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my home was raided for a high powerbill!

SOTF420

Humble Human, Freedom Fighter, Cannabis Lover, Bre
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Veteran
I don't see why not as long as it does not exceed the ratings amperage/wattage wise. (including some additional headroom of at least 15-20% for safety) It always makes sense to contact the manufacturer or a qualified electrician if you have any concerns or questions about what you are doing. Hope it all works out safely for you. :)
 
i appreicate all your guys replys...lots of good info!!! I just think its fucked up...commercial growers steal power because they get reported...then they bitch for not paying for power and the rates go up. well if they didnt bust us for high bills and invade or privacy we wouldnt have this problem! alot of commercial growers here get probation for major indoor grow ops. they just busted some guy not to long ago...was dismantling his grow. the cops got a missing person report and were looking through yards when they discovered a van in his driveway with lights and growing equipment inside...they got a warrant on that and raided the guys house got him with 35#'s of processed and bagged ready to roll weight. yes cubans in florida really pull weight like that 35-50#'s a grow no joke! but besides the point how the hell do you get a warrant based on LEGAL growing equipment!!!
DIRTY COPS...THATS HOW!!! if this guy goes to trial im sure the weed wont be in the evidence room! cause they sold it! like they always do
 

SOTF420

Humble Human, Freedom Fighter, Cannabis Lover, Bre
ICMag Donor
Veteran
What the hell are they growing? Anything good?
 
what about running a huge generator to spin your meter backwards like people do...then the power company pays you for making them power every month...anyone ever heard of this!
 

gdbud

Member
so if it is smart grid, and the graph is showing ALL power-usage 18/6 or 12/12
how is anyone going to be able to grow in the future??

Move to a medical state get a medical card and only grow a personal amount. I'm able to grow my personal amount with a 400 watt bulb.
 

moho

Member
Damn man I really feel for you :( It's really fucked up and it pisses me off. 16 cops?! Are you kidding me? Spending all that tax money on choppers and SIXTEEN cops, for fucks sake solve some crimes instead.

Sorry for the rant, haha it won't help you a single bit. Keep on thinking positive thoughts and you'll soon be rolling again. A fresh start might bring something good out of it in the end :)
 
Every electronic device has an electronic signature just like a fingerprint or a snowflake, but now there are regulated power supplies available out there you can purchase that are electrical current conditioners and can be used to power sensitive lab equipment or expensive computer servers with a constant amount of regulated power. Some electronics can be damaged by power spikes or shortages in the current so these are readily available as a solution. A regulated power supply between your wall outlet & ballast of the appropriate size will disguise any electronic signature and prevent it's detection. Think buffer zone. ;)

Do you have a source for this? Something tells me they can't tell which specific items are in a persons home... can they?

and what does 12/12 look like on a load-bearing regulated power supply? would you still be in good interest to offset it with an equal usage on the flip 12/12?
 

SOTF420

Humble Human, Freedom Fighter, Cannabis Lover, Bre
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Veteran
Well it's really the start-up voltage spike signature that tells them it's an HID ballast, Newer electronic ballasts that are instant on without needing the voltage spike to ignite the lamp do not have this tell tale spike issue but they have a specific frequency they operate at that is easily detected & known as well and unique to a digital HID ballast.

Right now I think the absolute safest way to grow is using high powered LED lights, less heat, no thermal signature to FLIR, not an HID ballast, less fire risk, the list goes on.

I would not run anything more than maybe 1k max on 12/12 if you live in a bad state to grow it's just too risky. Split your flower room in half or use two rooms side by side and flip/flop it if you have to run HID.

The other option is autoflowering strains, there are some really good ones now that can grow some killer buds and you can just keep the light on the whole time! But then you have heat build-up that is FLIR detectable still from an HID that must be dealt with.

Here is the safest scenario from what I can tell:

Growroom inside an air conditioned room, like a Growlab tent (top quality tent) it has IR blocking material used for reflection of light back onto the plants.

High Powered LED light (Lumigrow ES) on 24/7 - basically no detectable heat signature for FLIR to find, no 12/12 cycle. Now 350 watts or so for a personal grow should be able to go on 12/12 no problem whatsoever but if you are running several it could be an issue. Under most conditions with decent strains you should get roughly 400 hps - 600 hps results per LED mentioned. They cost more money but they last alot longer and grow some killer pot.

