Using a Light Rail mover in a Vert setup.

[ChaosCatalunya]

Hi ICers,

I am planning a new Vert setup inspired by the things I see going on here and want some of your thoughts on designs before I get my saw and drill.....

Thinking through it all, designing things on paper, making little Origami cardboard and paper models [daft, but if it means you spot a problem before build, not so daft..] I have been moving forward.

A friend has been trying and has had good successes with Valleys - Eliptical Colosseums as opposed to round ones. He uses a Light Rail to move his light/s up and down the garden and effectively increase the growing area for just a few Watts more. This will obviously entail more hassles with routing and securing the lights and the grow, not a great problem, I used to make rigs that held 3 600Ws on one light rail, wiring neatly in a concertina, no problems.

Partly because of this, I am thinking of not using a cooltube, there is less need as the lights will be moving, but I want all ideas, especially about how to improve air circulation... and how far apart to set the walls ?

Current design is now looking like this, from above. I am trying to decide if I should make half NFT and half Coco drain to waste pots, the Coco is pretty simple and foolproof, but the NFT [or aero type variant] is about max yield, which is what this little garden is about... there I go talking myself into the Active option... But while I am learning the system, the flexibility of moveable pots is tempting...However, as I am planing it to be NFT and that really affects clone growth, maybe I shoud stick to that so I can get it all dialled in ASAP ?

I am thinking of 2 600Ws and also wondering how far apart they should be vertically ?

Here is my "design" so far, it is split in two as I want to mount half on a wheeled chassis to make access a doddle....



Currently thinking of a 1M light movement, so, if the whole thing is 2M long, 1M wide, giving 50cm all round at each end, 20cm of "green" - plant and 30cm of "white" free air.... if you follow me..

All thoughts and input welcomed !

 

[canadiancracker]

whats up dude, hope i can throw some ideas in your guitar case..

with a light mover on rails id make it 5.5'X8' with whatever height accompanies 3 shelfs and your fourth shelf the floor with plants all the way around stadium style and all over the floor. the ones underneath will harvest 1/3 of the normal weight but whatever waste the light if youd like 1000w hps hortilux bulb that comes within 35-40 cm of the ends of the stadium and because its always moving you dont have to worry about burning unless the light mover fucks up... hang the can filter or exaust high in the room above the lamp(S) im gonna be doing pretty much the same shit with 1k hps in a cooltube to heat my living room. same dimensions i mentioned... id get some fans mount them on the ceiling outta the way of the light mover path and have a light breeze above. and 2 smaller fans blowing oposite way underneath the shelfs long side.. air movement around the roots and no stale air is always good.

take care good luck with the build cant wait to see you settling in and dialing your new system in. the switch to vert is wonderful, the yeild for the wattage. overall just wonderful

 

[Mr.Jones]

wow i thought about a system like this will perform (using growalls) but with an eliptical this should be sonic!

i would build it a little larger - around 120cmx240cm
from my experience even with just one week of veg. i ended up with plants growing 30cm to my bulb (250w) (my system had a diametre of 80cm)



you might to avoid that

you gonna report?

 

[DHF]

Hey CC.....I ran vertical rack/shelf rooms for couple yrs with 3-600`s on top of each other with great results........

I had 4 levels of plants at 18-36-54-and 72" with the bare bulbs at 2-4-and 6' with only 4 plants on each level on all 4 walls for a total of 64 plants that regularly pulled over 6 lbs every run consistently......

I don`t think you need a mover but that`s your call....Heath Robinson designed the angled shelves/racks that I tweaked my flip rooms into but his lights were side by side in 4 x 6 rectangular rooms, 3 levels with only 2 lights side by side , and buncha smaller plants as to where my rooms were 6 x 6 with angled corners covered in reflectix ........Hell ....everything that wasn`t green was covered in reflectix.....

My rooms looked octagonal with no plants in the corners.......There was still room on the floor for more plants that`d increase yields even more but I hadta retire before exploiting the system/setup.....

Forget the mover and put the extra light in there while concentrating more on ambient temps and humidity levels.......IOW.......Dial your environment while hovering around 50 watts per sq ft and you`ll get there.........

