Utopian Submarine - 2000W, Indoor, Perpetual

[Green Utopia]

Gonna do a perpetual grow in an 8x5x8 converted bathroom.

When its up and running, the goal is to have the following going simultaneously:

6-12 clones or seeds - Rockwool for 1-2 weeks
6-11 veg - Rockwool for 2-3 weeks
6-8 early flower - 2.5G Grodan for 3-6 weeks
6-8 late flower - 2.5G Grodan for 3-6 weeks
3 Mothers - TBD for 3-6 months

I'm using the PureBlend Pro Organic Nutes.

2 x 600w HPS for the Flowering
2 x 150w 6500K CFL, 1 x 150w 2700K CFL for Veg (with sockets in place and bulbs to almost double that if needed)

The room is kept at a constant 68F. The res temp seems to remain about 66F.

Both the Flowering and Vegging area stay 75-78 daytime, and drop to 68-70 at night.

Humidity is a little low right now cause not enough plants going and its winter. It stays between 35-45 in all areas.

CO2 is on a timer - will be getting controlled by my controller.

1 x 14,000 BTU A/C

1 x 10" Exhaust Fan - w/Carbon Filter
1 x 8" Intake Fan
1 x 6" Exhaust Fan
1 x 6" Intake Fan
1 x 131cfm Squirrel Exhaust Fan
1 x 18" wall mounted circulating fan
1 x 6" wall mounted circulating fan

Some fans are on timers, some on thermostats. They will all eventually be controlled by my controller and thermostats.

The clones sit on a heat mat on a towel for insulation. They are on their own thermostat set at 79-80.

Hope to get at least 1.25oz per plant. 6-8 plants every 3-6 weeks.

This is NOT a commercial grow. Its for me to have the best medicine I can grow and to share with friends in need.

There are 4 plants being flipped to Flower tonight:
Group A
2 x AK-47, 1 Mystery Strain, 1 Kali-Mist

A1 - is AK-47

A2 is AK-47

A3 is an Unknown Kindbud

And finally, A4 is the Kali-Mist that we don't know what will come of it. Was abused when young. Bummer.

There are 8 plants that are just starting Veg:
Group B and C
2 x AK-47
6 x NY Diesel

There are 3 clones from the Group A plants taken to preserve the phenos if desired later. They are 2.5 days old and will catch up or pass the 8 starting Veg.

And finally - the really good stuff - I've ordered two strains from Barney's Farm - Utopia Haze and one named after a hallucinogenic with three letters starting with L ending in D the server doesn't like. I am really excited about the Utopia Haze. I have been drooling over those seeds for about a year, but they've always been out of stock when I was ready to get them. They will be here and ready to germinate on Jan 1.

Both strains have very high THC content (23% and 24%), but the Utopia has .6 CBD while the other has 1.2 CBD. I'm excited to feel the difference.

Last but not least - it is my goal to get the entire room automated. I'll be building an atmospheric and nutrient controller from scratch. For anyone not familiar with eeproms and ic chips I highly recommend checking out Parallax. For many of you here I think you will find it fairly easy and fun. Anyways, hopefully I'll be doing it here in the next few weeks.

Gonna try to build what would normally cost a few thousand dollars - sensors and controllers for: Temp, Humidity, PPM, pH, CO2 , fans power, lights power, water in, nutes in, ph in - and all that for 2 light zones and 2 reservoirs on different feeding schedules. I have some of the stuff here and I think I can get the rest for a few hundred dollars if I don't need peristaltic pumps. The room is so small I may be forced to use them and that will tack on a few hundred bucks at least - which could be hard to squeeze out right now.

I welcome any suggestions and tips or comments. There's no substitute for experience, and while I've been smoking for 22 years - I've only grown twice before. So hopefully if I take care of the grunt work, and eliminate variables in the room, you guys can help me with the really tricky part - namely learning to listen to the plants.

 

[Green Utopia]

First Group Flipped to Flower - 6-8 weeks to Harvest

The first little test group are flipped to 12/12. Four plants. Should harvest the AK in as little as 6 weeks - the plants these seeds came from went 7.5 weeks in flower last time in soil. The other two I have no idea. The Kali is supposed to be 8-10 - but as stunted as she(?) is, it will likely be longer. And the other is a total mystery. I'm looking forward to simply watching tris change color.

 

[Green Utopia]

Intro to the Controller

Figured I'd go ahead and lay out the basics of the automation and see if there are any thoughts. It will certainly evolve in the next few weeks, months. I've done some research and planning - enough to provide a starting point for the convo.

