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Thanks db. I was afraid of that. These are supposed to be next gen lights, 90 deg 3w diodes and all, but your comment is well taken about airy buds, I've seen that a lot in my reading. I think I saw where HTG has an extinguisher system that trips at 150 deg. Maybe I'll get that 400MW light and set the extinguisher right over the ballast. Still will worry about it though. If it were just the house, that's one thing, but I leave family behind also on business trips.
 
I've been seeing what looks like some decent stuff under led but it's usually the newer high dollar panels. of course you've got to grow a certain way under led, if you like them big (like I do ) then you'd need a lot of panels . a lot of these guys are getting into diy and they sell some pretty nice kits, sold for reef aquarium lighting mainly. yeah I've got one defender (trips at 155 f ) on the wall, I added it because it was on the clearance rack at the hydro store I shop and I'd just got a co2 generator .
 
just don't skimp on the ballast, that would be the problem if there were a fire I'd say. I've been to the hydro shop plenty and seen lots of returns behind the counter, one dual 600 was melted to shit. it was purple, I hate purple. get a solistek matrix if you want a kickass ballast , you can pop in any lamp from 400-1000 and the ballast will fire it up at the wattage. it's like 3 ballasts in one so if you ever need more light all you gotta do it buy a lamp.
 
dbkick said:
just don't skimp on the ballast, that would be the problem if there were a fire I'd say. I've been to the hydro shop plenty and seen lots of returns behind the counter, one dual 600 was melted to shit. it was purple, I hate purple. get a solistek matrix if you want a kickass ballast , you can pop in any lamp from 400-1000 and the ballast will fire it up at the wattage. it's like 3 ballasts in one so if you ever need more light all you gotta do it buy a lamp.
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Thanks db. Money won't be a deciding factor, as long as the cost isn't just insane, so thanks for tip on which ballast to get, one less thing to sweat. Karma flows to those who help noobs :-) Am I correct that the ballast is where a fire would most likely originate? Could a fire start from plants getting up against a hot hood if I lost the fan? I know that's a heavy question, so no sweat if you choose to pass on offering advice on that one :-) thanks for all the help. I hope when I get back to the house tomorrow that they've popped up 5 or 6". They're growth seemed to be getting kind of exponential like just as I was leaving on Friday. If so, I'll buy two more of these LEDs and give it a shot. I can be stubborn lol. If I do give it a shot with the LEDs, I'll probably use the fim method and maybe scrog it, try to keep an even canopy, been reading up on the Mainline technique, but too late for that except for the youngest and its gotta play catch up anyway, would probably take too much time. Next time for sure.
 
my biggest concern is the co2 generator , truthfully I've never heard of any fires from grows although I'm sure they happen. probably most common would be someone overloading an extension cord . I know that's where I almost had a problem on my first grow, shortly after that I hired an electrician. the hood even running at 1000 watts and without fan probably wouldn't get hot enough to ignite anything but I don't know, that's currently the way I'm keeping my room temp up (I run co2) by cycling the hood fan that really has nothing to do with room air because it's on a intake and exhaust of it's own. I recently put a light mover up and found my room temps wouldn't go above 73 or so, with co2 you wanna run lower to mid 80s so hooking the the hood fan up to the room thermostat did the trick. I'm thinking the only way a running lamp could ignite something would be if the lamp were bare but really have no clue.
 



Check out the size of the leaf lol... hides the entire water bottle... I'm excited to flip these fuckers... VEG VEG VEG!!!!
 
Sorry should have specified... both pictured are Jet fuel I'll be posting their progress in this thread again now.
 
yeah I thought that's what it was gonna be. the wide leaves I remember threw me off before when you came up with the male because my leaves were more narrow. I thought maybe that was the difference in ours and an early indication of sex but then I realized hell I got the fem jet fuel .
 
Bubbagineer said:
The plant would have to be dried out to catch fire, otherwise it just burns the top bud and causes the terminal cola to stop growing vertically. While ballasts are a concern spot, the biggest concern of fire is the bulb, if you do not have it properly tightened into the mogul it can arc and melt the bulb base, the mogul itself and possibly even the cord. Ballast fires are rare, but do happen. I am a huge advocate of keeping the ballasts outside of the grow space, although fire is going to be an issue anywhere obviously.
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TruenoAE86coupe said:
The plant would have to be dried out to catch fire, otherwise it just burns the top bud and causes the terminal cola to stop growing vertically. While ballasts are a concern spot, the biggest concern of fire is the bulb, if you do not have it properly tightened into the mogul it can arc and melt the bulb base, the mogul itself and possibly even the cord. Ballast fires are rare, but do happen. I am a huge advocate of keeping the ballasts outside of the grow space, although fire is going to be an issue anywhere obviously.
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you should have seen that purple dual 600 watt I saw returned to the hydro shop, I bet someone went with a different color after that experience. never knew that about the lamp being good and screwed in, I'll watch that for sure from now on.
 
Its a lesson that teaches itself and you really dont want to learn, ended up eating the ballast too. Luckily no fire, just no light when i went to check on things, blew the fuse in the ballast, tripped the 40amp breaker, melted the bulb, broke the mogul and ended up finding later that switching the ballast out to the back up was the right answer as it fried something inside the cheapo electronic ballast. Not a cheap fuck up. Experience is the best teacher, might as well share my experiences with you all...
 
damn boy that does sound scary, thanks for sharing the experience . I think I'll buy a couple more defenders .
 
Yeah i am back from my hiatus, thanks for the welcome. I thought i would see you around the other place more, but you seem to be absent....
 
Thanks to all for the straight talk and advice. I know the LEDs aren't optimal, and would prefer to go with the HID set-up. But, I think I'd sweat it too much while on the road. Surely, if I pack enough LEDs in there I can get a decent haul. So here's a couple of pics, they didn't exactly blast off while I was gone, but they are growing nicely... The secondary growth has multiple nodes now, but everything is so tiny....

I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy 2 more 240W LED lights and finish the run as planned (actually the plan was to only buy one more, but wtf 3 will fit).


Also, for those interested, these Blumats are cool - they are highly efficient so far. I have a cheap SunLeaves multimeter that you can see in the bottom pic. The meter is decent, but other than PH, the units it reports in are just graduated values, but handy nonetheless. For example, the "moisture" sensor reports on a scale as follows Dry+ Dry Dry- Nor Wet- Wet Wet+ so not real scientific, but when I push the meter down in the pot, the top 1 to 2 inches are Dry or Dry+ then it goes through a steady progression through the next few inches to Wet or Wet+. And I never see any water in the overflow trays, but plants seem to be getting plenty of water, the sawed off little runts :-)
 

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TruenoAE86coupe said:
Yeah i am back from my hiatus, thanks for the welcome. I thought i would see you around the other place more, but you seem to be absent....
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I can't seem to get my profile back up and have been to embarrassed to ask ec again. I already bothered him like three times.. But ya I was trying to hook it back up...
 
I was looking for my daily allotment of bodhi, and saw that all of the 303 is SOLD OUTIE GONE ALREADY!!! Damn, that was bloody fast. Looks like the boys over at the op are a hit, (as if we didnt already kno) congrats guys! And thanks! Just think about all those foreigners looking on the map right this very second saying to themselves, "Colorado, I gotta get me some of that!!!" Or maybe they would say it a bit different but u know what I'm hitting at!!!
 
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