What should I do with this cabinet?

[soundwave89]

So yesterday this was at the curb across the street from me. I'm planning on making a three chamber grow box out of it. Here's a pic:

It has two vertical doors that need new hinges, what should I use to attach them and make sure they shut without gaps? Also, should I be attaching lights off of the wood or build an enclosure with plexiglass? I'm concerned about smell and light escaping, any recommendations for that?

 

[Anti]

Seal the interior of the whole cab with silicone caulk. Actually, check that, paint the entire interior white, then seal it with silicone caulk. (You can't paint 100% silicone, so you need to paint first.)

If the back is what it appears to be (a thin layer of cardboard) you'll want to measure and replace it with something more substantial before you caulk. (i.e. half inch plywood.)

What kind of lights are you planning to use? What are the dimensions of the three chambers? What's your budget?

I can make better suggestions based on the answers to those questions.

Take a look at my sig thread if you want.

I also wouldn't use plexiglass as a partition between lights/plants. I'd use GLASS (which is cheaper and doesn't offgas) but the use of it will depend on your exhaust plans.

 

[heater76]

listen to the Master Anti.Great advice!!

 

[Mota-vation]

From the looks of it, you could remove the bottom "T" shelf out. That would provide more space, which would allow you to flower on the bottom shelf and veg/ clone on the top. I recommend flowering on the bottom because the heat from the lights (nothing more than 250-watt mh or hps) would warm your veg/ clone area providing them with the right environment to establish healthy roots. Remember white reflects light and black absorbs light/ heat. So small vents are needed and a good way to vent out. Remember there is no need for intake fans as the outtake fan will create a passive airflow. Your outtake vent/fan should be near the light and the input vent should be close the the bottom. I don't know if this helps you but if you have more questions, feel for talk ask. I have built a similar GrowBox from a dresser found in an alley. A gave it to a friend years ago and it still is functioning to this day. I'll try to find picture of it and post them so you can get a better idea.

 

[soundwave89]

My budget is as cheap as possible without cutting corners. I'll be using CFL bulbs.

 

[Anti]

What's the overall depth of the cabinet?

With only 20" of height, I'd recommend a SOG with very little veg time or a SCROG.

What's the cabinet depth? (Your image is good, but we need all three dimensions to know the CFM for fans and to make lighting recommendations.) Looks like approximately 20" deep.

Anyway, in that sort of space, you should be able to make due with about 6-8 40w CFLs. I would alternate 6500k with 2700k in every other fixture so you get a nice even light distribution.

If it's 20 in deep x 36 in wide that gives you about 5 sq. ft. in the top chamber. 50w (or more) is the goal. So You're looking at wanting about 250w of CFL in that space. (6 x 40w = 240w). 2 more would be even better. You could have two rows of 4 equally spaced out across the top of the chamber and get near even penetration for the whole thing while only sacrificing 4"-6" inches.

6" tall containers would give you about 12" of plant height (no time to veg. Clones go straight into 12/12) under the lights. You could fix a layer of glass above the plants to keep temps down in the cab, but this will require dual exhausts. (One for the lights, one for the plants.)

The blue section could be a mom/clone chamber and the red space could be a utility closet. The 4" space between the two sections could allow you to extract the air from the bottom section out through the top of the blue section into the pink section and then put a simple PC fan (or two) in the pink section, sucking the mom exhaust out the back.

The exhaust for the upper chamber could either be behind or above the chamber and into some kind of stealth air scrubber.

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

Is there any way to ditch the top shelf (the bottom of the yellow area)? It would give you a precious 4 more inches for flowering height. If it wont come out easily, you could do cutouts for the container(s) and allow them to sit on the bottom of the pink area.
IMO, multi chamber cabs can be a bitch to dial in with one fan doing all the work, but since budget is an issue, a single extractor/scrubber would be cheapest.

