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Grow Cab. In not isolated garage?
- Thread starter Jofihan
- Start date
First off, welcome to IC Mag. Secondly, anything is possible. In order for us to provide you with the best advice, why don't you give us some more information, start by answering the questions below and add anything else you feel might be relevant.
1) How big of an area do you want to make? This is going to determine everything from how many and what type of lights, to what type of air flow/cooling stuff you'll need.
2) What are the conditions of the garage? What's the average temp at different times of day? What's the average humidity? Is the outside air a different temperature than the garage?
3) What are you working with inside the garage? Is the space climate controlled already (like attached to a house)? What type of power do you have already available? What type of power panel do you have and could you potentially add outlets to it?
4) What are your goals? Goals can include things like ideal yield, level of effort, money you have to invest up front, level of stealth, etc.
Basically just tell us a bit more about you and your situation so we know what you're after.
1) How big of an area do you want to make? This is going to determine everything from how many and what type of lights, to what type of air flow/cooling stuff you'll need.
2) What are the conditions of the garage? What's the average temp at different times of day? What's the average humidity? Is the outside air a different temperature than the garage?
3) What are you working with inside the garage? Is the space climate controlled already (like attached to a house)? What type of power do you have already available? What type of power panel do you have and could you potentially add outlets to it?
4) What are your goals? Goals can include things like ideal yield, level of effort, money you have to invest up front, level of stealth, etc.
Basically just tell us a bit more about you and your situation so we know what you're after.
Hi anon0988.
Im sorry, I could have made an more specific introduction to what i was aiming after.
I have thought about making a Cabinet, (closset) maybe 50 cm * 50 cm and then double in the hight. But as the situation is now, i only have the garage as option, and the garage is a Building seperate from the house, so it gets no heat from the house, and the garage is not isolated.
The garage is mainly used for storage, and i have ragular 230 v 10/13 amp power supply.
I now wanna know if this is possible, now that the Winter is coming. My plan i s ofcurse to isolate the cabinet, so that the heat cannot come out, and the Cold cannot come in, but this is my first time, så want to collect as much info as possible before i start up.
1 . My area is 50 cm * 50 cm +- (cabinet).
2. The garage is, about, the same temp as the outside, couse to the non isolated walls, so i will think that the humidity is about the same as outside also.
3. I'm only working with small jobs in my garage, like Things there need to be fixed for the house and so. And no, its not climate controlled, power is 230 v 10/13 amp. (what do you mean with Outlets)
4. My goals, is to make the best climate for the plants, with what i got. So that i can grow a plant af efficient as possible.
But as i'm saying, i dont know if this is even possible to do, beacause in Winter the frost will come, and is an isolated box (cabinet) enough to keep the plants alive and growing.?
Hope to hear from you Again soon..
Im sorry, I could have made an more specific introduction to what i was aiming after.
I have thought about making a Cabinet, (closset) maybe 50 cm * 50 cm and then double in the hight. But as the situation is now, i only have the garage as option, and the garage is a Building seperate from the house, so it gets no heat from the house, and the garage is not isolated.
The garage is mainly used for storage, and i have ragular 230 v 10/13 amp power supply.
I now wanna know if this is possible, now that the Winter is coming. My plan i s ofcurse to isolate the cabinet, so that the heat cannot come out, and the Cold cannot come in, but this is my first time, så want to collect as much info as possible before i start up.
1 . My area is 50 cm * 50 cm +- (cabinet).
2. The garage is, about, the same temp as the outside, couse to the non isolated walls, so i will think that the humidity is about the same as outside also.
3. I'm only working with small jobs in my garage, like Things there need to be fixed for the house and so. And no, its not climate controlled, power is 230 v 10/13 amp. (what do you mean with Outlets)
4. My goals, is to make the best climate for the plants, with what i got. So that i can grow a plant af efficient as possible.
But as i'm saying, i dont know if this is even possible to do, beacause in Winter the frost will come, and is an isolated box (cabinet) enough to keep the plants alive and growing.?
Hope to hear from you Again soon..
That's about 2.7 sq foot. So if you follow the 50w/sq ft rule, you get 135w of light as your minimum desired amount. I'm not a micro guy, so I might not be as much of a help here as others, but I'll still give you my thoughts. It sounds to me like when you say isolated, the term that comes to mind is 'sealed room'. I'm guessing you're not going to want to do any fancy air conditioning so to me the first problem is heat build up. I know if you're running a non cooled sealed area, the only way to reduce temperature is to increase volume. For example, a few CFL's might get a small box up to 95 degrees, a dresser sized area up to 85 degrees, but inside a bedroom would barely have any effect.
Come to think of it, I think I'm going to smoke a bowl and brainstorm and make some pictures and stuff to show what I'm talking about. More to come.
Come to think of it, I think I'm going to smoke a bowl and brainstorm and make some pictures and stuff to show what I'm talking about. More to come.
