First time Grow Box in Cabinet Australia

] Hey Smokers,

First time attempt at growing here. Based in Australia

Here is the cabinet the box is in. The room is a internal room with no direct access to fresh air which is its biggest downfall. However its in a part of the house that does not get large deviations in temperature. Was a very old cabinet that i fixed up and stained.



When you open the cabinet door this is the internal box. It is 30x19x25 Inches 30 High 19 Wide 25 Deep. The interior walls are gloss white, i have painted the front door black on the exterior. The front panel is secured with velcro all the way round, it is not perfectly light proof however only very minimal light escapes the edges and is no problem.



The two holes are my current intake setup. The are approx 1 Inch squares. On the inside covering the holes i have two 90 degree PVC pipes painted black that face down towards the floor of the box. The idea is that the vaccume created by the exhaust will suck fresh air in via these holes and the PVC pipes acting as (80% effective) light blocks. I may add more of these if i need them to help control temps.



This is how i currently have this setup inside. I have a plastic container on the very bottom of the box (this is simply to catch the run off water from watering and to not ruin the box). Ontop of this i have a plastic grocery basket that i have turned upside down ( to get the plants nice and close to the lights while they are young ???) .


The light is a 250w CFL 250W Red CFL Fluorscent Lamp 2700K

I am aware that a 6500k globe would be better however i broke the fucken one i bought when trying to hang it soooooo here we are LOL.

I have 2 PC fans rated at 50 CFM inside the box. One fan is hanging blowing over the plants. The other is connected to the left wall of the box, i have cut out the wall where the fan sits and on the other side ducted PVC piping into a Carbon Filter. This is something i was wanting feedback on, im guessing the fan wont really be powerful enough to blow air through the filter to control the smell ? I know its better to pull through a filter but due to the size limits i needed to have it external.



My main issue at the moment is where to mount my Temperature sensor. You can see it in the above pics on the left wall, its the small silver unit. Depending on where it is in the box temperatures fluctuate wildly. Where it is now (on the left wall) It is showing 31 C / 88 F , if i have it on the floor of the box it shows 24 C / 75 F , if i have it sitting right next to the plant it can go up to 38C / 100 F ! Im not sure what reading to believe !





I plan on improving the venting of the cabinet that the box is in. I will probally cut some vents in the top, so the hot air that is coming out of the carbon filter can escape up and out and hopefully not get brought back in via the intake holes.
Thanks guys!

get hold of some panda film and put a flange strip on inside door frame n door closes against that and should see no light ozy. light will prob enter those rear pipes, put a length of ducting on each one, more of a s-bend. I used one of those 200 watt 6400 in a toilet sized room n it got fairly warm, had a 4'' fan exhaust. grew like wild fire. black paint sprayed up inside pipes is better,

Thanks noyd666 I will have to look for that stuff locally, i have not seen it before

hi

easy way to see if your fan is working is to put the filter in a rubish bag, if the bag fills up with air then its moving it through


heat would be an issue though, what are your temps looking like?

EDIT: you should put your sensor at the canopy level, where it is now should be ok

so u really need get more intake holes and a stronger fan

HI Dion

Thats a good idea for testing the filter thank you!

I have just doubled the intake size (so now have 4 openings) this seems to of helped somewhat. After the lights have been on for 8 or so hours the temps still get up to around 87F .

I just installed a small humidifier as well, as my humidity was always 20%. I will leave it running for the next few hours and see if it makes much difference to humidity and temp levels.

Try ditching the carbon filter until you can buy a stronger fan, you probably won't have smell issues until late veg at the earliest so should have at least a month or so. This will bring your temps down a little further for now.

Intake should be at least twice the size of your exhaust as a good rule to follow.

Those high wattage CFL's crank out some heat as well, this early in veg it's probably overkill and I'd swap it for a couple of 23w CFL'S too.

Good luck dude, hope you can get those temp issues ironed out!

Hey GNZ

Thanks mate, i took up your advice, and doubled the intake holes! I have also setup another fan as a exhaust fan, this has helped with temps ALOT Temps peak at around 29 C . It has dropped temps inside the box from 10 degrees above ambient to 6 degrees above ambient, which is perfect.

Here is how the box looks at the moment. Two 50 CFM fans on the left side wall as exhaust fans, which duct into a small carbon filter. Seems to be flowing a good bit of air through the filter when i put my hand up too it, so will be interesting to see if it helps when they start to smell.

Also have installed a small humdifier. Can run for 10 hours before it needs to be refilled and helped raise humidity by about 10-15%.

And lastly one small pc fan blowing over the two plants for a bit of sway action

Looking happy dude, good luck!

I think you would be better off with LEDs in that small space, than the CF in the photo.

eg. something like http://cutter.com.au/proddetail.php?prod=cut2965

Thats a interesting and cheap kit Arf thanks for that. I think your right,the more im getting into this the more im seeing the downfalls of CFL lighting.

kr0nic666 said:

Thats a interesting and cheap kit Arf thanks for that. I think your right,the more im getting into this the more im seeing the downfalls of CFL lighting.

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There are two main problems with CFL, firstly they put out a lot of heat, that may be desirable if your temps are a bit low, but a pain if temps get high. 25C (75F) is optimal. Secondly, CFL spreads light all over the place, which may not be what you want. Certainly in the photos you posted, it seems a more directional light source like an LED would work better.