The Cosmo Mini Cab!

[GrowBox420]

Hellow my fellow Growers and ICMers. This is my first real attempt at the beautiful art of growing. I have been looking around for some insperation and have found lots on this site. I sort of got trigger happy and went out and bought a cabinet from Target, I split it up into two different compartments and velcroed the top one so it is uber light tight which is very important because it needs to be as stealth as possible. Im going to go invest in a lock next time I reup on funds. This is what Im workin with now.....Any ideas or thoughts Such as what kind of pot I should use or anything thanks guys

 

[GrowBox420]

I would like the commentary so I can see how Im doing so far guys..... Check out the pics

 

[sneakinman13]

looks good man. nice trippy cab!
do you have the light and fans yet?

 

[GrowBox420]

Im waiting on the 150watter from htgsupplies then I think Im going to build from that. Just trying to eliminate problems b4 its to late.

 

[catman]

I have 11 2.5'' 90-to-90 PVC in my cab just so you realize that it takes more than one. A single 90 bend won't block the light. Hell, even two 90-to-90 won't unless you spray the inside with black spray paint. My advice, buy black PVC if you can find it. Save you the hassle of spray painting.

Absolute stealth? You should know that it isn't possible. You can't really hide the air flow needed to cool a grow like this without audible air flow.

Odor control?

Is their a budget? Personally I wouldn't skimp on something so important, but if I was you I would use CFLs in the cab. Spend some time looking around here on ICMAG and you should be convinced without a doubt that the CFLs can grow bud just as good as the 150w HPS and just as much.

If you want to optimize for the lowest noise possible then I could offer some advice, but it will be extra work and costly.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Yes what catman said, although the way it looks in that sketch, there is a 90º bend with the elbow, but there is another 90º if you look at the angle of the bulb compared to the tube between it and the elbow. But yes, it would probably still leak a little I'm guessing.

You will want some intakes too. Do I understand that there will be 2 identical boxes?

Edit: also, if that is cloth there, you want that right out of there. I would recommend panda film or mylar. Fire risk and bad hygene. Hope you don't take it the wrong way - I only have your safety in mind.

 

[SpaDeKo]

I would switch that lightsource to a 200W CFL to remove most of the heat (you said stealt, right?) - More heat, more fans.

 

[LadyLargely]

Oooo, yea, fabric, fabric is bad!

Looks trippy, which is fun, but that shit will mold up in a matter of weeks. Unless you live in the Sahara I would definitely recommend ditching it.

Everyone will go to Mylar as the first suggestion for a replacement. Thats a good start. But Mylar is an expensive Dupont registered Trade Mark. Mylar is really just metallized polyester film and can be found generically in many different forms. From bubble-wrap insulation to emergency blankets to high-quality wrapping paper. Beyond that there are also products like Black & White Poly that do the job well. And if you like working with fabric then you might like this: I once worked with a highly reflective grey fabric that was meant for making high-visibility safety gear. It was high-quality mold-resistant outdoor-rated stuff that was mega-reflective and water rolled right off it.

I see you've elected to raise and lower the plants rather than the lights. If you are a beginner then I am impressed you made this relatively pro choice. In tight situations like yours it is usually more space-efficient to raise and lower the plants rather than the cool-tubed light. A movable light needs flexible ducting to go with it and drastically lowers ventilation efficiency.

Also, your single-elbow light trap will leak considerably.

ScrubNinja did a great how-to on a flat style light trap made from stacks of angle iron. It was a bit of work but the end results where stunning. If you aren't able to do that and want to stick with PVC elbow traps then here's some tips:



You need AT LEAST two elbows in line to get a decent light trap. Many growers round here will tell you three, but I make two work. Make the two elbows 'offset', as in don't have them both rotated in the same direction. A crooked S shape like I have seems to be very effective. Also:



Give the inside of the elbows a really thick coating of flat black enamel like pictured. This stuff absorbs light like none other and really helps to make an effective light trap.

Your 150 HPS will be effective, but have you chosen a grow style yet? 150s are HID lamps, but they still do not have high penetration rates like 400s do. 150s will only give you good bud on the canopy and one layer down. Anything lower than that wil be fluffy fuzzy popcorn that doesn't weigh anything. Because of this you will want a grow style; some form of training. You have a number of options:

SOG (Sea Of Green)

A.K.A 'the plantlet method'. The idea here is to grow 'budsicles'. These:

We want to grow many small plants, concentrating only on the head cola. You can pack in as densely as 9 plants per square foot using 20 oz. beer cups to grow out of. Veg is short and flower happens quickly as the plants stay very low in complexity. Stretch is allowed and heavy branching is highly discouraged.

User DrBudGreenGenese is famous for growing with this technique. He gets some truly extraordinary results from rooting containers that are 20 ounces or much smaller! That's his photo above.

The only issue is it is fairly specialized. DrBud has taken years to develop a quick-flowering strain that does well with this grow style. Most strains though partially defeat the purpose of SOG. The idea is to grow and flower really quickly, but when you grow some breeds that way they are just too small to mature fast. They drag their feet and take forever to finish out, thus defeating the purpose somewhat. Overall though, do it right and SOG can be the most time-efficient method of producing bud.

At the other end of the spectrum we have ScrOG

Screen Of Green. AKA screen training, horizontal growing. The idea is to achieve this:



Totally flat canopies complete with horizontal colas:

Mmmmm

This is my ScrOG grow. ScrOG is best suited to low-penetration light. 150 watt HPS is about the strongest light that can be considered 'low penetration', so ScrOG does not hold as many benefits as it does for floro grows. It can be very beneficial still.

The ScrOG school of thought is exact opposite of SOG. Branching is highly encouraged and the plants are kept as short and thick as possible. Instead of concentrating on just one big nug per plant you will harvest hundreds of nugs per plant. And unlike SOG (or indeed any other grow method I know of) the quality of the resulting buds are 100% consistent. There is no difference between 'head' colas and 'side' colas. The quality is absolutely uniform, your whole stash will smoke exactly the same from start to finish.

Its a real connosuir's grow style, you have to love cannabis to do it. It is quite time-consuming, training must be performed every day at times such as heavy stretch when switching to 12/12. But to me its worth it, as those are my ScrOG plants up there.

I think you could do really well with ScrOG. The trick when using it with HPS like you have is to curve the screen. A concave screen cheats the geometry of your box, giving you a greater canopy surface area than it appears your floor space can allow. With a really deep curve it is possible to get a canopy as big as 1.5x the square footage of your floor. 150 HPS ScrOG grows produce fat coke-can sized nuggets with uncanny uniformity.

Caught somewhere between ScrOG and SOG is your third option: LST

Low Stress Training. The goal is this:

Its really quite simple. Let the plant grow up, bend it over, tie it down. Without ever cutting or topping the plant this results in a mass of bushiness. Using this technique it is possible to get a relatively 'flat' canopy, as with ScrOG. You will not be able to achieve horizontal colas like with ScrOG, but with the decent penetration of a 150 HPS that is no big deal. It strikes a nice balance for maintenance as well. Not as time-consuming as ScrOG, but not as set-and-forget as SOG. It also combines well with other techniques such as supercropping so you can make really stout, hardy plants like this:




The bottom line is: You have many options! But it is important that you choose one BEFORE getting started! I see too many gardeners on this site get a good cabinet whiped up and then they sprout and start growing plants without really having a plan. Get everything set now: training method, nutrient regime, growing medium, the lot.

Speaking of which, other than your cab you have not mentioned how you will be growing. What sort of nutrients do you plan to run? Soil? Semi-soilless? (you don't look like you're going hydro) Are you not quite sure?

You gotta get that stuff out there. I'm one of the foremost developers of Bio Box; a new organic gardening technique. If you have any questions on organic mediums or how to grow a bit more high tech than just dirt in a pot my group of like-minded gardeners and I are not a bad place to start. Good luck, keep us updated!

 

[LadyLargely]

I would switch that lightsource to a 200W CFL to remove most of the heat (you said stealt, right?) - More heat, more fans.

That would be MUCH hotter than his 150W HPS. Especially if he has his HPS set up with a remote ballast (which he should). Floro tech is actually less heat efficient than HPS and will produce more BTUs of heat per watt of light output. Couple that with the fact that most CFLs are forced to have their ballasts attatched to the bulb and you wind up with a heat situation that is not always favorable to HID.

 

[GrowBox420]

Thanks guys for all the Adivce!!!! Ive heard about the cfls actually producing more heat like ladylargely said plus I like the cool tube Idea. LADYLARGELY thanks for all the help I like the scrog mothod I want to get a lot of nugs off of one plant. Still havnt found out what kind of potting system, The one 90 degree pvc was for the eletric cords to go out off and be placed outside the box. Is the fabric really gonna be a problem, what if I put some mettalic foil for present wraping on the back off it for mold control. Where should I get my strains from too lots of questions here thanks for all the help fellow growers

 

[grouchy]

The one 90 degree pvc was for the eletric cords to go out off and be placed outside the box. Is the fabric really gonna be a problem, what if I put some mettalic foil for present wraping on the back off it for mold control.

Do you have any intakes planned for the cab? An exhaust fan won't do much good if it does not have intakes. The fabric will attract moisture and will start to mold. I would ditch it completely. You could put it on the outside if you wish but keep it out of the inside. You might be able to find some reflective wrapping paper with a star theme if you look. You could then line the inside of the cab with that. Stealth and function should be the #1 priority when it comes to supplying yourself. You have a good base to start with and I think you can really make something of it with a little help.

 

[ScrubNinja]

I'm not sure even the purpose of the cloth? You have doors there bro. But yeah, if you're thinking the cloth is gonna be your intake, it won't work. Not nearly effectively.

 

[LadyLargely]

Thanks guys for all the Adivce!!!! Ive heard about the cfls actually producing more heat like ladylargely said plus I like the cool tube Idea. LADYLARGELY thanks for all the help I like the scrog mothod I want to get a lot of nugs off of one plant. Still havnt found out what kind of potting system, The one 90 degree pvc was for the eletric cords to go out off and be placed outside the box. Is the fabric really gonna be a problem, what if I put some mettalic foil for present wraping on the back off it for mold control. Where should I get my strains from too lots of questions here thanks for all the help fellow growers

*nods*

Big powerful 200 watt CFLs also benefit from cool tubes similar to the one you are using. But if I where to choose a bulb to grow from start-to-finish it'd be the HPS. The color temp of them just works much better for yielding well in flower.

Yes, the fabric really will be a problem. We are not doing this out of a dislike of fabric, it is out of painful personal experience with MOLD. Trust us, ditch it. Its cool to have for stealth purposes or whatever, but it needs to be on the OUTSIDE of the cab. Do as the cats say. Line the inside of your doors with some kind of reflectice non-absorbent sheet.

Also, you will NEED some sort of intake to make the most of your ventilation (and therefore keep temps under control). If your fan is decently strong and you do not supply adequate intake preparations then nature will take it's course: The fan creates a low pressure zone in your box and the higher atmospheric pressure comes rushing in wherever it can. Air whistles and wheezes through every crevace in your box; Don't do it!

SEEDBAY is a great place to get amazing genetics. It supports this site AND more local small-time growers. On top of that there are serious bargains on some amazing shit. If you want a personal reccomendation: Friends and I recently aquired seed packs from the breeder Mist Of Destruction. Every breed in their line is related to a 'special' mother that they have which is a cutting from the origional Blueberry cannabis cup winner. She gets mixed up with a number of enigmatic daddies and I think every one of their current lines is way more than worth the bargain price of $30 for 10 seeds. I'm really anticipating their Godberry line, it has a seat reserved for my next grow round!


Glad to see you are interested in ScrOG. As an old OG oficianodo and a religious practitioner of ScrOG I see the technique as a bit of a lost art. It seems many more attempts at horizontal gardening are just a cannabis plant with a screen in the middle, and not true ScrOG.

