VERT ..... the final frontier

[greenmatter]

I think a $35 DPDT relay, some wire ($10 extension cord) , a $20 timer, and another $5 mogul socket would do a really nice job of moving your light around for the rest of your growing career.

help me out a little B. i may regret asking, but WTF is a DPDT relay?

i can't do the plant numbers for a pod ......... with the set up i have what would you do as far as lights?

 

[greenmatter]

The 6rpm should be more than enough. Think of how much more weight they were made to hold and move. The lamp/hood combo is alot heavier than bare bulb vert.

i don't think weight would ever be an issue with bare bulbs.

from what i understand (and as usual i could be wrong.... but i thought gear boxes were rated at the output end) the 10 rpm model moves faster than the 6. do you think that would be a good thing?

 

[scifiedro]

NICE WORK ON TH GROW SETUP!verry helpful

 

[bobblehead]

help me out a little B. i may regret asking, but WTF is a DPDT relay?

i can't do the plant numbers for a pod ......... with the set up i have what would you do as far as lights?

DPDT is Double Pole Double Throw, it's the heart of the flip flop. It takes the power from one ballast and sends it to 1 of 2 lamps. The relay is controlled with a timer, so that you just set the time that you want one lamp powered, and the rest of the time the other lamp is powered.

How would I use it in your room? Well, since you asked...

With your current setup, the light moves up and down, it spends the most time at the bottom and top, and only passes through the middle, right? You could eliminate that pass in the middle, and just stack the lamps one on top of the other... but how far is your travel? Cause if you listened to me, then ur lamps aren't moving more than a few inches... and in that case, I would stack the lamps next to each other stadium style. I would have it set up so that the tip of the 2nd and 4th lamp was even with the middle of the 1st and 3rd lamps. Space them all evenly throughout the middle of the canopy.

Anyway... if you go with the mover motor... If one has a higher weight capacity, that would probably mean that it'll last longer. The motor won't be as fatigued as soon.

Good luck!

 

[megayields]

GM - give what Bobble just suggested some thought, it makes sense to me at least...and THAT is saying something heheh.

Good luck and great job, your learning curve will still be steep but I can see your going to get this easily.

 

[greenmatter]

DPDT is Double Pole Double Throw, it's the heart of the flip flop. It takes the power from one ballast and sends it to 1 of 2 lamps. The relay is controlled with a timer, so that you just set the time that you want one lamp powered, and the rest of the time the other lamp is powered.

How would I use it in your room? Well, since you asked...

With your current setup, the light moves up and down, it spends the most time at the bottom and top, and only passes through the middle, right? You could eliminate that pass in the middle, and just stack the lamps one on top of the other... but how far is your travel? Cause if you listened to me, then ur lamps aren't moving more than a few inches... and in that case, I would stack the lamps next to each other stadium style. I would have it set up so that the tip of the 2nd and 4th lamp was even with the middle of the 1st and 3rd lamps. Space them all evenly throughout the middle of the canopy.

Anyway... if you go with the mover motor... If one has a higher weight capacity, that would probably mean that it'll last longer. The motor won't be as fatigued as soon.

Good luck!

i listened .... kinda. my bulbs only move about 16 inches now, which i know is more than a few inches but a lot less than the 4 feet i started out with. should i do less?

i would love to go with 4 bulbs that don't move, but all i have right now are 1000w set ups sitting on the shelf. i ran some numbers and don't think i could keep the room cool enough without some substantial re-engineering if i had 4000w in there and i am not really sure the room itself is big enough to make that work. i think 4 600's would be great, but i don't own any so if i go that direction i have to go to the grow store.

it seems like the path to better rooms always goes right through your wallet ....... i just want to be sure that i don't waste any money or time on things that are going to sit on a shelf and get dusty. i am pretty sure most of us know all about that.

which direction do you think i should go? buy 600's or buy stuff to make the 1000's work? or something else that i am not seeing?

 

[Anti]

i would love to go with 4 bulbs that don't move, but all i have right now are 1000w set ups sitting on the shelf. i ran some numbers and don't think i could keep the room cool enough without some substantial re-engineering if i had 4000w in there and i am not really sure the room itself is big enough to make that work. i think 4 600's would be great, but i don't own any so if i go that direction i have to go to the grow store.

The idea with the flip-flop (as I understand it) is that instead of having your bulbs physically moving in your room, you double the amount of bulbs (with same amount of ballasts) but only half the bulbs are lit at any one time. So instead of the bulb moving, one bulb turns off at location A and a second bulb turns on at location B.

So you shouldn't be increasing your temps noticeably. Maybe a few degrees as the bulbs that shut off cool and the bulbs that clicked on warm up, but other than that, no added temps and less moving parts.

