Need help setting up room SO CONFUSED

Finally ready for an update...

It's been 2 weeks under the fluorescent lights and i decided to go out and buy a MH bulb for my 1000w lumatek ballast. The light is on now but it is flickering super fast, i think this is not normal ?? The ballast was bought from a hydro store but it was returned once before i bought it, wonder if it's defective still? is it the bulb ? maybe I will put in my HPS bulb and see if it flickers...

The temp stayed around 70 before but now that the new light is in it has jumped up to 80 within 3 hours. I had a heat vent in the room from my furnace but i pulled it out and maybe will just put it in there when the light is off (cold here and in basement) 18/6 light cycle
I have the 1000w light about 30" away from the seedlings.

The ballast is quite hot to the touch and the flickering is concerning me.
Here are some pics of the setup... there is a computer fan that is suspended and vibrating the plants... its not oscillating, hope that is not a issue. I also removed the heat pad from underneath the flat tonight (good or bad?)

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1 week under florescent

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2 Weeks

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2 weeks

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NEW SETUP

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This is my entrance... this grow room is pretty much a secret room in my basement. The basement is very cold so i put a heat vent into the grow room. Now that the new light is in there, it might get real hot and i may leave the entrance hole open....

I have a 200cfm ventilation fan that i am not doing anything with yet AND there is a basement window in the grow room that is sealed up right now but i will incorporate some venting to the outside later when flowering. OR should i have this venting to the outside setup now ?

I am learning lots and trying to add little by little and not overwhelm myself this time, hopefully you guys can lemme know what I'm doing wrong or right. I am figuring a cooling hood reflector will be a nice purchase... don't have the dough right now... Christmas !!
 
I am using soil right now

Hey guys, this update is because i have a concern maybe some ppl could help me with.

Since setting up the 1000w it has been flickering/pulsing non stop at a high rate... i can hear is quickly flickering in the ballast too, is this normal ? i don't think so.

The light does seem very bright. To make sure it wasn't the bulb i switched out the MH and put in my HPS and it also flickered/pulsing. The longest i let it run was about 4 hours or so and tried it the next day. I didn't want to leave it on because I thought it may be unsafe. I put my plants back under the t12 flourescents and they seem fine.

I called the hydro store from where I bought the ballast and the lights and they told me if there are any major issues its under warranty and we'll be able to arrange something. She advised me that sometimes MH bulbs can take 48hrs or so for flickering/pulsing to stop and HPS a little shorter (i beleive she said until they "stabilize")

After talking to her, I put the 1000w back on and will let it run for a couple days at 18/6 and see what happens. I wanted to fully troubleshoot it so they don't hassle me too much when I go to exchange it. She told me the flickering/pulsing it is safe... I HOPE SO!! what is also strange is i can subtly hear the flickering/pulsing in the baby monitor, i know this because i turned the light off and the noise was gone in the monitor. Any electricians or light experts outs there? let me know if anyone has experienced this or has suggestions. ALSO, is it bad to be switching the type of light for my small plants for the last 3-4 days.
 
labradoodle said:
what is also strange is i can subtly hear the flickering/pulsing in the baby monitor, i know this because i turned the light off and the noise was gone in the monitor. Any electricians or light experts outs there? let me know if anyone has experienced this or has suggestions.
Click to expand...

High Intensity lights will put out a fair amount of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength that baby monitors will pick up. I would think it would be most noticeable before the light stabilizes.

What is happening is, HID lamps use the gases inside the glass envelope to create the light. Electricity arcs across a gap, heating up the gas. Once the gas is hot enough it starts to glow. It does take some time, before the majority of the gasses are at the correct temperature. The hotter the gas gets, the higher the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation it puts out. So as the lamp strobes, the electromagnetic radiation it puts out will strobe in strength and in frequency.

Since the lamp is not stable, it is powering up and then dropping off, rinse and repeat. this oscillation across multiple frequencies is what you are noticing in the baby monitor. Once the bulb stabilizes, you most likely won't hear it, though it will still be there.


Ok, long winded reply on that one. <s> Sorry lite up too soon.

Of course the problem, is why isn't it stabilizing?
First thoughts are the house wiring, what condition is it in?
Second, how many amps are you pulling on that circuit (overloading the circuit)?
Also, where is the ballast? Want to keep it in a cool place, outside of the grow room if possible.

I have a hard time accepting that a bulb will take 48 hours to stabilize. Twenty years ago I ran with 1000watt units with home made ballast. They only took about 10 minutes to get up and stabilized, though it was about 15 before they were at max brightness.

If you cant get it figured out, I would take it back and get it replaced.

Prairie
 
Thanks for the replies,

The circuit inst getting overloaded, the grow room is on its own breaker. Only thing running in there is the 1000w and a computer fan.

I can keep the room temperature at 70F consistently. I've had the light running for 6 hours last night and for 12 hours today and it is doing EXACTLY the same thing. The ballast is pretty quiet, if i put my ear right up to it i can hear the pulsing sound in it that matches the lights pulsing. The ballast is not super hot... i can put my hand on it for a while.

The light is 30 inches away from the canopy and the plants seem fine. Stupid problem is that the hyrdo store is closed for holidays until January 3rd...

