220w pl-l coco scrog cupboard

[ScrubNinja]

Hi guys thanks for encouraging me along Yeah DI, I just got home from a MAJOR shopping trip. I got flat black spray paint and just finished the first coat. It's absolutely going to work but...better wait till I hook it up to a cab before I say that for sure! But it's sooo perfect. The closest thing to a problem is that it's hard for the spray paint to penetrate right into the deep corners of the angles, but should be all good after a second coat.

I only had to buy paint and the metal mesh to hold the carbon layer up, but they didn't have the mesh so I spontaneously decided to try organics again! I bought, I think, everything I need. Organic compost, sand, perlite, organic potting mix, organic soil conditioner, another very expensive foil bag of some kind of mycoryzae, blood and bone, and lots more probably, it's still in the car.

Now I gotta learn what ratio to put this shit together at, and then I want to leave it brew for a while until I'll need it. Any suggestions whatsoever are greatly appreciated! I don't know shit about organics.

I'm scared to ask but what is the name you came up with for the light trap, bro? Hehehe. I should have it installed and tested tomorrow, then I'll make a diy thread explaining the whole thing.

Oh yeah angle grinders are great! I have access to one but I should buy my own. My favourite tool is the jigsaw, and I have a drill, and a circular saw, and a ummm I forget the name but they're like an engraver and you can put mini grinder wheels or buffing pads on it. Pretty useless tool really. Louder than my old fan! Where I wanted to cut the angles, there is a huge grinder wheel with a handle, it's actually made exactly for what I was doing! So my next one will be neater and my arm won't be so sore.

Edit: oh yeah another thing I bought was a fire extinguisher! Been meaning to do that for a long time. They are a lot cheaper than I thought so I'd encourage anyone to look into it. A huge increase in safety for not much money at all.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

The closest thing to a problem is that it's hard for the spray paint to penetrate right into the deep corners of the angles, but should be all good after a second coat.

LOL I had the same problem once.... then my brother pointed out that it's a whole lot easier to paint the model parts first and THEN glue them together. Looks awesome though!

 

[ScrubNinja]

Lol, I thought about doing that but the glue would only be as strong as the (crappy, cheap) paint's bond. On the other hand it's not such a high stress environment for it so that should work. Or maybe leave a tiny section at the ends unpainted.

Just fixin' some pics now of the paintjob. BRB

 

[ScrubNinja]

ok I actually bought vermiculite instead of perlite but that's cool as I can get bulk perlite elsewhere. I also got dolomite. And I already had a liquid kelp product called Seasol, and molasses, and coco of course. Anything essential that I'm missing, you think? I wanted a liquid guano product, is that a good idea? (they didn't have any at the store I went to). I got 4 long containers and some vegie seeds too, my sugar peas started well but they are just a mess now. I really have a brown thumb lately. Well here is the light trap!



I also bought this 2 x 18w fluoro holder. I think it's t8? I really don't understand tube fluoros at all. It came with 2 x 4000k, but I purchased two different types of aquarium bulbs. The Aquarelle is 10,000k if I remember right from earlier research, and the other one I can only assume is the same. I have seen the second type in use before and they're purple like my lil baby 8w shown here:



I have to wire up my own plug (whoops, I mean pay an electrician to wire it up) so I'll find out soon I guess.



Here's a couple of the (mostly) organic things I picked up:

Organic soil activator:



I think this is kind of similar, this is the mycorhyzae (or whatever) stuff I mentioned:



Organic potting mix:



Compost:



Dolomite:



My shutter clicker finger is sore now. Too sore to install the light trap perhaps? The suspense is building. *packs cone anxiously to calm the nerves*



Smoke weed every day

 

[b00m]

This shows about to start cranking hard.
All the right ingredients, the suspense is killing me.
Peace.

 

[ScrubNinja]

lol have you used any of this stuff boom? I have so much reading to do on it all. Barely have a clue what I'm doing. I only got what I remembered from the OBBT thread, from when I was planning to run that style. Mostly all this organic stuff is for my new attempt at vegetables but will deffo have some type of organics in the cab.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Light trap status: SUCCESS! (Edit: wait, fuck, no it isn't, see next post)



Both those pics are from the same angle. Note that the light leaks are from the tape I put on in a rush to test. I left them as is so it shows you better that no light leaks. It's a hard thing to portray darkness, know what I mean. 76w of cfl behind the vent. Depending on the brightness of your monitor, you may just see some of the fins between the light leaks. Anything else is from the room being not 100% dark.

If I put my eye up to it right down on floor level in a fairly dark room, and look straight up into the "fins", I see a verrrrry faint glow. I can't stress how faint it is. Too faint to capture on cam in super duper macro mode even. I wouldn't normally even mention it but I thought I should. I have had no hermie problems with much worse light leaks than that. Only the very bottom of the front pots gets to see right into that angle, so there is no way any adverse reaction could occur.

Put it this way, it's many many times better than three layers of aquarium foam. I don't know about you guys, but I could still see slight pinholes through 3 layers of foam. Not enough to cause herms but still technically a leak.