 

[greenmatter]

The idea with the flip-flop (as I understand it) is that instead of having your bulbs physically moving in your room, you double the amount of bulbs (with same amount of ballasts) but only half the bulbs are lit at any one time. So instead of the bulb moving, one bulb turns off at location A and a second bulb turns on at location B.

So you shouldn't be increasing your temps noticeably. Maybe a few degrees as the bulbs that shut off cool and the bulbs that clicked on warm up, but other than that, no added temps and less moving parts.

ahhhhhh! now i am starting to see! funny how it all makes sense now. thank you anti! and apologies to bobble! just because i speak english don't mean i understand it all the time.....

anyone running this kind of set up? link? little help

 

[Anti]

Laylow was.... (grumble)

I miss that guy.

 

[Maina]

How did the SAGE yeald for you?

 

[greenmatter]

Laylow was.... (grumble)

I miss that guy.

AMEN !!!!!

 

[greenmatter]

How did the SAGE yeald for you?

not bad at all! good smoke too. she is on the keeper list for now. (not that that list has any real rhyme or reason to it ...... every time i throw two strains on the compost pile i plant 3 more beans ..... so i'm not making things any easier on myself, thats for sure)

 

[bobblehead]

ahhhhhh! now i am starting to see! funny how it all makes sense now. thank you anti! and apologies to bobble! just because i speak english don't mean i understand it all the time.....

anyone running this kind of set up? link? little help

I did it in the 1200w stadium thread in my sig.

I can't tell u with certainty that only moving your lamps 2-3" is better than 16"... But my intuition says so. The only way to be certain is to have side by side grows with every environmental factor perfectly replicated... That being said, if they're used right, I'm sure a mover can help... But most growers try to stretch the light out too far.

If someone dangled a steak in front of your face u'd be pissed. If you had to sit down at a different table to eat, from the one you had your last steak, that probably wouldn't piss you off at all.

What do you think the plants is doing with that light? It's energizing thylakoids within the leaf... The plant points the leaves at the light... But now you're dangling the plant's steak all over the place, confusing it.

That's how I see things. Maybe I smoke too much.

 

[greenmatter]

I did it in the 1200w stadium thread in my sig.

I can't tell u with certainty that only moving your lamps 2-3" is better than 16"... But my intuition says so. The only way to be certain is to have side by side grows with every environmental factor perfectly replicated... That being said, if they're used right, I'm sure a mover can help... But most growers try to stretch the light out too far.

If someone dangled a steak in front of your face u'd be pissed. If you had to sit down at a different table to eat, from the one you had your last steak, that probably wouldn't piss you off at all.

What do you think the plants is doing with that light? It's energizing thylakoids within the leaf... The plant points the leaves at the light... But now you're dangling the plant's steak all over the place, confusing it.

That's how I see things. Maybe I smoke too much.

please don't see this as arguing B ......

i agree 100% with everything you are saying and there is no way we can really say for sure if the movers are good or bad in every situation unless we test them in every situation, which more than likely will never happen.

soooooo.......... i at least did what i could and took 1 of the 2 bulbs off the mover to see what happens in my situation. and if nothing else this should at least prove that i smoke my fair share of weed too.


the steak that every customer is after is being carried by a waitress and all the hungry fuckers in a row of booths are trying to get all the steak refills that they can

please stay with me, or i smoked all that for nothing

if the waitress hangs out (first pun) at table 2 in a row of 6 tables, then tables 1 thru 3 have all the steak they want, but the fatties at tables 3 thru six are forced to go out into the aisle to get what they can even though they can't get close enough to actually get handed a whole plate. that makes it a real pain in the ass for the manager (me) to get through the aisle and talk to every customer (train). it also seems to take some energy for them to overtake the aisle so they are not as chunky as they were before.

in your pod you want them to run toward the light so that as much as possible gets into the "sweet spot" a possible. with what i am doing the customers are tied to the booths at the perfect distance for the waitress to drop a plate in front of them when she comes by

i think the WoW system would change completely if you ran a high plant count, but because i don't it makes the waitress worth keeping around ..... at least from what i am seeing.

i think we will all run out of weed long before we run out of variables in this game ......... but if it keeps us smokin' it's a good thing.

puff, puff ,pass

 

[AlexTrebek]

I don't currently have enough herb on me to smoke and answer this theory so I will proceed as so:

All your assumptions are sound but do not implement the angry customer (murphy's law) that will spit in the waitresses face and shatter her self-esteem (yield). If you take this into account for your equation, we will be headed places no man has ever been before.

 

[megayields]

Laylow was.... (grumble)

I miss that guy.

MeGA-dittos

 

[DHF]

I can say 1 thing for certain from seein it first hand over many yrs....Lightmovers work well for folks that use insufficient watts per sq ft from the get.....think about it....

