Quote Originally Posted by Localboyz
well Ive come this far, I live in northern California, Sacramento don't have a card. never smoked weed never will (smells bad JMO) Any one that is around me calls me a square. I am very concerned about the safety of my family an what trouble I will get into. So that is were this site comes in. I'm hoping to get as much info as I can before I do this. I want to make as little mistakes as possible. I don't have alot of people coming and going at the house. I have a shed out back that will house a refrigerator that will be my growing cabinet. Besides the legal stuff my only two concerns are smell and lighting. I'm an electrician and did the calcs on the power consumption and the 400w hps this type of light and watts will over double my electrical bill. Would like to start with 2 plants and move up to 4. I just hope to make some money, just looking at things I may only break even. Well now that I have aired my Landry I will sit back and study.
Mistake number one is telling anyone (outside o' yer spouse, and, covertly*, us here on the boards) what you're doing. And even though you don't necessarily need cannabis, or think you need cannabis, I'd pursue the medical exemption angle just so you have a figleaf that will prevent them from ruining yer life, should you ever get busted. No one's actually gonna force you to take the 'erb you're growing... and having the medi.exemption would allow you to go buy clones from one of the co-ops.

Mistake number two would be letting your plants die out from neglect, misinformation, and/or malnourishment. Don't ask me how I Know This.

Starting with two plants, and moving up to four, sounds like a great idea. You could use SCRoG or LST to maximize yer harvest, and you should be able to light 'em properly with 400w of HPS. As to electrical consumption, if one postulated ten cents per kWh, and assumed 450w to overcompensate for the ballast, it should work out to:

450w/1hr=.45kWh, x 0.1=$.045 per hour, x18=$0.81 per day, x30=$24.30 extra per month, adjust accordingly if your price per kWh is higher or lower. This is not counting pumps, fans, etc, which are mice nuts next to your light. You may need air conditioning if your garden temperature goes above 82-83 as a working max.

If you wanted the freedom to move 'up' in the wattage world, while still starting at 400w, I'd suggest a digital ballast that will allow you to switch from 400 to 600 to 1000, and will light both HPS and MH. That way, you can try out 400w, and switch up at just the cost of a bulb if you find you need 600w or more.

Lum4t3k are my current preferred choice for ballasts, but they do have minor (correctable) problems with some bulbs. They work great with SunM4st3r, tho!

If one found oneself dealing with budgetary constraints, one could start with a single CFL, and expand little by little until one had a forest of 'em, cheaply. Check out Sunbl4st3r for the most efficient CFLs, but virtually any will do, starting with 23w 6500k or 4100k ones available at any WM or building store, or heaven forbid, your local corner store (gasp!)...

You might also wanna start a hu5hm4!L account just for your correspondance here Hope your garden grows well!