LoKey
Member
(Latest run starts on page 9)
hi y'all, been lurking for awhile, sucking up all the information on this site like a sponge with a grain of salt here and there of course.
But figured it was time to post something of my own, the title more or less say's it all.
This is oh about my sixth iteration of some form of grow cab over the last year or so (6 you say yeah obviously some of them never got a grow in them due to various reasons) but hey i like to build also might be a bit
crazy but who isnt.
I came to this design after having a couple big cabs that were obviously way to huge for my needs, to the last box which was more or less a NGB style box, which worked awesome, but i wanted something even smaller, but a bit bigger than a standard pc just cause i find multiple really small plants can be a pain to maintain.
My requirements were it needed to be stealth, (quite, little smell, and not blazing obvious), able to be tucked away in a closet in a certain way, and used a standard 1020 nursery tray as its main flower holder (as there are a plethora of pre-made containers out there that are designed to fit them)
As for yield really doesn't matter with me as im the occasional smoker/edible consumer, and i mean like maybe once a month (really Mabey once a month if that) but i love the growing aspect behind the hobby of nurturing and caring for something through its life cycle (Just to chop it off at its ankles and dry it out like a mummy
)
But this is what i came up with.
Its outside dimensions are 22"wide x 12" thick x 42" tall and was made out of a full 4x8 sheet of crappy 1/2" plywood.
Its sectioned into three compartments just like a NGB box just different layout, we have the main flowering chamber on the bottom which very snugly fits a 1020 tray (had to fold down the corners to fit it length wise) but its dimensions are right around 11"x21" with 24" from the bottom of the tray to the lexan so looking a about 1.6sqft but only 1.3sqft due to the usable space of the tray (so might be able to throw pics into the 1sqft challenge thread, would love too as i wanted to be 1.5sqft and under just for that purpose, but needed the extra 1/2" to fit the tray better)
Its lighted by 7 23w cfl's, right now i have a mix spectrum as i just feel it grows heather plants (note i said feel not know) but whatever, all the lights are behind lexan in more or less a self made cool hood and are exhausted by a 92mm pc fan (zalman zm-f2) reason i did this was because in the past just having un hooded/tubed bulbs it typically cause my temps to be a bit more than my liking so opted for the cool tube setup this time.
Next we have the mother/seed starter/clone section, it measures 11"x13"x13" tall which if you were counting (i know you weren't but that would make the cool tube 3" thick) and will conveniently fit one of those jiffy half trays if i wanted but it has a single socket in it (use to have three) but i figured it was definitely over-kill with the amount of light there could be in it vs the passive cooling, so i bumped it down to one socket and currently have just a single 13w 6500k bulb in there, which should be enough as everything is within 12" (furthest corner) or under from the light, and if not ill just throw a 23watter in there.
Eventually ill make my own LED array ala knna style and will do the mother chamber first, but thats down the road.
Finally we have the utility room its house's all the electronics, fans, and carbonfilter, so it has a power bar with two timers and and a wall wart hidden behind the carbon filter for the fans.
But anyways the farback corner is made into a chimney with some 1/8" plywood, and the cool tube fan is mounted right to the roof with in the "chimney", due to its whole thermodynamic chimney effect of hot air rising from the cool tube it actually passively circulates its own air without the fan on, enough so that you can feel the air going into the intake but i have a fan there just to make it run even cooler. right beside it i have a second 92mm fan which draws air through a scrubber and out the top.
And right near the front on the left side i have a mini chimney that comes from the flower chamber which is only there to allow air passage from the flower chamber up into the utility box so it can be scrubbed while bypassing the "cool tube"
But other than all that, i have outfitted the flower chamber with some mylar from some $1.50 safety blanket using some spray adhesive (im not worried about the wrinkles), and a keyed lock, as for light traps and its intake, the flower chambers intake is two plastic 12"x6" heating duct exhaust covers which the inside was spray painted flat black and were screw on the out and inside with the angle of the vents facing the same direction thus creating a V airpath and some loose air filter material in between also painted black (not the paper air filter stuff but the cheap stranded fiberglass stuff), the cool tube has 2 2.5" 90 degree pvc elbows and the mother chamber has one 2" elbow with another 2" elbow going through the wall to the utility section inside the cab.
Its not completely light proof but after i throw some black nylon on the elbows and with the closet door open only 2" it covers direct eye contact with the intakes anyways, so unless someone is fumbling around in the room with the lights off and the lights in the cab are on (which they run during the day anyways so it only visible later in the evening) then they wont even notice.
pheww long winded
but if you made it this far the first run in this cab will be mainly for seeds as then i have plenty of backups later if i need/want to shut it down, But i currently have 3 mandala safari mix going (freebies, which i don't really care about getting seeds from unless something special comes out of them) there in the orange containers on the left, in the center i popped 4 mandala #1, and on the side i have 4 more Jamil Sayyida by Karma Genetics (yes i know its and outdoor strain but i had to get some because i like ebse work alot and it was the only seeds at the time i could get with some of his work mixed in not to mention karma produces some great stuff to boot, also its a perfect strain for my latitude as well if/when i want to do some outdoor plants).
