Howdy All, 
I've been busy getting high and thinking about going a bit bigger in scale than my Closet Maid cab. Being a cheapskate, I don't want to spend any more than I have to, and since I already have a Mills Pride C13 wardrobe and a 400w HPS and CMH setup, I said what the fuck. Lets see what kind of mayhem we can create in a cab with dimensions of 30" wide, 20" deep and 72" tall. I like to think of this as a return on investment.
So you say a 400 is way too much light for only 4.2 square feet. That's approaching 100 watts/sf, knuckehead. I say you're absoluely freaking right. But remember, I'm bored and high. Also, I'm going to use a tubular scrog that gives me 11.8 sf of area, so I'm closer to 34 w/sf.
In order to maximize results, or maybe fry some bitches, I'm running the light vertically. Our friend over in the vert forums are killing it and I want to be as cool as they are.
So in this undersized, over illuminated cab, I plan on running 4 gals from clone in 3 gallon square pots. Probably going back to soil (maybe coco) for this try, since I dont want to fuck with hydro in a sauna. I might break the bank and buy some fancy blumats to make daily maintenance easier.
In order to keep the gals from turning into crispy critters, I've put the bulb in a Bake-a-round tube and am running a dual stage system for cooling and scrubing. I tried the 400 bare. Not gonna happed when your walls are 9" from the bulb. The light is cooled by a 120mm PC fan blowing through 4" duct. Cool air enters from the bottom and is pulled up across the hot as fuck bulb before exiting out the back. Currently, I have a 60 cfm PC fan doing the work of cooling the light. That shit aint gonna cut it. Time to step up to a Delta. I'm considering the 12v, 0.9A beast that moves 150 cfm and screams at 55 dB.
Scrubbing and more cooling is done with a Stanley blower connected to a DIY 6" scrubber. The scrubbed air is blown up into the floor joists and over to my attic. It's probably louder than 55 dB, so the Delta wont make much difference.
The cab is a closet/storage room in my garage. Luckily, the closet has a forced air duct inside, so I can keep the closet close to 75F even on days when it's 90+ in the garage.
So I finally got this thing up and running today for some temp testing. So far, I can keep the cab running 10F over ambient, or about 85F. I do have some hot spots on the back wall and doors closer to 90F, which worries me. I'm going to try a 30" tall, 18" diameter v-scrog to keep the green away from the molten lava inside that glass tube. Anything closer means certain death. Anything larger wont fit. I'm walking a very fine line here.
I've considered buying a 40"x40" tent to do this, which would be much easier, but like I said, I'm cheap. Sure I can find one on ebay for $90, but my father always said quality is your best value, and the $250 entry price for a quality tent is a no go atm. I'm also considering buying a 250W HPS ballast kit and replacing the 400 with the lower wattage, but that seems kinda pussy-like. Maybe stacked 150's for a shot of double vagina? The heat from the light is killing me right now. I had the same setup running horizontal and temps were only 2 over ambient except up at the bulb, which was closer to 85. The closer proximity of the bulb to the plant going vert in this cab is my biggest probelm.
Total cost to get this thing up and running to date is $16 for some shiny new duct and $16 for the honeywell fan on the floor. Everything else is recycled from shit laying around getting dusty. I can get the Delta fan and the 250w Advance ballast kit off of ebay for another $42. Since my current CMH bulb is for horizontal, I either need to get a 400 vert or a 250 vert for another $52. That includes a free hps bulb which i'll use for flowering.
More testing, tweaking and getting high are in order here before I get this thing fired up on a regular basis. Wish me luck.
I've been busy getting high and thinking about going a bit bigger in scale than my Closet Maid cab. Being a cheapskate, I don't want to spend any more than I have to, and since I already have a Mills Pride C13 wardrobe and a 400w HPS and CMH setup, I said what the fuck. Lets see what kind of mayhem we can create in a cab with dimensions of 30" wide, 20" deep and 72" tall. I like to think of this as a return on investment.
So you say a 400 is way too much light for only 4.2 square feet. That's approaching 100 watts/sf, knuckehead. I say you're absoluely freaking right. But remember, I'm bored and high. Also, I'm going to use a tubular scrog that gives me 11.8 sf of area, so I'm closer to 34 w/sf.
In order to maximize results, or maybe fry some bitches, I'm running the light vertically. Our friend over in the vert forums are killing it and I want to be as cool as they are.
So in this undersized, over illuminated cab, I plan on running 4 gals from clone in 3 gallon square pots. Probably going back to soil (maybe coco) for this try, since I dont want to fuck with hydro in a sauna. I might break the bank and buy some fancy blumats to make daily maintenance easier.
In order to keep the gals from turning into crispy critters, I've put the bulb in a Bake-a-round tube and am running a dual stage system for cooling and scrubing. I tried the 400 bare. Not gonna happed when your walls are 9" from the bulb. The light is cooled by a 120mm PC fan blowing through 4" duct. Cool air enters from the bottom and is pulled up across the hot as fuck bulb before exiting out the back. Currently, I have a 60 cfm PC fan doing the work of cooling the light. That shit aint gonna cut it. Time to step up to a Delta. I'm considering the 12v, 0.9A beast that moves 150 cfm and screams at 55 dB.
Scrubbing and more cooling is done with a Stanley blower connected to a DIY 6" scrubber. The scrubbed air is blown up into the floor joists and over to my attic. It's probably louder than 55 dB, so the Delta wont make much difference.
The cab is a closet/storage room in my garage. Luckily, the closet has a forced air duct inside, so I can keep the closet close to 75F even on days when it's 90+ in the garage.
So I finally got this thing up and running today for some temp testing. So far, I can keep the cab running 10F over ambient, or about 85F. I do have some hot spots on the back wall and doors closer to 90F, which worries me. I'm going to try a 30" tall, 18" diameter v-scrog to keep the green away from the molten lava inside that glass tube. Anything closer means certain death. Anything larger wont fit. I'm walking a very fine line here.
I've considered buying a 40"x40" tent to do this, which would be much easier, but like I said, I'm cheap. Sure I can find one on ebay for $90, but my father always said quality is your best value, and the $250 entry price for a quality tent is a no go atm. I'm also considering buying a 250W HPS ballast kit and replacing the 400 with the lower wattage, but that seems kinda pussy-like. Maybe stacked 150's for a shot of double vagina? The heat from the light is killing me right now. I had the same setup running horizontal and temps were only 2 over ambient except up at the bulb, which was closer to 85. The closer proximity of the bulb to the plant going vert in this cab is my biggest probelm.
Total cost to get this thing up and running to date is $16 for some shiny new duct and $16 for the honeywell fan on the floor. Everything else is recycled from shit laying around getting dusty. I can get the Delta fan and the 250w Advance ballast kit off of ebay for another $42. Since my current CMH bulb is for horizontal, I either need to get a 400 vert or a 250 vert for another $52. That includes a free hps bulb which i'll use for flowering.
More testing, tweaking and getting high are in order here before I get this thing fired up on a regular basis. Wish me luck.