Anything I can help with just holler........

Peace......DHF.........

 

[Mr.Jones]

Hey CC.....I ran vertical rack/shelf rooms for couple yrs with 3-600`s on top of each other with great results........

I had 4 levels of plants at 18-36-54-and 72" with the bare bulbs at 2-4-and 6' with only 4 plants on each level on all 4 walls for a total of 64 plants that regularly pulled over 6 lbs every run consistently......

I don`t think you need a mover but that`s your call....Heath Robinson designed the angled shelves/racks that I tweaked my flip rooms into but his lights were side by side in 4 x 6 rectangular rooms, 3 levels with only 2 lights side by side , and buncha smaller plants as to where my rooms were 6 x 6 with angled corners covered in reflectix ........Hell ....everything that wasn`t green was covered in reflectix.....

My rooms looked octagonal with no plants in the corners.......There was still room on the floor for more plants that`d increase yields even more but I hadta retire before exploiting the system/setup.....

Forget the mover and put the extra light in there while concentrating more on ambient temps and humidity levels.......IOW.......Dial your environment while hovering around 50 watts per sq ft and you`ll get there.........

Anything I can help with just holler........

Peace......DHF.........

a lightmover will always make a grow more efficient because of the plants getting light from different positions - so a lightmover is maybe not as good as adding another light but will offer a much better gpw (which vertical is all about)

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Great input all, many thanks, please keep it coming...

a lightmover will always make a grow more efficient because of the plants getting light from different positions - so a lightmover is maybe not as good as adding another light but will offer a much better gpw (which vertical is all about)

This is what I am thinking, I want to use 1, 2 or 3 600Ws a efficiently as possible, using a homemade vertical system. If I adapt the idea my friend runs, of "Valleys" with movers there may well be more yield to be had [almost] for free.

At 1M high, a 1M wide tubular garden gives 3.14M2, if you stretch it out like this with a mover going just 1M, you get another 2M2, making it 5.14M2. Added to this, there may also be advantages with air movement and less bulb/bud burning ?

 

[DHF]

Increased plant numbers in vertical setups is what increases grams per watt Mr Jones and nothing else.....1.5 gpw`s is 1.5 gpw`s regardless if it`s done with 1200 watts on a mover or 1800 watts stationary with a 1/3 more plants......

The whole theory behind coliseums is the increased plant numbers in a controlled smaller area right ?......Has nothing to do with light efficiency in said small area but rather the amount of light BLASTING all those cuts making em swell up........

But.......There`s no way you can use the same amount of plants with a 1/3 less light and yield the same with a mover........It just doesn`t work that way ........

Please let us see these "valleys" Chaos.........Sounds interesting .........

Good luck CC.........DHF......

 

[Mr.Jones]

Increased plant numbers in vertical setups is what increases grams per watt Mr Jones and nothing else.....1.5 gpw`s is 1.5 gpw`s regardless if it`s done with 1200 watts on a mover or 1800 watts stationary with a 1/3 more plants......

The whole theory behind coliseums is the increased plant numbers in a controlled smaller area right ?......Has nothing to do with light efficiency in said small area but rather the amount of light BLASTING all those cuts making em swell up........

But.......There`s no way you can use the same amount of plants with a 1/3 less light and yield the same with a mover........It just doesn`t work that way ........

Please let us see these "valleys" Chaos.........Sounds interesting .........

Good luck CC.........DHF......

well you sure making a statement which i can just partly agree with:

i agree with the plant number - a sog will outperform any other technique pretty much any day (because of the very short veg time). and so many small plants growing under one light is very efficient ... but another big advantage of a vertical grow is the perfectly even light spreading, no reflector needed! so even a vertical scrog can perform better than a horizontal scrog!
a lightmover is offering the plants light from diffrent sides and those plants will perform even better (horizontal lights on a lightmover can give a up to 30% or bigger harvest) and i guess this should add up vertical as well

have a good day

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Increased plant numbers in vertical setups is what increases grams per watt Mr Jones and nothing else.....1.5 gpw`s is 1.5 gpw`s regardless if it`s done with 1200 watts on a mover or 1800 watts stationary with a 1/3 more plants......

