LED NGB Design and Build Thread

[BigBlack81]

Ok. Following the invective that one needs to do work before asking for help here, I come begging on my knees.

I'm budgeting my entire tax return for next year plus some other monies to make a stab at self suffiency. All told I've probably got about 800 dollars budgeted that I'll be able to use.

Pictures follow below that show what I've been mocking up in Sketchup as an idea.



I want to make a cab that not only I can build today but that I can also take apart and build it anywhere I need it. I'll be using the Grid Beam style of construction and all my wooden panels would be 1/4 inch plywood spray painted and mylared on the inside. The beams for the interior would be metal and the wooden panels will bolt to the beams. The bottom left will be veg, the upper panel would be a utility room with the flowering chamber set at about 2' x 2' x 3' (LxWxH).

Also, all the seams on the plywood will be precision caulked to make it as light and smell tight as possible. The Caulk-It is a godsend for non-neat hobbyist types like me.

Questions:
1. As you can see from the photos, I want to use LED lighting with possible CFL supplementation. I believe that this size flowering chamber is made for LED's with all their issues but I'm a little stymied over what to use. What light would work best with this setup?

2. If I chose to go HID or CFL, what options would be good there?

3. I want to go Passive Plant Killer for my growing method as behind safety, ease of use is my main focus for this grow. Are there any micro growers who grow passively and if so, what size pots and containers should I be thinking about?

4. In the flowering space that ventilates to the utility room, I want to exhaust the air from my room using this method and then have a Vaportek in the utility room to post treat the air coming out. Are there better options for venting in this space?

Thanks all for any help in this area as I want to make sure to build this and give the community all the nollij I glean from this noble mission.

 

[Swansen]

Not a hydro man, so i can't help there, but if you want to use some LED, there are just a few considerations. Namely, what style of grow are you planning SOG/ScrOG?? LEDs are great, but it seems by themselves they lack a little bit, a broader spectrum is always best. That said, i've been pondering the same idea for a while now, and my thoughts have been CMH 50w or 75w with some 25w LED units. i have a comparable size as you there. 660nm LEDs are the only spectrum worth anything for flowering, maybe throw in a few 630, and 430nm - 450nm for blue spectrum. Finding a reasonably priced supplier, chevy light co. seems to have some pretty good units(as long as they are supplemented). Also, wouldn't use anything under 1w emitters and look into PL-Ls if you want to go the fluorescent route or T5s.

Another alternative to the PPG might be a drip with some aero pots, or flood and drain, as these methods seem to be a little more forgiving, especially for a first time around.

Your venting solution seems to be fine, are you not going to have any ventilation in the boxes?? I think regardless you are going to want some air moving in their to cool whatever light source you have, it will get warm.

 

[stonedar]

If I only had a limited budget I'd spend it on smell control and building my box instead of LED's. I like LED's for micro I agree they are perfect. It's just a budget thing. When you can buy a 150w HPS complete for $29 including the bulb vs. anywhere from $129 for a UFO LED up to $500 plus for a decent panel LED and get similar coverage/yield it's a no brainer. Don't think you can't handle the heat from a 150 it's not alot.

I don't know about you, I am not a huge do it yourself'er I don't think I could make my own LED panel. Even if I could it would cost alot more than a 150.

www.dchydro.com sells a 150w HPS for $29 in store, Call them maybe they sell them online too. it's just a convertd security light. maybe 2 of them for that space

my 2 cents are worth just that, about 2 cents. but I gave it to you for free. lol

 

[FreezerBoy]

1. As you can see from the photos, I want to use LED lighting

D'OH! I was hoping that was a scrubber. Love the NGB, it rocked my growing world but, it has no scrubber. No scrubber BAD! Very very BAD!

Even if you're legal, smell makes you a target.

 

[BigBlack81]

D'OH! I was hoping that was a scrubber. Love the NGB, it rocked my growing world but, it has no scrubber. No scrubber BAD! Very very BAD!

Even if you're legal, smell makes you a target.

Read point #4 of my first post as I agree with you that no scrubber is bad. I would mount the scrubber I referenced in the link to the side wall against my utility room and then exhaust the air from the utility room through a vaportek mod of sorts to redundantly treat all the air being scrubbed coming out of my rooms.

 

[BigBlack81]

If I only had a limited budget I'd spend it on smell control and building my box instead of LED's. I like LED's for micro I agree they are perfect. It's just a budget thing. When you can buy a 150w HPS complete for $29 including the bulb vs. anywhere from $129 for a UFO LED up to $500 plus for a decent panel LED and get similar coverage/yield it's a no brainer. Don't think you can't handle the heat from a 150 it's not alot.

Well said. And thanks for the info. I was not in the know that a 150 HPS would be so cheap, hood and all. This makes me want to rethink HPS for the immediate building of this box and then down the road switching to LED's.

As much as I'd like to be gonzo off the bat, if I can find a good way to keep the heat down in the box, I'll go HPS. I don't think I really have a choice if I want to keep this grow within budget and the building materials for the box itself could very well cost me 300 bucks. But a good, modular, easily disassembled grow box isn't cheap nor easy to design.

Your .02 might have saved me much more than that so kudos!

 

[one Q]

if I may.

The panasonic fans a huge for a small cab like this and they dont do carbon well for the long run. I would go the SnP fans are said to be small. Or the Stanley blower mod... once yo cut the handles off, then it's a managable size. you can get them for $40 or so from Wally Marta.

Also, I would look into going vertical with a 150 add a bake-a-round DIY cool tube. Start adding up these prices and you;ll have plenty of $ for a nice scrubber from foothill. A small 4" filter is not much more than what it would cost for you to diy and it's good stuff.

