killabrown420
Active member
Hello everyone! 
You guys doing alright? Hell yeah, grab yourself a bowl, some homegrown, and fire that sucker up! I'm about to show you my new box, and run down how I built, how much things cost, etc...
This thread goes out to john64 over @ OG, for his "cost of growing" thread. I picked up an enormous amount of info there, and I hope I can re-create it the best I can, but he really did an excellent job documenting just how much it costs to build one of these things from scratch. So here we go,
Lets go over some of the things I already had:
400 watt hps light
265 cfm dayton blower
dryer vent
bungee cord
Screw in hangers for light
some hemp rope for hanging light *duh don't use hemp rope, i've switched to chains
Black carbon filter cloth (for covering intake)
Things I had to buy from Lowes: ~130bucks
BUNCH of L brackets for frame, I mean A LOT!
wood screws
1x6 and 1x8 wood for frame, cheapest stuff they have
Metal roofing stuff for air-cooled hood
Triangle brace for hood (no idea what they call this)
4" plumbing grate for hood
2- 4" clamps
Velcro
Staple gun w/ staples
Black poly-wrap
Soil Mix
From hydro store: ~50 bucks
Bat guano
Mylar 2-mil
Advice!!!
Now to construction
First off we took measurements, our cab stands 3ftx4ftx6ft
So you measure out all your wood, line up the L brackets the way you want and drill little starter holes in each corner, so the wood won't split when you start screwing
Ok so now you got yourself a little frame...now just add some support, measure out the center, where you'll hang the light like so:
Now add some extra support for where the blower and ballast will be
Build yourself a little door, make sure you make the door a bit smaller than the frame, so it can open and shut right, we don't have to have it completely light-proof or airtight, that will be taken care of later.
So now we need to hang the mylar. Take your staple gun and tack that sucker up, we figured out the less staples the better, its best if the mylar hangs freely, you'll see why later.
By this time I had finished the air-cooled hood, hey looky there!
Lets mount the blower and light up there and try it out! We screwed the blower directly to the wooden support, made it light/airproof by cutting small pieces of scrap wood and glueing them to the frame. I'll have to get a better picture of this, its hard to describe
Now we got the ballast to take care of. We just built a little wood shelf, took some of the scrap metal sheeting from the light and screwed it down on top so the ballast could rest on something metallic. Then we just used a single L bracket, a couple screw in hangers and a bungee cord to finish the job...plenty of support to hold that heavy sumofabitch
Ok almost there! Now we wrapped the cab w/ black poly. We decided to layer it up so there would be no light leaks whatsover. We did this by wrapping the plastic around the sides, then again from the floor around the back, up over the ceiling, and then we just pull it down over the door and attach velcro to the sides so it stays put.
When the door is shut, the walls suck in, meaning the cab is airtight. The mylar is pulled tight by the pressure, so its ok if there are a few ruffles when your stapling it up.
*EDIT
The total cost depends on what bells and whistles you choose, but lets say for the base model it costs a little under 200 dollars.
Since then we switched the hood to the DIY cool tube which cost about 30 dollars, added co2 regulator tank solenoid flow valve and timer all together about $150.
Also switched growing style to SOG using 5" 1 gallon pots. I try to utilize my space like TICK from OG. I pretty much copied his guide on vegging and flowering...only top nuggets for me from now on. I use the same amount of soil just higher plant #'s, which means higher variety in strains which is what I'm all about.
You guys doing alright? Hell yeah, grab yourself a bowl, some homegrown, and fire that sucker up! I'm about to show you my new box, and run down how I built, how much things cost, etc...This thread goes out to john64 over @ OG, for his "cost of growing" thread. I picked up an enormous amount of info there, and I hope I can re-create it the best I can, but he really did an excellent job documenting just how much it costs to build one of these things from scratch. So here we go,
Lets go over some of the things I already had:
400 watt hps light
265 cfm dayton blower
dryer vent
bungee cord
Screw in hangers for light
some hemp rope for hanging light *duh don't use hemp rope, i've switched to chains
Black carbon filter cloth (for covering intake)
Things I had to buy from Lowes: ~130bucks
BUNCH of L brackets for frame, I mean A LOT!
wood screws
1x6 and 1x8 wood for frame, cheapest stuff they have
Metal roofing stuff for air-cooled hood
Triangle brace for hood (no idea what they call this)
4" plumbing grate for hood
2- 4" clamps
Velcro
Staple gun w/ staples
Black poly-wrap
Soil Mix
From hydro store: ~50 bucks
Bat guano
Mylar 2-mil
Advice!!!
Now to construction
First off we took measurements, our cab stands 3ftx4ftx6ft
So you measure out all your wood, line up the L brackets the way you want and drill little starter holes in each corner, so the wood won't split when you start screwing
Ok so now you got yourself a little frame...now just add some support, measure out the center, where you'll hang the light like so:
Now add some extra support for where the blower and ballast will be
Build yourself a little door, make sure you make the door a bit smaller than the frame, so it can open and shut right, we don't have to have it completely light-proof or airtight, that will be taken care of later.
So now we need to hang the mylar. Take your staple gun and tack that sucker up, we figured out the less staples the better, its best if the mylar hangs freely, you'll see why later.
By this time I had finished the air-cooled hood, hey looky there!
Lets mount the blower and light up there and try it out! We screwed the blower directly to the wooden support, made it light/airproof by cutting small pieces of scrap wood and glueing them to the frame. I'll have to get a better picture of this, its hard to describe
Now we got the ballast to take care of. We just built a little wood shelf, took some of the scrap metal sheeting from the light and screwed it down on top so the ballast could rest on something metallic. Then we just used a single L bracket, a couple screw in hangers and a bungee cord to finish the job...plenty of support to hold that heavy sumofabitch
Ok almost there! Now we wrapped the cab w/ black poly. We decided to layer it up so there would be no light leaks whatsover. We did this by wrapping the plastic around the sides, then again from the floor around the back, up over the ceiling, and then we just pull it down over the door and attach velcro to the sides so it stays put.
When the door is shut, the walls suck in, meaning the cab is airtight. The mylar is pulled tight by the pressure, so its ok if there are a few ruffles when your stapling it up.
*EDIT
The total cost depends on what bells and whistles you choose, but lets say for the base model it costs a little under 200 dollars.
Since then we switched the hood to the DIY cool tube which cost about 30 dollars, added co2 regulator tank solenoid flow valve and timer all together about $150.
Also switched growing style to SOG using 5" 1 gallon pots. I try to utilize my space like TICK from OG. I pretty much copied his guide on vegging and flowering...only top nuggets for me from now on. I use the same amount of soil just higher plant #'s, which means higher variety in strains which is what I'm all about.
Last edited:
Nice to see people building their own stuff, good work. 
Thats kinda gay but whatever, I guess I'm a "noob" to these forums, so I'll just post away on my own thread as to not spam on others...so heres a few pics of what will be going into the new setup:
Can't wait to start pulling some plants out of this thing, we smoked half our harvest building the damn thing. 
killa looks like you got everything going great... cant wait to see what hydro will do for ya in that BIG BLACK BOX.. on the Plus side you can always add to it to up your harvest if you wanted... Good shit man... Keep It Green and Stay Safe.. 
