150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[green_grow]

knives ... looks NICE and healthy !

jaxom ... according to the chart greenhead just posted (if i am reading it correctly), your 2 x 100 cfm fans should cool the cabinet to within 2.5 degrees of ambient temperature. however, that will change drastically when you are trying to push air through a carbon filter. my guess is that you will need a more powerful fan, but that is just a guess.

 

[Cozy Amnesia]

Hey folks! I've been gone for a long time now. Life kinda got in my way of doing anything in reguards to building my grow box. Right now unemployed, so I'm trying to get all those "little projects" that I've been intending on doing, but never had the time for while working. This includes finally building my scrogg box.

Since it's been a while, I need to review a few particulars about my box and also find out if there's been any tech type advancements that I should be aware of before I begin actual construction.

The first and foremost on my mind is about the balast for my 150w hps. I bought one of those units from the dealer as mentioned at the very beginning of this thread. I also downloaded the wireing schematics for rebuilding it. But before I go through all the extra work building a ballast box and then make my mind up wheither or not I want it in or outside and all those ramifications...when I was last here, there was talk about "new digital" ballasts. At that time there was no option for the 150's, is there one now?

Yup, here's one: http://www.hidhut.com/catalog/150w-high-pressure-sodium-digital-ballast-p-51.html . But honestly, I think the benifits of digital don't cover the cost. Another thing, if you bought the econolight one, you don't really need to build a ballast box. Just remove the bulb and run a good length of wire from the socket to the ballast to make it remote and you can just keep all the electrons in the original housing like this:

The small wire coming out of the top is 16awg and is connected to the socket inside the box. And you'll definitally want to have the ballast outside the cab, even outside there room if possible. It gets hot.

If there isn't. I need to go back over my cooling system once again. Age is creeping up and I just want to make sure I have enough cooling fans to keep clone-mother and scrogg chambers cool.

To get the answers I seek, it would be best to describe the cabinet I'm building and give you all some diamentions to work with.

Over all the cabinet will be 4' wide, 40" tall and 24" deep. Internally, the scrogg chamber will be 36-38" tall and 20" deep, 24" across. The mechanical and mother/clone chamber will be half the total hieght tall, 24" across and 20" deep. (all measurements are in rounded inches I'm not going to go into fractions for simplicities sake).

I put alot of time into the design of this. My first box worked...sorta. The biggest problem being that I used only 1/2" ply and that was ocx. Real pain to work with. This time around I'm going to use 3/4" furniture grade oak veneer plywood. This is going to be a "hide in plain site" type box by mimicing an office credenza.

Air flow will enter from the rear of the unit. Cool air will then rise though a series of 2" round house "sofit" vents around the dwc container. This way air will rise up through the scrog canopy. Then another row of vents will be placed along the inner wall between the mechanical are and the scrog area. As of right now I have 2 100cfm 12VDC fans that will be pulling all this air out.

Those fans will be enough if your not controlling odor. If you want an air scrubber, those DC fans just aren't going to cut it.

For personal consumption, I tend to prefer indica strains. And as you all well know these can really kick out the oder of a dead skunk! So I've got an idea on how to make a charcoal filter that I can remove and refresh from time to time. But this would put additional strain on those two fans. I am thinking of using 4 fans instead of just two, with the possiblity of using another fan to help pull air from the scrog chamber into the mechanical area. I'm also concidering placing an additional fan opposite of that one so it blows across the hps bulb towards the inner wall fan as well.

I wish I had a scanner, I could post a picture of my drawings. And this project has waited too long to be built for me to spend extra time now to do a cad drawing for this posting.

Any comments? Suggestions?

Thanks

Jax

Ok, do not just get more fans. Get one large fan that will do the job right. Trust me, a bunch of little fans will get you nowhere, instead do what has been proven to be the best ventillation setup time and time again and get yourself a nice centrifugal or squirrel cage fan and you'll be glad you did.

 

[Jaxom]

Actually I designed it so the fans would be pulling the air through a carbon scrubber of my own design. I'd really, REALLY like to stay away from a squirrel fan. Even the smallest one sounds like a jet engine, and this will be in my bedroom/office. These small fans are next to silent. They're not all that expensive, I could get a few more. Be nice to have one or two on hand in case one malfunctions.

re hps. The unit I bought was had that brown box type housing. Which I've since recycled. Kept all the other parts. I could mig weld a box. I know some have used larger breaker boxes and mounted the transformer inside that. Nothing wrong with this type of set-up, but I'm trying to have an ultra clean wiring rigging this time around. I've seen some very scary boxes in my day posted here and over at OG.