The whole theory behind coliseums is the increased plant numbers in a controlled smaller area right ?......Has nothing to do with light efficiency in said small area but rather the amount of light BLASTING all those cuts making em swell up........

But.......There`s no way you can use the same amount of plants with a 1/3 less light and yield the same with a mover........It just doesn`t work that way ........

Please let us see these "valleys" Chaos.........Sounds interesting .........

Good luck CC.........DHF......

HI DHF,

Sadly the Valleys are not here, it is a UK based buddy, but here is a rough as you like sketch up of the arrangement. There are no "ends" it is just a 2 sided valley, essentially a table, elongated for the extra light mover, then with the outer thirds raised up 2 or 3 levels to take advantage of the side lighting, in a halfway Colisseum kind of style, very productive compared to a flat or moverless garden.

I want to develop this idea further, going to the full 3d model using "ends" in a purer Colisseum style, essentially a stretched Colisseum using the mover [linear, LightRail 3.5]

A thousand apologies for my cack handed graphic lashups, 'tis not me dayjob you know....

A cross sectional view of my friends Valley of Green...

 

[DHF]

Ok .......Now I understand Chaos.....That`s a stadium grow or at least what our term is and it`s not per se a vertical grow like a coliseum but rather just using vertical bare bulbs in a rectangular room that a mover would work well in but it won`t increase yields as well as if all 3 bulbs instead of 2 on a mover would produce..........

It makes perfect sense to use a mover left to right in a stadium grow as that`s how movers were designed to be used, but every one I`ve ever seen never came up with the numbers that an extra bulb in the room produced and I`ve seen several stadium setups over the yrs...........

I thought you were talking bout up and down movement which would`ve been limited by floor and ceiling height not letting the bulbs move more than a foot if that..........

Mr Jones........I apologize cuz plants on the walls with lights on top of each other and a stadium grow with bare bulbs side by side are apples and oranges........Two different animals.......

In a true vertical setup everything`s on the walls like a coliseum and that`s why I stressed the 3rd light with all on top of each other would give more end result.....

I still stand by the minimum 50 watts per sq ft for increased yields and dense nugs ......A mover will help the lower budsites to a certain degree but it won`t swell em up like the extra bulb would ......at least that`s been my personal experience..........

Ya`ll take care and good luck CC.........DHF.......

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Hi DHF,

Sorry, crap at explaining things as usual, so I fired up Paint.net for another lashup.....

I looked at Colisseums and thought about them, if you take it as being 1M high [for the sake of easy calculations...] then a 1M diameter Colisseum cylinder has a wall surface of 3.14M2, if you stretch it out 1M lengthways into an Oval, add in a mover going 1M up and down, you get to add in 2 extra 1M x 1M wall surfaces... giving you a very nice total of 5.14M2.

I am not really thinking of using [2X600W on] a mover to save electricity, I will happily stick 3X600W in there if I can... it was more about trying to evolve the design of the Colisseum further, if possible.

It looks like I will be going 1.5M high and 3x600W to start off with, I might try to get my hands on a CMH bulb for the middle too.


I hope this is clearer than before ! ... Top is an aerial view of a Colisseum, with the 1M diameter shown.... Bottom is the same, but with a linear light rail moving the lights 1M up and down the oval. I am also optimistically hoping the extra space and movement can also help with air movement and cooling.

 

[Gimme]

Only flaw I see with that last diagram, Chaos, is that you will be wasting about 1/4 of the light. If you have a light hanged vertically and surround the light with plants, you will be using the whole light. But if you put 3 lights hung vertically, some of the light will be wasted.

Am I making sense?

 

[DHF]

CC....My `ol Bro Heathie Robinson built a lil room with angled "racks" and inside dimensions of 4' x 6' and a lil over 6' tall with 2-600`s side by side.........

He had 3 levels of those racks with a small door in one of the walls but still had over 80 plants in there his first run..........

The room was originally designed for his breeding to pick certain pheno`s from with runs directly 12/12 from seed............

When he harvey`ed over the 1.5 gpw range outta 1200 watts I immediately went to designing and tweaking his setup for my needs ...........Over 4 lbs his first run with mostly seedplants and the rest clones to fill up the room definitely got my attention........

