Evolution Of A GrowCab - H/O LED Grow

[MisterPeabody]

It's been a spell since my last post, but the grow cab has been working very well, having finally ironed out the heat issues. (Check my series on cab design).
Never being one to leave well enough alone, another installment is due, this time utilizing LED lighting in both flowering chamber and veg chamber. I know, all the fuss about LED working, not working, good for veg, crappy for veg, crappy for flowering, ect. this is going to come to an end (for me anyway). The only difference is I am going watt for watt. The flowering area now has 96 (ninety-six) 3 watt LED bulbs giving me 288 watts of HO LEDS.

For the veg area, I'm going to extend the height of the cab by 12" specifically, and design the transition to reflect as much light as possible. This will also give me another foot of headroom, which I desperately need anyway. This area will be lit by a 120 watt LED using 1 watt LED's. Specifics on light spectrum to be posted with photos upcoming. Under the new lighting, the plants have been in flower now for two weeks. I'm VERY interested in seeing how they finish, knowing full well what to expect from previous grows using a 400 digital ballast combined with all the heat that light generates. Heating issues should be a cakewalk compared to before. I have already tested the lighting using a lightmeter, and I must say I am very impressed with these lights intensity. The truth is in the pudding, as I always say, and with this grow, I've paid hard earned money for the proper lighting, so I have NO motive to polish anyone's "nob", to the contrary, I'll probably be rather anal about it. It either works or it doesn't.

Expect a follow up with pictures and more specifics. Peace

 

[MisterPeabody]

Ok. So much for LED. Maybe the light was too powerfull? It flat out cooked the canopy and has VERY little penetration. (10 days into grow most of anything below the canopy is looking putrid. The canopy itself looks like I nuked my plants. I've left the 120 watt led panel in the veg area, and modded the flowering area once again. This mod was a pretty major mod, and took several days to prepare in order to implement the mod in one evening. About 3 am this morning I was finally complete. (Almost. I plan on covering the two 2 ft, 4 bulb T-5's with lexan).
I kinda of regressed to aproven design-I put the T-5's back in the flowering area with one exception-They are now both integrated into the systems return air, thus most of the heat generated by these T-5's never even enters the cabinet and is exhausted with the rest of the exchange air, safely outside of the cabinet. I've removed the 400 watt HPS and put the 250 watt HPS back in. Still using the Super Sun ll with a thermal blanket. I've tried running the 400 HPS with the two T-5's and it's simply way too much heat on the plants, even with the 1/15th HP chiller taking care of the Baby Bloomers reservoir, keeping the root zone happy. Some felt light at the mid to lower area was a moot issue. I beg to differ. I just hope I can salvage these cooked ladies.

 

[The Lurker]

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[geturgrowon]

looking good