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How to make an AC box.

Well I ran one of these last year and have seen quite a few post lately asking if there is anyway to convert a window unit into a portable or to use it inside. This is my take on the situation. I ran this AC last year in the same box type unit. This year I rebuilt it to save some space and mount it up on the top of the room.

First step is to measure your AC. Your going to want to build your box 3-4 inches bigger on all sides. I prefer to use wood as it also dampens and quites the back of the unit quite well. So go ahead and make your box should look like this..



Next measure your as and cut out the opening for the unit. After that plan out an intake and and exit. Your going to want to flow air through the back of the unit. What i mean by this is you don't want your intake and exit on the same side of the box you want the air to move from side to side or top to bottom. Here is my box with intake and exit and ac holes cut.



Cut the hole in your appropriate wall or however you have make the intake exit work... Here I am bring air from the veg room in thought the bottom far side and out the top opposite side. This seems to work well for me in the past. The top is the exit to my fan I use an 8" fan split in two for my veg light (1000w) and this ac, the bottom is the intake vent.




Here is is all wrapped up and installed in the top of my room. As you can see it is a sealed separate system so that i can maintain my co levels in the room.



Common questions..
what about the drip?
I also run a dehumidifier, and last year did not notice any drips through out the year. I feel that with a strong fan you remove the heat and condensation before it can accumulate.
well actually thats about all I can think of hope this helps someone this worked all last year and i expect it will work this year. I run 4x600's air cooled and this comes on maybe twice a night to drop my temps down during the peak of summer.
 

pumpkin2006

Member
Ya thats a cool thing. I've had this idea for a long time, but I just thought about cutting a hole in the back and having one of those cheap duct boosters attached to it. Sounds good though, whatever works for people.
 

ThingFish

Member
For the last 6 years I had an ac in my basement window with a home made manifold sealed around where the cold air comes out. That was dukted into 12" insulated flex duct that ran to my flower room. -I had another manifold on the intake that also had the 12" flex dukt runnin to the flower room. The whole thing just circulated around like that and worked real good. I like your way too but if ya aint got room for an ac you could save some room and keep the ac unit in the window and just duct the cold air to your flower room too.
 
T

TheOneWill

Would it be good to use a window ac unit to cycle air? If not how many 120mm computer fans I should put it in to cycle the air to keep it fresh?
Like for it to suck out the hot air from a 420watt hps and then circulate in the ac unit then go back into the flower cab.
The size of the cab I would use for this one would be
44inches length
24inches deep
68inches high
Heres the link to what ac unit I would use.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4456962#Features+&+Specifications
 
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You will improve efficiency if you don’t use your conditioned air to remove the heat from the back of the AC unit. Also if you vent the back with non conditioned air (not from within the room your cooling) you can use this setup with in a sealed CO2 environment too.
 
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raygun

Active member
This is a great idea!!! And as far sa the drip goes I guess if some one was having this issue You could drill a small hole in the condensor collector plate at the bottom and run the water to your res. When i had my window unit installed in my window I ran a small drip line from the hole to a 5 gal bucket. It filled up every other day and was just as clean as my RO water.

As for use in or for a cab grow you will need to duct the front intake(for the AC air not the the mechanical workings of the unit) portion down to your cab and the exaust (cooled AC air) in to your cab as well. I thought of this before but did not figure out how to run the AC unit not in the window and just on top of my cab. I figure the best placement would be on top of the cab with the ducting going in to the top of the cab. Unless you have space behind it to place the AC unit but i think that most us cab growers have then in a room where seeing ducting coming out of some box on top of a cab that is humming might cause more suspicion than needed.

But if you can pull it off you just got yourself an easily 100% sealable cab. with climate control!

Thakns for the info.
 
G

Guest

hazy,

This is great and will come in very handy for my 'sealing room' project.

So far I've purchased the wood to build the box and the AC.

How do you mount the AC inside the box so it doesnt move around once the you put the front side piece of wood on there?
 
The box its self is mounted the the ceiling rafters and the sides are mounted to the studs. The ac is mounted like a window unit. They normally have a top rail I just drill a hole and then put a screw in it seal up the sides with some foil tape and no problems yet. and its been a HOT summer..
 
G

Guest

hazeywonder said:
The box its self is mounted the the ceiling rafters and the sides are mounted to the studs. The ac is mounted like a window unit. They normally have a top rail I just drill a hole and then put a screw in it seal up the sides with some foil tape and no problems yet. and its been a HOT summer..

Would you happen to have a picture of the mounting? :)

Also, what cfm fan are you using to exhaust the ac box?
 
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