Noob In Need

[InRainbows727]

Hello all you ICMagger's,

I'm wondering if all of you lovely people out there can help me with my plan,



This is the cabinet in question, it measures 22.25" W x 23" H (up to 29" if i take the top shelf out)x 23" D

All of the Red Dots will be 42 W CFL's (Warm-White, as this will be a perpetual flower cabinet)
The Blue circles will be intake out outtake. The bottom will be a 120 mm computer fan connected to an air duct (which will go around the corner of the cab getting fresh air in). The top will be another 120 mm computer fan hooked up to air duct tubing, which will also be connected to a home made carbon scrubber made from this



The cabinet from the outside looks like this:



I'm going to be doing a soil grow in 20 oz soda bottles (inspired by Dr. BudGreen), I'm going to be feeding the girls FoxFarm or General Hydroponics.

Any suggestions? Do you guys think there will be enough air flow? (I'm going to put a cage fan in the box as well) Any recommendations on nutrients, or more/less lights? Do y'all think that the smell will be removed enough with the filter?

I'm open to all suggestions, thanks everybody,

Tumuli signing off, enjoy the smoke everyone!

 

[FreezerBoy]

Intake fans run the risk of positive pressure. Bad juju if you don't know your stuff. Punch another 120mm intake at the bottom and a single fan attached to the exhaust should do the trick.

 

[moses224]

Agreed Punch 4 holes on each side (bottom) and put a small piece pvc with filter on it. That will allow proper air flow

 

[InRainbows727]

So something like this?

Orange-intake
Blue-outtake

 

[FreezerBoy]

Neato.

 

[clay]

Is your carbon scrubber going to be external (which is what I gathered from your description) ? If so, what is happening in that 6" of drawer/drawer-space at the top? What if you remove the drawer, and move the lights up into that area to gain extra vertical grow room? Or if you dont think you'll need the grow-space, you could move your carbon-scrubber in there

 

[Quazi]

You're definitely going to have temperature troubles.

From your drawing and description, you're talking about putting 8x42W CFLS?

That's 336W in a very small space.

A single 120mm regular PC fan pulling through a carbon filter w/out sectioning off and removing the heat is going to spell trouble. It may be possible if the heat is sectioned off via cool tube or a sheet of glass, but otherwise: it's not going to cut it. You said you have a squirrel-cage style fan in the cabinet. Since it wasn't mentioned in the intake/exhaust, I'm assuming you were just going to blow the air around in there with it? Why not setup the squirrel-cage style fan to be your main exhaust, and use the 120mm fans to blow directly on the bulbs?

Also: positive pressure = stinky situation. The setup you're talking about with one fan blowing air in and another fan blowing air out that's hooked to ducting and a filter means, without a doubt, your intake fan is going to be blowing smell through the cracks of the cabinet.

I would recommend taking a look at some of the other cabinets around here and seeing how they have their ventilation hooked up.

Also, you purchased the pre-filter, not any actual filter. The pre-filter is meant to grab the larger stuff before it gets to an actual filter. It's not meant to or designed to remove smell. That's what the carbon in the filter is for. The pre-filter would be wrapped around a carbon filter to capture the dust and smaller particles. The carbon on the inside is what traps the odor.

-Q

 

[FreezerBoy]

Looks to me like he got carbon sheets. I wouldn't recommend them for a large grow but, for smaller cabs and fans, they do the trick. My DIY odorsock uses 1/8 inch thick sheets/pads is doing great. Only 5 weeks so far, which admittedly isn't long but, if it lasts till Saturday, it will have outlasted my needs.

 

[Quazi]

Ahh...

Didn't see the pre-filter itself was made of carbon too.

I thought it was like one of the pre-filters that fits on a CAN or something.

I can see on the box in the pic though it says it's carbon.

That's what I get for smokin' and postin'.

Should do the trick then.

-Q

 

[InRainbows727]

Very cool, I was thinking of doing what my second picture represents and check my temps(just got the digital thermometer at Target!), I'm going to start with 6 lights and work my way up to 8 if they are necessary, my smoking needs are to maintain only my stash...would all of you guys say the wattage is right if I intend to produce that much product? Thoughts?? Etc?

 

[clay]

Very cool, I was thinking of doing what my second picture represents and check my temps(just got the digital thermometer at Target!), I'm going to start with 6 lights and work my way up to 8 if they are necessary, my smoking needs are to maintain only my stash...would all of you guys say the wattage is right if I intend to produce that much product? Thoughts?? Etc?

depends on what kind of 'stash' you need.

one guy I read on here is burying pounds of weed in the ground for the possibility of on-coming country-wide financial recession... THATs a stash..


just how many of those soda bottles to you plan to be cranking out?