Heath`s design was published in Urban Garden magazine and hailed as genius for growing veggies indoors in the UK and Europe.......

I understand what you`re wanting to accomplish but you haveta factor in an open access to the plants , plus a feed system be it by hand with a water wand or automated with pumps and timers along with ambient temp and RH control.........

Are you going to have clone/pre-veg area so you can replace the chopped plants with the next round ?........something to think about.......

I`m here ta help if yas have any questions Chaos.....BTW.......You can hang shelves on the walls just as easy as steps for a stadium setup and still put plants on the floor but they`ll be stretchy if the lights are left higher for the plants up the steps or on the walls.......

That`s why I preferred my design with octagonal rooms and the lights on top of each other cuz the plants on the floor would have a bare bulb blastin their ass at 2 ft off the floor...........and that`s extra yieldage I never got a chance ta dial in and exploit before an untimely retirement........

Take care......DHF.....

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

Only flaw I see with that last diagram, Chaos, is that you will be wasting about 1/4 of the light. If you have a light hanged vertically and surround the light with plants, you will be using the whole light. But if you put 3 lights hung vertically, some of the light will be wasted.

Am I making sense?

Not really mate, as I understand it, the question of how many lights to hang vertically is decided by the height of your colisseum walls. When the mover is up one end, the other will be getting less light, but I do not see where it will be be wasted ?

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

CC....My `ol Bro Heathie Robinson built a lil room with angled "racks" and inside dimensions of 4' x 6' and a lil over 6' tall with 2-600`s side by side.........

He had 3 levels of those racks with a small door in one of the walls but still had over 80 plants in there his first run..........

The room was originally designed for his breeding to pick certain pheno`s from with runs directly 12/12 from seed............

When he harvey`ed over the 1.5 gpw range outta 1200 watts I immediately went to designing and tweaking his setup for my needs ...........Over 4 lbs his first run with mostly seedplants and the rest clones to fill up the room definitely got my attention........

Heath`s design was published in Urban Garden magazine and hailed as genius for growing veggies indoors in the UK and Europe.......

I understand what you`re wanting to accomplish but you haveta factor in an open access to the plants , ...

Hi DHF, thanks again for your help, I have been looking up a lot of things and HR keeps on popping up, a very handy man indeed to know. I am planning to sort out "the access problem" by mounting half the garden on a wheeled chassis, the other half does not need to move, as far as I can see it.

Exactly where I cut the flat sided oval is taking some thought, but a straight 50/50 with a 1/4 curve in each end is looking best, so far.

...
plus a feed system be it by hand with a water wand or automated with pumps and timers along with ambient temp and RH control.........

I want to try a couple of different systems out while I am still playing around with the whole thing, I really miss playing with Active systems and would love to make a 3d NFT type of system, but also like the quality smoke and simple reliability of drain to waste Coco plants in pots. I have just found some 15cm/6" tough plastic layflat hose I am planning on filling 150cm tall tubes with Coco and doing some pots on shelves, where I can rotate them and move about, if needed. Making life a bit hard for myself, but by getting experience of 3 different routes and no doubt finding all sorts of strengths and weaknesses of each unique to the 3d layout.... as quickly as possible.

Are you going to have clone/pre-veg area so you can replace the chopped plants with the next round ?........something to think about.......

Yes, very much so, and also an area for development, my best ever garden had my best ever clone to preveg to veg area in it... not a coincidence in my book.....

I`m here ta help if yas have any questions Chaos.....BTW.......You can hang shelves on the walls just as easy as steps for a stadium setup and still put plants on the floor but they`ll be stretchy if the lights are left higher for the plants up the steps or on the walls.......

That`s why I preferred my design with octagonal rooms and the lights on top of each other cuz the plants on the floor would have a bare bulb blastin their ass at 2 ft off the floor...........and that`s extra yieldage I never got a chance ta dial in and exploit before an untimely retirement........

Take care......DHF.....

Much appreciated mate, I will try and get some better designs up for all to have a look at.

 

[halitzor]

This is my plan for my vertical grow if anyone cares. Feel free to use the design. Its based on a 4x8 homebox XXL or equivellent space.

