Second Martian Method attempt

[Mother]

This thread is my second attempt at using the "Martian Method" or "Artificial Darkness" lighting technique developed by SalMayo and associates. For full disclosures and disclaimers, see my first attempt: http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-log/...ml#post1945600 but to summarize: I didn't invent this lighting technique nor do I claim to fully understand it. I'm just testing it to see for myself what it can do.

This time I'm going with one Heavy Duty Fruity plant in soilless mix using Pure Blend Pro for vegging (done by this point) and FoxFarm chemical nutes for flowering.

I was going to start this thread a week or two ago, but I couldn't get the light timing right so she just kept vegging, and grow logs of vegging plants are not terribly exciting.

I've set the lighting to 6/7/10/1 from a previous 6/10/8 schedule. If she doesn't start flowering in the next 7-10 days, I'm going to take an hour from daylight and put it to total darkness, but I don't think that will be necessary.

Mother Reviewed by Mother on 06-04-2009. Second Martian Method attempt This thread is my second attempt at using the "Martian Method" or "Artificial Darkness" lighting technique developed by SalMayo and associates. For full disclosures and disclaimers, see my first attempt: http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-log/165934-first-attempt-24-hour-martian-method.html#post1945600 but to summarize: I didn't invent this lighting technique nor do I claim to fully understand it. I'm just testing it to see for myself what it can do. This time I'm going with one Heavy Duty Rating: 5

[Mother]

She was the mother and has been replaced by a young upstart, but it's a shame to waste such a nice, mature plant so I'm flowering her!

Also to note, the lighting is:
42W CFL, 6500K
26W CFL 6500K (the other 42W broke)
2x 25W red incandescent lights
8x 13W 660nm red LED bulbs consisting of 168 5mm LEDs each (don't ever buy these, they suck)

[Mother]

Sorry I'm lame at the computer but I don't know how to send a message to Weezard specifically, so I'm posting it here assuming he'll read my thread (yeah, I know, ass-u-me...)

Weez! Just saw your rep message! I'd send you one back but "I have to spread some rep around before giving it to Weezard again" damn. Things are going great with me, since I'm done with school now and trying to find a job. HA! At some point I'm going to go all LED (or at least almost all LED) and I'll be reading and re-reading your LED threads to get as much info as I can before I embark. I hope all's well with you, peace and love.

[DreadedHermie]

Weezard should see this, but just-in-case, we got a chess game (spelled s-l-a-u-g-h-t-e-r) goin' on and I'll post to him there.

Weezard helped me build a high powered light. I highly recommend it! :thumbsup:

I followed your first log as much as I could. (Was busy blowing up leds...) And I didn't know how to subscribe back then. So, subscribed! :thumbsup:

Good luck. I think you all are onto something! :abduct:

[Dogznova]

Sweet I'm in..:thumbsup:

[Dogznova]

Hi mother.... What is your estimate on the time factor for your PAD light combo?

[headshake]

i'm in too! glad i caught this one from the beginning. so now i'll only have to hurt my brain daily as opposed to trying to play catch up!


-shake

[Weezard]

Sorry I'm lame at the computer but I don't know how to send a message to Weezard specifically, so I'm posting it here assuming he'll read my thread (yeah, I know, ass-u-me...)

Weez! Just saw your rep message! I'd send you one back but "I have to spread some rep around before giving it to Weezard again" damn. Things are going great with me, since I'm done with school now and trying to find a job. HA! At some point I'm going to go all LED (or at least almost all LED) and I'll be reading and re-reading your LED threads to get as much info as I can before I embark. I hope all's well with you, peace and love.

No worries, Mom ,I'll be lurking.

Next time just click on my avatar and check "all posts by"
Find the last post and hit reply.
When ya got nothin' betta' to do, start clicking around just to see what is do-able.
There's all kine fun to be had in cyber-land.

Aloha,
Weezard

[Mother]

Hey Dog: my time factor... I've been kicking around in my head what my time factor is, but more importantly how to calculate it... The following is really my mind rambling around and me putting it into writing here, so please don't consider it any sort of guide or truth. :-) As always, I present ideas to generate more ideas... New ideas and corrections and questions and critiques are invited and encouraged.

I have to take into account at least these things:
1. Quality of light, meaning what are the wavelengths being used
2. Relative quantity of light, meaning how much of each wavelength is present in relation to the others
3. Absolute quantity of light, meaning total wattage of light rays bouncing around

So I have some 660nm LED light and red incandescent light, but how much of each in relation to each other, and how much overall?

Some seat-of-my-pants guesses...