I've found double doors (like how yours it setup with the hinges) are harder to lightproof. If you have the room to swing a 36" door on top, I'd go that route. Fewer joints to seal. You can use some magnetic catches from Hemp Depot to keep em closed. Another great way to keep eyes out of the cab are tot-locks. They use a removable handle with a magnetic release so no one knows there are locks on the doors. Check flea bay, Walmart or Lowes. The D-shaped EPDM weatherstripping at the depot makes great seals for cab doors.

Like Anti said, replace the back with some 1/2" plywood, paint and caulk. If you dont want to paint (who does) line the interior with reflectix after you caulk. You can staple or tack it to the walls with double sided tape.

If your handy with electric, look into running 4-55w pl-l bulbs up top. You can DIY one for about $100 if you dont mind twisting wires. It would definately save some height.
If you want a prebuilt one, look at this or this.

Another option would be to run a 150w or 250w HPS vert in the upper chamber. That would give you the most height to flower.
Dont get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with cfls. They are easy and cheap. I'm just thinking if it were mine.

The cheapest way to run cfls is using the el-cheapo bathroom vanity fixtures that have 3 or 4 sockets. You can double the sockets with Y-socket splitters, if needed. Just make sure you dont exceed the fixtures rated capacity. Most are rated for 60 watt bulbs, so 20w cfl's shouldn't be a problem, even if doubled with a splitter.

Once we know what lights your going to run and your depth, we can get to work on fans and filters.
Cheers

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

edit... wrong idea

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

what should I use to attach them and make sure they shut without gaps?

1/2" x 1/2" pine strips glued flush along (interior) front edges of the cabinet panels will form a right angle with the doors and block the light.

They don't have to be that particular dimension but you get the idea. You could add felt weather stripping to the pine strips but you'd have to compensate for the thickness when flushing with the cab edges.

 

[geeker]

soundwave89, you could always put 2x 85w bulbs in the top section and one in the mom/clone section. that'd give you 170 up top and 85 bellow. best thing is, depending on brand, you won't need a special size light base.

note: they're brighter than shit. in fact they're so bright it's almost like looking at the sun.

 

[Anti]

soundwave89, you could always put 2x 85w bulbs in the top section and one in the mom/clone section. that'd give you 170 up top and 85 bellow. best thing is, depending on brand, you won't need a special size light base.

note: they're brighter than shit. in fact they're so bright it's almost like looking at the sun.

I know some people have success with the bigger CFL bulbs but I think you're better off with more lower watt bulbs than fewer higher watt bulbs.

After about 40w size, you're getting more heat per watt. The technology gets less efficient as you go up in wattage.

So using 2 85w instead of 4 40w is going to create more heat and less lumen.

CFL aren't going to penetrate more than about a foot with good results.

Stedenko had a great suggestion about using the pink section to give you an extra 4" of flowering height.

Also his suggestion of PLL bulbs. They are definitely more efficient than CFL (because they are straight instead of coiled around themselves... more light will reach the plant instead of bouncing around in the spiral) but you have to buy a separate remote ballast to run them. You can get a Fulham Workhorse 8 ballast for about $40 that will be able to run 4x50w plls. So you'd be looking at about $90 to run 4x50w pll with ballast. Or you could run 5x40w CFL for about $50. (Of course, I'd recommend you run at least 6 and preferably 8 40w CFL in that space.)

(Disco's suggestion of having pine strips along the edges of the cabinet (so that they overlap the outer door) is a really good one as far as getting it light-tight.)

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Great light info, Anti.

 

[soundwave89]

Just got back from home depot, got three of these:

Also got a couple bulb racks so I can wire it all up once I've painted the inside. I have a bunch of 25w bulbs as well.

What's the overall depth of the cabinet?

e
19.5". Now my question is, should I mount these lights horizontally (so there is more room for the plants) or vertically (so less light reflects off the top)?

