Sorry, wish I can help. I do know you can do pretty much anything with them. Some people get crazy with them. There are hundreds of sensors and things you can buy to build pretty much anything
It’s linux on a tiny pc board, running on an ARM processor. Pretty nice to program, and lots of linux programs are out there in the public domain. Great for grow room automation, but I’ve done a lot of ARM programming (for money!) and I have automated my grow room with a cheapo mechanical timer for the lights. If you had to run lights, heat&cool, hydroponics solution pumps, and ventilation in some complex combination of timed events and slow control, it would be fine.
I prefer the ST ARM boards. They get programmed in C, and run a bare program on an ARM M0 with no OS. It’s a lot easier to get to the IO pins than all the crap you have to do with linux. MUCH better for realtime stuff, too. Linux’s idea of “realtime” is on the order of 100 msec. My idea is microseconds.
It’s pretty much an arduino with wifi right? That’s what I get out of it. There are a lot of threads on RUI about people automating pretty much 100% of their grow room with them. From lights to their drip system. RH and temp control. Even IR cameras.
There is a guy on LEDgardener forum making an automated system called Kiasmos that looks pretty awesome.
I see so much info on here that would take so much effort to understand. Technology is great, but every once in a while you should pick up an old issue of High Times , see what the “new tech of the day” was, and ponder the reality - you are growing a plant. Should it be that hard?
Depends on where you’re at and where you’re looking to go. It doesn’t really take me any effort at all to understand the majority of this thread, nor probably most of the members regularly posting here. At 3000+ posts, I’d say their is an interest lol. And most of the dialogue here is probably an extension of answering someone’s question. So clearly the information is being seeked out by others. If it’s not your thing, I completely understand. But I wanted to point out 2 specific things about your comment that I feel don’t fall in line with my goals. 1. I’m not personally interested in the old way of doing it. There is plenty of data and studies that suggest a lot of the info we’ve thought to be accurate from say even 5-10 years ago is not. And 2, I don’t believe the masses here feel like it’s difficult to grow a plant. Most of us are looking to push our quality and yields at the lowest cost possible. So why wouldn’t we try to use every tool possible to our advantage?
Using high technology to mimic natural sunlight may not be all that good, either. Natural sunlight averages about 5 hours equivalent to full sun over a year where I live. Depending on where you live that might mean 5-8 hours in mid-summer. But if you are using lights inside, You can run them for 18 hours or 12 hours at full sun brightness. More photons equals more photosynthesis equals more growth. Has anybody shown that a sunlight-mimic light schedule is better?
Ok so back to DIY lights for a minute. I’m thrilled with the light I built in April with a lot of your help. The question is should I just build another light just like it with all 3000-3500 COBs or…? Whatever I build this time, I’m going to build 2 lights 2x2 each. That’ll make it easier to deal with the different heights of my plants. Right now I have to slant my light to cover the height differences and it affects the cooling a little. I’d just like to get your thoughts about about it.
Definitely! If smaller fixtures give you more flexibility you should certainly go that route. You’re looking at two 4 cob fixtures about 50 watts per cob right? Personally, I don’t really feel like you should expect a big enough difference that either would be a bad decision. Perhaps that justifies one of each, and you can follow along the progress under each. I feel like the obvious would be maybe a slightly shorter plant with a little tighter node spacing on the 3500k.
Yeah I would build 2 of the 4 cob lights. I’m going to split the first light I built into 2 when I buy the aluminum for the next lights. I only bought enough to build one light the last time. The first light has 2 3500k because cobby didn’t have 8 of the 3000k and it was going to be 2 weeks before he did. I think I have one on each end.
I remember now. I think if you’re staying with the 90cri, it’s close enough to say either are fine. I just finished a 3500k 90 cri with clu-048-1818. I would imagine I’ll have some feedback on results in a few months. I know that doesn’t help you much now, but it’s the best I have lol. I’ve only used the 3000k.
I think we decided a couple of the 3500s would be okay so I went with them. I don’t see much if any difference myself, but I’m nowhere near good enough yet to do a scientific grow. I finished the last grow under the good light and the 3 chronic widows and 3 trainwrecks did pretty good.
The more and more I hang around, my definition of good changes regularly in terms of ones abilities as a grower. When you have the right stuff, you can be somewhere between lucky and paying attention and do pretty damn good. You can really have your shit together and be fighting equipment and do not so good.
When I look at people and say to myself “they’re good” it’s always growers that seem to be one step ahead. It doesn’t matter what the strain is, what method they use, what nutrients, lights, or any of that stuff. They’re doing different stuff regularly, and it all seems to be turning out pretty well. I really envy people like that.
We all know it ain’t rocket science, but it does make it better when you have the right stuff to work with, and know how to use it that’s for sure.
Seeked? lol
It was about 1:30am and close to a 12 pack in lol.
Not sure what your asking. I built a diy light from several different sources. It’s not a kit you can buy. I already had the heatsinks. Hell, I still am not sure where the best place to buy light components is. I take @dbrn32 s advice on that.
What kind of light are you looking to build? Cobkits has a nice deal on some cobs, or digikey/arrow.
If you would like a good place to get started with reading. I would suggest checking out Growmau5 on youtube, or Ledgardeners website as it has tons of useful material on builds and such.