Donpaul.p's Latest 400 Watt HPS Grow

welcome to the sites jay233, thanks a lot, do you have a grow going at the minute,

thanks rainstacks,miwa, im so chuffed to of won
 
whats your journal called, ill try and find it,

you can set it up so it in your signature like mine is below,

to do this have 2 tabs open, have 1 on page one of your journal and on the other have it on this site.
then do the following
1, on the first tab press user cp
2, scroll down the left hand side of the screen and click on edit signature.
3, go to the other tab on the first page of your journal and highlight and copy the url at the top of the page, it starts with h t t : p, but without the spaces, highlight and right click and choose copy,
4, now go back to the other tab thats on the edit singature page, their will be a text box on that page, you can right the name of your journal or what you want to call it in that box,
5, then you have 2 options, you can either highlight the words you just wrote and click on the icon above the box your writing in that looks like a blue ball with a chain in front of it, this is the add link button, its next to the envelope pic, click on that and a box pops up, then click in the bit you write and then right click and choose paste, that will insert the url for your journal, then ok it and it saves it as a link in the box you was writing the title of your journal in, then just click save and it will then save it in your signature, then each time you write a post your journal will be posted as mine and all the others are below the post.
6, the other option is to not highlight what you wrote and add the link below the name of your journal, but highlighting the name and inserting it that way is about the best option,


hopefully thats easy enough to follow, if not let me know and ill go through it again and try and make it a bit simpler, the other option is to msg one of the 420 staff and ask them to add your journal into your signature, some growers have done this so you do have that option open, if just makes it easier for members to find your journal without having to check the current journals list, once you have done it once you will find it very easy to do,
 
Happy,Happy TwoToke Thaiday Ser Don, CONGRATULATIONS ON THE MOTM, WISH I HAD THE TIME TO BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE LIKE YOU SER!!! Unfortunately For Me, I Cannot Be Around As Much As I wish To Be For Obvious Reasons. SINCERELY,SER JAMESTHEGREEN:thumb:!!!
 
thanks rainstacks, this site is the only place i can talk plants, all i know ive learned from members on this site and through trial and error myself, so if i can pass on any info that helps others then im more than happy to do that, im on here 8 hours a day most days while im at home doing nothing so i like to do what i can to help others achieve good results,


i just checked what seeds i got in stock and found some i had forgotten about, i got some sativa blackberry, nirvana ice which for some reason is a very cheap strain to buy but looks better than most higher priced strains, ive also found some blue mystic as well, ill plant a few seeds in about 4 weeks for the next round of plants, ill wait to see how big the plants ive got in veg get before i plant anymore but hopefully in 4 weeks ill have room to plant some more, cant wait to try nirvanas ice strain
 
Hi DP, Its always nice finding stuff you forgot about.
Have a great day :).
 
thanks james,

i chose the ice strain just because it looks like a very nice strain, then i seen the price and seen how cheap it was, ive found a lot of the cheap strains end up giving great results, the only poor result i have had with a lower priced seed was an auto purple, bud was very harsh and couldnt be smoked so ended up in the trim pile.
but it could of had more to do with me putting it out in freezing temps, i was trying to get a plant to turn purple and it just wouldnt turn purple, so i stuck it out on the balcony at night and it soon turned purple but ended up tasting like crap, but at least it turned purple
 
donpaul, though it is probably not recommended to completely remove the ballast case, I personally would if I was confident I could keep it dry and clean. All laptops that I get, I strip out all the guts and drill out many holes on the bottom. I'm all for breathability and air flow to cool internal components. Whatever you decide for yours I'm sure will greatly help performance and longevity. About using hard wood to vice a form into the metal, I think you'd be better off using one of those pieces and hammer from the other end. When iron smashes iron, a magnetic charge is released creating heat which gently softens the metal. A good hard wood would probably hold it's shape, but I think there's too much room for error unless one has access to a good amount of tools. I have a lot of tools, but not the right kind to accomplish either of our ideas for bending the metal, so when I build another reflector, I'm just gonna go with making elongated domes and rivot them onto the reflector. I might even try to work in hard wiring and a small fan to expedite the heat removal. I think you are spot on with your use of a PC fan to draw heat away quickly. Heat build up on anything will erode the molecular structure of that thing making it have a shorter life span.
 