After some brainstorming, here you go
After some brainstorming, here you go
So I think the best thing to do in your situation would be to do 5 plants with 12/12 from seed so you get single cola plants without much branching. You could do 5 CFL's, the 23w (100w equivalent) ones would work well. You can usually buy them as a 5-pack, and you're going to want to get two different sets of bulbs. The first will be the 6500K spectrum bulbs for veg. The second set will be 2700k bulbs for flowering. You can also buy a 5-pack of feminized seeds online for pretty cheap (25-50 USD).
Here's what it could look like:
In this example the green stars are obviously your plants and the yellow arrows would be CFL's attached to the walls. You would also want to do 1 above the center plant facing downward.
Now I want to be clear that I've never done 12/12 from seed. I've been doing a lot of reading about it lately and it seems useful for getting plants that are like poles rather than bushes, which is exactly what you want here. This is the thread that comes to mind for this style. Stick with soil because it's simple and forgiving. For something small like this you could probably use something like FFOF (fox farms ocean forest) and get away with using little to no nutes. I again think heat is going to be an issue if you keep it 1m in height, you might have to go taller to help the heat dissipate. Do you have the option of going 7-8 feet tall (~2.5m) with it? The reason I say that height is I had a 6 CFL veg hood running in a tiny closet with the door closed and it got up to like almost 90. I think if you go any smaller than that you're going to have to vent it to outside of the box. Maybe you could do a passive convective current type of air exchange with a small opening in the top of the box to let out heat and another small hole at the bottom to allow air to draw in.
Again, I'm not a micro guy, I suggest browsing that forum for more/better ideas. Just trying to help with ideas to get you started.
After some brainstorming, here you go
So I think the best thing to do in your situation would be to do 5 plants with 12/12 from seed so you get single cola plants without much branching. You could do 5 CFL's, the 23w (100w equivalent) ones would work well. You can usually buy them as a 5-pack, and you're going to want to get two different sets of bulbs. The first will be the 6500K spectrum bulbs for veg. The second set will be 2700k bulbs for flowering. You can also buy a 5-pack of feminized seeds online for pretty cheap (25-50 USD).
Here's what it could look like:
In this example the green stars are obviously your plants and the yellow arrows would be CFL's attached to the walls. You would also want to do 1 above the center plant facing downward.
Now I want to be clear that I've never done 12/12 from seed. I've been doing a lot of reading about it lately and it seems useful for getting plants that are like poles rather than bushes, which is exactly what you want here. This is the thread that comes to mind for this style. Stick with soil because it's simple and forgiving. For something small like this you could probably use something like FFOF (fox farms ocean forest) and get away with using little to no nutes. I again think heat is going to be an issue if you keep it 1m in height, you might have to go taller to help the heat dissipate. Do you have the option of going 7-8 feet tall (~2.5m) with it? The reason I say that height is I had a 6 CFL veg hood running in a tiny closet with the door closed and it got up to like almost 90. I think if you go any smaller than that you're going to have to vent it to outside of the box. Maybe you could do a passive convective current type of air exchange with a small opening in the top of the box to let out heat and another small hole at the bottom to allow air to draw in.
Again, I'm not a micro guy, I suggest browsing that forum for more/better ideas. Just trying to help with ideas to get you started.
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medicallylegal1
New member
i think hes taking *cold will be his issue notthe heat!!*8 i recommend a lil bigger box so ya can put a hps or t5 ect some stuff that will build heat n get (fans pc fans wrk xxxlllt 115 v even the 12 volt ones, any surplus has em, i just built a grow chamber trying to patent it now as the medicine cabinet, it has intake fan 4' and a exhaust of 6 inches, 4' lower in cab n exhause on the top inside mount, put on speed controollers mesahydroponics has 2 speedcontrollers for 30$ w/ free s/h highly recommended cool folks,outta calif..a t5 n few cfls would be good even a small hps 250 watt to 400 n set fans on a timer or temp control, n these things set a sweet controlled enviroment...w.tons fresh air comin in and heat out which will heat yer shed if ya do some window calking ,thick blanckets over windowns and draft tape,(foam) email me if ya want some specs and my designs been flawless, id go w/ squat idicias n or mix that dont stretch,*8recommend pakistan valley from single seed centre, n afgan regular....killer easy to grow, stay short fat n high yield, *i have my ppl medical and alot trial error , so its all come out sweeetie dee...any?,s email me blightbulb@hotmail.com
Hi Again.
That is correct, it's the Cold I'm worried about.. Because I live in Scandinavia, and In the Winter, the temperature could go to - 10/15 degrees, so It Is essential for me to make sure that i Look at every problem/options for what kind of setup I should Use. And at the same time, I would like to make the setup cheap in running and buying. But still with reasonable thinking when you think of the result, cause I will rather use a bit more Watt, is the result is 10 times bigger/better then a cheaper setup. But I'm unsure how I should build the cabinet/box, so any ideas/experience that can help me is welcome.
