Poor mans DIY Indagro potoon setup

Ok,I'm starting to feel better so I'm starting my first grow since spending 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital in January with meningitis.A friend gave me 4 LSD clones and I ordered the makings for super soil which should be mixed up by the end of the week.My DIY Indagro pontoon setup consists of 3-120 watt 5000k induction lights, 108 watts of T5 HO 630 nm and 108 watts of T5 HO 660 nm and a 10 watt 730 nm flower initiator.

Here's my plan so far.

Up to 360 watts of 5000k induction for veg and mainlinning the clones to 8 heads.
Flower will have 360 watts of 5000k induction and 216 watts of T5 HO 630 nm and 660 nm.
10 minutes of 730 nm LED at lights out.
4 LSD clones in 7 gal fabric pots with super soil.
In a 2' 6" x 4' 6" cabinet

Like the way your bombarding them with 730nm (that's still visible tho isn't it?) im gonna try the same later on with 750-770Nm, the heat issues are gonna be whole lot of fun. Sounds like you done your homework mate, loving the setup and the spectrums youre using (esp 660, that's the key, anything lighter will just cancel out the IR but its gotta be true IR not visible) Good Setup!

captainmorgan said:

Ok,I'm starting to feel better so I'm starting my first grow since spending 2 1/2 weeks in the hospital in January with meningitis.A friend gave me 4 LSD clones and I ordered the makings for super soil which should be mixed up by the end of the week.My DIY Indagro pontoon setup consists of 3-120 watt 5000k induction lights, 108 watts of T5 HO 630 nm and 108 watts of T5 HO 660 nm and a 10 watt 730 nm flower initiator.

Here's my plan so far.

Up to 360 watts of 5000k induction for veg and mainlinning the clones to 8 heads.
Flower will have 360 watts of 5000k induction and 216 watts of T5 HO 630 nm and 660 nm.
10 minutes of 730 nm LED at lights out.
4 LSD clones in 7 gal fabric pots with super soil.

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Make sure you let the Super Soil do its thing before you attempt to use it.. needs to 'cook' (see: activate) .. here's a thread on discussion of it to save you a headache. https://www.rollitup.org/subcools-old-school-organics/490472-super-soil-cook-time-ph.html

That flood light looks tiny. Stay healthy

Lots of time here researching the spectrum's and keeping it in my budget.Got the induction lights bare for $210 and made my own reflectors.730 nm was $150 and the T5's were $200.So with wiring and chain I have about $600 in it.

The super soil should have a minimum of 30 days cooking time before I need it.

The Flower Initiator is only 3 5/16" x 4 7/16"

LEDs would fit that area perfectly but then again I am biased to LED's, they both work together really well, get a cheap UFO to add more blues.

roguetrooper said:

LEDs would fit that area perfectly but then again I am biased to LED's, they both work together really well, get a cheap UFO to add more blues.

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I have some other specialty T5's with more blue that I might add during veg.

cool what nm are they? Im working on a blue/indigo mix at mo.

roguetrooper said:

cool what nm are they? Im working on a blue/indigo mix at mo.

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I have some Zoomed Flora Suns,UVL Aqua Suns,Wave Point Coral Waves and some Quantum 2900k's.

Yup, you certainly got a nice mix of blues then. Coool. Good luck with it mate! Will pop by for a look now and then ....

captainmorgan said:

730 nm was $150

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Good luck with your set up.

That seems like an awfully expensive flood light you bought there bruv...?

To reduce the Pfr switch you will want the 730's to come on right after the other lights turn off. I don't know how you plan on controlling that but you might want to use a no/nc relay or two sets of digi timers, one for the lights on and one for the 730's on a separate power supply that won't slip up on you. The thing is unless your checking them right at lights out every night you won't know if it's working so you have to have a reliable way of controlling that switch. Inda-Gro used an op-amp battery circuit to run them for 5 min which kills two birds with one stone. You could always do something like that too. But whatever you end up doing you'll want it fail safe especially if you end up running a 14/10. If the 730's don't come in at lights out on the 14/10 cycle you'll only end up with 8 hrs to flower.

Love the DIYers of the world!!!

kinda curious how large an area that flower initiator covers at lights out? Does it do the entire canopy?

Also I see that you end up with a 576 watt draw with this setup. Do you think you're going to get even coverage with the T5's?

Beings that the T5's are phosphor driven it would seem there is alot of redundancy in the same spectrums that the induction is already covering and peaking at 630/660 in phosphors is actually more red to the eye but still heavily weighted in blue. Why not go with just go 630/660 diodes in some kind of panel so you know exactly what you've contributed? The 'poor man's' approach will still mean having to replace T5 lamps and lumen depreciation that the diodes would not suffer from.

Chronikool said:

Good luck with your set up.

That seems like an awfully expensive flood light you bought there bruv...?