We want to be able to control:
Nite and Day settings
Temp
Humidity
PPM
pH
CO2
Fans power and timing
Lights power and timing
Water in
3 Dif Nutes in
4 Additives
Ph Up and Down

and all that for 2 light zones and 2 reservoirs on different feeding schedules

So I have a basic idea of what I want to control and how - but I figured there's no point in re-inventing the wheel. So the first thing I did was download a few instruction manuals for the 3 most comprehensive greenhouse controllers. That gave me an idea of the ways they were going about it.

Now - as far as the hardware. I'll get most of the stuff from Parallax. They sell all kinds of kits for schools and robot hobbyists and development boards. That's what we'll use - a dev board. These have sockets on them to plug in a chip, and an attached breadboard or solderboard to connect other things.

Here's a Dev Board I have.

It doesn't have a chip in it yet.

OK - so that's like the chassis of the car. Now we add the rest. The engine will be the chip. Gonna have to take a chip from one of my other projects for the time being - not decided which one yet. We will end up on the Propeller chip. Costs about $8 for the chip alone. About $70 with the dev board. Its actually a dual processor and capable of simple multi-threading. It will be plenty fast enough for our needs. More on the chip in future posts.

Then plugging into the board will be:

The various sensors like: the temp/humidity, CO2, photocell, and the nutrient probes.

The wires going to relays for the power. Relays are basically simple cheap electric switches that let you turn off and on 120v power using the 5v that will come from the board. More on the relays later. Suffice it to say we'll use lots of them. Every light, fan, pump, etc will need a relay.

The wires going to Solenoids. Solenoids are little valves that can be opened and closed very quickly. They will control how much nutrient flows into the mixing reservoir.

So that's it for the basics of the board. Next post about the controller I'll start to diagram the system the way I see it working. Also, I'll decide which chip to grab for the time being and we'll get some stuff working.

I know there are some folks here who can participate in this convo. Please do!!!!

 

[Green Utopia]

Basic Liquids Flow Chart

 

[Green Utopia]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Hi all-

Just checked the girls before heading over for x-mas meal. All is well in the submarine.

Even the weather is cooperating by coming up a little in humidity - so the hygrometer read 77.8F and 50% humidity. Doesn't get any better than that.

The clones are in their 3rd day and looking good. Standing up and starting to get some new growth. I've not pulled the cube out of the tray to look for roots.

With the flowering area sealed for the last few days, the CO2 has really kicked in. Its amazing. Thinking I will likely tie one or two plants over.

That's it for this update. Hope all your girls are treating your right.

 

[Green Utopia]

My buddy just stopped in w some Purp Kush from a dispensary. Mmmm - what a pleasant surprise. Left me a few grams for the head. Now I can get to work/play on the girls and room.

They are looking good today. The growth from the CO2 and the sealed room is amazing. Grew so fast in 3 days it caught me off guard on raising the light. This first group was meant as a test. They have had to remain in veg a little longer than I think the regular batch will. So I'm pretty sure they are significantly bigger than I will want the future grows. I simply don't have the room.

But, for this one - I am thinking about putting a little scrog over there. basically repeating my last grow but a little smaller. Was gonna just let them grow w/perhaps a little bending by me, but this CO2 is really working better than I could have hoped. I used it last time as well, but I didn't have the room sealed or cooled nearly as well. So I'm afraid they will outgrow the 3'-4' of vertical space.

Maybe its cause I'm baked, and nostalgic, but I really like the idea of repeating the last scrog a little.
5 Plants - 18oz dried

Gonna have to decide in the next few days - won't use the wire this time - will go with a string trellis. I think it makes sense to get a trellis in there anyways.

Dang still too baked to really make a good decision gonna step away and think about it for a little.

 

[Stakkur]

Love your setup, and love the idea of making a central controler. I've been toying with the thougth of making one my self.
I've been wondering if there was any way to control the speed of the fan with relays a chip and a thermostat.

 

[Green Utopia]

Love your setup, and love the idea of making a central controler. I've been toying with the thougth of making one my self.
I've been wondering if there was any way to control the speed of the fan with relays a chip and a thermostat.

Thanks!!! Welcome.

As far as controlling the speed of the fan - I think there's two major parts to the hardware equation:

1 - make sure your fan is capable of variable speed. Many computer fans, and some of the others only go one speed. I have a Dayton 131 squirrel fan. It is variable. I had the Eco-Plus version - it is not variable and must be mounted with the oil access up.

2 - I think to control the speed, rather than a relay, you would want a variable resistor capable of the 120(220 v) and correct amperage. This resistor is usually called a potentiometer or "pot" for short. For example if you've seen any of those speed controls you can order - they all have a big pot inside with a knob on the front that turns the pot. As you turn the pot, it decreases the resistance, allowing more current through to speed up the fan.