My worst fear is fire. One of the reasons I'm apprehensive on placing the ballast outside the box. The floor has thick, short shag carpeting with a thick under pad. Don't want it to get so hot that it causes spontanious combustion of the carpet. I had a 250W hps in a closet size grow and you could have fried an egg on that thing, that didn't make me feel too safe.

After I logged off last night, I was thinking about my post and the box some more. There was another question that I forgot about lighting. I came in on this forum when there was around 30 or so posts, and I remember seeing Pipedream's orginal box. He had his light statically mounted near the top of the box. Mind you His box was 6-7' tall. Mine is going to be less then 4' tall. I still haven't finalized the height. I have some room measurements to take before doing so.

Anywho, I know this is a bit subjective, but I would like to hear from fellow scroggers. I've seen some pretty darn short scrog boxes, but I want to get the maxium efficency out of this. By this, I mean what's a good hieight to make my box? I know it must be shorter then 48". 48" and taller and I would have issues getting it through doorways. And since I'm building this out of 3/4" thick ply, that also increases weight.

From bottom up this is what I've calculated.

2" for toe kick/cool air intake
3/4" for bottom shelf
10" for dwc bubbler
10" for scrog screen frame
15" for safe zone to prevent bud burning
3" from top of box (need a suggestion on how close I can mount bulb in box
not scorch the inside top of cabinet)
3/4" for top of box.

41.5" total, as is. And that's not taking into account that once the nodes pass through the screen and start budding, that can and will (I hope) fill that void between the top of the screen and the bulb. That's about the only advantage of using floresent bulbs, you can get within an inch or two before the leaves start burning. The only trade off is lack of penetration (looser and smaller buds).

I could cheat this a little with the scrog container and the screen frame, but that would only save a few inches at best. Suggestions? More comments? I'd really like to get this bit sorted out first, could always work out types and quantity of fans and ballast placement once the box is built.

Jax

 

[Pipedream]

Welcome home bro'. Yes it has been a while, but if you sniff around, you'll find many of the usual suspects from the old days.

Like the man pointed out, there is a 150 digital out there, but none of us are using it. (as far as I know) The cost and slim advantages just don't justify a swap for most. In fact, you can now pick up an e-conolight complete for 20 bucks. Does require a bit of modding, but you can't beat the price.

Sounds like you've got a plan figured out in your mind. Look fowrard to seeing some pic's or drawings in the near future.

Regards, PD

 

[killa-bud]

hey guys,

just some pics of some "colas",burmese pure f2 i guess(thanks again) and jlp's sdxog(also thanks again)

yeild'ed a lil over 2 1/2 oz's,both great strains










it was way to crowded in there for a 150

 

[sdsmoker32]

hey im looking to grow with a 150w hps lamp. can i use this for veg and flower? i was planning on using hydro and growing about 4 plants for myself. suggestions and help would be great

 

[catman]

hey im looking to grow with a 150w hps lamp. can i use this for veg and flower? i was planning on using hydro and growing about 4 plants for myself. suggestions and help would be great

You sure can, but the inter nodes tend to stretch out more with HPS than CFLs so you'd be better off with CFLs for veg and HPS for flower.

 

[Jaxom]

PD....ah the old dayz! What was the name of the board in the late 90's pre-og days? I miss those times, chatting with SCW, pops and many others.

Could use a pointer on how close to mount that bulb toward the top. Like you had mounted in your cabinet PD.

Would really like some scrog advice (where's scw when ya need him!) about my hieght issues. Once I get that worked out, I could possibly have some pictures up by the end of the week of my box.

FYI, update since I last posted in here Feb '07 or round abouts. At that time I had just found out my mother had cancer. The chemo treatments hit her hard. No time to build box to grow some medical, had to buy. She's in remission now, but the chemo really put a hurt on her arthritis. She occationaly still asks if I have any for her sore joints. I don't have 100% permission to grow, but in as much as she "needs it" and I no longer do commerical, I think it's safe enough as long as I keep a low profile.

Jax

 

[Bulénath]

Sorry to hear about your mother.

Ganja is wonderful for pain relief. I recently got my medical marijuana card for chronic pain, so now I can grow non stop, in all of my cabinets, once again!

....Crossed the cw20 (nuclear cloud) with Sugabears OB1, and created a beautiful 60 day finisher. All cabs are at full capacity, with a full cabinet harvest in 28 days. I look foward to sharing my first monthly perpetual, after years, and years of growing in my 150 cabs.

Bom Bolenath, Jah Bless.