Autoflowering strains of your choice if you do not want to do a 12/12 cycle for extra safety, there are tons of them available from several seed companies and many grow reports on here about big yielders such as the AK-47 crosses.

This would for the most part be undetectable as long as you have a carbon filter going and nobody knows about it except for you & you alone. ;)
 
SOTF- im guessing you have LED experience? what kind do you use? even though you say they grow killer pot is the yield comparable to a HID light? What about the ones that say they compare to a 1000watt hps is it true? i would love to fill a room with like 20 of those but don't want to blow money on something that doesn't yield? i would also love to do a huge solar setup ive seen some very large ones, one being in the skunk mag amazing!
 
Damn man I really feel for you :( It's really fucked up and it pisses me off. 16 cops?! Are you kidding me? Spending all that tax money on choppers and SIXTEEN cops, for fucks sake solve some crimes instead.

Sorry for the rant, haha it won't help you a single bit. Keep on thinking positive thoughts and you'll soon be rolling again. A fresh start might bring something good out of it in the end :)

16 masked vice cops a regular cop 3 k-9 units forensic team and a helicopter!!! my neighbors thought it was funny though and rediculous as well! everyone said all that for some pot plants! lol
 

SOTF420

Humble Human, Freedom Fighter, Cannabis Lover, Bre
ICMag Donor
Veteran
SOTF- im guessing you have LED experience? what kind do you use? even though you say they grow killer pot is the yield comparable to a HID light? What about the ones that say they compare to a 1000watt hps is it true? i would love to fill a room with like 20 of those but don't want to blow money on something that doesn't yield? i would also love to do a huge solar setup ive seen some very large ones, one being in the skunk mag amazing!

Well, that is a big question and there are alot of right and wrong answers you will get to it depending upon who you ask. I have found one of the best LED growlights to be the Lumigrow ES, it is 330 watts and used high powered 5 watt led's. The pics in my gallery display it's results, they all came from under it. The yield may be slightly lower than HID but the quality is very top notch, I would say better than HID, at least in hydro with Advanced Nutrients and Spice of Life strains that is.

They are certainly not cheap, to the tune of $1,250 - $1,500 a light for it as they are professional greenhouse quality growlights made here in the US. ahigheryield.com has them for like 1299 I think with the rebate, they are a great place to do business with. I bought mine locally in a growstore that had it for somewhere in the middle price wise and I figured what the hell I would splurge on it, glad I did as it grew some fantastic medicine. They have a 5 year warranty and the led's last a very long time and do not need changing like hps or mh bulbs. They are great for growing more than than just pot too if you ever needed to grow food indoors without using alot of juice, one or two of them could definitely be powered by a suitable solar array without getting too crazy expense wise.

I would imagine ten or twenty Lumigrow ES's would surely grow a shitload of nug but the initial investment would not be cheap to say the least and with big plants in hydro you would likely get about 8 -12 oz's a light of top grade buds. I really don't think there is better made led light currently they are like the rolls royce of led lights. You can buy cheaper ones made in china but I would not run that crap in my house. With led you definitely get what you pay for quality wise.:dance013: :ying:
 

SOTF420

Humble Human, Freedom Fighter, Cannabis Lover, Bre
ICMag Donor
Veteran
16 masked vice cops a regular cop 3 k-9 units forensic team and a helicopter!!! my neighbors thought it was funny though and rediculous as well! everyone said all that for some pot plants! lol

Tax dollars at work lol fucking ridiculous! :laughing:
 
C

Cinderella99

Well it's really the start-up voltage spike signature that tells them it's an HID ballast, Newer electronic ballasts that are instant on without needing the voltage spike to ignite the lamp do not have this tell tale spike issue but they have a specific frequency they operate at that is easily detected & known as well and unique to a digital HID ballast.

Right now I think the absolute safest way to grow is using high powered LED lights, less heat, no thermal signature to FLIR, not an HID ballast, less fire risk, the list goes on.

I would not run anything more than maybe 1k max on 12/12 if you live in a bad state to grow it's just too risky. Split your flower room in half or use two rooms side by side and flip/flop it if you have to run HID.

