The Happy Cola Company's Official Ground Up Medical Cannabis Grow Op

Kongfuzi said:
Just seems odd to me you spared no expense in the whole build except when it came to what you actually grow in. Plants look great though.
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I think he spared a LOT of expenses building everything but the lights by hand! And even those had a little work done on them too
 
Kongfuzi said:
Just seems odd to me you spared no expense in the whole build except when it came to what you actually grow in. Plants look great though.
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Not sure what you mean by what we actually grow in. You mean expanded clay? If so, there are many good reasons.
1. Cost effective. I'm still using media from before we began this project. That's been a few years.
2. Total control. Much more over a soil based media. We can react to changes and situations on the fly and be able to quickly start fresh if need be.
3. Been using expanded clay long before the name "Hydroton" was invented. We are so used to it.
4. Same system from veg to flower making transitions mighty easy.
 
Kongfuzi said:
Just seems odd to me you spared no expense in the whole build except when it came to what you actually grow in. Plants look great though.
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I really had to kind of chuckle at the "spared no expense".
To the contrary. I'm a cheap shot that doesn't want to look back and redo stuff. Most of what we have was built, not bought. If that makes me Richie Rich why do I feel so broke?
 
TorturedSoul said:
I understand the "run what ya brung" mentality (schedule 40 galvanized fittings cost money, lol), but that's going to rust, and probably quickly (especially if it's Chinese crap that might have come pre-rusted from the factory). I don't know that it'll cause any future issues with your plants or anything, but if the rust begins to flake off, might it clog your sprinkler heads?
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Brother, you got me thinking. So much so, I'm going to address this.
I have some Pore left over from an old car project. I'm gonna literally "pour" it into the cavities and slosh it around a bit before draining it.
I'm curious to see if it works, because mu friend, your right. This hog will rust.
 
Cwmoore577 said:
No clue how I haven't seen this thread before now. Awesome facility, Happy! Wishing you guys all the luck. I'd much rather buy product from local farmers than the corporate giants trying to take over the cannabis industry after years of lobbying to suppress it.

Subbed!
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Funny you mention corporate giants. A few weeks ago one of our dispensary clients mentioned one of these "giants" who came into his dispensary and proclaimed the goal of the massive grow they are building with out of state money is to flood the market and put folks like me out of business.
The only one-up we have is to, with great care and pride provide a better final end product.
Right now around here the market is flooded with material from outdoor grows.
Another thing I've learned is most dispensaries don't want it. Not to knock outdoor grows Ii assure you. It's a quality issue that one can clearly see the difference in.
 
Better product is always a good thing. On the other hand... I used to spend "a bit" of time in establishments that featured fights with the occasional side order of alcohol, and I was occasionally somewhat amazed by some of the swill that was very popular, seemingly only because they were "craft" brews. Boutique doesn't always mean "better" - but it does often mean "great seller" :rolleyes: .

That doesn't mean you can/should grow crap and not worry about it, lol. However, if you can come up with some kind of immediately noticeable brand/packaging/etc., that can end up giving you a long-term boost in sales. Of course, everyone and their brother are trying to do the same thing, because it's a popular industry. . . .
 
The Happy One said:
The only one-up we have is to, with great care and pride provide a better final end product.
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That’s how ya do it. If your shits good, let it stand on its own and “whip it out to measure” in the metaphorical sense
The Happy One said:
Right now around here the market is flooded with material from outdoor grows.
Another thing I've learned is most dispensaries don't want it. Not to knock outdoor grows Ii assure you. It's a quality issue that one can clearly see the difference in.
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We finally had 2 dispensaries open a month or two ago. Hardly any supply, and one had to shut down because of mold.

all for $60 an 8th schwag.
 
The Happy One said:
Funny you mention corporate giants. A few weeks ago one of our dispensary clients mentioned one of these "giants" who came into his dispensary and proclaimed the goal of the massive grow they are building with out of state money is to flood the market and put folks like me out of business.
The only one-up we have is to, with great care and pride provide a better final end product.
Right now around here the market is flooded with material from outdoor grows.
Another thing I've learned is most dispensaries don't want it. Not to knock outdoor grows Ii assure you. It's a quality issue that one can clearly see the difference in.
Click to expand...
Better product and educating people to support local companies. Used to be cartels flooding the market, now it's corporations. Our advantage is that they focus on quantity and not quality.
 
No matter how many corporations enter the market with cheaper products for cheaper prices, there will always be a connessuer market for top end product that customers will ask for. Just as there is a market for cheap gas station Cigars and a market for high end ones
 
Getting sticky around here!
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I finished up on the Happy Cola Media Shaker 6000 tonight. Sort of.
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I got the sides installed and everything hopefully sealed up.
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Tomorrow, I dump 50 liters of dirty Hydroton and fire her up.

However, even after a successful run, we're not quite done.
Well over a year ago, I entertained the thought of automating many tedious functions of operating the grow. Face it. There isn't enough hours in a day.
I talked about doing this utilizing the open source Arduino hardware and software. We could handle all kinds of things like lights, ph and ect monitoring and dosage pumps to keep the parameters in check, automatically.
Well, I'm not there yet... but it's time to jump in and start learning.
Nomenclature is for sissies, so we need a hands on project.
What better project to automate that the Media Shaker 6000?
So.... here's the plan.
We are going to use the same kind of technology that a dishwasher might use, except we're controlling the Media Shaker 6000.
What exactly are we going to do? Here's the sequence of operation:
1. Push the start button. (Duh, right?)
2. Arduino closes the relay powering the 12 volt water shut off solenoid. Water is fed to the 3 spray nozzels @45 psi and begin to saturate the expanded clay.
3. After a given time (we'll dial the times in later) the Arduino energizes the relay controlling the concrete shaker motor. This starts moving the media around to insure everything is good and wet. This will also be set according to time after trial and error, salt and plant debris removal, ect.
4. Then, with both the water and shaker motor going, peroxide is injected into the water distribution manifold by a small 12 volt 80 psi water pump. A backflow valve is installed between these two items.
Once again, trial and error will net us the time required here.
5. Injector pump shuts off while both the water and media shaker continue to bounce around the media, effectively cleaning the media from the abrasive action taking place.
6. After given time, water shuts off and media shaker continues. (This should help shake most of the water from the Hydroton).
7. Media shaker stops.
8. Bed lift is energized. Bed is raised to 35 deg.
9. Gate is released, dumping clean expanded clay into a 55 gallon drum on wheels, ready to roll and load a fresh room full of eager ladies...
Boom! This all takes place while I'm busy doing something else!
 
Here's a preview of the Happy Cola Media Cleaner 6000. It DOES work! This will indeed be a time and back saver for us! Once it's automated, I'll put this one behind us. My son is handling the Arduino programming. This program should put this project over the top! IF you knew how cheap it was to automate using Arduino you'd wonder why everyone isn't doing it.
Enjoy!

Media Cleaner 6000
 
We tinkered with automating the media washer yesterday, but kept having issues between hardware and software. Like a ground isolation issue or hopefully just a defective relay array.
Anyway, we'll figure it out one way or another.
I built a dump shoot, added the 12 volt water valve and called it a day.
Today IS a very big day though.
We begin our first totally successful harvest! WooHoo!!!
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