Putting the flower room into overdrive. 1110 Watts quantum boards + 2000 Watts HPS

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Took off the panel cover to install the new GFCI / AFCI 15 amp breaker. Connected neutral to the bus bar, hot line to the breaker, ground to the ground bar, and seated the new breaker without issue. I methodically and carefully did my work triple checking all of my connections. I've seen people work on live panels before, but I don't think that's safe or generally a good idea. I threw the main breaker to the off position. Home Depot shafted me by giving me the wrong breaker, so I had to go to an electrical supply store. Fucker cost $75. What can ya do? Take it like a champ and move the fuck on.

All in all wiring a new circuit was very easy. It took about 12 hours total labor time to install 3 double duplex receptacles / boxes and chase the line back to the panel to complete the final connection inside over 2 days. Electrician probably would have hit me for well over $1000 for that kind of labor time. My cost was under $80 for everything. Already had the coil of 14/2 wire.

Want a good chuckle at my expense? So after I completed all of my final connections I restored power to the main breaker. I then verified the new circuit had power and working without issue. All checks looked good. I then secured the panel cover. I met a little resistance at the bottom. I pushed the panel in and it seated without a problem. I then tested a radio at the last receptacle of the circuit. No power. Also no power on my wash machine circuit. I thought, "oh boy, what did you fuck up ya fucktard?" I calmed myself and returned to the panel to discover both of the circuits that had no power simply had the breaker turned to the off position. I failed to remove the knockout on the panel for the new breaker switch to pop through. That was the resistance I met at the bottom of the panel. As it pushed through the punch plate it turned the breaker off. The wash machine circuit got mistakenly turned off while I was in the panel working.

Long story short I turned both breakers to the on position and everything is looking fantastic working great. What's the lesson to be learned from this? Don't freak out when something doesn't go the way you're expecting it to. Slow down. Assess the situation. More often than not the problem is minor and the solution is very simple. Here are some pics of the inside of the panel where I installed the new circuit as well as my goof up where I failed to remove the punch out for the new circuit. You can laugh. It's okay :) Now I gotta water these ladies and prepare for the 12/12 flip tomorrow. I will be installing the 2 600W HPS hoods tomorrow which will bring me to a total of:

2x 1000W HPS
2x 600W HPS
1x 450W quantum board
1x660W quantum board

Let's light it up :)

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
AFCI/GFCI breaker paid for itself in less than 24 hours. I woke up this morning and performed my usual walk through doing equipment checks. I noticed an old 12 year old inline fan that was plugged into the new circuit had no power as well as the carbon monoxide detector. I panicked and then calmed myself and went to the panel. I threw the breaker to the on position. It immediately faulted and snapped off. Knowing my wiring was done correctly I had confidence it was either the breaker or a device that was bad. Not the wiring. I disconnected the fan and carbon monoxide detector. Threw the breaker to the on position. Power restored. I plugged in the carbon monoxide detector. No problem. I check the power cord on my inline fan, and this is what I discovered:


Edit: Holy fuck I'm a technological dinosaur. I've never actually posted a video on youtube before, and had to do some learning on the fly. You should be able to clearly see the bad connection. I'll let y'all know if I was able to repair it or if it requires replacement.

I'm pulling the fan apart now to see if I can repair the connection. It might be time for replacement. What have we learned here? Always install AFCI / GFCI breakers. They cost 10 times as much as a normal breaker. And they will save your life, home, and garden from completely avoidable fires.
 
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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I located the fault. The inline fan was improperly wired. About a year ago I put this new longer electric wire on the fan and removed the shorter cord that was on it. At that time I improperly wired the fan. There is no ground. By attaching the ground wire to the 3rd screw down it caused a fault in the fan's wiring triggering the AFCI breaker to shut off power. I repaired the improper wiring and the fan is working great. I will use only AFCI / GFCI breakers moving forward. They're absolute lifesavers.

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Repaired. No fault. Working like a champ. Originally purchased in 2008. Soler and Palau is one of the best manufacturers of high quality inline fans in the world. I can gaurantee those shitty AC Infinity fans they sell on Amazon that people seem to be buying in droves which are only warrantied for 2 years (their expected operational life) will never see 10 years of service before failing. But people are stupid so they'll keep selling them. S&P warranties their units for 5 years. I have not ever had one fail as of yet. Gone through 3 hydrofarm active air fans. Junk. S&P, can fan, or vortex are the only professional grade inline fans I would consider.

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
3200w HPS+1110w LED quantum boards. 4310w total flower power. +15% super lumen setting provides a max output of 4790w. It's super tight in there. Just the way I like it :) 12/12 begins today. 20201023_141616.jpg20201023_141519.jpg20201023_141209.jpg20201023_141206.jpg20201023_143152.jpg
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
First pics of lights on with the new setup:

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I inspected this morning during lights off with my green headlight and all is right with the world. 81 degrees with the a/c running intermittently. I'll start dumping the a/c exhaust into the basement instead of outside in a couple weeks. It should be freezing cold outside, but mother nature is doing that global warming thing. No reason to dump out good heat in the freezing winter :)
 

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jonnynobody

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Update: I did a leaf strip today to clear lower growth that won't reach the canopy. I did a lot of staking to spread the branching so not a stitch of light hits the floor anywhere. Wall to wall flower sites is the goal. I have the HID's at 75% today up from 60% yesterday. I have reduced power on the quantum boards to approximately 50-60% due to light bleaching. I'll wait until more flower sites and foliage develops before I increase the intensity. I'll reserve the full power juice until about week 3 when flower set has occurred and more foliage has regrown from the leaf strip. At that point it'll be full blast from week 3-9. Temps are stable at 81. I now have the AC exhaust dumping into my basement to provide heat at night rather than dumping it outside. Raised my basement temp by 2 degrees. Nice. Here are some pics. Watering is getting a bit more challenging. I basically have a crawl corridor on the floor. Yeah, it's hairy :)

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I angled the quantum boards so the rear is higher than the front which spreads the light across the rear of the canopy at slightly less than a 45 degree tilt. Much nicer spread of light. It hits every leaf on the rear of the canopy nicely now. It's not very easy to tell from the photo I don't think.