8 LED bulbs at 13W draw each = 104W draw... since they're 5mm LEDs, they're not particularly efficient. I don't know how to calculate efficiency, but I believe it's a function of the intensity and wavelength of light coming out of the LED. For example, if an LED takes 10W input and produces 100 lumens of 660nm light output, I'd have to figure out how much energy is in 100 lumens of 660nm light to be able to figure out how much of the electrical energy is converted to light energy. For all light sources, including LEDS, this conversion is not particularly efficient as compared to other types of energy conversion. For example, converting electrical energy to mechanical energy (via electric motor) can be as high as 98% efficient, meaning 100W of electricity will produce 98W of motion. Efficiency rates for converting electricity to light are much, much lower. Even in LEDs, it's not that great. For example, a Luxeon K2 Royal Blue LED (LXK2-PR14-Q00) produces 475mW of light on 3.85W of electrical input, making it about 12.3% efficient (475mW / 3,850mW). Even though that color blue is particularly inefficient in LED form, it's still in the range of overall LED efficiency.

Since 5mm LEDs are significantly less efficient than Luxeons, I'll take a guess that my 5mm Red LEDs are around 5-10% efficient, meaning every 13W bulb I have puts out around .7 to 1.3 Watts of light.

Incandescent bulbs are far less efficient. Common references on the internet say 95% of the electricity of incandescent bulbs is converted to heat, making them 5% efficient. On top of that, though, of the light they are producing, a large part of that is infrared (even beyond the plant-usable 750nm edge), so in terms of usable light, they're maybe 3 or 4% efficient. Add a red coating on the bulb to block blue/green/yellow and you get maybe 1-2% efficiency.

So taking the high estimates, I'd guess 10.4W of 660nm LED light and 1W of red incandescent light (ranging from 620-ish to 750-ish nm) gives me a ratio of about 10:1.

Taking that ratio, I can then figure out the time factor for each type of light, then weight them accordingly. My guesses for those are 5.5 for 660nm light and 2 for red incandescents (from post 168 of my last grow log). Weighting those ratios, I get an overall time factor of about 5.2.

My current schedule is 6/7/10/1 so I have 8 hours of AD and 10 hours of SID. If my 8 hours of AD really are at a time factor around 5.2, that gives me a SID equivalent of just over 1.5 hours. Add that to the 10 hours of SID and my guess is that my plants perceive just over 11.5 hours of SID.

I think I've already gotten way too far ahead of myself in my assumptions and calculations, but I can say that a 6/9/8/1 schedule keeps the plant solidly in vegging, so the time factor is definitely more than 2.5. I have yet to see if the new schedule produces flowering, so I can't say if there's enough SID equivalent time yet or not. I can count and calculate and conjecture all I want, but the plants will tell me what the truth is. As I experiment, I learn, and as I learn, I can eliminate what is not true to figure out what is left, which leads me nearer to the truth.

One more thing, my Vanilla Moon mother decided that it's done with vegging and it's going to flower whether I like it or not, so I'm going to put that plant in here too. It's been a mother for probably 4 or 5 months, so perhaps there are some distant relatives that are autoflowerers or maybe I just kept it around too long. The flowering stage it's in looks like a regular plant that's been flowering for maybe 10-14 days, so it should be right on schedule with the shorter-flowering HDF plant.

[Dogznova]

Taking that ratio, I can then figure out the time factor for each type of light, then weight them accordingly. My guesses for those are 5.5 for 660nm light and 2 for red incandescents (from post 168 of my last grow log). Weighting those ratios, I get an overall time factor of about 5.2.

Ok this is what I wanted too see you post..

Your schedule of 6/7/10/1 is really 6 hours of blue (pal) light and 8 hours of red (PAD) light and 10 hours of SID (standard indoor darkness). You don't need to split up the red PAD light (just so you know). Your estimate time factor of 2.0 for red INC is correct and you also correctly have 660 estimated at 5.5 awesome!! Your PAD light schedule can have no MORE then a 4.0 time factor just to make 12 hours of SID and that's not including the lag time going from PAD to SID. So if you think your 5.2 time factor is correct then you will not hit 12 hours of SID with that schedule. You will be in the 11.53 range of SID not counting lag time.

Let's re-cap.... You are using 8 hours of PAD and your also using 10 hours of SID. So using 8 hours of PAD you need to get approximately 2.5 hours of SID equivalent counting lag time. So doing the math you cannot go over 3.2 on your PAD time factor to achieve 12.5 hours of SID.

Let's re re-cap...

8 hours of PAD divided by 3.2 (time factor) is 2.5 hours of SID added to your 10 hours of SID = 12.5 SID total.

Hope this makes sense.

What ever light schedule you chose to use it's all about PAD time factors to get your SID equivalent time correct. :thumbsup: