catman's cab thread

[catman]

Welcome friends :friends:

I would like to share some experiences I had with designing and building my stealth cab as well attempting to document my first grow attempt. Before I begin I would like a change to talk about why I have chosen to grow and to thank everyone who has helped me accomplish it!

Cannabis is my self-prescribed medicine and it has allowed me to enjoy my life. I have a personal and family history of anxiety/depression and I have tried other medications in the past that did not work as effectively, with fewer side effects, or more natural products than cannabis. I also suffer from what is now being called restless leg syndrome and migraine head aches. I have had mixed experiences with medical benefits depending on the type of product I had consumed.

I chose to grow so that I can experiment with different strains, become supply independent, and because I enjoy it immensely!

I have got my feet wet with other forums, but I found a wealth of information here that I was not finding anywhere else. Particularly in respect to the Micro growing style... When I had almost given on growing my own medicine...I stumbled upon ICMAG!

I almost hate to do this because I know I will accidentally leave some people out, but I have some people I have to thank by name. These folks really out due themselves with helping others and have pioneered micro growing.

In no particular order, a special thanks to the following..

Bulénath, Pipedream, Sugabear, Quazi, hoosierdaddy, Dr Greengenes, Freezerboy,Thunderkel, Lifeless

ON WITH THE SHOW!



Nothing to see here. My PC sits 3 feet from the closet and is louder than my cab. Nothing can be heard when the doors on the closet are shut and temperatures aren't changed.



Here it is. Yes, those are bowls underneith for the time being.
Notice the lock? It's functional :]

Exterion dimensions: 31Wx20Dx30H




Lights on inside the cab, off outside... ~99% light proof. I used rubber silicone and vaseline to create the custom molded door "weather strips" as seen in the following images.


I used ~1.5 tubes to do the whole thing.



It remains fairly elastic once cured and has enough cusion so that I was able to 100% seal the hingers without losing function!



Doesn't look pretty, but it works.


It exausts to the right.




I wanted to create a cab with zero ducting to keep noise at a minium.




6 2'' PVC 90-to-90 for intake.



Panasonic whipser 80CFM DC variable 0.3 sone fan with DIY carbon scrubber tray. 120mm PC fan @ 6V for about ~30-50CFM - silent

42w 2700k on the left, 23w 6500K on the right..

I have a 23 5000k and 26 6500k that aren't being used.


These 90 elbows where a god send for my cab.



150w HPS for flower. I have 22 inches from bottom of the bulb to floor.
120mm PC fan @ ~50-60 CFM. Believe it or not, but if I adjust this fan any faster (max 110CFM).. it is louder than the whisper fan @ 80 CFM.



Supplies



Could someone please let me know what these are called? I used them to start my seedlings.


These NL are 6 days from breaking soil.




These BG are 4 days from breaking soil.





I water them from the bottom with distilled water with 1/4 strength of super thrive.

Please feel free to ask any questions, offer any concerns, or provide constructive criticism. I am here to learn and help others.

Thanks for viewing my threads, I hope you enjoyed it

-catman

 

[ballast]

party cups i think? very nice cab, what carbon thickness and area is the tray? kinda new at this myself but looks like your girls want that 6500k

 

[Bmw1000c]

Hello catman! Good luck!
I'll create a thread for my micro grow soon!

 

[ANOMOS]

Im stoked to see you got all your stuff up and running.

Im also in the same boat with you with ocd/anxiety so i cant wait to grow my next run to be able to enjoy life and not be in pain and on top of that not have to rely on some guy i gotta meet on a street corner.

so i wish you luck!

 

[organicmunk]

whats up Catman cab looks good where did you get that 150w i have been wanting one for a while what are your temps like with the 120mm fan you think is going to be enough to cool it.......i think your talking about rapid rooters i use to use them their super cheap i just use jiffy pellets now pretty much the same think i think the rapid rooters were lighter allowed for better root penetration in the early stages but whatever dude cab looks tight cant wait to see what you can pull with it ANOMOS i feek that im so sick of dealers i have decided that im not buying weed anymore i cant justify spending 60 on an eighth anymore and and it usually no even the same quality as the shit i grow you know economy is wack

 

[catman]

Thanks for stopping by and chilling with me everyone :]

ballast - the carbon tray is ~12''x12'' right now I only have 900mL (it's what the container says" of carbon on the filter. I followed the footsteps of this thread http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=45196&page=1&highlight=carbon+screen .. Bulénath uses about 2 inches in his, but he says you can get away with less in lower humidity. The fans we use are variable DC speed so we've had no CFM loss from using the carbon tray. So because it is variable speed, if air flow is restricted it speeds up.. I did not notice any increased noise of having the carbon on verus none, but I've yet been able to test it's effect on odor. I plan on adding 900mL more in a couple of weeks here. I'll post my findings.

bmw - thanks bro, i look foward to seeing your thread

ANOMOS - i wish you luck as well!

organicmunk - I got the 150w HPS from econno lights for $30 shipped! Bad news is I just saw a thread and apparently they are out of stock and it is unkown if they will continue to carry them. What I have found thus far is my temperatures in the cab are 5-8F above room temperature, but the closer you get to the HPS bulb the hotter it gets, quickily. 6 inches from teh bulb was ~85 and within 4 inches was ~95. I'm going to leave it as is for now, but I'm pretty sure i'll be forced to install a cool tube (no ideal way for my design) or change the lighting. I don't know if my 120mm fan on the HPS is in an optimal position.. I'll test it out probably in a week here and let you know what I find out.

 

[kaotic]

Looks real nice, good luck.

 

[dj.scotfree]

I love your cab man! Looking real good! I am also using the Fox Farm line this year... still trying to use up some gallon jugs of Technaflora, hope I get to use the FF soon. Well seedlings lookin' good... Peace, Love & Growth 2 U & Yours in '09

I love your style of threading!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Your temps are directly related to the air flow through your cab.

