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Help with Pinguicula setup


Fernando Rivadavia

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It's been waaaaay too long since I last logged into CPUK! Thanks for forcing me to do so Fernando! And I'm so glad you were pleased enough with the results to post the pictures here! What will you have us build on our next visit?

xoxo

Megan

Hi Megan.... and I forgot the guy's name...

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Hello CP folk,

Megan: Next time I'll have you build me a Ping castle!

Eric: Although Juerg Steiger's Ping wall was the inspiration, my travels in Mexico were definitely the main motivating factor behind this set up, after seeing so many amazing natural Ping walls in the wild.

Jim: I don't know how it'll affect the ceiling in the little nook, but I'm definitely hoping humidity will be higher there!

Dani: I have a hard time sticking to any one theme/ thing, so I'm very tempted to try D.adelae / prolifera/ schizandra, due to their lower light needs.

Thanks everyone for the kind words, I can't wait to have the wall covered in Pings!! :)

Fernando

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Here's a quick update.

I finished planting all the Pings Ed & Steve gave me (thanks guys!). There weren't that many plants, but I had to pull off almost all the leaves in order to be able to attach them properly without sewing them in. And I couldn't just throw away all the leaves, so I stuck each and every one of them into the Ping wall, hoping they'll grow little plantlets soon.

Here are the pics:

IMG_2102.jpg

IMG_2103.jpg

All the best,

Fernando Rivadavia

Edited by Fernando Rivadavia
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Here's a quick update.

I finished planting all the Pings Ed & Steve gave me (thanks guys!). There weren't that many plants, but I had to pull off almost all the leaves in order to be able to attach them properly without sewing them in. And I couldn't just throw away all the leaves, so I stuck each and every one of them into the Ping wall, hoping they'll grow little plantlets soon.

Here are the pics:

IMG_2102.jpg

IMG_2103.jpg

All the best,

Fernando Rivadavia

Looking good Fernando! Ping Castle eh? I think I have plans that weekend... shucks!

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Whoah.... that is dedication to the hobby! I've never, ever seen anything like that! For 5 years, it's good work.

I'd love to see how all those leaves turn out :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone,

Here's a small update. While I wait for the Pings to root and flourish, I started doing my part in making it all look prettier. :) I covered up some of the holes in the walls/wood and painted over the gutter, T-supports, and surrounding wall/wood.

Here are some pics of the painting process:

IMG_2105.jpg

IMG_2107.jpg

IMG_2109.jpg

IMG_2108.jpg

Meanwhile, I have been studying lighting options intensively on the internet and visiting some of the local hydroponics stores in the Bay Area - which has unexpectedly added quite a bit of color to this project since most of these stores seem to be geared to growers of marijuana. People watching can be fun in these shops! :) I've even run out of one place when a fight broke out between two guys after they began cursing and throwing accusations at each other, something involving one having called the police on the other and messing with his wife, hahaha.

Anyway, if you're interested in reading the discussion about my lighting plans for the Ping wall, see this thread:

http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=45484&st=0

Best wishes,

Fernando

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey everyone,

I finally decided on the type and model of lights last week: two 48 inch LED strips from Ecoxotic. Although more expensive, I chose LEDs in hopes of saving money in the long run. And I chose a mix of blue and red LEDs, since blue is supposedly good for growth and red for flowering (or vice versa). Whatever else the Pings need will hopefully be supplied by daylight coming through the window.

The lights arrived this Thursday and you can see them below, before and after I mounted the reflectors:

PingWall382.jpg

PingWall385.jpg

And now with the LEDs on:

PingWall383.jpg

PingWall384.jpg

So today I borrowed a drill from a friend, bought some hooks, marked the spots on the ceiling, and... hit a wall. Well, I actually hit hard concrete. So now I have to figure out how to attach them to the ceiling...

Fortunately though, the strips came with sticker pads on the back, so I was able to temporarily stick them to the ceiling while I decide how to permanently fix them. But because of the flat backside of the LED strip, I was only able to stick them right above the plants, a little too close as you can see below.

PingWall387.jpg

PingWall386.jpg

And here you can see where I attempted to drill a hole in the ceiling:

PingWall388.jpg

When I find a permanent solution, I want to move them back a bit and turn them at an angle of ~45 degrees facing the Ping Wall.

Suggestions welcome!

Fernando

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When I find a permanent solution, I want to move them back a bit and turn them at an angle of ~45 degrees facing the Ping Wall.

Suggestions welcome!

Fernando

Perhaps some 45° aluminium extrusion, such as this: http://www.jaseals.co.uk/p-45%C2%B0_aluminium_extrusion..htm

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Thanks everyone for the kind words!

I admit I also thought it looked like a disco after I set up the LED strips last night and wondered what people in the streets were thinking when they looked up at my apartment. :)

So I decided not to drill any holes into the concrete ceiling and instead decided to stick the LED strips to the ceiling with double-sided tape and some kind of aluminum profile, as suggested by a few people on this + the Brazilian CP forum, and by my friend Steve Davis (who helped set up the Ping wall and who I met up with today at the BACPS Annual Show and Sale - which had some beautiful CPs!).

Leaving the BACPS show, I stopped by a Home Depot and bought two 48 inch aluminum profiles similar to the ones in this link, except one side was narrower than the other (it had an L shape):

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-25ecodZ5yc1vZ12kx/R-202183479/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=48%22+aluminum+extrusion&storeId=10051

I also bought 2-sided tape that can supposedly hold 5 pounds:

IMG_2136.jpg

I first folded regular masking tape into two 48" long sticky cylinders and placed each of these inside on of the "L" aluminum profiles, against the right angle. Over this, I placed the 2-sided tape, so that it would be facing +- 45 degrees from either surface of the "L" profile. Then I stuck the LED strip to this tape. Last, I put another strip of two sided tape on the outside of the broad side of the "L" profile and stuck this to the ceiling. Here are both already in place (sorry, i forgot to take pictures as I put this together):

IMG_2132.jpg

IMG_2131.jpg

As you can see from the pics above and the one below, I still needed to figure out what to do with the cables and transformer dangling from the ceiling.

IMG_2130.jpg

So I basically taped the cables to the ceiling itself, using the tape that was actually protruding from the "L" profile:

IMG_2138.jpg

Then I stuck the long cable to the wall:

IMG_2139.jpg

IMG_2134.jpg

IMG_2135.jpg

As you can see, they are almost completely hidden by the blinds, thus very discrete:

IMG_2140.jpg

Now I just have to add a timer, decide how many hours to leave the lights on every day, and wait for the Pings to flourish! :) Several of the leaves I "planted" on the Ping wall are already beginning to form young buds.

Wish me luck!

Fernando Rivadavia

P.S. Adam, the LEDs do seem to get a little hot, but nothing that made it uncomfortable to hold in my hand.

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So... Any of you curious about how the Ping Disco looks like from the street?? :)

Whoever drives down one of the main avenues in San Francisco at night will see this:

IMG_0041.jpg

And a closer look:

IMG_0036.jpg

Enjoy!

Fernando

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