. How many gallons of nuts are you using in flowering rez?

Thanks.

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I have 5girls feeding on a 10gal cooler and not even 15days into flower they seem to be drinking 1gal a day. So with as many as you have I would recommend at least 2gal for every plant.

Nice bro!!! Everything looks great!
1) There should be no problem using one res for 2-veg units.
2) I use a 20 gal container now and I put in about 15 gallons of water.

1947 Boy said:

As promised, here are a couple of photos of my set-up built by using Stink's plans. So far I have only 3 plants started from seeds so the cloner is sitting empty waiting for cuttings. I painted the yellow top with black spray and then with white over the black.

View attachment 3346773

The veg unit was originally a single tote, but I made it a double with some small modifications.

View attachment 3346774

And here are the flowering units, still work in progress.

View attachment 3346775

The flowering room is 9 x 9, veg room 5 x 7. I have one 1000W HPS in flower and 250W MH in veg, but so far using an HO florescent, 4 tubes, 2' long.

I have a couple of questions:
1. Is it a good idea using only one rez for the two veg units? What are the pros and cons?
2. How many gallons of nuts are you using in flowering rez?

Thanks.

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water high electric low=bad

How about some eye kandy...

Oregon Special Update - Everything is going great! The new systems are working better than expected. The second system plants are going to be too big if I veg them any longer. I went ahead and switched the timer. Now both systems are rocking and rolling. Now if I can just keep from fucking up then this should be a good show.

The coolest thing about this grow is all the new strains I have. I'm not going to keep all of them going but it's exciting to be the first person to try a new strain. The genetics are Kandy Kush and Blue Cheese. I followed the family tree back all the way to the land race strains. It has multiple Sativa strains from Upper and Lower Thailand, 3 types of Mexican, Columbian. Indica stains from India, Hindu Kush and Pakistan. Most of the new plants have either a fruity Blueberry smell or a OG Kush kind of smell. They have a spicy smoke with some of them having the classic OG Kush finish.

Here are some photos of the tent setup. I'm just going to run 2 systems for now and either add another system later or buy another tent. Also, here is a bud shot. It's in the final days and almost ready for the axe. I also included a side shot showing how I train the plants. The netting allows me to keep the branches trained down for maximum exposure. I don't want a thick canopy but I do want it dense. Enjoy!

Beautiful stink! You got that goo! I love that stuff! What lights you got going in hat tent 2x1000s?

You can really see your sagely wisdom in those buds, nugs of truth

joespit said:

Beautiful stink! You got that goo! I love that stuff! What lights you got going in hat tent 2x1000s?

You can really see your sagely wisdom in those buds, nugs of truth

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Lights - 2-1000W HPS lights. I bought both ballasts, reflectors and bulbs on Craig's list for $200. The bulbs only have a couple of grows on them so they should have lot's of life left. The tent was only $210 w/free shipping. Each system was around $150. We spent another $50 on a cloner and $100 on nutes and other stuff. Fan and carbon filter cost more than the lights! Total investment under $1k. We should have no problem harvesting at least 2lbs. from the first 2 racks. My partner is stoked! I still have my old grow running but I plan on shifting all my efforts over to my new grow.

I really have to say I love my new tent. My plants are like, "We love camping daddy"! They don't know they're not camping, they're just stupid fucking plants! Anyway they are happy with all the light. Light is fucking right! You can quote me on that. I still plan on adding another 1K MH to the mix but it may be overkill...wait did is just say you can have too much light? Slap the fuck outta me, you can never have too much light, only too much heat.

Which reminds me, I'm going to have to start thinking about A/C soon. If you're East Coast you guys are getting hammered this Winter. The West Coast has been warm as fuck! No snow means the outdoor farmers are going to be hammered this Summer! At least indoor growers won't have much to worry about. GFW - Global Fucking Warming.

Here is the tent of joy. The system on the right has only 4 plants. I'm still training them down but it's early. They have a solid 9 weeks to go. I'm hoping I can fill in the bald spot. lol The system on the left is doing great. It does have one semi-runt in it. I also have some kind of auto strain that looks a little weak. The other plants are going ape fucking crazy! I only topped them once and there's really no where to train them. It's going to end up one big fucking pot plant party! I should end up with some true Frankenbuds. You know what? I think I just came up for perfect name for one of these strains.

I have this one pheno of the Blue Cheese X Kandy Kush that's unreal! As good as anything I've ever smoked and it's a big producer too. Imagine the flavor of OG Kush with a little more sweetness to it. It still has the long lasting finish that you expect from the OG but it has a different flavor. I hope I can keep the strain going. This other pheno I have is really cheesy. Kind of sour with a hint of skunk. It's showing more the UK Cheese genetics. Another cutting I have going is the Kandy Kush back crossed. It pretty much tastes exactly like OG Kush SFV cutting. That same diesel, fuel flavor that keeps going on forever. What's wild is I have about 6 more phenos that I have no idea what's going to happen. Oh yea, I also have the Kosher Kush I started from seed. It's going bonkers! I took a few cutting off of it just to make sure I can keep it going. I know it's going to rock!