Does not compute - pc grow

[MindSoup]

Amazing growth for such a small pot mate, can't wait to see how she produces.

[v12xjs]

Thanks @mindsoup

 

Have to be honest and say the plant is a bit of a handful. Just looking at the 1st pic I posted 2 weeks ago and there's a big difference.

 

I'm running the lights at about 70w now, probably should have been a bit braver from the off really. Hopefully that will help to restrict the upward growth a little.
Should only be another 7 days of stretching so I'm hoping I'll be able to get her over the line.
Think I'll squish the clone though, not sure I could do a perpetual with these genes.

 

Had a bit of a tidy up in there today. 
It was long overdue to be fair.

 

So I guess you can just about see my cunning plan for extraction.

 

Powered air comes in via the little blower and anything that makes it to the top has nowhere to go except across the top of the LED.

At the other end, the top of the bathroom fan is right at the top of the case, so that just sucks up the air coming over the LED while also dragging air across the canopy.

 

I've put a pad behind the grill of the fan to see how that works out.
The pad is a square cut of aftermarket pollen filter for a high end Lexus. It has 2 prefilter sheets, a layer of carbon and 2 post filter sheets, so it's about a quarter inch thick.
It's doing ok up to now.

 

 

[v12xjs]

Most of the tops were gnawing at diodes this morning, so I did a bit of persuading and tying down.

 

 

 

Checked on her again 2 hours later and it looks like I wasted my time, she's just right back where she was.
Think there's a argument brewing with this one

 

 

 

Still not showing a crown on top so I guess there's a bit more growth to come. Should be ok though, there's plenty of bend in those stems and the light doesn't seem to be too harsh.
Might even turn it up

 

[MindSoup]

I know this problem all to well  show her who's boss mate. 

 

[v12xjs]

@MindSoup
Sound words from a veteran of the battle

 

Found the plant licking magnesium off the diodes again this morning so I set to work with the hairbands and pegs.

 

Being in coco on daily hand feeds, I tend to water plants as early as I can because they are always bone dry in the mornings.
So as I've been doing the bondage thing and then checking later to see the effects, I've noticed that the plant is still soaking wet at lights off.
So it is doing all it's drinking in the dark even though it's so bright and warm with lights on.

 

It's really interesting to me, more so because in soil or hydro you would never notice that effect.
That's blown my mind a bit.

[Openairbud]

You'd have thought the opposite were true! That it would use more through the 'day'  hours and rest at night. Good work so far in here mate 

[MindSoup]

@v12xjs I've noticed my reservoir tends to slow down a lot in the day and speed up at night, more so in veg than flower it would seem. I guess it makes sense really, make hay (carbs) while the sun shines...

[v12xjs]

 

Thanks for chiming in guys, always appreciated.

 

Was a really unexpected observation for me too @Openairbud.
Dare I say.....Does not compute?

 

Interesting that you have noticed similar @MindSoup, particularly the change from veg to flo.
Turns out the plant didn't drain the pot this morning, similar to your observations. I wonder if we may have stumbled on the method of knowing exactly what day flowering started?

 

I'm currently thinking the plant acts this way in veg precisely because of the high daytime temps.
It wouldn't really do to be sending nutes up to the top of the plants in the day if they are likely be be transpired out through the leaves on the way up.

 

I currently use 24/0 in the clone cab but am now wondering if a short dark period may be beneficial.
One for another time though maybe as it does appear that I'm now in flower, so possibly not able to measure how long it takes to drain the pot at night.

[Cainedbutable]

Good luck with the grow man.

 

What a great little set up  ill pull up a chair for this one.

[MindSoup]

I've never run 24/0 my gut goes against it, but a lot of people I respect as growers say it works really well so I have been meaning to try it in the veg cab see what difference it makes. 

[v12xjs]

Hey @cainedbutable so glad to have you on board.
It was your posts that inspired me to get a new light and fire the cab back up. Thank you

 

There's some signs of burning now where a couple of leaves have touched the light. Nothing major by any means but a warning I'll heed.

 

 

 

Other than that the plant looks very healthy. The canopy has settled down and I shouldn't need to make any more major adjustments.

 

 

 

 

[v12xjs]

Hey @MindSoup, I'm exactly the same.
It makes no sense that plants may benefit from no darkness when they have so many receptors to detect the night.

I use it only as a motivation for my cuttings. If they don't sort out some roots then they will just die. No quarter given.
They tend to respond pretty quickly

[v12xjs]

Been looking at fans with a view to upgrading mine so I've got things covered for the summer.
Turns out that most bathroom fans output very similar levels of around 21 litres per second and I found myself wondering why they were all so similar. I would have expected higher figures for more expensive fans.

 

So I ended up looking at ducting. It turns out that the volume of air a fan can move is restricted by the ducting it uses.
For example a 5 inch flexible duct can move a maximum of 50CFM (23.5 l/s) provided there's no bends in it. For 4 inch ducting, the maximum airflow is less than 40 CFM.
So basically, if the fan is 4 inch and outputs more than 40CFM then it is either discharging into free air or the figure is theoretical and won't be achieved in the real world.

 

So when I looked again at what I have, I found I needed to turn the fan down from 21 l/s (45CFM) to get it all through the ducting.

Well what a revelation.

I put a controller on it at 75% power and immediately saw a reduction in temps! Of course it's quieter as well, so very much a win win.

Turns out that about 16 litres per second is the max through my 4 inch duct with a slight bend, which is about 34 CFM. Any more than that is not only wasted energy, but it seems to negatively affect the cooling.

[MindSoup]

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat. Thats some real news to me, I'll have to read up about that. This flat gets really got in the summer and my ducting is long with a lot of bends, I've been trying to work out how to have it closer to my window, to reduce the ducting, but it would totally mess up the feng shui . Maybe running the fan slower might actually help. 

 

[v12xjs]

It is counter intuitive, but every HVAC site has the same numbers.
And most fan manufacturers obviously know and work to those limits.
That's what tipped me off anyway.

It sure works for me. I'm sitting here feeling smug as fuck right now.

All day I've had 4-5F below ambient with the little blower on minimum making hardly any noise, and even that isn't needed once the light goes off.
We are talking whisper quiet.

 

Now I've worked it out it does make some sense.
I've often put my hand in front of powerful fans and felt that they were gently blowing rather than feeling the massive vacuum I expected.
I guess if the fan is making too much to go down the duct then the surplus air has to go somewhere.
That surplus is what I was feeling and hearing.

 

I do have a sneaking suspicion that you could actually tune the exhaust with a noise recorder app on your phone @MindSoup

Providing manufacturers actually declare the db(A) correctly, you could possibly measure if it's running optimally with that.
Maybe start low and keep turning up the power to the fan until it reaches exactly the db(A) they say it is. I'd bet that would be a really good starting point to tuning everything.

But I might be wrong.
And it wouldn't be the first time.

Edited April 14, 2022 by v12xjs