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I crawl through this to get to my AC and stake plants in the middle. I'm like jungle fucking in the rain forest man : )

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
HID's increased to 100% power. Quantum boards still at about 30%. Jager just does not seem to like the intensity. Leaves closest to the light are curling like nitrogen claw. I have mixed feelings about Jager thus far. I don't like pussy plants that can't take the light. Every other strain is eating it up like a thanksgiving feast - except Jager. What can ya do? I will increase power to 50% in a couple days. Then full power for the rest of the flower cycle. I did not have the same issue with hash plant flowered under the 660W quantum board last cycle. Some strains just don't like strong light. What I may do is allow Jager to push out most of her flower sites over the next 2 weeks and then increase to 100% power. Shriveling new flower growth under intense lighting does me no favors. Easy goes it.

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That tall bitch in the front is moonshine haze #1 x ghost train haze #1. She's stretching like crazy, but I keep staking and tying them down. I have moved that plant under the 1000W which has much more headspace than where it was before underneath the 600W. That'll give her some more vertical growth space that she desperately wants and needs.
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Maui Waui is what you see mostly in this picture surrounding the haze in the front.
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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I was so fucking angry when I walked into my flower room with my green headlight on about 15 minutes before lights on to discover my 2 1000W HID's just burning away. I made my way to the timer to discover 1 little piece of shit cunt motherfucking notch on my timer kicked out right at about 3:30. I reset the timer properly and then cursed my way through ordering 2 timers from wally world. I usually use the timers with covers so there is no chance of a "bump" or whatnot fucking up the timer settings. My two 1000's were hooked up to the one little cunt motherfucking timer that did not have the cover. Eat my asshole with a spoon I cannot wait to break that piece of shit with a sledge hammer in my garage when my new timers come in. Needless to say I'm more than a little upset about it. I will be installing a 240V 30 amp circuit after my next harvest and a new light timer to control all of my lights from the one controller. In the meantime this is the cheap fix until the room is clear and I can install the necessary upgrades:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/21682996

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A little light burn on a GSC under the 450W quantum board. I'm making an adjustment lowering the front of the light and raising the rear, so it will more or less illuminate at a 45 degree angle versus straight up and down. I hope to spread the light more evenly to address the light burn issue. Also, I expect the issue to occur less often after the co2 upgrade. I was warned about this before switching to LED. Hopefully adjusting the angle of the light to 45 degrees does the trick. I'll post pictures after I do it. Should look pretty sweet.

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
My 2 new 110W lights came in today 2 days ahead of schedule from a vendor on Alibaba. Same outfit I ordered the last 660W unit from. These 2 are replacing a 432w power sucking T5. I was only able to run the 450W spider farmer unit at 50% inside my 5'x5'x6.5' nursery. Any higher caused bleaching. 220W combined with both boards should provide a better light spread and be the perfect power output for the space, and I'll be saving about 212W of power 18 hours per day by eliminating the T5. I'll take it :)

Here are some pictures of the work I did and how I mounted the fixtures inside the tent. The hardware provided is not good for tent mounting, because it causes the board to hang too low in my opinion. I fashioned my own mounts.

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jonnynobody

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Stupid file post limit:

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S hooks on Amazon and key rings on the bars for the hooks to mount to. I used channel locks to bend the hooks closed completely. There's no need to mount the light anywhere other than at the top of the tent unless you intend to burn your foliage.

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Also cleaned up the wiring in nursery B:
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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Wiring going to the timer on the new double duplex receptacle:
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This was unintentional. I thought the dam cord was shorter than it was. I'll replace it with a shorter more appropriate cord and a power strip sometime this week. It's just absolute overkill and a waste of a good 12/3 extension cord.:20201101_150000.jpg
This fan pushing air into Nursery A:
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Intake blowing across the drivers:
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This duct has an inline fan on the other side in between the 2 nurseries pushing air into Nursery B:
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Two 4 cu. ft. #4 mother earth chunky perlite on standby for the upcoming transplants from the clone tote. Also have to transplant 2x blue dream into 5 gallon hempy buckets next week:

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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Update: Both quantum boards and all HID's are at full power. Everything looks great except for some clawed leaves on the Jager. She just does not like the intense light. One of the branches extends out so far that it's not even under the LED. It's actually under the 1000W HPS and that particular branch has leaves with more curl than the any leaves under the LED. Due to operator error I caused minor light burn to a few fan leaves on one of my black widows. The light was just too close at full power when I placed them into flower initially. Other than those minor issues the entire rest of the garden looks lush and fantastic! I took flower shots of each strain to show off the differences in structure from strain to strain. They're very different looking. All plants started pushing out flowers about 2 days ago. And off we go :)

Girl scout cookies: Fantastic growth rate and structure.
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Maui Waui: Always a crowd pleaser
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Another shot of Girl Scout Cookies:
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Canopy center:
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Canopy right:
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Canopy rear left:
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Pineapple Express:
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Another Maui Waui shot:
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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Black Widow:
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Pineapple Express:
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Moonshine Haze#1 x Ghost Train Haze #1
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Maui Waui:
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Critical Mass: A favorite of mine. The aroma is amazing and pronounced. Sweet and sour. Thick flower growth structure. She's one to watch.
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Rear to front canopy shot:
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Pineapple Express:
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