Thanks.

 

[DHF]

There are no coincidences Bro.......Your best garden ever was due to the fact the ball kept on rollin towards production and you know that..........

I stopped usin mom plants several yrs back first off cuz they got ripped ...... secondly I found out that I could take cuts all the way up to the time my plants started spittin pistils during the stretch.......and healthy blast off type cuts too I might add.........

A Plant guy/ botanist type told me that lower branch foliage stored more rooting hormones than upper new growth .....That fell right in place with me raping and strippin out the bottom scrag for later upper cola development that I`d been doing for yrs and shitcanning.........

It also did away with needing mom plants and that was one less thing ta worry bout while allowing at least 3 1/2-4 weeks from the fresh cuts for the next runs ta blow roots and pre-veg insuring ease of growth and health.........

Whatever yas come up with I`m sure it`ll rock `n roll.......well one side`ll roll .........LOL.......

Good luck CC......DHF..........

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

This is my plan for my vertical grow if anyone cares. Feel free to use the design. Its based on a 4x8 homebox XXL or equivellent space.

Thanks.

Thanks halitzor

Good stuff, I like your model, puts mine firmly to shame LOL, I have Google Sketch Up, just not got the hang of it yet...

I may be getting to play with a tent soon and there is a good chance it will be at least part Vertical.... he already runs tall walls round the edges of his garden, but tries to avoid it looking too "Starship Enterprise" as that is where they start trying to insinuate supply.

Please let us know your thoughts and plans with the mover side of it all, as well as how you get on with the spacing and practicalities.

 

[ChaosCatalunya]

There are no coincidences Bro.......Your best garden ever was due to the fact the ball kept on rollin towards production and you know that..........

How very true, I really miss my high tech lab, all this growing outdoors for the thieves, caterpillars and rot to mess it all up is boring me.... hence my need for an indoor adventure.

I stopped usin mom plants several yrs back first off cuz they got ripped ...... secondly I found out that I could take cuts all the way up to the time my plants started spittin pistils during the stretch.......and healthy blast off type cuts too I might add.........

A Plant guy/ botanist type told me that lower branch foliage stored more rooting hormones than upper new growth .....That fell right in place with me raping and strippin out the bottom scrag for later upper cola development that I`d been doing for yrs and shitcanning.........

It also did away with needing mom plants and that was one less thing ta worry bout while allowing at least 3 1/2-4 weeks from the fresh cuts for the next runs ta blow roots and pre-veg insuring ease of growth and health.........

Whatever yas come up with I`m sure it`ll rock `n roll.......well one side`ll roll .........LOL.......

Good luck CC......DHF..........

Interesting, yes, a good source of cuttings, nice and simple...I just need to work out the timings and how to set up vegging/transplanting best for the Vert system. This may well end up effecting the choice of method I end up using, as I am chasing yield/efficiency it is going to be hard not to end up with a NFT hybrid.. unless the practicalities of Coco skew the field....

 

[halitzor]

Thanks halitzor

Good stuff, I like your model, puts mine firmly to shame LOL, I have Google Sketch Up, just not got the hang of it yet...

I may be getting to play with a tent soon and there is a good chance it will be at least part Vertical.... he already runs tall walls round the edges of his garden, but tries to avoid it looking too "Starship Enterprise" as that is where they start trying to insinuate supply.

Please let us know your thoughts and plans with the mover side of it all, as well as how you get on with the spacing and practicalities.

Thanks buddy.

That's all mspaint lol, I can't get the hang of sketchup - haven't spent enough time on it.

I'm thinking about doing 4 plants vertical in my current tent the grow after next. As a prelim test. For the drawing, I would use an 8 foot mover and space the screens about 12-16" from the center point where the bulb will travel. I will also be using a RDWC setup. I'm currently 66 days into flower of my very first grow. I'm using 3 bubble buckets in a series with a res.

The spacing I kinda figured out in my head already. The buckets are 4 gallon square buckets 11x11". They'll be connected via uniseals and 1 1/2" pvc pipe to a res and to an overflow which will be forced back into the res via a pump. Any thoughts?

Sorta like the undercurrent system, cept hundreds of dollars cheaper.