"True Scrog" I think is the practice of literally weaving the stems of your cannabis plant into a screen. As such:



A comlete weave 'cycle' requires three adjacent holes in the screen. Up through one, down into the next and then the plant grows itself back up through the third and final one. For this reason I prefer hexagonal screen. I consider the epitomy of cannabis-growing screen to be galvanizd two inch hexagonal poultry net. Cheap, strong, flexible, stays out of the way and because of the coating tends not to 'cut in' to cannabis stems.

Repeated success with this process basically requires the use of supercropping. Basically s/croping is just pinching the stem gently between your fingers, rotating it slightly till you feel it give way a bit and make a little crushing sound. This allows you to bend even thick uncooperative stems into whatever position you need. If you attempt true ScrOG without this technique you are just going to KINK your stems, killing off all the growth above the break.

Its a bit of trouble for sure, but there are benefits to be had if you use them. One of the biggest benefits is being able to take advantage of your lamp's light sphere. Every lamp/reflector combo has a different pattern in which it distributes light. I use foil-taped over-driven floros, so mine looks like this:


cross-section of my lamp

A very mild, gentle, parabolic curve. Because of this my ScrOG setup is truly flat. Or mostly. It also has a gentle (but negligable) downward curve. This is the origional configuration for ScrOG grows. Because it became so prolific it is popularly thought that all ScrOG grows should be flat. Not True. The flat ScrOG only helps if you have flat light. I do, most people don't. Let's look at GB420's lamp configuration:


cross section of GB420's lamp

Cool-tubed HPS. This throws off a much sharper parabolic curve. Because of the reflector it is a bit 'deeper' straight down than it is off the sides.

ScrOG is all about taking advantage of the induvudual quirks of the light you happen to work with. When I say "take advantage" it helps to understand the INVERSE SQUARE LAW:

There are a lot of maths, but for us it means this; As you get further away from a lamp the energy delivered to that location drops EXPONENTIALLY. So having the buds 8 inches away from a lamp instead of 4 isn't half as bad, its worse by a whole order of magnitude!

So! In a perfect world we would try to fit all of our nugs into our own unique light sphere somehow. ScrOG is an attempt at doing this.

GrowBox420:

I've seen/helped build a couple of compact grows based on 150HPS tech. A configuration I've seen used with great success is this:

View image in gallery​

Sorry, it was a quick job. Off to the right is the door and thus your room.

The idea here is not just a curved ScrOG but an Asymmetrical Curved ScrOG. Don't mount your cool tube bang in the middle. Push it towards the back and angle it slightly so that it throws towards the doors. This lets you get a curve in your screen without fucking with accessibility.

The problem with a curved ScrOG in a cab like yours that isn't asymmetrical is that you have a 'backside' to the curve. This essentially makes the underside of half your screen completely inaccessible.

Going asymmetrical, especially with dimensions like yours (space wider/taller than it is deep) allows you to capitalize on much of your avaliable space without sacrificing ergonomics. You can reach the underside of the whole screen (very important for pulling fan leaves under and general training, making sure dead matter doesn't hang around and cause mold).

Doing this, I think you could cram 3 plants into that space very nicely growing on an offset like so:

View image in gallery​

Doing this makes the plants 'crowd' eachother less as you hit 12/12, stretch kicks in and you really get to weaving.

This would strike a really nice balance. You could grow some decently sized plants with nice, fat, 3/4 inch diameter stems. This would mean decent size and density of the finished nugs while also not straining individual plants too much so as to achive high grams per watt. No sense in good GPW numbers though if all you get is fluff. Keeping decently large plants will ensure nice fat nuggets even if you have tons of bud locations per plant. In this config you should be able to push 1 gram per watt easily! 5 ounces out of your space sounds like a lot, but that means only a little under 2 ounces per plant though, very do-able with a screen like this.So long as you can provide good nutrient delivery and low stress in that little space.

Which brings us quite neatly to yet another suggestion I have for you. If you are undecided on potting systems I have two very strong suggestions:

Hempy Bucket.

Hempy buckets are as simple as they come. They can be scaled WAY down, I mean beer-cup small is easy. They use mega-simple soilless mediums made up of perlite and vermiculite. They feature a simple one-hole overflow system with a small un-oxygenated perlite-filled 'bath' down at the bottom.