That is correct, it's the Cold I'm worried about.. Because I live in Scandinavia, and In the Winter, the temperature could go to - 10/15 degrees, so It Is essential for me to make sure that i Look at every problem/options for what kind of setup I should Use. And at the same time, I would like to make the setup cheap in running and buying. But still with reasonable thinking when you think of the result, cause I will rather use a bit more Watt, is the result is 10 times bigger/better then a cheaper setup. But I'm unsure how I should build the cabinet/box, so any ideas/experience that can help me is welcome.
Well, keeping it warm enough is actually relatively easy thing to achieve, but depends how you want to achieve it.
Some will just add an over-sized light for the size of the chamber, but that requires high rates of airflow so the plants end up like they are living in a wind tunnel.
Another option is to "cooltube" the lighting setup, but put some of that exhaust back into the inlets of the chamber, so its breathing warmer air.
It is also worth considering / remembering that the smaller a grow chamber becomes, the tougher it can be to establish and maintain specific environmental conditions inside it, as it takes a much smaller change to affect it dramatically.
Some will just add an over-sized light for the size of the chamber, but that requires high rates of airflow so the plants end up like they are living in a wind tunnel.
Another option is to "cooltube" the lighting setup, but put some of that exhaust back into the inlets of the chamber, so its breathing warmer air.
It is also worth considering / remembering that the smaller a grow chamber becomes, the tougher it can be to establish and maintain specific environmental conditions inside it, as it takes a much smaller change to affect it dramatically.
Hmmm, sounds Like i have to consider what setup to go with.. U know what, at the moment im away from home, But tommorow i Will sit Down and desceipe in details the room(garage) and (as good as i Can) the winter weather here in my area... Maybe that would be a help, to what setup to choose.. and U are more Than welcome to ask me anything, so that i Can make the grow "chamber" as good as possible..
and U are more Than welcome to ask me anything, so that i Can make the grow "chamber" as good as possible.. Don't have to run a fully sealed cab, just duct some of the exhaust from the lighting back into the intakes, to keep the air temps high enough.
Plants require much less airflow than lighting, so would only need to change the air inside the cab maybe once every couple mins, so wouldn't need to draw in much from outside where its cold.
I'd say he'd want to duct all of the exhaust back to the grow at certain times of year--it can get down to 5 Fahrenheit where he is! Sure, he could take in fresh air at certain times of year too, but the best setup of all would be an almost sealed one to keep temperatures up at the coldest time of year without spending money on heating, at least not when the lights were on!
A thermally-lined closet/structure of some kind would be best. A steel cabinet with thermal insulation all over it would be ideal I guess...
I think you'd need space heaters at the very least, and you'd have to get water out there quickly and keep it in the house so it wouldn't freeze. Opening the cabinet could potentially let sub-zero air in too!
A thermally-lined closet/structure of some kind would be best. A steel cabinet with thermal insulation all over it would be ideal I guess...
I think you'd need space heaters at the very least, and you'd have to get water out there quickly and keep it in the house so it wouldn't freeze. Opening the cabinet could potentially let sub-zero air in too!
G
gloryoskie
I guess lights out temps will need to be above 65F.
No amount of insulation will maintain that without
seedling mats to keep the the root zone warm.
Need a heated lung room I guess.
No amount of insulation will maintain that without
seedling mats to keep the the root zone warm.
Need a heated lung room I guess.
This is a sketch of what i basically had in mind(a friend of mine has the HPS 400Watt that I can borrow). Now when you talk about "duct" the exhaust air, I don't think I fully understand.
I will Make sure that the Box do not touch the ground, so that the ground doesn't make the bottom of the box Cold. And I also think that When I use a 400 watt HPS the heat in the "chamber" maybe isn't that big of a problem, but the problem may be to get the air changed without getting to much cold air inside the box...
The Floor in the garage is concrete, so I don't think that there will be ground frost, but the air could possible be - degrees. (live in DK so is used to degrees and not Fahrenheit ;-) )
And I also think that I have to size up the Box so the plants won't burn and dry out cause of the 400 watt HPS...
That's the thoughts for now, would love some feedback.. ;-)
And, I must sau that this is a very Sweet Forum, lots of usefull facts/help in here..
Attachments
A heated lung room is 1 way of doing it, another way could be to setup 2 much smaller flowering chambers and stage them 12hrs apart (so 1 is always on) and then route the airflow from the exhausts through both chambers, so the one that is currently off, is kept warm by the one that is currently on.
Hi Again...
After Several Days of thinking this one through, I've come to the conclusion that I will not try to make a grow room in the garage.. As I can see, it will just be an big expense and time, instead of me using the time to Care for the plants....
I'll start a new thread, if I cannot find useful material in Old threads.
Thanks to those of you who Answered my thread an took me seriously.. ;-)
Greetings from
The Newbie
After Several Days of thinking this one through, I've come to the conclusion that I will not try to make a grow room in the garage.. As I can see, it will just be an big expense and time, instead of me using the time to Care for the plants....
I'll start a new thread, if I cannot find useful material in Old threads.
Thanks to those of you who Answered my thread an took me seriously.. ;-)
Greetings from
The Newbie