 

[growDaddy]

these is how the girls are looking shortly before going 12/12 on my 150hps







I used my 150 for both vegging and budding

 

[hoosierdaddy]

growDaddy rockin the 150. Those girls are likin it.

 

[Knives]

flippin the girls to 12/12 tomorrow. gettin a timer, nutes, tacks, and string today lol. Will be posting picks at the end of each week to show progress, so check my thread if your interested. off to do my chores, peaaace

 

[Cozy Amnesia]

I agree, they're growing nice and fat.

Hoosierdaddy, hows your THUNK looking?

 

[hoosierdaddy]

What isn't smoke in the wind looks like this. (sorry about crappy photo)

 

[ambr0sia]

Thanks to all the incredible help from the folks in this thread, my final cab design is finished and will be physically completed either tonight or tomorrow!



The air will enter the veg chamber via 6 individual 1.5" light traps across the floor. From here, it will leave veg bound for the flower chamber via 6 more 1.5" PVC pipes that direct air to the dead bottom center. This air in turn will be drawn through the cool tubes and into the utility room, across the ballasts, and into the ventilation room, where it will be filtered through a CAN33 carbon filter and pushed out via a 4" Vortex 172cfm inline fan.

One pickle I've found myself in has to do with the PVC outer diameter and inner diameter. I (admittedly stupidly) based my intake calculations on the outer diamter of the PVC, which equaled out to about 6 2" intakes to double the 4" outtake. Turns out the PVC has an actual functional inner diamter of 1.5", which calculates out to the need for 7 intakes. Is this difference critical enough for me to make another trip to Home de'Pot to pick up additional elbows, and tubing, or am I going to be ok with 6?

I'll be starting my own grow thread tonight, so long as I can find my camera charger - stay tuned!

FYI, for those interested in picking up the E-conolight MT6H151G ($20 pendant mount 150W HPS), may as well do it now while you can; I had to call my order in last week because the site was down and while they had me on the phone they mentioned that the model is being discontinued. The sales rep didn't know why or if it would be replaced by a newer model or not.

 

[hoosierdaddy]

You have a good sized cab there, and I fear you will find you don't have near enough fan to keep it cool, especially when you have a scrubber attached.

You are also robbing yourself of air. You need more intake port.
If it were me, I would probably have 12 or so 1.5's in the veg room, and then again from veg to flower. Your cool tubes need to be 6" going into the ballast room. I would also add some porting besides the duct, say 6 more 1.5's to go with the 6" duct.

The fan will more than likely need to be ~250CFM w/6" connection.

 

[ambr0sia]

You have a good sized cab there, and I fear you will find you don't have near enough fan to keep it cool, especially when you have a scrubber attached.

You are also robbing yourself of air. You need more intake port.
If it were me, I would probably have 12 or so 1.5's in the veg room, and then again from veg to flower. Your cool tubes need to be 6" going into the ballast room. I would also add some porting besides the duct, say 6 more 1.5's to go with the 6" duct.

The fan will more than likely need to be ~250CFM w/6" connection.

Curses! Seein's how my fan is literally on the UPS truck for delivery as we speak, I'm hoping against all logic that you're totally wrong.

Can I get a second opinion out there? Is a 172cfm fan pulling through a CAN33 in a 6ft (W) x 3.75ft (T) x 2ft (D) cab going to be enough ventilation for CFLs in the veg and two 150W HPSs in cool tubes in the flower chamber?

Either way, thanks for your input, Hoosier, even though it wasn't necessarily what I wanted to hear...

 

[catman]

At first it seems like you don't have enough fan for that sized filter, but does he really NEED to ventilate it that much? It all depends on your ambient temperature. But lets say you had that covered. So, would 50CFM be enough to keep em growin?

 

[hoosierdaddy]

The only chance you have of maybe having what you have work, is to have the proper amount of intake and flow volumes. If you have that worked out, then you will give the fan it's best shot. From what I see, you are going to need to add.

If it were me, I would take the fan you have coming, and dedicate it to your cool tube arrangement. You can get air from outside and throw it right back out without worrying about scrubbing. Get another fan that has a 6" port on it for the scrubber and exhaust. A DIY Stanley blower may do the trick.

 

[bounty29]

If I had your setup, as designed in those drawings, and had already purchased a 4" vortex, I'd put two 8"x8" darkroom intakes in the flower room, one in the veg room, and just have a grated type ceiling in the veg room.

This, along with making sure the tubing from the cool tubes to the utility room is always straight, will give you your best shot at making the Vortex work for your situation.

With a carbon filter, air cooled hood, and a single 8"x8" intake, mine had no problem keeping my cab within a couple degrees of ambient.