I'm not sure whether I will need to do that in this controller, but the process for adding the pot is very similar to some of the other stuff. And I WILL be writing some fuzzy logic to control the fans and CO2. If its something we want to add - it shouldn't take more than a few hours to add that capability to our controller.

Hope this helps. Gotta make a run to the store - then I'm gonna come back today and see what I can find for parts in my shop. Then I'm hoping we can actually get a chip on the breadboard and at least start to get some basics done.

Thanks again for the words of encouragement.

 

[Green Utopia]

Day 2 of flowering. More crazy growth. Clearly whatever I was doing with the CO2 was not working, and now I think I've figured out the CO2 part at least, cause this is sick!!! I think I'm getting .5-1 inches of growth a night on the healthy plants, and even the runt has added at least an inch maybe more in the last 3 days.

The plants in the veg area are doing their thing as well. I think we'll be on track to move them up to flower in 2 weeks.

The hard part now is waiting for the Barney's Farm seeds to arrive. They should be here any day. I have 12 other good seeds here ready to be planted down the road, but if I try to get them in now it will screw up the rotation.

I can't wait 'til I can set up a dispensary and actually have room for an extra 12 seeds. Not to mention actually walk between my plants. Ahhhh. It's so weird after having spent many years in Northern California watching other growers and learning to grow, to now be in this little submarine. But on the other hand, I'm kinda lazy and I don't miss hauling water at all. In fact, I'm so lazy, I get pissed when I have to carry a pot of grodan to the bathroom to rinse it. I have the room plumbed for my needs basically.

Although... I realized this morning at 6AM when I wanted to mix up a little batch of water for the clones, that I would have to open the Flower area to get at the water. Which meant closing the veg area, cause lights were on in veg, off in flower. This pissed off the perfectionist in me so I'm going to have to add a water in inside the veg area. Gonna have to think it through a little cause I don't want it messy.

 

[BassBong]

Nice grow, like the set up.

 

[Green Utopia]

Am seriously on the train of contemplating the scrog.

The only question is whether I will want/need to be able to move or adjust the plants. Which is obviously all but impossible in the scrog. And although this batch probably won't need to be moved, in the future ones I'm fairly sure some will, and this IS meant to be the test run.

Gonna think on it a little more , but basically I'll have to pull the trigger on it one way or the other in the next day or two.

 

[Green Utopia]

Nice grow, like the set up.

Thanks!!

I just saw your reply in the other thread - that damn ducting threw me for a loop when I first started as well.

GL and keep up the good work.

 

[Green Utopia]

I've decided not to do a trellis or scrog. The problem being the support for the front corner would interfere with the basic usage of the room. So I'm gonna do some kind of pruning on future plants. Not decided whether it will be standard topping, supper-cropping by bending, or whether it will be FIM technique.

As usual I'd love to hear any thoughts. I'm gonna check through the forums right now on whether its too late to mess with two of these plants. They're in their 2nd day of flower cycle.

 

[RLMC]

WoW , What A Set-Up, Great Job.

Just A Thought, But Can You Support The SCROG With 4-Legs ?? I Just Skimmed Through But Saw You Were Not Going To Use It Because Of Supporting Problems, I Know From Experience If You Don't Have Some Kinda Screen Or Trellis When The Buds Start Putting On Weight And Falling Over, You Will Be Wishing You Had Something Up.

 

[Green Utopia]

WoW , What A Set-Up, Great Job.

Just A Thought, But Can You Support The SCROG With 4-Legs ?? I Just Skimmed Through But Saw You Were Not Going To Use It Because Of Supporting Problems, I Know From Experience If You Don't Have Some Kinda Screen Or Trellis When The Buds Start Putting On Weight And Falling Over, You Will Be Wishing You Had Something Up.

First - Thanks!!!

You're definitely right I will likely need something. As far as the posts - that's what I did last time - but on this one the post would be right where my work space is. Its the 6 black pots on the right that would get the scrog. I work in the middle.

I thought about velcro to the curtain, but then every time I raise the curtain its a nightmare. I even thought about bringing the post from the ceiling. That one is still in the running, and has the added benefit of framing the curtain better.

I'm trying to put my very stoned brain at work thinking of a nice adaptive tie-down system. Maybe put some velcro on each pot, then just use string to go down to the velcro. Also, there is pretty good circulation in there so the stems are fairly nice right now - not too big or small.

I really need to get more pics in here - but the only cam I have right now is my phone and I get those damn scan lines from the HPS. I've tried to avoid them in this thread, but I may have to suck it up.