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

I agree with Anti. I run 85w cfls and they do make more heat and less lumens per watt than smaller ones. I think the sweet spot for lumens per watt is the 20-23 watt range.

Regardless, you can grow some dank with those 65 watters. If you go horizontal, I'd scrog or lst them ladies since you'll lose 4" with the bulbs on top. Or like Anti said, go straight to 12/12.

 

[Anti]

19.5". Now my question is, should I mount these lights horizontally (so there is more room for the plants) or vertically (so less light reflects off the top)?

Ok. Your cab is 4.875 sq ft (3' wide, 19.5" deep).

3 x 65w = 195w

195/4.875=40w per sq. ft. Not bad.

I would hang your three lights horizontally so that the largest part of them is aimed toward your plants. I would hang them as close to the ceiling as possible to minimize the amount of light reflection.

Try to space them a part from one another so that they can evenly cover the whole cab. Something like this:

The yellow blocks represent your bulbs and their placement. The dotted lines represent 12" down from your bulb. Plants on the edges of your grow are going to get less light penetration than the plants in the center. So I would consider running a perpetual setup with the newest plants along the edges (perhaps use some of those 20w bulbs on the edges) and the about-to-harvest plants in the center soaking up the best light.

If this was my cab, I would be aiming to get containers for my plants that can use up the space between the floor of the cab and the bottom of those 12" dotted lines. That way your whole plant is within the rated output of your bulb.

People who grow short plants under CFL are generally very happy with the results. People who try to grow 3ft tall bushes are usually the ones who bitch that CFLs are only good for stringy, fluffy popcorn production.

 

[Anti]

Another idea that occured to me is that if you were to make little reflectors to put between the lights that you would refocus precious lumens away from the other lights (decreasing the heat and increasing the light available to the plants).

I'm planning on doing something similar in my new 800w colosseum closet that I'm working on now. (Nearly done, in fact.)

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Nice drawings, Anti. I wish I knew you guys when I butchered my first cab.

 

[Anti]

I was doing all kinds of crappy drawings using graph paper and pencil trying to figure out how to get started on a grow cab. I found out about sketchup on ICMag because someone had sketched out their whole basement. And it was free!

I have some experience (though far from an expert) in 3d modeling, so I figured it couldn't be too hard... and I found that sketchup is really easy to use, even for beginners.

I recommend you build one piece at a time (just like in real life) because you'll be able to do everything with simple rectangles and then "extrude" them to make them 3d with one button. Plus it saves me a bunch of trouble because by building it exactly as I would in real life i overcome obstacles without wasting any ($) material.

Took me all of 5 minutes to make that first picture and another 5 to upload it, modify it and upload it again.

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

800w stadium Anti? You got my interest. Are you going to run CHM and HPS?
I'm in the process of becoming a vert convert. Some of the best shows and people at IC are over there.

Sketchup is great and you've obviously masterd it. I do a lot of CAD design for work, mostly civil stuff, that gets me access to AutoCAD at home. Doing a layout (and revising it 100 times) is much easier with a graphics program. Plus, like you said, you can see what will and wont work before you drop coin on wasted materials.

I've taken the time to measure and create detailed floorplans and siteplans of my house, which is great for figuring quantities from blacktop sealer to drywall and paint.

 

[microsmyname2]

Just got back from home depot, got three of these:

Also got a couple bulb racks so I can wire it all up once I've painted the inside. I have a bunch of 25w bulbs as well.


e
19.5". Now my question is, should I mount these lights horizontally (so there is more room for the plants) or vertically (so less light reflects off the top)?

just a heads up but i don't think that bulb has a built in ballast. i could be wrong tho.
it looks like a replacement bulb for an outdoor security like. If it is your gonna need to buy 3 security lights for some ballasts for them, if you don't already have them. I'm not 100% but the only bulbs iv'e seen that look like that do not have one built in. just my 2 cents. Nice cab btw i hope you grow some nice meds in there.

Micro.