Good morning my good 420Mag friends, stay warm if you are anywhere east of the Rockies!
I'm almost over my winter break and ready to get back into the groove playing music, so ya'll won't have to put up with me filling Sue's threads with off-topic mind dumps for too much longer! Oh I LOVE retirement! I get to do what I want to do, everyday!
As described on Sue's closing Growant review thread, I assisted an elderly couple start up a new first time grow so they can make their own meds, mostly for him as an Alzheimer's patient, and for the general health for his wife (quality and consistent Blue Dream Tincture is the goal). I chose two Growant GR480 panels (influenced by Sue's success with one little 80 watt draw panel in a 2'x2') in a new MarsHydro tent 2'x4'x7' (nice upgrades have been made with the materials used by MarsHydro, good job, good value). After setup and dialing in air flow, temps and humidity, I tested the LED panels with my light meter last night (I once had a side gig installing, making and maintaining the habitat for commercial Salt Water Aquariums, thus why I have high end equipment). While I'm not going to map every square inch of values, I will offer that the panels deliver excellent PAR values and wavelength peaks in all the right areas, including a bit of UV. I took one of the panels apart (NOT a recommendation to anyone) to check out the build and component quality, and they look to be well constructed and good grade parts and pieces. The power connectors at the panel are threaded strain relief collars, a nice touch on low cost panels that eliminates arcing and well as unintentional power disconnect. The threads on one were a bit boogered up on the collar ring, but after just a little filling on the threads and all was well.
I moved three Blue Dream youngsters, in 5 gallon perlite buckets with air stone bubblers, from my tent into their new setup, and the plants are loving it in Veg, more than my Veg tent perhaps!
I'm going to need to have them watch the panel distance for a few weeks concerning leaf burn. It's funny to teach an 81 year old lady how to take a picture with her phone and send it to me! One thing I like about the MarsHydro Reflector series for new growers is they can accidentally let their plants grow almost right into the panels without leaf burn. Powerful enough to produce good buds, but not too much power in inexperienced hands. When growers are new to this indoor sun thing, it's nice to eliminate newbie problems until they get comfortable and more experienced. Thank God for LED, I wouldn't feel safe advising an elderly person concerning the use of the HOT lamps I have used over the years, they can be a major fire hazard.
Alright folks, mind dump over, off to a meeting, and then practice session. Time to make these hands TRY to do what they could 50 years ago! If you read this far, Thank You, and enjoy your gift of life. We never know when the our last day on earth is here, so live today like it just could be that day - minus the hard felony stuff!
Peace
Keith