its all about the tools, im a qualified car mechanic and metal worker so i got hammers and dollies so could give it a try with them, the metal on the hood is only soft is not hard rigid metal, the wings i can bend up and down with ease as i had to bend them down slightly when i set the light up as it was spreading the light well outside of the grow area so i pulled the wings down slightly so the spread of light fitted my space much better so the reflected light from the wings is now focussed directly on the plants and not on the walls or door,

plus as i raise and lower the light i can adjust the wings to keep the spread of the light in the best place, i think wasted light is just that wasted light, if i can focus it all back on the plants then its only going to help, but where the top of the hood is their is a metal plate so its more solid just above but its still only 1ml thick where this plate is and the actual hood metal is flexible so it wouldnt take to much to put vents, when i first got the light i wondered why their was no vents in the top, i could understand if it was a cool tube or sealed hood but surely vents directly above the bulb would help with heat problems, drilling holes would even help as you dont lose much light as the bulb is in the way to let it reflect back down onto the plants so a few small holes would work.

it just would of made more sense if they vented them in the first place, heat rises and hot air rises a lot quicker so to me it make sense to have a few vents directly above the bulb,

the ballast case is only held on by a few screws and through the side vent holes i can see theirs plenty of room inside above the components so it wouldnt be a huge problem taking it off but i would make sure it had been off for a few hour before i did anything to it, i just know its gets pretty toasty and the top of the ballast is very hot to touch so you couldnt keep your hand on it, again theirs only vents in the side when vents in the top would of made more sense, but then i guess people drop things all the time and its likely to fall inside,
 
This is called ridge vent and was along the lines of what I was thinking of, but this would be better as it's at the apex of the reflector
ridge_vent.jpg
 
SPEAKING OF CHEAP STRAINS SER DON, I Found That DR.ATOMIC Seeds Give The Best Bang For The buck, And I Mean All Of His Strains, Like My Favorite Or At Least Tied For First Anyways Dr.ATOMIC,DR.SKUNK,My Two Favorites.But Hell All The Rest Are Just As Good,Favorites As Well!!!Theres Shiva,Bubblelicious,BB NL,Atomic NL And Afgani Not Chosen In Any Specific Order. SINCERELY, SER JAMESTHEGREEN :thumb:!!!
 
Happy Tokerday Dp:thumb:
 
Skybound said:
This is called ridge vent and was along the lines of what I was thinking of, but this would be better as it's at the apex of the reflector
ridge_vent.jpg
Click to expand...
there is such a light hood in existence, its by Philips or someone big like that and I saw it in a grow magazine in the last few months as a rival to cool tubes and is the latest in thermal passives, but I cant find another picture (probably because its not Philips but someone equally as big or something) anyway keep an eye out for them =)

@Don
to be honest mate, why bother cutting any holes. just attatch several entire heat sink and fans to the outer casing of the ballast and standard metal on metal heat transfer will cool the whole thing down.

I not only do not recommend removing the cover of a ballast, but actively beg you to consider otherwise. c'mon man, this is a forum of stoners, if anyone on the planet is going to accidentally spray water on an unprotected HVAC device its going to be us....don't do it! :rofl:
 
Happy Weednesday DP:circle-of-love:
 
hi all, me and the kids had a huge bit of luck today, i am the kind of person who never wins anything, for example a while back i went to the main super market by my moms and my bro and sis where with me, well we was in the que at the cig counter, my sister was first then my brother was behind me, we all bought the same scratch cards, my sister scratched hers off and won £50, but it had a featuer on it that said x2 so she ended up with £100, now usually with scratch cards you have 2 winners together, so if i win a £1 i then buy the one after it and win another pound or 2 at the most, anyways i scratched off my card and had nothing, then my brother scratched his off and won £75, so thats the kind of luck i have.

