The story of my broken method: the terrarium is now on the balcony outside. It is sitting in the sunlight. also picked up a seventy watt Hg-light for the inside, I think that the light I was using was not strong enough.

Are you writing about growing shrooms? I grew them several times but always in a room where no direct sunlight came in. Curtains semi-closed with only a slight stroke of light coming in.
Are you growing a specific specimen which needs a lot of light?

dude, u dont need to buy any special lights for your shrooms to grow. they do just fine even in mediocre indirect light (even if its not sunlight).
people who buy lights for shroom grows do it for stealth growing (in closets for ex.)

if your substrate isn't pinning in the balcony, then its not the light thats the issue, but some other factor. maybe the sub dried out and is almost out of water due to the sun. dunking the sub would help in this case. or maybe the humidity is low and not enough fresh air exchange?

you should take some pictures and post about the details so that a better analysis can be made.

but you certainly don't need to spend money on buying lights, because shrooms use light for determining which direction to grow in and not for photosynthesis like plants do.
yesterday, i found to my surprise that my sub was colonized and started pinning while it was still wrapped up in a black bag with tiny holes with VERY little incoming light.

yes to the first question..talking shop. To answer the final questions, humidity is perfect, as well as air exchange. The problems I am having is that I get several pins and more and more....and they stall. Or so far they have stalled, this is the second go around for these cakes and so I'm on day three or so......and you know what?

I've gone through an old box of jars and have had creepers grow out of one, while it was in the attic completely shut off from any light.

I'm just not understanding what is going on with these guys. This strain has no grow information provided except for that they grow and when they do its a surprise and a pleasure......well I'm at the back of the line buying tickets to this show.

If its in full sun your grow chamber will likely be getting too hot by day and temps falling away at night. Cubes like an even 70- 80 to be happy.

What is shop?

Never mind looked it up ' If you talk shop, you talk about work matters, especially if you do this outside work.' Can't place it context.

I'm starting to wonder if the air exchange is actually enough. Because the lid has six holes about the size of a quarter, and they have synthetic fiber tufts balled up and jammed then the actual air space in the tank is like three feet. per ten cakes...hahaha ten out of 19.