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Only found 2 companies selling a 730 nm fixture,both had 3 year warranty and one was $120 plus shipping vs $150 with free shipping.When I called both the more expensive was very informative and told me of the trouble they had with unreliable chips from different manufacturers when developing the fixture.I thought about DIY to do it cheaply but since it's critical in flower I opted for the more expensive and tested solution with a warranty.

gordobo said:

kinda curious how large an area that flower initiator covers at lights out? Does it do the entire canopy?

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I only have a 2' 6" x 4' 6" cabinet and the company said it would cover that with no problem.

chazbolin said:

To reduce the Pfr switch you will want the 730's to come on right after the other lights turn off. I don't know how you plan on controlling that but you might want to use a no/nc relay or two sets of digi timers, one for the lights on and one for the 730's on a separate power supply that won't slip up on you. The thing is unless your checking them right at lights out every night you won't know if it's working so you have to have a reliable way of controlling that switch. Inda-Gro used an op-amp battery circuit to run them for 5 min which kills two birds with one stone. You could always do something like that too. But whatever you end up doing you'll want it fail safe especially if you end up running a 14/10. If the 730's don't come in at lights out on the 14/10 cycle you'll only end up with 8 hrs to flower.

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I'm looking for a solution for that and read that some digital timers leak voltage to LEDS.I have two mechanical timers now but would like a single solution.Can you help me out on that?

Does someone make a 120v 1000 watt timer that would turn the main lights out and turn the 730 on in one unit?

Beings that the T5's are phosphor driven it would seem there is alot of redundancy in the same spectrums that the induction is already covering and peaking at 630/660 in phosphors is actually more red to the eye but still heavily weighted in blue. Why not go with just go 630/660 diodes in some kind of panel so you know exactly what you've contributed? The 'poor man's' approach will still mean having to replace T5 lamps and lumen depreciation that the diodes would not suffer from.

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Hiya Gordobo! Both valid points. Ideally you really would want even distribution at whatever spectrum's the phosphor is missing. The first order of business will be knowing the spectrum's the induction lamp is missing. Complimenting the missing induction spectrum's with another fluorescent get's tricky because the T5 phosphors are highly unlikely to peak where the induction lamp, in this case a 5K, would be missing. I'm not saying it can't be done but if it were that easy the phosphors would already be available in blends that let you order them suspended in the the induction lamp to begin with. I would agree that this approach would be better served by diodes that meet the spectrum's on both the veg and flowering side that this induction lamp might be missing.

I'm looking for a solution for that and read that some digital timers leak voltage to LEDS.I have two mechanical timers now but would like a single solution.Can you help me out on that?
Does someone make a 120v 1000 watt timer that would turn the main lights out and turn the 730 on in one unit?

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Hey Captain! I actually forgot about the voltage leakage issue with digital timers so that is a good catch. I would go with a mechanical flip relay system that utilized a NO/NC set of contacts that dropped power to the 730nm diodes at lights out. The trick will be reliably regulate that 10 minute timeout you chose using a single control solution. I like the op-amp comparator circuit inda-gro built since @ 5 minutes it uses a transistor drive circuit which takes the 730 diodes down in a series of gradual steps instead of just turning them off completely like a resistive-capacitor (RC) circuit will do. You can definitely accomplish the same thing with what you're doing with a basic RC circuit that resets itself every cycle but it'll need it's own power source, independent of the main lights on timed circuit.

In the case of the inda-gro pontoon their board has to run the 730nm diodes, charge the lithium-ion batteries and control the time out circuit all while fitting inside the pontoon housing to limit the amount of exposed wiring that you might find yourself facing with your approach. May end up at the same place you're just going to have more moving parts.

Only found 2 companies selling a 730 nm fixture,both had 3 year warranty and one was $120 plus shipping vs $150 with free shipping.When I called both the more expensive was very informative and told me of the trouble they had with unreliable chips from different manufacturers when developing the fixture.I thought about DIY to do it cheaply but since it's critical in flower I opted for the more expensive and tested solution with a warranty.

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You were smart to catch this since I've seen advertised 730nm 'flowering initiator' lights get read under a quantum meter that had a high limit of 700uMoles. hmmm...

There's not a high demand for this fixture/diode so they're likely to be more expensive. Going Made in America gives you some assurances that your actually getting a 730nm diode and that you'll get support should there be any warranty type issues.

Capt I don't know if you care about noise from the timer. Brinks mechanical make a buzz sound. If you sleep in the same room , it can be annoying. The hydrofarm ones are quiet. The only thing that sucks is the hydrofarm ones cost $20 each. The brinks ones are $5.


Chaz , zoo med flora suns hit every peak. Have more 660 than anything. They have uvb too. You can run those alone with with good results. They cost $15 each. Aquarium T5 bulbs only seem to last 8 months to a year. I hit 1 gpw with those and redsuns on an 8 bulb. Im almost thinking of throwing them back up. Its hot in the valley.

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