Automatic Dimmer w/timer

[Doc Jutty]

Hello fellow 420er's,

I am Looking to hook up a 600 watt LED and a few other smaller led grow lights for my grow room I am going to build. The big 600w LED Grow light is going on the flower room. I am planning on growing 2 plants at a time in a 4.5 sq ft. growing footprint. 12/12 cycle or 8/16? I am going to mainline all my plants. I am looking to emulate sunrise and sunset on a timer. (is that anal of me?) Instead of the lights going off and on, I think it would be nicer to have a dimmer for a smooth transition of light. I am looking to automate a few things but this is the one I am stumped on. The other section of my growing room is going to be for veg and prop/clone, so I am going to leave those lights on almost continuously. and am not worried about the dimmer in there. just the flowering room. I am making a blueprint as we speak, and am also looking into envrionmental controls to control heat, humidity, co2 and so forth.

Thanks in advance for any input! If there is already a thread on here I apologize for mot finding it.

Best!

Doc J.

 

[Hiddenkoncept]

I have often thought if this was;
1) possible for s dicrnt price
2)if it was needed

From my research it is doable but you will need to be pretty handy with diy and electrics unless you want to spend a pretty penny. It would involve combining a timer and dimmer which you can already buy on the internet (Google dimmer timer)

This is the nam of s product that is kind of what your looking for Lutron MA-L3T251-IV Maestro 300 Watt Single Pole Dimmer and Timer Switch Ivory.

But that being said, I have looked into it and the product is not a mainstream product because it is not needed.
I would love to see you do it as it was a dream of mine, but its not needed and you are indeed being "anal"

Good luck man

 

[Doc Jutty]

Sweet! I am looking for the sunrise sunset effect. Thinking it would be a more natural lighting setup for my plants. Insert: "Thus Spoke zarathustra" here. lol. If is is not really needed and I am being grandiose, I can dig the regular timer for off and on! ha, Back to the blueprints!

 

[Hiddenkoncept]

Again I'd like to see you do it and prove me wrong, but I just cannot see how it would be worth it,
Your best bet is on pet forums, reptiles mainly as a lot of people have looked into how to simulate sunrise and sunset for their pets, but I still didn't have any luck in finding s product.
Good luck man

 

[PlanetJ]

I doubt it's worth the hassle, altho it would earn you a shitton of reputation I guess

Are those LED's dimmable in the first place ? Cuz it would all depend on that I'd say. I was thinking about phasing the lights to on and off .. main lights on last and off first, and have the supplemental lights switch one by one to gradualy increase or decrease light intensity. I'm using CFL's, so no dimmer there and easy to phase given the number of bulbs .. with LED pannels that would be harder I think.

You'd aslo have to take in account the color temperature .. as sunrise and -set are more in the red part of the spectrum.

So not only would it need to dim, but it would need to cycle through color-temperature as well. And arguably, that is what matters .. cuz this transition from dark to light comes with a peroid of light with a different color temperature then what the rest of the day will be, and then back in the evening.


I dont know if one should try to mimmic nature that close .. nature is a honing tool .. it never provides ideal conditions. Unless you want to argue that drowning your plants, or not watering them for a long time, is good ... nature does this too. And next time, kick down a support to simmulate an earthquake while at it


The only argument would be that it is somehow better for the plant to slowly start and slowly stop VS abrubly ending proceses by flipping the switch. Given the fact that most monster-grows are indoors and HPS-flip-switch based, this seems not to be the case. Therefore the time invested in confirming is most likely wasted, unless you want to have the exact numbers to be able to end any interwebz discussion with a touch of nerdness

 

[danknessdude]

Wouldn't it just be easier to use a photocell as a switch that turns your light on? They already do this in every parking lot.....lol.

Really I think a light mover would better reflect the suns movements to the plants. Just my 2 cents

 

[hydroplanet]

Me and my friend were talking about this yesterday. We agreed the best way to simulate sunset and sunrise would be to have led lights on movers and set up a timer to come on a 30mins before and after your 12 hour schedule. over kill maybe, but definitely bad ass.

 

[labexperiment]

Intelligent-gro a sponsor here makes a light that simulates sunrise sunset already, and it is L.E.D.

Hope this solves one of your problems.