The other option is autoflowering strains, there are some really good ones now that can grow some killer buds and you can just keep the light on the whole time! But then you have heat build-up that is FLIR detectable still from an HID that must be dealt with.

Here is the safest scenario from what I can tell:

Growroom inside an air conditioned room, like a Growlab tent (top quality tent) it has IR blocking material used for reflection of light back onto the plants.

High Powered LED light (Lumigrow ES) on 24/7 - basically no detectable heat signature for FLIR to find, no 12/12 cycle. Now 350 watts or so for a personal grow should be able to go on 12/12 no problem whatsoever but if you are running several it could be an issue. Under most conditions with decent strains you should get roughly 400 hps - 600 hps results per LED mentioned. They cost more money but they last alot longer and grow some killer pot.

Autoflowering strains of your choice if you do not want to do a 12/12 cycle for extra safety, there are tons of them available from several seed companies and many grow reports on here about big yielders such as the AK-47 crosses.

This would for the most part be undetectable as long as you have a carbon filter going and nobody knows about it except for you & you alone. ;)


Yea dude, thanks for the informative posts on this smart meter thing. That spike graph visual scares the pants off of me. Talk about invasion of privacy...I got some kinda notice ticket thingy about 2 mos ago saying that they were planning to go to a system where they didn't have to go into my yard to check the meter anymore, but not yet. So I'm sure I'll be going onto this smart meter thing eventually.

I'm here in California as well. I've decided that my approach is just going to be to not give a sh*t about it. I can't imagine that PG&E or whoever is actually going to staff somebody to read these things looking for the 12/12 spike. Although with computers these days, they can cover a lot of ground... If I had a much larger, commercial grow, I might be more worried...I'm legit medical as well, but as somebody said already, I don't want them poking around -- that's a real PITA for me.

How do they know I'm not running space heaters at night? I'll prolly run with a like 11/13 later to throw them off and maybe use half the wattage one or two days a month (simulating cloudy conditions) to cause them to question and throw the nosy bastards off lol
 
G

guest456mpy

Cinderella99 wrote:
How do they know I'm not running space heaters at night? I'll prolly run with a like 11/13 later to throw them off and maybe use half the wattage one or two days a month (simulating cloudy conditions) to cause them to question and throw the nosy bastards off lol
Because water heaters are a resistive load while HID lamps are an inductive load. The phase characteristics of the different types of loads are the "tell" in this particular case.

SOTF420 wrote:
Well, that is a big question and there are alot of right and wrong answers you will get to it depending upon who you ask. I have found one of the best LED growlights to be the Lumigrow ES, it is 330 watts and used high powered 5 watt led's
.

Ive been growing with LEDs for a couple of years with different hardware and to my knowledge this is the best commercially available unit on the market. My DIY 350 watt design is very similar, including the 5 watt emitters and adjustable blue red ratio. I've been pulling 6-8 oz per lamp depending on strain using GH lucas formula and Kool Bloom. I am retired and do not make these units available. Some of my friends have build lamps using 15 watt emitters and they blow my lamp away! Serious competition for HID can be expected as these components get cheap enough to manufacter lamps with them.

If one can believe the (electronics) trade publications and rumor mills we can expect the LED technology to become financially viable in the next 2 years. They are already using 50 watt white emitters in China for street lamps. As more LEDs are manufactured and used the cost will drop radically. We are at the "take-off point" in the exponential curve for supply demand and should start to see prices dropping. Many people already know about Moore's Law concerning transistor development as it relates to computer CPU and memory prices. Well there's a corresponding law, known as the Haitz's law, that describes LED development.

Haitz's Law

Hempy
 
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U

unta

Fuuuuck this bullshit state! Fuck em! Going on a flip-flop and going to grab one of those electrical current conditioners. Where do u go about getting one of these? ANd thank you SOTF for the info, smart meters are so much worse than I thought.
 
G

guest456mpy

Yes, Power conditioners = power privacy.
I had one installed on my main line to "clean" my electrical system so my recording studio had zero signal noise from "the utility grade power source". Now it hides my power usage details as an added benefit.

How cool is that?

LOL
 

rambone

Member
good luck with your legal battle my fellow floridian, the one thing we have going for us down here is crowded ass jails and violent criminals so hopefully with your lawyer you can at least manage to not do any jail time...all the best my brother it's tough down here
 
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