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"the high-pod"

hello all, this is my first created thread so please bare with me....I have been slowly piecing together a little device to grow vegetables. It is designed to just grow a single plant to maturity in an ideal environment. My substrate for choice this go around will be a recirculating coco bed drip irrigation (once i get that far)

All of the pieces to this device were bought at home depot and some of the lighting components were ordered over the internet.





the five gallon bucket up top holds the extraction fan (dumpster find) that i hooked up to a speed controller. I will have a 2" bed of carbon in the bottom of the bucket which the air will be scrubbed through.









The negative pressure in the can pulls air through the air vents at the bottom of the can. 6 vents air-cool 6 x 65 watt linear CFL lamps mounted vertically and two vents allow air exchange into the plant grow chamber...



The lid has a partial "false-top" that reflects light but allows for the air to escape




The lighting system was sorced over the internet for a total of $150 for ballasts, bulbs, and bulb sockets......
the kelvin rating is 4100 but i have some 6700K extras laying around that i might run for veg.....each bulb is about $8 and provide 4300 lumens....what is that like about 26,000 lumens hitting in 360 degrees? I can not wait to play around and see what kinds of yield i can achieve


what do y'all think?
 
oh, forgot to mention....the coco will just fill the entire bottom of the can up to about 4" deep and will drain to a pan and pump below. Water will be delivered through the same bulkhead and dispersed with a ring dripper. The coco bed will then be covered with a circle of white up panda cloth.....not sure if this is really a micro grow because the plant will be a decent sized specimen when flowered out....

baby chamber....

 

greenatik

Member
looking sick cant wait to see what you do in this. do you think that just the extraction fan will be adequate cooling? good luck with everything !
 
the fan moves a shit ton of air and is on a speed controller so i think i should have no worries. When the fan is on "medium speed" it will suck your hand to the intake holes
 

sway

New member
Wow, that looks like a sweet setup! Keep us updated on your progress!

It looks like it'd be great to either:

1) Keep it on its side, for a SOG grow or...
2) Stand it up straight, and just grow one tall plant.
 
thanks guys i cant wait to get it running. My bulb sockets are on back-order. I will be hitting upwards of 13,000 lumens per square foot. I also think that my fan unit can move enough air on high speed to pull through about 4 of these trash cans. I would like to eventually have four of them each with a plant that is two weeks younger than the next, so it would be kind of a perpetual harvest.
The entire thing was built for around $300 with lights and fan. Some of the parts i just had laying around though. I think i will plant a seed right in the middle and see how it goes. First run may just run without vertical scrog to see what a plant will do with that much side lighting. I dont know why these linear CFL's are not used as often as some of the other bulbs, it is a much more efficient way of broadcasting the light and at 8 bucks a piece for 65 watts it is hard to beat!!!
 
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for someone wanting to make one a bathroom extraction fan with a carbon bed under it would work really well and can also be purchased at home depot
 

guineapig

Active member
Veteran
I have some pics of a grow-pod that is very helpful in developing grow-pod theories and techniques.....

In this case, a single 150 watt HPS bulb is suspended in the center of the pod rather than the lights oriented around the sides of the pod.....notice the use of the chicken-wire which really allows for huge amounts of vegetative growth while simultaneously holding the buds back just far enough so they won't be burned in case they touch the bulb casing.....















Long Live the Grow-Pod!!!!!

It is high-time everyone had access to a quality grow-pod for under 500 dollars retail.....i swear the pot-ential market for such a product is enormous, because all of the current grow-sheds, grow-boxes, and grow-cabinets are way too expensive and poorly designed IMHO.....

We can set up grow-pod threads here so everybody can make one......but soon the day will come when everyone will have access to an amazingly designed, efficient, and affordable grow-pod......ideally it will be adaptable for hydro, aero, or soil-based media and also modular so you could hook up multiple units if you so desired.....

:ying: kind regards from guineapig :ying:
 
that is what i was thinking when i was piecing this together, i wanted to make a shopping list so that anyone could build one.....good work!
 

Razzy

New member
Holy shit dude! That makes my trash can grow look like a trash bin!

Extreme respect to you sir. I have typically the same design, but nowhere near as flawless and innovative. My hats off to you!!!
 
G

Guest

i repped you with a little prose & poetry but wanna say again, that thing looks like art in motion, man. Awesome.
All that & a bag of chips.

Subscribed.
 
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Tony Danza

Member
inefectualize said:
do you think there is enough room to do a vertical cylinder scrog? or should i just let it grow unmolested?

If you hung a naked 150-250 w Hps in the center and built a cylinder scrog around that, i would be all like ultra-booya and shit. (that fan could probably handle it no prob)


Really nice design, I'm sure it will kick ass no matter what you decide on.
 
the trash can has a 24" diameter and 30" tall....with this design all of the space is usable by the plant because the temperature stays so low even touching the tubes. I got the rest of my parts and wired the lighting....i found a few extra ballasts laying around and thought of hooking up 2x55 watt 6700k quads on the roof but after i saw how fricken bright the thing was after hooking up the initial 6 i thought that would be overkill.....anyway here is how it sits now, just waiting for me to figure out the drain/reservoir/pump.....i might put a baby in there now just to get it accustomed to the environment...gonna drop i high min therm in and see what my temps are but i am betting i am riding about 4 degrees F over ambient temps! sorry about the wire snips in the bottom of the can i was too lazy to clean them out.






 
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