anyways ill tell the story after i replied to the comments above
@Skybound, that pic looks good to me, my hood is very light and the main wing parts are very flimsy and i can bend them with ease, but the wings are attatched to another piece of metal thats above the bulb but on top of the hood, its their so it holds the wing part on to the part that holds the bulb, it has 4 rivets in it 2 at either end, so where the holes need to go it is a bit thicker id say about twice as thick, not to thick to work with but thicker than the actual wings, moneys tight at the moment so cant afford to be a sealed hood, i dont like the cool tube type ones as they dont have big reflectors and would spread the light wider than i want it, what i do at the minute is when i raise or lower the light i gently bend the wings up or down so the spread of light stays within the plant area instead of shining on the walls, i think this is reflecting the most light back to the plants instead of it lighting up the wall,

anyways as money is tight im trying to come up with something that i can make that will allow me to seal the unit up, so id need something thats clear to run from one edge of the wing and then big enough to reach the end of the other wing, so ive got some glass from an old fishtank, its part of the cover for the tank and its only thin glass, so i can use that to seal the bulb in at either end, then the open ends would be 2 small slots at the end where the base of the bulb is and the other end is totally open, so id need to make it so i can have a fan at either end of the hood, the big open part i can easily seal and mount a fan but the other part will be needing more work, not impossible and pretty easy to do but would need to be done right,

now i need to know if its ok to enclose these batwing type hoods, i would have a fan at the end where the tip of the bulb is and this would be blowing air into the hood and across the bulb, at the other end where the bulb holder is id have a fan blowing the air out of the hood and into the grow space, id use ducting and have it running to the top of the grow space,
so making it is not going to be to hard, if i had the cash id try and find one i could buy, but i got thin sheets of tin and pieces of glass so i got all i need, but i need to know if its ok to use normal glass, will it affect the spectrum or will using regular clear glass be ok, also if its sealed i need to make sure its ok to seal this type of hood, if i wasnt using 2 x 12v fans then it would fry the bulb, but my fans are high performance and when i got the one running thats on the hood now its clearly pushing the hot air out as i can feel just hot air getting blown out by that fan,

so if anyone can help me i need to know this.
1, can i use regular glass to enclose the hood, its just clear thin glass about 2 or 3ml thick, will it affect the light spectrum,
2, is it ok to enclose the hood as long as i got both fans running, they move enough air so im thinking it will be ok, i would also cut holes in the top of the hood directly above the bulb so any heat can raise upwards as well a been sucked out the hood, we know heat rises and rises quick when hot so why on earth did they not cut vents into these hoods as it would make sense to do this, put it this way if i was making and selling hoods then my first thoughts would be temps and how to keep temps lower and away from the plants, so vents are pretty obvious and directly above the bulb you would not lose any light

@JamesTheGreen, thanks for the info, ill have a look now, what strains do you buy when you buy strains, also as we know each other in real life then its ok for me to give you seeds, we just cant discuss seeds and ask for seeds of people we dont actually know, so if your interested in trying some of my strains then ill sort some out and give them to you next time we meet, i could send a 100 or more if you like, like i said to the other growers i know, i cant guarantee results will blow you away but im more than happy with the results and not had any poor results, but you grow outdoors and in a different climate and mine are crossed indoors under light schedules, so im more than happy to give you some to sample, plus it gives me the chance to see how they would do outdoors,
maybe we could swap some seeds next time we meet :). the bb x nl was a new strain coming out, herbie was giving them away with his orders a while back and i had a good few of them, its a very nice strain, i might even have some left,

thanks chronic, back at ya mate

@GiGa, the heat sinks would remove the heat from the metal but the heat im wanting to remove is the heat pushed out by the bulb, at the moment my hood is open, the cool tubes i think have a small reflector so cant reflect as much light as i want, without the 1 12v fan running at the end of the hood i can only get my hood at 1ft from the tops of the plants, well its just over 1ft with no fan, with just the 1 fan running i can lower my hood by another 4 inches, the bulb seems to push the heat down but with the fan running it pulls the heat away from the bulb and out the side of the hood,
with the ballast i cant spill anything on mine as its below a metal shelf in the bottom of my grow space, all i want to do is mount a fan at one end to blow cool air in and blow the hot air out the vents, but im in no rush to do it and i wont be cutting more vents either, just adding a fan at one end to keep it cooler and hopefully prolong life.