If it's 80F in your room, it shouldn't be more than 84 or 85 in your cab.


Is there a heavy suction on the doors? I'd look at increasing the number of air intakes until you only have a very light suction.

That will mean lots more air flow through your cab and your temps will drop way down.

I have a cheap ass fan right now and my cab stays at 7F over ambient. (70F room means 77F in the cab)
Once I upgrade the fan to what it's supposed to be it should run around 5F over ambient, hopefully 2F.

 

[catman]

Thanks for stopping by kaotic and dj.

Hydro-Soil: I have at least 10-20% more intake than out, but I can still tell I need more intake because when I close the doors, I can hear my fan get a tad louder as it raises RPMs to maintain 80CFM.

Mixed up my first batch of actual soil.



Fox Form Ocean Forrest

with



some vermiculite and..



perlite.




All mixed up



The first and only transplant will be to cut down 2L bottles. Plenty of holes in the bottom and on the side for a hybrid-hempy style (I guess?)



My tap's pH a bit too high. 1 teaspoon of Grow Big drops to 6.3-6.8 range so I'll just give plain water with super thrive until they ask for nutes.




Oh yeah!




The 6-9 day old seedlings are 12 inches from the bulb with a canopy temperature of 80F.



30% Humidity. I think I should be safe from burning them, but let me know if I'm wrong!



Moved the 2nd 120mm fan to blow on em a little.





4 NL




5 BG



My biggest plant so far.

Hopefully they like the HPS and I should be flipping the lights in 8-12 days.

 

[dontstepongrass]

lookin good cat!

 

[Bmw1000c]

you should increase your relative humidity

 

[Hydro-Soil]

you should increase your relative humidity

It will increase the speed they grow and they'll be happier but dont' stress yourself out creating it as they'll grow just fine at 30%.

Most of my growing experience has been with 20-25% humidity.

 

[catman]

Moved them up a little bit. Canopy temperature was steady all day around 74F. RH still high 20s low 30s.. as you can see I added a bowl of water... let it sit in the cab for 16 hours and it did not change the RH one bit.




NL



BG





Zzz... it's quiet before the storm.. I know at one point I will see more growth in 12-24 hours than in all the days thus far combined...

I took a sneak peak at the root mass of the biggest plant and they've just began to touch the outer rim of the cub and haven't gotten to the bottom yet. I'll hold off to transplant as long as possible because it is just so damn convenient to water these from the bottom in a tray!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Moved them up a little bit. Canopy temperature was steady all day around 74F. RH still high 20s low 30s.. as you can see I added a bowl of water... let it sit in the cab for 16 hours and it did not change the RH one bit.

If you want to up the RH for just a few plants, get a plastic tub and put some perlite in it with an inch or two of water. Mix a little vermiculite into it as well.

The air that comes off of that is 98% RH so you'll not want your plant directly in it. Play around with it a bit, you'll come up with something.

 

[jasonk]

Looking good Catman
I'm takin a seat to watch!

 

[catman]

Hydro-Soil - I tried a bowl with tons of perlite, but I'm out of verm. Unfortunately it did nothing to the RH. Maybe there is to fast of an air exchange for the meter to pick it up?

jasonk - Thanks for stopping in!

Today is 2 weeks for the NL. and about 12 or so days for BG.

NL got the follow per one gallon distilled water tonight.

1/4 tsp Super Thrive
1/2 tsp (2.5ml) Grow Big
1/2 tsp Big Bloom

pH'd up to ~6.6

I was upping the pH on some empty water and got it too high so I backed it down with a about 1/8 tsp or so and this is what the BG have gotten.

I beleive my pH was too low before which explains some of the diformity on the NL and yellow spots on one bagseed strain. I'm still pretty new to all of this!

On with the pics!



Temps have been good. It wasn't above 80F very long. Only occured when I removed one of the fans.



One of my 120mm broke! I replaced with this neat 45CFM fan from a comptuer heatsink. It's all plastic so I just predilled some holes and a single screws holds it in position.



As of tonight.



3 new bagseed borns!


2 above ground. Came out of some great bud that was purple.




That is the other bagseed strain with some yellow spots. I suspect happened because of my low pH. We'll see if it clears up.


1/22



1/27- eek!


NL


NL right, BG right..



I thought the lighting was cool.



There you can see the BG on the right.


The cab full agian.


Well, I'm still tweaking with things preparing for the switch to 12/12. I've vegged these strains before, but have yet to see themf lower. Assuming 50/50 male/female, I'll have about 6 plants to fill a little over 2 sq feet. I'm planning on LST with the wire and I'll wait to SCROG until I've got some experience with the strains.

I'd really appriecate any advice or comments about anything and espciallya about when to flip to 12/12. Thanks for viewing!

-catman

 

[catman]

Their looking pretty happy as of lately to me.

I'll let the pics do the talking..


NL - I think they want out of these little cups. I'll transplant within 24 hours into the 2L things I made.

NL

BG - Top right one is pretty unique from the rest.



Bag seeds

---Rest of images are blurry---




BG/NL



This is at canopy level.


I would still like some on when to flip to 12/12! I'm hoping to yield at least 60g.

If you bury the plants stem below soil will roots start to form from them?

I was thinking about trying this transplant technique out...would it be beneficial? Perhaps it could give me an extra inch or two for bud! I just don't know if the plants would like it.

Is that what would happen?

Just thinking out loud a bit...

 

[onweed]

when you transplant sink 'em down deep.

 

[catman]

The NL has been transplanted and they are starting to take off.










Tips are a little yellow. I'll worry about if it progresses.


And the BG

Purplin already





My favorite rolling papers!