 

[Stakkur]

Well i gave the variable speed on the fans a though and my conclusion was that you'd want to use a thermostat to measure the temperature and have only a set of prefixed speeds you'd use wheras each speed would have its own pin on the chip and a relay attached where each relay would be preset for a certain % of the speed. One for cooling the room, one for just ventillation while the room is lit but not as warm (good for colder days) and one when the ligths are off just to keep some airflow.
Does this make any sense ?

As for topping, i am a big fan of any form of LST if you are going to tie them down and the velcro seems like a good idea. But if you are going to prune i'd most deffinetly try and go with the FIM tecnique since it can yield more than just normal topping with no more cost.

 

[Green Utopia]

Well i gave the variable speed on the fans a though and my conclusion was that you'd want to use a thermostat to measure the temperature and have only a set of prefixed speeds you'd use wheras each speed would have its own pin on the chip and a relay attached where each relay would be preset for a certain % of the speed. One for cooling the room, one for just ventillation while the room is lit but not as warm (good for colder days) and one when the ligths are off just to keep some airflow.
Does this make any sense ?

As for topping, i am a big fan of any form of LST if you are going to tie them down and the velcro seems like a good idea. But if you are going to prune i'd most deffinetly try and go with the FIM tecnique since it can yield more than just normal topping with no more cost.

I definitely agree you would need a thermostat in the equation.

Thanks much for the pruning tips - pretty new to that stuff. I'm definitely gonna experiment a little once everything is up and running.

As to using the pins to step the voltage - the fans that aren't variable won't even spin until you reach the correct voltage. Then anything above that is wasted. If you have a variable fan - there are a few kinds of motors that can be used in them - ie. single phase or multi-phase. If you have a multi phase motor - then yes - I think what you are talking about would work in theory, but you would end up using more relays and likely more pins. If you have a single-phase - then the only way to get what you are talking about would be with a pot.

So either:

1 pot and 1 relay per fan (might need a capacitor depending on how long the wire run is) - works for any variable speed fan and can speed up or slow down to any speed
or
3 relays per fan (might need a capacitor depending on how long the wire run is) - will only work on multi-phase (I'm pretty sure that's right) and can only achieve 3 speeds.

I actually have 1 fan where the second type would be better - the one I cannibalized from an a/c. It is wired so that there are 3 speeds. I just use two of the 4 wires and have it set on medium, but I guess I could add 2 more relays and use your technique to get a low and high going as well. Good thought there.

Most of my fans are not variable, so I will need to turn them on or off as needed, but perhaps I will add that to the list of upgrades to the veg area. It has the Dayton fan and that would be cool to set up with a pot. Would be able to keep the temp within 1deg and really never spin faster than half speed. Would be very efficient. Good idea.

+Reps for getting this convo off to a good start.

 

[Stakkur]

I definitely agree you would need a thermostat in the equation.

Thanks.

The only problem i can think of is how to manage the pot. Cant for the life of me think of a way unless there are some of them that are voltage variable and the chip having a variable voltage output.

 

[Green Utopia]

Thanks.

The only problem i can think of is how to manage the pot. Cant for the life of me think of a way unless there are some of them that are voltage variable and the chip having a variable voltage output.

I think this might be too low amp for what you want if I understand you right? Not sure where you're thinking of putting the pot - inline w/high voltage, or at the board level to share a pin?

$3.25/ea


The AD5220 provides a single channel, 128-position digitally controlled variable resistor (VR) device. This device performs the same electronic adjustment function as a potentiometer or variable resistor. These products were optimized for instrument and test equipment push-button applications. A choice between bandwidth or power dissipation is available as a result of the wide selection of end-to-end terminal resistance values.
Features:

• 128 Position
• Potentiometer Replacement
• 10 kΩ, 50 kΩ, 100 kΩ
• Very Low Power: 40 mA Max
• Increment/Decrement Count Control

Other List Title:

• Mechanical Potentiometer Replacement
• Remote Incremental Adjustment Applications
• Instrumentation: Gain, Offset Adjustment
• Programmable Voltage-to-Current Conversion
• Programmable Filters, Delays, Time Constants
• Line Impedance Matching
• Power Supply Adjustment

Key Specifications:

• Power requirements: 2.7 to 5.5 VDC
• Communication: interface analog
• Dimensions: 0.43 x 0.28 x 0.195 in (109 X 71 X 82.5 mm)
• Operating temp range: -40 to + 185 °F (–40 to +85 °C)

 

[Stakkur]

I'm not sure where i'd exactly place the pot, but that device looks close to what i'd need but way to small for any fan control applications.
You'd probably have to hook a bunch of them up in paralell, gonna need to get my paws inside a full blown 8amp fan controler and study its innards, best luck on the grow and your implementaion.

I'll be rooting for you