 

[InRainbows727]

I would consider a stash probably 1 ounce a month, maybe more depending on how charitable or how stressful I'm feeling. I'm very interested in creating a quality product moreso than quantity, I already have some Neville's Haze(5 seeds), Skunk (15+ seeds), and some seeds from a Neville's Haze x Santa Maria cross(3 seeds), unfortunately they are not the seedbank seeds and just products of a previous grower (I also have a crap ton of bag seed labeled by what I was told it was at time of purcahse, but I would anticipate I would start on bagseed just to test the waters and then dive into the quality strains). I'm thinking I will start with a huge number of soda bottles and weeding (ha-ha) them out until I come across the best genetics of all the seeds. If all of y'all can help me with plant estimates that would enable me to fit this goal that would be most appreciative.

Thanks Everyone!!

 

[InRainbows727]

Okey dokey folks, I have some updates for you all!

I have significantly improved my cab, now all of my lighting is in place, I adjusted my initial plan to use what I had on hand already (the 42 W and the 26 W), when I got to the hardware store they had 40's instead of 42's. Now there is a total of 346 Watts in my cab.

http://icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=486&pictureid=3293

**Green represents a Y-splitter
**Red=26 W CFL
**Blue=42 W CFL
**Orange=40 W CFL

As a result of this, there has been a huge amount of heat in the cab and I'm wondering if all of you nice people can help me with that issue. I'm going to have two intake fans and one exhaust (while having a squirrel cage in the box).

All of this information is without the intake or exhaust fans, because I am determining the correct fans at this point in time. Right now the ambient temperature is around 59-60 degrees, when the lights are on with the squirrel cage fan on (with the door closed and all sealed up) it tops out at 103 degrees (yikes!!), when I place the fan in the correct position with the door open I can get temperatures from 68-70 degrees. I'm thinking the lower the better, any suggestions on CFM ratings?? I have a tiny space so I'm not too worried, however I have a lot of light in a concentrated area.

What's everybody's thoughts?

Thanks so much for all your help people.

P.S. pictures should be coming any day, a new camera is in the works!!

 

[junior_grower]

you should always have more intake than exhaust.

\

yup I was bacakwards. The insomnia is killer some night's
Sorry again.

 

[FreezerBoy]

You got that backwards. Intake is 2x-4x the exhaust.

I'd avoid intake fans if I were you. The easiest way to avoid positive pressure generation is to avoid positive pressure generators. ie. intake fans.

 

[InRainbows727]

What would be the best way to get clean air in and out and yet maintain to have no positive or negative pressure??

 

[BeeBee]

You need enough negative pressure (vacuum) to prevent odor from leaking out of the cabinet.
Remember--air out = air in.
To develop vacuum, the exhaust fan(s) need to overpower the intake (with or without fans). An intake fan is a good thing, since it makes the job of the exhaust fan easier. However, since the exhaust will lose a fair amount of its flow, because of the resistance created by the filter, the intake fan needs to have about 30% less capacity than the exhaust.
One easy way to achieve balance (slight vacuum) is to put a fan speed controller on the intake fan, and turn it down until you notice a slight vacuum. But computer fans are brushless, and need a special controller--I don't believe this is practical for computer fans.
Use an intake fan rated about 50% of the exhaust, and additional passive intakes as needed.

 

[InRainbows727]

I'm looking for an inline fan that I can later use for a carbon scrubber once my operation grows, any ideas??

Can anyone point me in the right direction as to finding correct fans for my box?

 

[FreezerBoy]

Intake fans are the fastest way to positive pressure. Unless you really know what you're doing, stay away. Get a hole saw, 4-6-8 inches (your choice) Punch three holes. One at the top, two at the bottom. Attach exhaust to the top hole. The dual intakes are passive. In the rare event that doesn't do it, cut a third intake.

 

[InRainbows727]

Alrighty! I finally have everything up and running, with the exception of a couple small things (the carbon scrubber is not attached yet), everything is working great, I currently have 4 fans working in my box, two at the bottom pulling air in, one at the top pushing air out, and then a squirrel cage fan in the box.

I broke a 26 W today so I am short a light bulb, but I ran a couple tests to see what temps would be like; I let the lights heat the box up for a straight hour before I checked temps...they were all below 75 degrees! I will have pictures up soon (camera comes tomorrow!) of my box, I'm also germinating 10 seeds right now, so let's see what happens!