Bud dryer - manicured to smoke in 3 days

Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
DarkCursade said:
I have read through most of your threads, but I have not come across my following question, with your system, when you 1st put the clones in the flowering cycle how deep to you plant in the rock wool pot to allow water to reach the roots when u flood, as Im finding, as when i put my new rooted clones in tray 1 they dont have the root depth for my flood and drain tray without vegin them for a week and hand watering them from the top.
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My cubes go into my Fytocell media with the cube tops level with the media surface.

Fytocell has to be dampened with nute soln before the plants go into it. Same with pots stuffed only with RW floc. Starts the wicking action.

Only in the case of using clay pellets is handwatering needed (for abt the 1st week), since pellets have a very poor wicking action. Don't top or handwater RW floc or Fytocell. They both wick rather well. Top watering isn't needed and may cause probs. Just wet Fytocell or RW once from the top before sticking the plants in.

Also this may seem like an odd question, but what country to u live in?
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Orstraya. :)

Bob Smith said:
You want your rockwool to be 1/2" above the flood line, or it will stay saturated.
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True, in the case of pots filled with clay pellets. When using media that wicks well, it's not necessary to flood any more than about 25-50mm from the tray floor.

Al resides in a mountain cave in Australia, I believe :weed:
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True. With a dozen (other) ugly trolls and a couple of gargoyles. :lol:

DarkCursade said:
I actually am Using all perlite and cubes,
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Perlite doesn't wick terribly well. You might want to handwater the media around the cube for a few days post potting up, but do a finger test first. Test the dampness with your finger after the system has flooded. If it feels damp 25-50mm down from the media surface, don't top water. Remember- think damp, never wet. Damp is enough. You want roots to seek downward to get established. Don't wet the cube when top watering.

an Aussie LOL explains his sense of humour. :hump:
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I'm US born. My smartassery is decidedly yankee. My apathy & laziness, however, are pure acquired Aussieness. :D
 
DarkCursade

DarkCursade

Active Member
I know there are No stupid questions, only stupid people !!! When I was at school my fav teacher taught me that one Bahaha...

Anyways so when you say wick you mean: Wicking - Certain fabric's ability to pull moisture away from the skin, allowing it to evaporate in order to keep the wearer cool and dry.

I googled it ;),

If that is true you pretty much saying Fytocell, absorbs more water then drys out quicker...correct?? And then this is then a better media for flood and drain?:hump:
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
DarkCursade said:
Anyways so when you say wick you mean: Wicking - Certain fabric's ability to pull moisture away from the skin, allowing it to evaporate in order to keep the wearer cool and dry.
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Yeah, water has a tendency to follow certain fibres. I could look up the specific mechanics of the action as I don't know it off the top of my head, but I gotta get off the computer & on to op tasks.

I googled it ;),
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I can tell. D:

If that is true you pretty much saying Fytocell, absorbs more water then drys out quicker...correct?? And then this is then a better media for flood and drain?:hump:
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RW floc saturates easily, driving all air out of the media and has the potential to cause root probs. RW is easy to overwater.

Fytocell has a very high air content, but wicks about as well as RW floc. I find I get fewer root probs with it.
 
DarkCursade

DarkCursade

Active Member
Cheers mate,

If Marijuana was a God, then YOU would be 1 of its main Disciples.

I know you hear this alot, but your threads have helped me out alot, saved me alot of time & money. Cheers Mate, Merry Xmas.:hump:
 
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obsocal

Member
Thanks AL for posting this thread.You saved my crop.It is my first crop and it was going good for 10 weeks and then pow,i startd to get some kind of mold or powdery mildew.I went into action,cutting down the worst ones first.That left me with 5 nice plants,3 X Afagan 1,1 X Mazar and my favorite Blueberry X Hawgsbreath.Had to cut down the Mazar first because the shit was starting to come back on it.I needed to dry it out.Saw your thread and built me one of your great bud dryers,Its a little different because i only had one fan and no heatsink.Got me a kitchen exhaust fan on the bottom with the outgoing hole,Blowing halfway out a hole and half back into the container to circulate the air.I drilled about 20 holes on the opposite side of the fan and got some wire racks at the dollar store and made some shelfs out of them,using L brackets to lay them on.All i got to say is that it works great,And im going to build a bigger and better one now that i know how good it works.

Thanks again
AL
 
Al B. Fuct

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
obsocal said:
Thanks AL for posting this thread.You saved my crop.
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Cool. :)


It is my first crop and it was going good for 10 weeks and then pow,i startd to get some kind of mold or powdery mildew.
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Get a sulfur 'burner.' Stops powdery mildew dead. Improve air throughput in the op, make sure exhaust air can't be readily redrawn into the op.

Blowing halfway out a hole and half back into the container to circulate the air.
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Don't do this. Recirculation is bad. You're trying to remove water molecules from your buds- and those need to go away and not come back.

Alter the airflow so no air is recirculated. The more airflow, the less chance of mould in the dryer and the quicker the buds will dry. This is especially important when you're not warming the intake air.

