Building My New Commercial Medical Grow Room

Making progress


So I am making progress. I got the wiring for the A/C finished so that my Sentinel CHHC-4 can now turn the A/C unit on and off allowing it to better control the temps in the room. I also got a new heater that can be controlled by the Sentinel as well. Here is the wiring for the A/C.


This pic shows the Sentinel with the 120V AC adapter plugged in in the upper left corner of the Sentinel.





This pic shows the Junction Box with a 30Amp DC triggered relay, an AC to DC bridge rectifier and all the internal wiring. The red connectors are the DC trigger wires that run through the bridge rectifier triggered when the sentinel turns on the cooling outlet that in turn activates the relay allowing the 240V power to flow through to the Air Conditioner outlet. The upper yellow connectors are the 2 hot wires coming in from the breaker and the bottom yellow wires are going out to the receptacle.





A shot showing the receptacle.





All buttoned up and also pictured is the new 1500 watt ceramic heater I bought that the sentinel can control (no digital thermostats) it has manual control knobs. Full climate control now.





Close up shot of the little heater. It should be fine to keep the room from falling below 65 degrees.





I took mrastro's advice and chained the Co2 tanks to prevent any accidents. I used some strong eye hooks and chained them up.





Stynk and someone else said to get some green bulbs and I did a little while back so I could go in during the dark hours without disturbing their photo cycle. They work.





Tomorrow I have to go exchange my small pumps for some bigger ones and also get a bigger reservoir. I had no idea I would need somewhere around a 100 gal. res for each 4x8 table! Maybe I can plumb together the 2 45 gal. plastic totes I was planning on using for reservoirs. They are big plastic 54 gal. storage totes but the handles have some holes in them so they probably only hold about 45 gallons. I'm gonna check out the reservoirs I have in storage and see if they are big enough. Just a small snag. I'll get it ironed out in the next couple days.


I'm also gonna be buying some new reflectors and selling these. I want some better reflectors that seal better so I'm not wasting Co2 or losing my cool air from the A/C.


Things are progressing.....


asssit:


opcorn-2:

 

awesome work my man... and im glad you followed Mr Astro's advice... in high school this dude knocked over an acetelene tank that wasnt secured... the regulator was snapped off by the work bench and the tank took off like a missle and went through the block wall into the wood shop... and knocked over the router table then exited the school through the exterior wall... was craziest thing ive ever seen...

 

are you 100% sure that those green bulbs do not disturb the night cycle?


I was told that is had to be a green spectrum LED light.


I have no idea myself, and I actually Just bought two of those same green bulbs. home depot.


let me know if you have a good enough answer to put my worries to rest!!

 

I have had them for about 2 weeks and used them several times and my plants seem to be flowering right along without any signs that they have been disturbed.

 

okay nice, I still feel like i need to do a little more research before i trust them fully.


I dont have them in with my plants, but i use them to light up my garage when the plants are in the hut sleeping.


I was using regular CFL's until tonight, that hut is light proof enough to where it doesn't really matter what shade of light you are using, its not getting to the plants inside..


OH YEA, I also got some 8" insulated ducting for my raptor. put it in tonight, getting the fan tomorrow! I'm trying to lower my AC usage. Power bill was higher than I wanted

 

All the pieces are just about in place.


Here shortly, you're going to be putting all of us to shame. :not-worthy: :not-worthy: :not-worthy:


edit: I've used the green incandescent bulbs during lights off for a long time without a problem, but never the green cfl's. I need to pick up another green bulb. I'll probably get a cfl like those.

 

Got mine from Home Depot. $4.99 USD ea.

 

As far as light leakage and how much will interrupt the flowering cycle or cause unnecessary stress to the plant, I think it needs to be pretty significant and fairly intense. My outdoor plants are exposed to some pretty bright moonlight, and streetlights, as well as car headlights occasionally. They never seem to have any problems flowering. My indoor plants have never given me problems and my flowering rooms are never 100% light proof. It's never pitch black in there. So far no problems with these green CFLs. I'll let you guys know if I notice any problems from using them. They aren't very bright and I notice that my photo cell censor on my Sentinel doesn't see the light as bright enough to trigger the day cycle. It still sees it as being the dark/night cycle.

 

growing indoors i've personally found that a slightly open door with a light on 10 feet down the hall is enough to cause a significant number of hermies. I had problems with climate control and left the door open for a crop, and hermied about half the plants. The grower who gave me the cuts flowered out several rounds of them with probably only 5-10 out of a couple hundred hermies. I also underwatered them on a regular basis, though, :good job: so it could just be my superstition.


Also, I've seen pictures of outdoor plants flowering at way different rates because of outdoor incandescent lighting... I remember one that was literally half and half on a walled balcony. the part that got very low reflected light from over the neighbor's wall flowered much more slowly than the fully dark half. Just kinda trying to support my superstition that hermaphroditing isn't the only problem caused by low level light leaks.


I am in my garden probably about 10 hours a week with the greenlight on, and I keep my clothes in that bedroom's closet, so I'm always turning it off and on for 10 plus minutes at a time. It's been working for me! Done it for about 6 months.

