Micro Veg Area Help

tejashidrow

Active member

• Dec 23, 2016

• #1

Hi
Due to life, I have had to downsize my farming area.
I went from a ten plant armoire to a 2 plant 20x20x48 inch led Scrog cab.
The above cab used to be my veg cab but had to "loose" all my genetics and clones.
Now I need a micro veg area.
I have a cab that is :
13 inches deep
8 inches wide
15 inches tall
That I want to make a veg cab for 1 or 2 micro bonsai moms
And 2-4 clones. (Quite the step down from my 8 plant mom cab with 10 clones always going.... ahhhhhhh. Life....)
N-E-Way.....
I've got the ventilation figgered out....
But the lighting....
Need suggestions ( name brand if possible)
With the mom pots atleast 5 inches tall that'll leave about a foot of space.
How much wattage you think???
( slow growth is ok)
Could I use one of those under cabinate flouros from HomeDpot?
Or maybe a small LeD with small heat sink??
Any ideas are welcome.....
Thanks
Peace

 

Last edited: Dec 23, 2016

M

Mr. Sparkle

• Dec 23, 2016

• #2

For height i would say go with a decent COB attached to a cpu heatsink probably two for coverage just to avoid hot and dark spots, such as two Bridgelux BXRC-50C4000-F-24 run at 500mA in parallel, which could be done with a mean well APC-35-1050 driver, cost minus the heatsinks and shipping would be in the $30 range, and you should get around 4100 lumens in that space.

Another option would be to get a standard light cleat / keyless lamp holder, and trim it if needed to mount it right near the top of the box in a horizontal fashion, then you can use CFL's or LED screw in lights, the philips slim style ones would work great apart from the upwards pointing side, but if you had reflective material on the roof "good flat white paint, or mylar" then you would recover most of that light shooting upwards.


Even if you mounted them in a vertical fashion and popped the domes off the bulbs, your looking at about 3-3.5inchs of height being taken, and its relatively easy, cheap, and locally available, And just use a bit shorter pots or don't fill them as full till you transplant.


For reference my smaller pc case isn't much bigger than your box at 8x16x18.75, and due to my small pot size i can fit a total of 14 plants in it if its packed, but i currently have 3 soon to be 4 mothers and associated clones and plants.

You'll make it work

 

HuffnPufferfish

Member

• Dec 23, 2016

• #3

are you sure about those dimensions? it wont any t5, 8 inches?


if you disassemble a e27 led you can have lights in les than 1 inch, glue the chip to something metal and glue the internals next to it to the ceiling, but i would prefer something what would fit a few fluor tubes, for spread and spectrum

 

Dropped Cat

Six Gummi Bears and Some Scotch

Veteran

• Dec 24, 2016

• #4

PL L is a good choice, max headroom for max watts.

My first veg area, lit with 48W. The pots are 4" squares.

The entire box for context:

i grew for a couple years with that rig, good times.

 

webecat

Active member

• Dec 24, 2016

• #5

I used one 13w CFL for one plant in a medium Home Depot moving box and still had to trim back a lot FWIW. It was cheap and I had everything but the box.

 

Jellyfish

Invertebrata Inebriata

Veteran

winner@420giveaway

• Dec 24, 2016

• #6

webecat said:

I used one 13w CFL for one plant in a medium Home Depot moving box and still had to trim back a lot FWIW. It was cheap and I had everything but the box.

Click to expand...

That sounds right.

 

B

bushed

Active member

• Dec 24, 2016

• #7

I have used 2x 24w Blue cfl in a very similar space, works great. Have fun with your micro adventure

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Dec 25, 2016

• #8

hiho y'all
Happy Holidaze to one and all
Thanks for the replies it got my brain juices flowing.
I then remembered I have a couple of 50 watt drivers and 2 Cree3070 laying Around.
But they are mounted on a footlong heatsinkusa heatsink.
So while Digging in the grow storage area, I found a box with 13 -33 watt PL-ls and a 200 watt driver!!! I got excited!!!!
But....
They are a inch too long...Ahhhhhhh Crap. I really wanted to use those...
So looks like I am useing a 50 watt driver with Either a cree 60 watt cob (found one of these in the junk box)
or
With a cree 3070. Cobb.
I totally forgot ( okok "spaced") about these parts!!
So I think I will try to reuse stuff. Before buying new stuff if possible.
Do you Think 50 watts is too much in a such a small area???
Don't really want to cut my heAtsinkusa heatsink.
They are expensive (but worth it)
I also founda footlong
China heatsink PURCHASED from eBay.
I think I'll cut on this one if cutting must be done.
Man I must have been doing this farming hobby for A long time
Cuz I keep digging up forgotten treasure!!!

Peace

 

Last edited: Dec 25, 2016

HuffnPufferfish

Member

• Dec 25, 2016

• #9

30w ok more gun need severe coolings

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Dec 27, 2016

• #10

Hi
Ok
I ordered a 30w LED driver off line.
It will be driving a 60w cree cob
I went this way in hopes of being able to
Passively cool the heat sink.
50w just may be too hot but will know when it gets here....
Peace

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Dec 31, 2016

• #11

@drop cat
I liked your veg area
Just what are you useing for the adjustable selfs??
When vegginging in those 4 inch squares
How often did you water??
That's a reason I want to go with
6 inch squares, but then I can only fit 2 in.
I can get 4- 4imch squares in there.
That's 4 bonsai mom plants.
Hmmmmmm

Here is a pic of my veg chamber in progress
It's a 6 bottle THERMOCOOLED wine fridge/cooler
I got off Craig's list for $20
Super easy to fab.
Here is the 60 watt cree led I'm useing
I didn't want to cut the heatsink, and since
It'll be passive cooling and due to head space
Mounted flush to the interior ceiling I thought
"The more the mass the better"

It's a footlong heatsink off eBay.
Still waiting on a stronger fan and the 30 watt driver
Pac

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Dec 31, 2016

• #12

Hmmm
Pics didn't show up
Let me work on that...

 

Dropped Cat

Six Gummi Bears and Some Scotch

Veteran

• Dec 31, 2016

• #13

tejashidrow said:

@drop cat
I liked your veg area
Just what are you useing for the adjustable selfs??
When vegginging in those 4 inch squares
How often did you water??
That's a reason I want to go with
6 inch squares, but then I can only fit 2 in.
I can get 4- 4imch squares in there.
That's 4 bonsai mom plants.

Click to expand...

The wire shelf is some basket for spice rack
or something. I fabricated the shelf support
unit.

When i did soil, watering every 3 or 4 days
in veg, every other day in flower.

Higher watt equals water more.

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Jan 1, 2017

• #14

I have a 60 watt cree cob that will be
Driven @ 30 watts.
I don't need but 3-4 clones every cycle
So I was hoping that driveing at a lower wattage would:
Lower the heat
Lower the watering frequency
Slow the growth and needed trimming.

I want to let the mothers basically get rootbonf
Then once a cycle trim rootball and add more
Potting soil to it
It's been a looong looong loooooooong time
Since I've had to do minimum size farming.
This is the smallest veg chamber I have
Ever made.
Pax

 

tejashidrow

Active member

• Feb 6, 2017

• #15

Hi
Got the Micro Veg Cab up n running....
Finally.
I'm working on getting up a few pics.
It's 8 inches wide x 13 inches deep x 14 inches ( to bottom of light) tall.
Running a 30 watt 6000k cobb.
Do you think that is ok wattage for this size area???
Thanks...