@Fish, back at you my friend

my next post will be about the luck i had today
 
right, where my moms lives when they built the housing estate about 1mile from my moms they discovered a roman temple complex but only after most of it ended up buried at the local tip, so lots of it was damaged and thrown away, ever since i was little ive had a big iterest in history and metel detecting,
when i was younger i had motorbikes and all around where my mom lives and where this temple was is farm land with a river running through it, theirs also lots of woods with clearings in the middle and stuff like that, anyway i got to know the farmer from riding my bikes on his land, well he always turned metal detectors away, but i spoke to him a while back and told him i want to take up metal detecting and wondered if he would let me scan his land, he told me he turned lots of experts away as they wanted to profit from the finds or sell them to museums, i told him anything i find id split with him plus im not interested in selling anything i find as id like to display it at home, i also told him that id get gps location of each find and take a pic so i could give him details and locations of each find, he told me he wouldnt want to take anything from me but would like to see what i find as im not selling it he seemed keen on the idea, he also said if anything roman is found then the historian in the village would be keen to look at the objects and put them on display, so their is miles and miles of open land, some ploughed and the hilly fields are used for grazing and never plowed, he told me when he put fences up and pulled trees out the ground he would find the old coin,

anyways now my kids have got a quad between them we take it to the same farm and go round his fields on it, so as im interested in detecting i watch videos on tube and when i watched vides from Deepdiggerdan my kids started to get very interested as he is great to watch, so now each time we go out on the quad my daugher has a look around the hedgerows for anything old, she says she is looking for buried treasure, well today the rabbits have been digging holes in the big mound and my daugter was scraping the soil with a stick and she ended up finding 2 coins in 2 different rabbit holes, one coin was from 1836 and the other was from 1796, coins look in great condition, so i had a bit of luck today, well i say me it was my daugher who found it so she had the luck but she has only been interested in detecting since watching deepdiggerdan find stuff like silver coins and the odd gold ring, so now my kids want to keep going out looking round the fields, so clearly their is stuff their to be found, ive been trying to save up for a detector now for a few months so i can take the kids out and go hunting, it keeps them away from the tv and games consoles so its a great hobby to get into, but saving is a slow process as i save some money up then some bill turns up or this time it was the school uniforms as they went back to school on tuesday and started a new year so they needed new pe kit and trousers and skirts so had to go out and buy uniforms so its a slow process but ill get their in the end,

so had a great day on the quad and ended up coming home with 2 old coins that the rabbits had dug up while building their dens, so cant wait to go over the land with a detector and see whats their, the farmer says he has had experts come with ground penetrating radars and he turned them away as their plants was to profit from anything found, so he says as far as he knows the land has never been detected, he also said his father was a lord and used to hold big garden parties in one part of the land, so this farmer is getting me some old maps he has on his wall of where road ways where and where these garden parties where held, his family have owned the property and land for over 800 years so should be a good hunting ground,

so looks like i may have 2 hobbies, growing and metal detecting, im so chuffed that my kids are really keen on it as it gets them doing outdoor stuff and stops them playing their games consoles and watching tv, so im saving up again and will hopefully get a detector soon,

so thats my story, had a really good day and my daughter was screaming when she found them, she come running over shouting she had found buried treasure, she even knew not to dig the coins up in case it damaged them so they been watching this deepdiggerdan and they have been taking in all the stuff he does when he finds coins and jewelery, plus this roman temple was pretty big so their would of been small villages all around the area where the romans lived so hopefully its a good area to go detecting in
 

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