Okay great, thank you for all of the info! I appreciate your time and knowledge, more than you know.
Welp… it sounds like this is going to be quite the project, after all. (Such is life, right?) But worth it, in the long run, to be able to grow my own medicine. Getting weary of paying a fortune for halfway decent bud around here… the prices at the dispensaries, most of which have just started opening up around here, are… ah, pretty ridiculou$$$ right now.
Meanwhile, I’m truly anxious to get started, so perhaps I should start with a (cheap?) tent while I get that room all ready… and move things over when I get it all prepared and sufficient, and am confident it’ll work out well. (I could use that later for an extra space for more seedlings or something.)
I want to get growing, like, yesterday! Lol.
So… I guess I need to get on it.
How long did it take you to build the lights? I’m sure I could probably figure it out… but I’d love to at least go ahead and get a couple now, just to get myself growing.
I have 4 total HLG DIY fixtures right now, each consists of 2 x 288 r spec boards powered by 1 meanwell hlg-240h-c2100a driver. Super easy to build and the board prices are lower than ever. I’m very happy with the performance, plus sounds like you are handy so the build should be easy. I prefer multiple smaller lights for ease of adjusting configurations, expanding/reducing grow area, and maximizing coverage.
Get a tent to start with. I have 2 tents and a built out room. I like the room but it’s a lot more work. With the tent you’ll have poles to hang your lights and reflective walls to maximize light. You can use the entire room as your “lung room”. The windows could be used to pipe in fresh air or to add an in window ac unit. If you started yesterday you will e flowering in late spring/early summer, so heat will need to be addressed at some point.
Good luck! @dbrn32 is your man for any technical questions regarding lighting in general but specifically to help with the DIY part.
Did you guys order these directly from the HLG site? (We can’t post links in here, I know… but I think what I’m looking at here is the 260W QB V2 RSPEC LED KIT at $349.00 each…)
Take about 30 mins your first time and a trip here maybe to ask a few questions. If you have all same material you’ll have it down to about 5-10 mins for each panel
This Is right up my ally
My last project was 2 10x10 rooms with 14 foot ceilings…
Even being vaulted no issue honestly I would frame out a section …I would divide your space in thirds 1 third for a veg space 2 thirds for flower and all locker closet outside the grow space to keep everything and not have to disturb your flower in dark… either have veg space lead into flower space or have 2 exterior passage ways to each room… I did 1 room leading to other… flower in the back… back room being 12 n 12 …7 am to 7 pm was on … I was never there after 5 o’clock because it was far from my house I drove there 2wice a week 50 miles so it was planned out every trip
…you gotta plan this big space from the ground up… drainage…one of the most important things…
Standing water will ruin any plans you make… and when using a big space you tend to have alot if plants … alot of plants take alot of water and have alot of runoff which means alot of water management…
I prefer to build a whole raised platform that has a 3 inch pitch over the run over the run of the room… after I pitch it I line it in shower pan vinyl so the water stays contained… I pitch it to a trough… then I have the trough pitched down to ground level and out the room into a drain feild I dug put side 5x5x5ft fill with rocks and pebbles and sand so I had 192 plants at any given time in flower and I could water 24 gallons of water to everything and the floor would be dry by its self in 30 minutes… 10x10 rooms I run have at least 1 16 inch box fan per light fixture… 2 on the floor blowing through under the conopy… and a 6500 BTU ac and 2 4 inch duct fans between rooms and one venting out … alllll this needs to he considered even before you start planning… you gotta make the room so its gonna stay within your high and low conditions your aiming for… and once you have plants and start watering and the plants start transpiring things change… it’s not the best idea to jump head first into a large room first… ecspeically if you want it to be tits and ideal for a long time… on my first couple runs every room there after I learned something from the previous room that made then next room better… so come up with some ideas and post em here … tents are definateley easiest to set up and be mobile is pretty neat but I like the room better
To hang the lights easily in an uneven ceiling… I mount a decent thickness chain in a double row track so to speak for the lights ratchet clips to clip in and be moved basicly as little as 1 chain link if you need to and the ratchet hooks or sky hooks are easily level able so 14 ft on this side and 8 feet on the other …no big deal just make sure you run the chains equal distance apart so your lights are spaced right and you can move em up and down the track as you need… it will allow you to use a corner or the center or move and expand as you acquire more things
Boards, heat sinks, and driver will run you $270-$300 friending on shipping. Then depending on how resourceful you are on sourcing the “bits” to assemble you probably got $30-$50 more.
see this is the floor level before it turned into the jungle… these were the 3 moms I started at my house… they got tall…to tall to really flower em regular so the lowest hard branch I could manage to super crop without breaking stem was 39 inches… so the scrog was 39 inches so the moms could be grown and flowered out instead of being barren sticks to keep alive… see the vinyl on the floor up the walls a lil purple wood nailers everywhere so I could staple the 40mil vinyl without having to puncture the floor… it was going to be epic… my investor got cold feet when he saw me succeeding
This was one if the moms before relicating… see how I leave a node to replenish branch growth… IT WORKED great to pop a new branch out ad to not grow a big stick of a mother
ecspecially when its crowded in there… I literally had to crawl down the center row and post up and sit underneath my scrogs to tend to them… not ideal but it worked
No way I could think of managing the water anymore… and reason this was even in my thought process because my last room…
The hole in the wall (literally a fake wall cavity)
Was a low lying shed and when it would rain the dam floor would flood… I built berms dug ditches… every rain I had a couppe.inches of water… was so frustrating…excpeially when I got bud rot… vowed to never deal with that again it was absolutely heart breaking ecspeically on my first run it almost crippled my ambition to growing weed