What should i do ? put them back under the flourescents? This light is super bright but i don't know if it safe... my plants are going into week 3 from seed now... and today is dec 22nd and i cant return this light until jan 3... frack

I am definitely changing up the hardware on jan 3rd. Hopefully they don't have to send it away or something stupid... i might try the ballast at another house just to make sure i've troubleshooted everything.
 
Well, if you can't get back to them till the 3rd, then let the light run. If it isn't stable in 48 hours (like they said), then you know it isn't working.

You might also want to go to local hardware and get another bulb. Test with it, but I am thinking it is the ballast. Also testing somewhere else is a good thought. Do some testing and have detail info to give the store where you got it.

Good luck.
Prairie
 
Yeah i am gonna put plants under the fluorescent and return the ballast on the 3rd.

my friend gave me a meter that measures how much power a receptacle is using. I plugged in the light and see it is using 117 volts and i put the multimeter on the outlet and it indeed was 120. here is a vid of what the ballast is pulling in terms of watts... i am guessing some fluctuation is perfectly normal.. but is this odd? just interesting, learning lots. When i plugged the 4 t12 bulbs into the meter they are drawing 90 watts total.



DSCN00182.jpg
 
Those of you who thought it was a bad ballast were totally right. I took the unit back to the store today and i had the lady there run it. I told her all the troubleshooting i did (thanks for all the suggestions BTW!) we ran it, she agreed that it was a bad ballast. Unfortuntely, they didnt have any more of that older lumatek in stock. This unit was sold to me for $300 bucks which was a steal because SOMETIME HAD RETURNED IT BEFORE ME AND THEY ASSURED ME IT WAS GOOD + no switchable. After complaining about that and having a no good ballast for a month we agreed that i could get the new switchable 1000w ballast for $50 off... so i got 300 credit and paid an extra $100 for the thing you see in the picture.

I have everything setup right now and am super happy... I'll be watching and seeing what happens with the heat now. I have a heat vent run into the room to keep it at 75-80F... I removed the heat vent for now and will see what happens.

The light is 24" away and i put the light on the 600w setting ? I was thinking since i only have 7 small plants that 1000w might be overkill ? I dunno? let me know what you think about height and watt

The plants are 4 weeks old and vary from 3" - 5". Time for a transplant ? How they look guys, first time here lol Any trimming ? Training ? Nutes? i did give some 2 days ago and they shot up like crazy

Thanks for checking out thread and the light problem is over! WTF is superlumens hahahaha

new_setup3.JPG

ballwbox.JPG

switch.JPG

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plants r look n great lab. good score on the ballast....id puttem n 3 or 5 gln buckets with good soil fox farm is great...lettem get use too the light lower in it down acouple inchs everyday ..
 
My goal was to produce atleast one good mother plant out of this batch. Should I be doing the toopping technique if I want mothers?
I am going to put these in bigger containers in next day or so prob around 3 gal.
I lowereed the light down to about 16 inches. Temprature has been staying around 75.
So I am nervous to cut em lol... But just wanted to clarify if I should if trying to raise moms now.. And prob clone for sex in about 4 more weeks?
 
labradoodle said:
Those of you who thought it was a bad ballast were totally right.
Click to expand...

Great to hear Lab!!!!!

This is the one thing we all should think on. We buy all this great stuff to use, but the problem comes up when it breaks or doesn't work. Can you source what you need, quickly as needed. This has been one reason I've stayed with CFL's over HID.

Prairie
 
Thanks man,

So I decided I would do one transplant before putting them into 5 gallon buckets, esp. since I don't even know the sex yet...

I really wanted to learn and best way is experimenting... I topped one of the plants between the 2nd and 3rd node (i believe). I just did the one to see what will happen. Also, i know there is quite a bit of shock related to transplanting + I just finished at 10pm and the lights will be going out from midnight to 6 am... I hope the lack of light and my timing isnt a huge problem. The soil is promix, i tried to get the fox farm or ocean farm stuff at the hydro store and they said it is a bugger to get and they would love to have it but they cant get it... errr

OH! and i was thinking if i am going to top them and i need to determine sex... couldn't I try to clone the topped piece? just for the sake of determining sex asap ? how would i go about doing this... just like normal ?
I know this one is toooo tiny but i dipped it in some gardening powder root stimulator i had laying around (I'll get some nice gel stuff but i wasn't planning on doing any cloning yet). I trimmed off the bottom stems and there are some leaves higher up, i shoved it in a rockwool cube for shits and giggles...

Rootspartycup4weeks.JPG

Roots in the party cup
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p1b4top.JPG

before topping experiment
p1afttop.JPG

after i butchered it .. oh god.. well there's a first for everything
funsies.JPG

I threw the topped piece in some rockwool... this was spur of the moment.. but would something like this work if i planned it out properly?
 
Gator,

The ballast takes a 1000w bulb and is dimmable. U flick the switch and the intensity decreases increases.
I have a meter hooked up to light to calculate how much elec. I am using but u can clearly see the wattage change when u flick the switch.
I hope I'm not mistaken but I think u just always use the 1000w bulb. Dunno why I would want the 600 or 750 setting? Any ideas? I thought the more light the better? I have it on the 1000w setting right now.
 
Ok, I'm reading all these posts on topping... I did one and you guys have seen the pics... They are all at 3 nodes or more... Should I be topping all of these or not? Maybe do 1/2 of them and experiment?
Would love some advice on what you guys have found worked best for you guys
 

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