14 January 2012, 110 grams of dry bud, excellent quality. The total power consumption, power supplies included, has been 96,4 KWH. So this time I got 1.14 grams for each KWH, it took 0.87 KWH per gram. Not as great as Set-up 9, but still not bad at all.
10 January 2012, here is the result, a nice plate full. I think dry weight will be around 100 grams, I'll let you guys know in a couple of days.
10 January 2012, this is how the roots look like, I think they are ok, but I've seen bigger with HPS. What do you think?
7 January 2012, Just came back from a New Years absence and found this pretty picture, it looks like the result will be pretty good after all. Thank you for all the input about the yellow leafs, I think the main cause is poor rootdevelopment. In all my Led grows the roots have been rather underdeveloped, (if compared to HPS roots), it looks like this leads to some malnutricion of the plants at the end of the flowering period. Next week I'll start new research about the best LED recipe to create strong roots during the growth fase. Another factor might be the lower temperature with Led's; it will reduce the evaporation and therefore nutrient intake by the plants, maybe it's a good idea to increase the fertilizer dosage. Without the yellowing of the leaves there would probably have been a better result. I'll harvest these in a couple of days.
25 December 2011, The buds are getting bigger like they should, but a lot of the leaves have turned yellow and fell off. I don't know what caused it, could be a too high dose of Vertimec which was sprayed a week ago. It could also be caused by a lack of nutrition, I'll double the dose. The strain is a bit different, these are Lemons, in the earlier Set-ups I used PowerPlant. No other variables like temperature, humidity etc. haven been changed. I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll get a record amount of bud this time :-(( 2,5 weeks to go.
15 December 2011, Took the plants out of the box again, it looks like it's gonna be a great result, 4 weeks to go. To support the buds I will add netting today and I'll spray against the spider mites.
7 December 2011, Took the plants out of the box to show them in daylight, they look great, 5 weeks to go.
30 November 2011, Growth has stopped and flowers are developing rapidly. There are 6 weeks to go.
24 November 2011, Growth is slowing down and flowers are starting to show. I switched to end-of-flowering-fase, all Leds are active, 2900 Lumen per panel. There is 7 weeks to go. All components for the panels are being produced right now, the panels can be purchased around Christmas.
16 November 2011, Here is the latest picture, growth is still fast, they look absolutely great, very healthy and with lots of internodes. 8 weeks to go.
9 November 2011, After some hesitation the ladies have been growing rapidly, thanks to the large amount of Blue light they are pretty bushy. The total powerconsumption during growth-fase, drivers included, has been 11.5 kWH, each panel used only 24 Watt. Here you can see I've switched the panels to early-flowering-fase, with much more Red light, and a powerconsumption of about 40 Watt for each panel. I also changed the timing to 12/24 hours, there are 9 weeks to go. Thank you all for the very enthousiastic reactions, it is really great :-) I am working hard to start production of the panels.
30 October 2011, Here you can see the reflective foil was added to the sides. In the middle lies the sensor for the lightmeter, it showed a 20% increase after the foil was added.
30 October 2011, Top view, you can see the panels are very thin, less than 1 inch, or 2,5 cm. They are also big, therefore heat is effectively transferred to the surrounding air. No need to use cooling fans, which saves a lot of electricity and it also makes the panels totally silent.
30 October 2011, Here you can see the panels in action with an all new Set-Up, they are set to growth fase. You can see how the reflection panel effectively puts the precious Led light where we want it. Are these panels beautiful or what?
30 October 2011, The panels have 3 positions for the different fases: growth fase, early flowering, end of flowering. For each position the colormix and amount of active Leds are optimised, this is done to create the best results while using minimal amounts of electricity. The left panel is in the end of flowering position and the panel on the right has been set to growth fase, with a relativily large amount of blue light. In the back you can see the powersupplies.
30 October 2011, Finally I proudly present the finished ledpanels. Thank you for your patience. You can see the reflector plate, designed to focus the light onto the plants with minimal losses, the Leds aren't covered at all. (a lens or glass/plastic barrier would create at least 15% light loss). The shape of the reflector cones is optimised for the different colors; an extra wide cone for the Farred and Blue leds, a less wide cone for the Red's.