 

If the light leaking onto the plants is significantly intense then I would say yes it will affect their light cycle. I wouldn't leave a light in a hallway outside my room on and the door open, ever. I wouldn't go shine a flashlight on them either. The light must be very dim. My outdoor plants as I said are exposed to low level lighting from my driveway lamp, and headlights when we come and go at night. I put up some green screen in front of them to block as much as possible, but I mean at night during a full moon I can see every detail of the plant, it can be pretty bright. I would assume that indoors the plants would get used to a very dark area and it may take less intensity to interrupt the flowering cycle. So far though no problems using the green CFL bulbs. I only use them from time to time, when I have need to go into the room during dark hours, not every day and not for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. I generally stay out of the room when the lights are off.

 

This is how I understand it. I have heard many people say that the moon is brighter than any indoor light leaks (Unless your light leak is just totally horrible)


Think about how much brighter the sun is compared to any indoor lighting, even 8-1000W HPS lights could never come close to outdoor lighting (the sun).


Outdoor plants: (The "Natural" order of plant life)


It's my theory that since the day time lighting (the sun) is so bright and so much higher in lumen count, when the plants are in the dark, even a bright light (the moon) seems to be very dim to them....


Then look at indoor plants,


When you have indoor the plants, the light is never as intense as the outside sun, so a weaker light in the night cycle would have more powerful effect on interrupting the plants photo period...


hope that made some kind of sense. Kron D

 

Similar in theory to what I had said. Indoors they get a much darker dark period as well as less intense light than the sun as you stated and therefore it takes less intense light to interrupt their flowering cycle. I still think that for a light leak to present a problem it needs to be fairly intense compared to the dark cycle and of the right spectrum of course but also somewhat frequent or constant.

 

I have violated the light rules several times if they were in full flower. I have turned on the fluro ceiling lights in the room and had no plants go to herm but I would imagine it would depend on the strain also.


Teamster6

 

well I will say thats one rule i have NOT violated yet... once i seal the floweroom for teh dark cycle i do not open until lights on again...

 

Okay everyone, it's time for an update....


The room is basically finished. We will have some tweeks and adjustments over time I'm sure but for now it's for the most part finished and in use. We are running all 5k watt HP lights. 4 Sunlight Supply Sun System 1k watt switchable magnetic ballasts and 1 XtraSun 1k watt HPS ballast. XtraSun6 sealed 6" vented reflectors. In a sealed room I'm utilizing a Sentinel CHHC-4 Environmental Cotroller, 2 50lb. Co2 tanks, 18,500 BTU A/C unit, 1500 watt Ceramic heater, 2 400+ CFM inline centrifugal fans cooling the lights connected with insulated ducting and to a carbon scrubber and another 400 CFM centrifugal fan running a separate carbon scrubber inside the room. Several stationary and oscillating fans to move air. 4'x8' flood tables, 100 gal. res. R/O water filter....... I think that's all the hardware. Here is a shot of the finished room.


asssit:





Ya think it'll suffice?..... I sure hope so. I put my heart and soul into this.asssit:

 

Looks reallll good. Should post this under my setup thread. looks like you have two different light cycles in the same room going? What do you use to partition?

 

thats whoa....you got a nice setup :thumbs-up: :not-worthy:

 

No partition. Not different light cycles, just different start times. I have a batch that's about to finish in a week or so, a batch that went in a week or so ago and a batch that just went in a day ago. I'm going to be doing a perpetual harvest. I have a vegetative room with 2k watt MH and 400 watt Fluoros where I do clones and veg them to about 12" then into the flood tables to flower. With the staggered start times I should be harvesting every 3-5 weeks depending on strains and exactly how staggered their start times are. the whole room is on a single timer and all the lights in the flowering room run on the same 12/12 light cycle.


BigT-thanks for the compliment, and for stopping in to take a look. It's been a journey from start to finish. THis thread documents the transformation pretty well.

 

100G Ressy


Hey Ras, I'm drawing on your posts in another thread but decided this was a more appropriate place for my observation/querry.


You've decided to give the Useless formula a try in your enf system. And you've got a 100G res you're working with. Are you going to fill that sucker up only to drain it all out and refill each week? That seems like a colosal waste of nutes (money). Maybe, if you're in like the fifth week of flower with a Full table of Big thirsty bitches, then I could see filling up the res. Or do you think I'm underestimating how much water they'll really take?


I ran one big table with 60 plants like six years ago and I remember when they got big I was pretty suprised at just how much they'd actually transpire. But I can't say with any certainty how much as it's been a minute ago.


Retiree

 

Well, those are all valid thoughts that have crossed my mind. This is all new to me so I am on a learning curve. I agree that filling the res every week IS a lot of water and nutrients to go through. I read in the Useless 3 part thread that if you are running R/O water that you can go 2 weeks between resy changes without any risk of salt buildup. I may give this method a try since I have a large resy. To flood the table to the proper depth It takes approx. 65 gal. but the pump needs to be submerged in order to pump so that takes another 15-20+ gal to fill the resy to a depth adequate for the pump to operate so that leaves me filling the res to between 80-100 gal. I may get away with 80 gal total especially once I get a few more plants in the table it will take less water to flood it. Either way I think it will be cheaper running the USeless GH3 part nutes as apposed to the General Organics line I was using so that is a win in itself. The GH 3 part nutes are pretty affordable.