VERT ..... the final frontier

[greenmatter]

been lurking the vert section for a while now ...... gotta jump in over your head at some point, so here goes.



that box has my carbon filter and all my ballasts in it. i built it so it would pull all of the air from the top of one end of the room. that elbow you see will eventually run back out of the room and put heat back into the house (winter mode) now it is just attached to a directional damper i built so it is dead. all the duct is solid except about a foot of flex that isolates the vibration of the fan from the rest. of the system.
yes solid duct is a pain in the ass, on the other hand ask bobby stainless if a port and polish is worth the time. same thing different scale.



the control buckets for the ebb and flow system. yes 4 is overkill but if i own em i am gonna use em.



row of res barrels on the other side of the wall



my light balancer. the bulbs are only 3.5 feet apart but the move up and down over 4 feet. i used the big pulleys because an electrician friend of mine gave me some good advice, i will share that later



proof that i read one or two things in marlo's thread.


gotta get this on before the computer dumps it again ... more later

 

[Stonetech]

Wow, I'm gonna be watchin this one for sure. Scribed. + rep.

 

[greenmatter]

so ...... been in the game for a day or two and always grew horizontal. never had the sac back in the day to get on the computer and talk about this game so i was oblivious to the vert thing until i discovered IC. i was a noob (stoned as hell, with the blind munchies) just looking around when i fell into a trap baited with some killer food pics and a hot avatar ...... enter redspaghetti. looked at his page many times over the next few weeks and got more and more interested. i am pretty much computer stupid so i did not find the vert section for a while (yes, that computer stupid). i started a thread asking about chronic and got some good solid advice from several people ...... enter bobblehead. checked out his page and the rest is history. reds grows had me pretty much converted and my first look at a bobblepod set the hook.

i have talked myself into and back out of making the jump 10 times, but i gotta try this

 

[Grizz]

ITS FUNNY ABOUT THE NEW FRONTIER, 25 yrs ago we dident even have hoods, my first grow was with 13 1000 watt metal halides bare bone kits sold out of high times mag. all vert with a sheet of thin steel reflector over the top of the light.

your grow looks real good, well desighned and thought out, CLEAN

 

[Anti]

i used the big pulleys because an electrician friend of mine gave me some good advice, i will share that later

so... uh... don't leave me hanging, dude.

 

[Marlo]

Tagged!

Tagged!

Screens, bare bulbs, and yo-yo light movers?

Oh yeah!




I know what you mean about IC being full of inspiration. Its addicting sometimes. We've all been inspired by some great growers over the years. Now that you are sharing your grow with us, somebody out there is gettin inspired by you. Each one teach one.

 

[420ish]

subbed!

 

[greenmatter]

so... uh... don't leave me hanging, dude.

typed for 2 fucking hours to answer that in detail....... and poof .... lost in cyber space. shit.....

here is a short version......

copper does not like to be bent and straightened over and over again. when you do it it stiffens and it will eventually break. cords are made with stranded wire so they are more flexible but they were never meant for constant motion.
when 1 strand in a wire breaks it changes the wires ability to move juice from one end to the other and when 10 break it changes it more. for growers that makes things interesting. your bulbs will light even if they are being starved for amps but that does not mean the bulb is throwing out good light. i write down the date when i change my bulbs because i can't "see" if the bulb is good or bad, it's just on or off. if half of the strands of copper in the lamp cord are broken you won't know it, and the whole time your plants are suffering. you only notice it when the bulb won't fire up.

a friend of mine is a commercial electrician (a VERY good one FWIW) and before i started building my light mover i showed him a couple threads so he would understand what i was talking about. one pic he saw made him say "holy shit that guy is asking for trouble in more than one way"

he explained the copper thing to me and said things that what we do with our cords is crazy. he said that a wire that is moving all the time should never be bent past it's "minimum working radius" and i naturally said "WTF is that?" the way to find it is to drape a wire over a round object. the wire has to have contact with the entire 180 degrees of the circle without you helping it, just the wire's own weight. the diameter of the smallest circle that a wire will "drape" over is the minimum working radius and the minimum size of the pulley that it should be pulled over according to my friend. that is why i went with the larger pulleys.
i don't know if you can see it in the pics but my bulbs are hung from a 3/32" cable (also on advice from my friend) not the cord.

if anyone is interested, let me know. i can get some better pics of what i did and tell you what i learned while i was building it.

 

[greenmatter]

the more you tell people the more they can help you so.....

the bulbs are 1000 watt

it is not a sealed room so no CO2

no AC .... i have a swamp cooler that is working great and in winter i have always scrubbed the heat from the grow to heat the house. that system worked great before (8000 watts at one point) so i am not worried about that at least.

i took DHF's good advice and have two fans (pointed so they start the cyclone effect) for the active intake.

growing in both dirt and an ebb and flow system

trying to make the grow perpetual ...... trimming loses it's shine after the first few pounds really fast, so i have been doing it this way for years. i hope the vert method does not make that to complicated ...... learning by doing rules

so far this circus is multi strain (12 of em) but i am already seeing that keeping it that way is going to make things interesting. what i know about how the girls act with the light over them does not apply to this game, so i think i will end up getting rid of some genetics just to keep it simple

 

[whadeezlrg]

SICK! cant wait to see this one rockin!

 

[MJMAVEN]

typed for 2 fucking hours to answer that in detail....... and poof .... lost in cyber space. shit.....

Copy long posts before you submit them or type them up in word/notepad and copy/paste.

if anyone is interested, let me know. i can get some better pics of what i did and tell you what i learned while i was building it.

I'm interested.

 

[headees]

That yo yo is great man, Ive been meaning to set one of those up after seeing Marlo's. If you have more pics/details that would be great.