But i plan on updating weekly, and will running a small micro sog setup so stay tuned.
hi y'all, been lurking for awhile, sucking up all the information on this site like a sponge with a grain of salt here and there of course.But figured it was time to post something of my own, the title more or less say's it all.
This is oh about my sixth iteration of some form of grow cab over the last year or so (6 you say yeah obviously some of them never got a grow in them due to various reasons) but hey i like to build also might be a bit
crazy but who isnt.I came to this design after having a couple big cabs that were obviously way to huge for my needs, to the last box which was more or less a NGB style box, which worked awesome, but i wanted something even smaller, but a bit bigger than a standard pc just cause i find multiple really small plants can be a pain to maintain.
My requirements were it needed to be stealth, (quite, little smell, and not blazing obvious), able to be tucked away in a closet in a certain way, and used a standard 1020 nursery tray as its main flower holder (as there are a plethora of pre-made containers out there that are designed to fit them)
As for yield really doesn't matter with me as im the occasional smoker/edible consumer, and i mean like maybe once a month (really Mabey once a month if that) but i love the growing aspect behind the hobby of nurturing and caring for something through its life cycle (Just to chop it off at its ankles and dry it out like a mummy
) But this is what i came up with.
Its outside dimensions are 22"wide x 12" thick x 42" tall and was made out of a full 4x8 sheet of crappy 1/2" plywood.
Its sectioned into three compartments just like a NGB box just different layout, we have the main flowering chamber on the bottom which very snugly fits a 1020 tray (had to fold down the corners to fit it length wise) but its dimensions are right around 11"x21" with 24" from the bottom of the tray to the lexan so looking a about 1.6sqft but only 1.3sqft due to the usable space of the tray (so might be able to throw pics into the 1sqft challenge thread, would love too as i wanted to be 1.5sqft and under just for that purpose, but needed the extra 1/2" to fit the tray better)
Its lighted by 7 23w cfl's, right now i have a mix spectrum as i just feel it grows heather plants (note i said feel not know) but whatever, all the lights are behind lexan in more or less a self made cool hood and are exhausted by a 92mm pc fan (zalman zm-f2) reason i did this was because in the past just having un hooded/tubed bulbs it typically cause my temps to be a bit more than my liking so opted for the cool tube setup this time.
Next we have the mother/seed starter/clone section, it measures 11"x13"x13" tall which if you were counting (i know you weren't but that would make the cool tube 3" thick) and will conveniently fit one of those jiffy half trays if i wanted but it has a single socket in it (use to have three) but i figured it was definitely over-kill with the amount of light there could be in it vs the passive cooling, so i bumped it down to one socket and currently have just a single 13w 6500k bulb in there, which should be enough as everything is within 12" (furthest corner) or under from the light, and if not ill just throw a 23watter in there.
Eventually ill make my own LED array ala knna style and will do the mother chamber first, but thats down the road.
Finally we have the utility room its house's all the electronics, fans, and carbonfilter, so it has a power bar with two timers and and a wall wart hidden behind the carbon filter for the fans.
But anyways the farback corner is made into a chimney with some 1/8" plywood, and the cool tube fan is mounted right to the roof with in the "chimney", due to its whole thermodynamic chimney effect of hot air rising from the cool tube it actually passively circulates its own air without the fan on, enough so that you can feel the air going into the intake but i have a fan there just to make it run even cooler. right beside it i have a second 92mm fan which draws air through a scrubber and out the top.
And right near the front on the left side i have a mini chimney that comes from the flower chamber which is only there to allow air passage from the flower chamber up into the utility box so it can be scrubbed while bypassing the "cool tube"
But other than all that, i have outfitted the flower chamber with some mylar from some $1.50 safety blanket using some spray adhesive (im not worried about the wrinkles), and a keyed lock, as for light traps and its intake, the flower chambers intake is two plastic 12"x6" heating duct exhaust covers which the inside was spray painted flat black and were screw on the out and inside with the angle of the vents facing the same direction thus creating a V airpath and some loose air filter material in between also painted black (not the paper air filter stuff but the cheap stranded fiberglass stuff), the cool tube has 2 2.5" 90 degree pvc elbows and the mother chamber has one 2" elbow with another 2" elbow going through the wall to the utility section inside the cab.
Its not completely light proof but after i throw some black nylon on the elbows and with the closet door open only 2" it covers direct eye contact with the intakes anyways, so unless someone is fumbling around in the room with the lights off and the lights in the cab are on (which they run during the day anyways so it only visible later in the evening) then they wont even notice.
pheww long winded
but if you made it this far the first run in this cab will be mainly for seeds as then i have plenty of backups later if i need/want to shut it down, But i currently have 3 mandala safari mix going (freebies, which i don't really care about getting seeds from unless something special comes out of them) there in the orange containers on the left, in the center i popped 4 mandala #1, and on the side i have 4 more Jamil Sayyida by Karma Genetics (yes i know its and outdoor strain but i had to get some because i like ebse work alot and it was the only seeds at the time i could get with some of his work mixed in not to mention karma produces some great stuff to boot, also its a perfect strain for my latitude as well if/when i want to do some outdoor plants).
But i plan on updating weekly, and will running a small micro sog setup so stay tuned.
