Club 600

Dr.D81

Dr.D81

Well-Known Member
jimmer6577 said:
OK, I need some 600 help. My cat did not eat my seedlings, last night another one disappeared and he was definitely locked out. I skipped school to really clean the room but it's pretty empty. So any clues on what will only eat a seedling during lights out. The tops are just ripped off and left in the cup. I'm thinking my cat let a mouse get away from him after he brought it in. I had 90% germ rate and 2 left, I need to solve before the others show their heads. Thanks in advance. And I can feel the coffee kicking in, oh yea.......
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Snails and slugs could be the culprit
 
jimmer6577

jimmer6577

Well-Known Member
DST said:
Sounds like a rat/mouse or vermin Jimmer. Have you checked for droppings? If it's a mouse there will be some.
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I just got the room cleaned and found a spot where the foam insulation has been chewed up. When the gf gets home I will go get traps. Until then the door is open and I told the cat since he brought it in, he better go catch it! Thanks for tips guys. You would think this would be an issue with the shed not in the spare bedroom of the house.
 
DoobieBrother

DoobieBrother

Well-Known Member
shnkrmn said:
You should read that link I put up. It required much more than this to suppress the noise from a Lumatek 1k.

The Fix
Attempts to tame the RF interference from these electronic ballasts is much more than wrapping just a few turns through a torroid. We were able to borrow a MicroMole 1000 ballast, 1000W HPS lamp, and set it up in the basement of W0IVJ. The RF interference on 40 meters (7 MHz) was a constant S9+25dB as measured using an outside dipole at a distance of about 40 ft. and a Flex-1000 SDR. We focused on 40 meters where the interference was the worst but all HF bands were obliterated. These measurements were made on Nov. 7, 2011.



We wound 10 turns of the input and output cables through very large #31 toroids (Fair-Rite #2631814002) which are 4"O.D. These common mode chokes (CM impedance measured >2000 ohms) reduced the interference 15dB to S9+10dB which was still terrible. Building a filter for the AC line which consisted of a good common mode choke on just the Line and Neutral wires and 4700pF 250VAC rated caps to the safety ground/chassis (still big toroid on output) reduced the interference to S8. Finally building an output filter similar to the AC input one reduced the interference to below the ambient level of S5. However the output filter ran quite warm and the capacitors on the output needed to be much higher voltage if the product label of 5kV is to be believed.

http://www.w0qe.com/RF_Interference/grow_light_electronic_ballasts.html
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I was gong to mention that a simple choke wouldn't be enough in most cases, as using even a portion of a 600w or 1k ballast's power to generate RF is a LOT of watts to tame.
Thank you for going into detail on what it really takes.
I notice on the Humboldt ballast that there is no FCC ID, so all the things done were things that should have been integrated into the ballast to make it comply with regs for not causing RF interference in other devices.
I wonder how many ballasts even have an FCC ID?
 
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DoobieBrother

DoobieBrother

Well-Known Member
I'm hoping that my days of HID are finished.
I haven't turned on my 600w in 13 months.
bongsmilie
Will be using flouros to veg in the winter, and then put them outdoors to let nature do her thing.
The wife has mentioned a few times about me needing a greenhouse (just this week), so I need to draw up some plans for next Spring.
 
DoobieBrother

DoobieBrother

Well-Known Member
Heh, Google Maps street view car passed by our house 3 weeks too soon this last September.
They drove by less than 3 weeks before trading in the scooter towards the Ninja.
Which is good, as I would rather not advertise to the world that I have a motorcycle ripe for the plucking.
No one in their right mind would have wanted to swipe my old scooter, but actual motorcycles are known to walk away on their own if left unattended.
So I garage mine at home.
And have a Gorilla alarm with pager.
And an itchy trigger finger & steady aim.
But I'd pop caps in the bike's tires before dropping anyone over a material possession, so I guess I'm all bark and no bite.
;-)
.
google house.JPG
 
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HydroGp

HydroGp

Well-Known Member
jimmer6577 said:
I just got the room cleaned and found a spot where the foam insulation has been chewed up. When the gf gets home I will go get traps. Until then the door is open and I told the cat since he brought it in, he better go catch it! Thanks for tips guys. You would think this would be an issue with the shed not in the spare bedroom of the house.
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Thats crazy i was about to tell yall how my insulation have been fucked around with and when i came home today there were growlight beaming out from underneath my garage! WTF little bastards !
Another sad thing is i forgot my Dark Devil auto and it dried out not even sprouting the surface yet. Watered it good but it seems its gone :(
Was at a friends grow today to see 200 jack herrer in action. Clones he got a week ago. Sadly i had to let him know that most of them had spider mites. Not a great way to start of the 21*600. Gave him a chilli mix to spray them down..
Ill go search for some cheap mouse traps nau.. Good day all.
 
SomeGuy

SomeGuy

Well-Known Member
I just want to throw in my 2cents on led distance. I believe quite a few commercial fixtures especially the cheaper ones can be ran super close to plants. DO NOT do this if you are using a COB based fixture using Cree or Bridgelux etc... The intensity of these rivals HPS and will make your plant sick and bleach it. Trust me. Using a high powered led Cob fixture it is best to be 10-12" minimum with lots of air circulation.

These are from my personal observations. It was a mistake initially to think the LEDs I built were like flouros... Once I lifted the lights a bit the growth picked back up.
 
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