You may find that a dryer which doesn't heat the intake air will be very slow in very high (90%) ambient humidity conditions. If ambient RH remains high, such as during a cool rainy week, buds may remain damp enough to support mould growth!

Air motion inhibits mould, so make sure it's very windy around the buds, that all intake air is fresh and that air can't be easily redrawn into the box. That's why mine have always been configured like this:


Keep at it. :)
 
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kstampy

Member
Found these for $300 on ebay WITHOUT heating element but you have to search under 'flower dryer' lol. Can literally put those together in 10 minutes... that's like $1800 an hour! ;) Makes me think im in the wrong business, LOL! $500 for BCNLs 'The Dryer' (no heat)? No thanks.

Thank you very much Al, VV, and the others from similar threads that have given me the ideas I need to build my own at a fraction of the 'retail' price.

It's totally common sense telling me yes it is ok but for the most part I just wanted to double check with you, if my room temps are about 77-82*F or uhh 25-27.5ish*C (35-40%RH) then I should be ok with my environment and no heating element? Maybe it would take an extra 12-24 hours I am guessing but my main concern right now is mold control honestly. I do want to add the heat later though.


21 days to my first harvest and then the room gets remodeled Mr. Fuct style! Still looking for a good 8 week kush, leaning towards Ogre, Platinum OG and Purple Kush. I noticed a couple of your threads saying you have retired from here but clearly that's not totally true ;). Do you still answer questions related to your op when you have time? I promise I read all 500 pages of your 2 week thread (and most of your others) and it wont be noob BS questions lol.

Thanks again man, I learned a Lot from you and your views on growing, even with my complete lack of posts on ganja forums. If it works better for you to PM me or point me to another forum just let me know what works for you!

Thanks! :joint:

P.S. If you do have any write ups or any good information on other specific sites such as RIU could you point me there as well? Thanks!
 
boxing119

boxing119

Active Member
could i do this with my grow tent? i Have a 4x8 grow tent with an 400 cfm fan sucking the air through my reflectors. so the fresh air is brought in from the bottom vents, and sucks all the air out of the tent.... would this be the same thing because it would still get the air flow from bottom to top, but i would just hang my nugs from the ceiling. seems like the same concept just on a larger scale right?
 
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randy2112

Member
Hey, Just take the fan motor off of a hair dryer and mount the remaining piece with the heating element in front of the intake fan with the dimmer just as Al did it. No sourcing heatsinks or resistors...
 
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~Dankster~420

Well-Known Member
BUMP!! I know this is an old thread, but damn!!! What a good idea!! images (25).jpg ;) :clap: + rep on this.
Al B. Fuct said:
Having buds hanging around air-drying for a long time is a security problem. I cooked up a bud dryer to speed up the process.



I first looked at commercially available food dehydrators, but they usually operate at 38C/100F or above. Too hot! THC starts to break down at about 29C. So, I set about making my own.

This one goes just 3 days from manicure to smoking, removing moisture so quickly that there's no possibility of mould.

It's a plastic storage box with 4 wiremesh racks hanging on open-link chains from the lid.



There is one 5" muffin fan on one end sucking air out of the box



and another fan drawing air into the box.



I have a big deep-finned aluminum heatsink bolted to the 4" fan so air is drawn through the heatsink fins and blown into the box.



There's 2 aluminum-bodied 470 ohm, 25 watt power resistors bolted to the heatsink. Temp control is by a standard incandescent light dimmer which controls power to the resistors which are wired in series.



I adjust the light dimmer control until the air temp is no more than 29C as THC begins to break down at temps any higher. It is best when first firing up this design to start at the 'off' point on the dimmer and increase the power to the resistors slowly, in 1/10 of a turn increments. You don't want to open the dimmer all the way up as it may overcurrent the resistors. If I built this over again, I'd probably increase the value of the power resistors to 1.2-1.5k ohms, but these are what I had on hand at the time!


(note thermometer temp sensor placed in the warm airflow)

This tiny bit of added heat drops the ambient air humidity enough to allow it to pick up the water out of the buds very quickly as it passes through the box. Just warming the ambient air a few degrees will reduce the relative humidity dramatically.

Buds are totally dry and ready to smoke in 3 days rain or shine, but if ambient relative humidity is very high, 80% or so, drying time can stretch out to 4 days.

The dryer CAN overdry buds if I'm not careful, but that's solved by putting a teaspoon of water on a paper towel and nesting it in the buds for a couple of hours until they are nice and springy again.

There is a UV ioniser placed a few feet away from the dryer to kill scents, but the high volume of airflow through the dryer itself does a lot to reduce that musty, dank perfume.

This old dryer is cracked, beat-up, covered in resin goo, was really only a prototype I never got around to building properly- and is generally filthy. But the damn thing works and keeps working. Moreover, it's usually in constant service and has been for about 5 years.

There's dozens of ways to build this- almost anything similar will work. Just mind the current you throw into the resistors and keep a close watch on the air temp coming from the warmer- hold it to 29C.
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