Managing a hempy bucket is very simple. Just buy small bottles of a complete two-step hydro nutrient system. Veg and flower. Mix as directed on the bottle and hand-water whenever the plants look thirsty. Starve/flush cycles to boost your yield are easy to perform, its basically hydro with none of the hydro hassle!

The issue with hempy buckets seems to be that they are best suited to artificial hydro nutes. The technique's creator, DalaiHempy has done extensive research into this. Hempy Buckets just don't support strong enough micro-life. They always seem to yield better with salt/mineral nutes. Many people have made organic conversions, but they are all contrived solutions that each gardener has experimentally developed themselves.

If you are interested in organics, then have a look at suggestion number two:

Bio Box

Bio Box is a new, unified theory on leveraging organic nutrients in a very user-friendly way. By harnessing very strong micro-life Bio Box gardeners free themselves from issues like pH fluctiotions, nutrient lock-out, root disease, and other issues that gardeners tend to deal with themselves. It uses well-proven and very simple matirials and techniques that have been employed by cannabis gardeners for decades.

I won't rant too much in this space about it, have a look at the Club Bio Box link in my sig if the concept interests you at all.

Keep up the responses and keep asking questions! It is good that you came to the community this early in your build. Lots of great advice floating around, listen to it and I think you'll do great

 

[GrowBox420]

If anyone has Pics of Cabs with similar deminsions dont be afraid to post them

 

[roughnice420]

that was a very nice post ladylargely

 

[ScrubNinja]

Ah, but LadyL...I'm afraid to tell you that there's something important you forgot to mention....

....

...oops, no my bad, you covered everything

 

[Mk3Jetta]

one thing i'd do with you lamp is mount it on the back wall of your cab so it is perpendicular and uses light more efficiently.

 

[HHHG]

If the garden doesn't work out you can put on puppet shows

 

[LadyLargely]

one thing i'd do with you lamp is mount it on the back wall of your cab so it is perpendicular and uses light more efficiently.

Hey man! That was exactly my line of thinking with the asymmetrical ScrOG idea. The lumpy oval shape that the lamp throws light off in will better 'fill' the space if it is radiating out of the top rear corner.

Ah, but LadyL...I'm afraid to tell you that there's something important you forgot to mention....

....

...oops, no my bad, you covered everything

LUL! Scrubs, love ya buddy! I do like to be nice and thorough, specially with newbies. Certainly as an accomplished gardener I want to push some of my own (very useful/successful) grow preferences onto a new, impressionable grower. (ScrOG, Bio Buckets) Because of this I am doing my best to tell him about the viable alternatives and their advantages. Not trying to unduly influence the poor guy, just want him using the techniques that are gonna work best for him. I want all cannabis gardeners to be successful. That's why I figured HempyBuckets. Much easier to set up than the still-experimental (but highly successful) OBBTs and nearly just as easy to run.

Doesn't sound like he's crazy-experimental and he has limited space, so I think a nice little set of 3 or 4 1.5 gallon hempybuckets would do him really well, you think? I've never done designer liquid hydro nutes so I'm totally ignorant about them. Anyone know a good cheap, reliable line that works well in small HempyBuckets?

I've done my best but I certainly haven't covered EVERYTHING, it always blows my mind just how many loose ends there are to tie up to make a successful grow happen.

Oh and (*sorry, off-topic*) ScrubNinja, how did you get that dope little cannabis leaf next to your name??

 

[ScrubNinja]

LadyL - cheers! I found it interesting we both noted the hygene aspect and I do hope Growbox will heed your advice. All I can say is that I am just now dealing with the fallout from bad hygene and it's pretty depressing. No kidding, I cried a little, lol, and I have been doing this a while. Every single plant I own (weed, veggies, house plants) was swarming with root aphids, so your advice about the bio-box etc is very good. That is where I'll be turning as a possible way out of my predicament! (will hit you up on one of your threads about this at some stage)

The purple leaf is an indication I need to get out more It's something to do with activity points/awards. If you click on IC Experience up top, you will get to that part.