If yas do better in your setup once yas add a mover back and forth , it means that you`re at least getting the outer extremities more light than they were getting the run before but.....

If yas cover everything that ain`t green in reflectix and blast perfect environment with minimum 50 watts per sq ft , no mover is necessary and as Bobbles explained bout confusin the plants metabolism......I agree wholeheartedly.....

Let them bitches ALL bask in the same amount of glory and lumens ftw IME.....anyways....

My 2 cents from all them yrs....Good luck GM.....

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

 

[bobblehead]

I can say 1 thing for certain from seein it first hand over many yrs....Lightmovers work well for folks that use insufficient watts per sq ft from the get.....think about it....

If yas do better in your setup once yas add a mover back and forth , it means that you`re at least getting the outer extremities more light than they were getting the run before but.....

If yas cover everything that ain`t green in reflectix and blast perfect environment with minimum 50 watts per sq ft , no mover is necessary and as Bobbles explained bout confusin the plants metabolism......I agree wholeheartedly.....

Let them bitches ALL bask in the same amount of glory and lumens ftw IME.....anyways....

My 2 cents from all them yrs....Good luck GM.....

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

There ya go. Swing the lamp around the room, and you'll have a bunch of good buds instead of some excellent buds and some larf... wouldn't you rather they all be excellent though? It's about using the right light for your space, or creating the right space for your light... however you wanna look at it.

 

[greenmatter]

I can say 1 thing for certain from seein it first hand over many yrs....Lightmovers work well for folks that use insufficient watts per sq ft from the get.....think about it....

If yas do better in your setup once yas add a mover back and forth , it means that you`re at least getting the outer extremities more light than they were getting the run before but.....

If yas cover everything that ain`t green in reflectix and blast perfect environment with minimum 50 watts per sq ft , no mover is necessary and as Bobbles explained bout confusin the plants metabolism......I agree wholeheartedly.....

Let them bitches ALL bask in the same amount of glory and lumens ftw IME.....anyways....

My 2 cents from all them yrs....Good luck GM.....

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

i thought that my watts per square foot were good ......2000 watts and the "walls" are 6 ft. long and 5 ft. high ...... 2000/30= 66.6

or ........ should the math be 2000/ (30x2) ...... that puts me 1000W short of my minimum goal, but i have all the equipment (short of a fresh bulb) on the shelf, so it would be simple enough to solve that problem.

i was never really looking at the mover as a way to stretch insufficient light ...... it is more to get the light to hit everything.

i have been pretty happy with how the whole system runs so far, but dialing things in is what this end of IC is all about ........

knowing what i know now i think i should have started a thread like anti's but called it "got this here list of equipment and i wanna go vert ...... how would you guys do it? P.S. i don't want to go to the fucking grow store! "

i'm pretty much stuck with the space and the 1000 watt systems ...... the one advantage i (think i) have is that even when the outside temps were 100+ my temps and rh stayed where i wanted them, so the fans and ducting are doing exactly what i was hoping for when i did the math on that.

 

[Marlo]

Marlo's 2 cents...

Marlo's 2 cents...

In my particular situation, the vertical light mover works great. This grow, as currently constructed, would not be possible without it. It now serves 2 purposes, when I originally only wanted it for 1 reason....

When I was running 2 x 4ooW in my space, I was unhappy with the light spread. The mover helped greatly, and the buds were no more larfy than before. Good choice imo. Temps were not a problem except in late spring.... never thought the mover would help or hurt the temp situation.

When I upgraded to 2 x 6ooW, I quickly realized that it would have never been possible without the mover. Since my room is less that 3 ft wide, my there are plants that come within 5-6 inches of the bulb. The heat generated by 6ooW bulbs is far to much for a bud that is that close.....unless it is moving. The bulb (and the heat) is there for :20, and then its moved about 12-16 inches away. Doesn't affect the overall temps in the room, but it definitely keeps things from getting too intense in any one place. Again, I could not grow this way, in this space, with these bulbs, without my light mover.

This past harvest was not only my best yield, but also my highest quality buds to date. Perfect bud density for over 80% of what I chopped. Minimal larf, and less than 1% of buds showed any heat stress. Big success imo, and I have no plans to change anything, anytime soon.


As far as any concern with moving parts in my grow, the only thing that moves..................... is the light mover! That's the whole reason its there. It is secured to the ceiling by 4 screw, thru the base of the rail, into the studs. The bulbs are held on the rail by a steel cable. Can't remember the gauge, but it'll hold a cpl hundred pounds. I don't foresee any issues there.

Green, you have to do what works best for you. I've learned that there are very few things in growing that HAVE to be a certain way. Every grow is going to require different methods to put out a successful grow. The debate on light movers is no different. Guess which side of the discussion I'm on.