 

[megayields]

so ...... been in the game for a day or two and always grew horizontal. never had the sac back in the day to get on the computer and talk about this game so i was oblivious to the vert thing until i discovered IC. i was a noob (stoned as hell, with the blind munchies) just looking around when i fell into a trap baited with some killer food pics and a hot avatar ...... enter redspaghetti. looked at his page many times over the next few weeks and got more and more interested. i am pretty much computer stupid so i did not find the vert section for a while (yes, that computer stupid). i started a thread asking about chronic and got some good solid advice from several people ...... enter bobblehead. checked out his page and the rest is history. reds grows had me pretty much converted and my first look at a bobblepod set the hook.
i have talked myself into and back out of making the jump 10 times, but i gotta try this

......once you vert.....you NEVER revert.......

 

[megayields]

Doc Diesel......where have you been?

 

[bobblehead]

typed for 2 fucking hours to answer that in detail....... and poof .... lost in cyber space. shit.....

here is a short version......

copper does not like to be bent and straightened over and over again. when you do it it stiffens and it will eventually break. cords are made with stranded wire so they are more flexible but they were never meant for constant motion.
when 1 strand in a wire breaks it changes the wires ability to move juice from one end to the other and when 10 break it changes it more. for growers that makes things interesting. your bulbs will light even if they are being starved for amps but that does not mean the bulb is throwing out good light. i write down the date when i change my bulbs because i can't "see" if the bulb is good or bad, it's just on or off. if half of the strands of copper in the lamp cord are broken you won't know it, and the whole time your plants are suffering. you only notice it when the bulb won't fire up.

a friend of mine is a commercial electrician (a VERY good one FWIW) and before i started building my light mover i showed him a couple threads so he would understand what i was talking about. one pic he saw made him say "holy shit that guy is asking for trouble in more than one way"

he explained the copper thing to me and said things that what we do with our cords is crazy. he said that a wire that is moving all the time should never be bent past it's "minimum working radius" and i naturally said "WTF is that?" the way to find it is to drape a wire over a round object. the wire has to have contact with the entire 180 degrees of the circle without you helping it, just the wire's own weight. the diameter of the smallest circle that a wire will "drape" over is the minimum working radius and the minimum size of the pulley that it should be pulled over according to my friend. that is why i went with the larger pulleys.
i don't know if you can see it in the pics but my bulbs are hung from a 3/32" cable (also on advice from my friend) not the cord.

if anyone is interested, let me know. i can get some better pics of what i did and tell you what i learned while i was building it.

Awesome information! Thanks so much for sharing! I love when I can consult a professional about a particular subject. It's not something we can do too often in our hobby. and flip/flops ftw! No moving wires...

I'm real happy to see so many new gardens popping up in the vert forum. You look like you're off to a great start.

 

[Marlo]

Wsup Mega.
Goin thru my usual summer no-grow. F'n sucks.

Gettin ready for September

 

[greenmatter]

i'll get some pics of the light mover up in the next couple days. i actually took pics of the whole rebuild and managed to delete every single one of them, so i have to start from scratch.

while i was building a thread was posted asking if "this was a good way to hang a bulb" or something along those lines. the photo was scary enough that i took myself out to the garage and did this.....







lots of guys with older reflectors have these cord sets, but they don't hang straight if you hang them from the cord. my solution took me less than 10 minutes to put together and cost less than $10 to do two bulbs. the slot in the side of the cord set is 1/2" wide so if you get a piece of 1/2"x1/8"x48" stick of metal (home depot, for around $3) and some bagged 8-32 screws while you are there you have all the materials you need.

easy fix and if you have the cord sets why not use them

 

[~Shhh~]

Nice set up bro Good work

 

[megayields]

Great job Greenhouse!

Diesel Don....miss your wisdom and amazing racks lol........hurry back.

 

[greenmatter]

o.k. guys, here are the pics of the light mover.......

it started as this ...... they are parts of a folder from a scrap bin at a printing company.



and this ..... a rubber isolation mat 5/32" thick ..... and a great weed blocker in the garden



and this ..... it is part of a bucket liner for working on power lines. good to 40,000 volts



i cut the circles out of the rubber with a box cutter 3/16" smaller than the aluminum wheel and the bucket liner with a hole saw that was about 1 1/2" larger than the wheel. drilled and tapped holes for bolts to hold hold the bucket liner on the sides and......







i like the fact the the cable the the lamp actually hangs on runs in a slot. those aluminum wheels are convex so i thought that cable would drift on its face, and if i did not hang them perfectly it could get hung up on one side and make the pulley "chatter" causing the light to bounce. looking at it now i don't know if i really needed to worry about that, but the parts were free and it is done now.

i used the rubber because i had it and it was the right thickness for what i needed it is also soft enough not to wear on the cables

the bucket liner was used because of what it is. if a wire gets the insulation worn off without me noticing....... no sparks

for the feet you can see i used more parts from the folder ..... pretty much a bullshit luck thing that it worked out that way, but those wheels can be adjusted almost 11" on center. gives me a way to backpedal if the lights are to close without having to tear apart the whole thing.

i know there is at least one person thinking "where am i gonna get all that shit"..... well you could go to a scrap yard (i LOVE those places) or you could go to home depot and score a couple of these.....



mower wheels have all the bearings in them already and are about the size you are looking for. like i said i don't think you need a slot for the cable so one wheel would work and i THINK if you doubled it, that corrigated plastic would work for the sides.
if you own some tools this could all be done with a jig saw or hole saws and about 50 different materials.

i hope that helps someone. i would actually like to hear that someone found something perfect to make these on the shelf at home depot.

be safe out there.. electricity can be a very unforgiving bitch if you push the math to far