You can get all that you need for $800 or less for sure. PM me if you need any ideas or whatever.

 

[Swansen]

I don't know about you, I am not a huge do it yourself'er I don't think I could make my own LED panel. Even if I could it would cost alot more than a 150.

Just a quick calculation but, 100w panel would be around $150, using 5w emitters(1w'ers would be cheaper), this is including heat sink material, and honestly, just a little math and understanding how current flows is all thats really needed(especially if you can find a current regulator that matches the build).

Also, there is a lot of info on CMH bulbs worth checking into, some say they are great, get great results, other are biased.

Anywho, i want to point out something here. Being that this is a cabinet grow, its always better to get more points of light, vs one bright one. IE, more smaller wattage lights spread out over the grow area, and this works out because of the small height, and small enclosed area.

 

[BigBlack81]

I've done some work as I'm going to be getting my tax return in short order and I am COMMITTED to building this year by Valentine's day. With that said, I've made some decisions about my setup:

1. The posts in the pictures attached are 2 inch Grid Beam sticks that I will hand cut and form into the box as shown,

2. After finding a light panel that has a price point that fits my needs, I WILL be spending the few extra dollars and going to go full steam with LED's. The light in the flowering chamber is a mockup of what I'd like to do,

3. My initial Veg chamber will be CFL but eventually I will want to convert totally to LED as well.

I have some questions for the board:

1. As shown, I have my veg chamber up top and my utility room underneath. Some threads suggest a top down ventilation scheme to deal with the heat coming off the LED's. Should I go with this design or reverse it back to the more traditional setup with the hot air being drawn off the panel and into the utility room?

2. I'm thinking about an inline fan with a small handmade carbon filter at first exhaust from the flowering room to the utility space but then having a second fan and filter to deal with the air in there being exhausted out. Is this overkill considering I want to use a Vaportek in the surrounding area as well or could you see a twin vent system working well?

3. I'd like to bench test my box before cracking a bean or dropping a clone into my system. What stinky stuff is comparable to a room in flowering that's legal to use for benchmarking my ventilation system?

And thanks all for those who have chimed in before. My research and designing will make a safer growing world for us all! One step at a time...

 

[420ish]

im not sure on the cost of the metal but i just built a 6 foot tall by 3 foot wide by 2 foot deep cabinet that can be broke down to be moved for around 60 bucks.the whole thing is screwed together and i used 2 by 4's and osb paneling.i have some of the parts and lumber on hand but i think by the time im done i will have only spent 120 on the whole cabinet(minus lights and scrubber)

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I like that setup with a vertical 150w HPS. Your footprint is almost too big to operate horizontally. But vertically you could put pots all the way around. With the right sized pots, you could mimic a mini-stadium setup where plants are staggered between rows, all the way around.

 

[BigBlack81]

I like that setup with a vertical 150w HPS. Your footprint is almost too big to operate horizontally. But vertically you could put pots all the way around. With the right sized pots, you could mimic a mini-stadium setup where plants are staggered between rows, all the way around.

I admit, I've been toying with that exact design idea and a V-SCROG stadium styled SOG system has made me ponder some things but I'm concerned with venting off of a Vertical light. Would you be able to run the bulb naked in my flowering space with only room vents and PC fans in the corners?

Also, what growing systems would work with a mini-stadium that small? DWC or mini SWC's perhaps?

These issues are why I initially would like to do a horizontal LED array along with serious SOG and/or SCROG growing with passive hydro. I'd just like to be able to dial in true self sufficiency first and then experiment with a second box on how to get max yield in this tiny footprint.

Finally, thanks!

 

[BigBlack81]

im not sure on the cost of the metal but i just built a 6 foot tall by 3 foot wide by 2 foot deep cabinet that can be broke down to be moved for around 60 bucks.the whole thing is screwed together and i used 2 by 4's and osb paneling.i have some of the parts and lumber on hand but i think by the time im done i will have only spent 120 on the whole cabinet(minus lights and scrubber)

One thing I'm considering is substituting the metal posts in the example with wooden ones drilled with the exact same hole pattern.

The pros are that it will not only be cheaper to source the wood involved but it will be just as modular and reusable. The downside is that I'd have to make all the spars and drill all the holes myself. Admittedly this isn't the most exciting thing in the world to do but it's the kind of weekend project that can excite a man like me.

However, using metal spars pre-drilled will save a great deal of fabrication time considering I'll only need to cut the lengths for the pieces once instead of shaping all the spars in the wooden option. And that is a time concern.

I'll post pics of an updated version of this using wooden spars as an example later in the week to show what I mean. I'm sort of leaning towards making my own wooden sticks as the money will be worth the extra week in Fabrication.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

I admit, I've been toying with that exact design idea and a V-SCROG stadium styled SOG system has made me ponder some things but I'm concerned with venting off of a Vertical light. Would you be able to run the bulb naked in my flowering space with only room vents and PC fans in the corners?

exactly

Also, what growing systems would work with a mini-stadium that small? DWC or mini SWC's perhaps?

I'd probably grow soil less or coco. Smaller pots can be placed all around the bulb. That's just me.

These issues are why I initially would like to do a horizontal LED array along with serious SOG and/or SCROG growing with passive hydro. I'd just like to be able to dial in true self sufficiency first and then experiment with a second box on how to get max yield in this tiny footprint.

Sounds like a plan, best wishes.

Finally, thanks!

you're welcome

 

[CARE giver]

LEDs work alot better at temperatures around 80-85. So don't cool your cab too much.