As for the airflow, that seems like a success too! I ran it without being sealed up top one bit. I could still clearly feel air being sucked in freely. Really didn't expect that.

So there you have it. Please use this design!!! Modify it. It should be absolutely scaleable! I will be making one for the Elevation Station now as I will be able to dispose of the pvc elbows. they take up a lot of floorspace and make things awkward. Plus I hate having PVCs in the grow space unnecessarily.

Stay tuned for the diy thread where I will reveal a few other tips to keep in mind.

Happy growings!

 

[fatigues]

Light trap status: SUCCESS!



As for the airflow, that seems like a success too! I ran it without being sealed up top one bit. I could still clearly feel air being sucked in freely. Really didn't expect that.

Please use this design!!! Modify it. It should be absolutely scaleable!

Stay tuned for the diy thread where I will reveal a few other tips to keep in mind.

Nice I don't mean to detract from your success, because nothing succeeds like success.

I gather that you used aluminum "angle iron" (which... isn't iron of course) as the basic construction material?

I presume something made out of plastic, if opaque, would work as well and be vastly easier to work with. The whole hacksaw-two-stroke you went through to make it Scrub looks a whole lot more like work and a whole lot less like fun to me

Which leads to the question: okay - so what other material could you use for this purpose and where would you get it?

I suppose that wood would work. And plastic too, if it was opaque. In both cases, there may well be molding in your local hardware store that may serve for this purpose?

 

[ScrubNinja]

Well shit, hang on a sec bro. I just taped the top and got the room really dark and there is actually a subtle glow coming from the vent. It's actually fine for my purpose as the Hashcan is in a dark room (a dark, dark room) with the intake facing the wall. But I guess I'll have to hold off on the DIY thread until I get it working 101%. I will switch things up for the Elevation Station's version. I think I did pretty good for a prototype.

The next one will be slightly thicker profile, and probably thinner spacers, and painted before assembling.

With things all sealed up properly, there seems to be zero restriction by the vent. The exhaust fan is 20cfm or so but it's really kicking out the jams. Fills a 56 litre garbage bag in 7 seconds. Then threatens to explode it That is with no carbon filter by the way.

Temps are not amazing - 8 degrees F over ambient. Could this be because it's black inside? (haven't painted it yet)

Fatigues, I think opaque means like translucent doesn't it? Sort of see through? I used aluminium angle which is actually quite easy to hacksaw although I can see where you're heading, it wasn't fun. I did see wooden angle at the store, but the thing is it's too thick to allow a good ratio of obstruction:free flow.

The angle I used was 12mm x 12mm x 1.4mm thick. I'm not sure of the exact sizes above that but for the next one I'd like to try say 25mm x 25mm x 1.4 thick. And make the spacer about 2mm.

 

[D.I.trY]

heh scrub, well i just called it a grill trap or something or light grill trap. Simply adding the word 'grill'. That's me, always with the important contibutions haha!

I am by no means an organic expert although i have grown an absolute lovely crop of tomatoes this year. Much better than what i have done in the past with "tomato fertilisers" and the like. This year all chemicals were strictly prohibited from my garden and its never looked healthier. Organic container growing is slightly different only because you have to maintain an alive soil in your pot and make sure its alive int he first place.

Remember that good compost, worm castings etc. is a living product with a complex foodchain of microorganism and invertebrates. You can't say for sure how it has been stored before you bought it. If it was left out in the sun it could have a significant amount of the goodness killed off. Really good additions are worm castings you have made yourself, or some of the best soil you can find, like some really rich humus under a big healthy tree in healthy forest nearby. Or even some healthy soil from your garden. If you have a compost pile in your garden you will notice the soil underneath the pile is lovely stuff and full of life. You should try and get some good soil in there as well as the purchased compost to add a bit of life and mineral content i think. The organic nutrients like fish blood and bone wont be effective unless you have an alive soil. Aerated compost teas are something you could look into. One of my favourite things right now is bokashi fermenting of your food scraps. You can turn all your food waste (meat etc.) into rich compost in about 6 weeks and you get bokashi juice which is a great innoculant of bacteria and fungi as well as an organic liquid feed.

 

[Architechno]

That vent is perfect. Every day my boxes look more and more like amalgamations of your guys cabs. Thanks

 

[fatigues]

Fatigues, I think opaque means like translucent doesn't it? Sort of see through? I used aluminium angle which is actually quite easy to hacksaw although I can see where you're heading, it wasn't fun. I did see wooden angle at the store, but the thing is it's too thick to allow a good ratio of obstruction:free flow.

The angle I used was 12mm x 12mm x 1.4mm thick. I'm not sure of the exact sizes above that but for the next one I'd like to try say 25mm x 25mm x 1.4 thick. And make the spacer about 2mm.

opaque ( ) adj. Impenetrable by light; neither transparent nor translucent. Not reflecting light; having no luster: an opaque finish.

Hmm.

You might get a few small sheets of 4mm thick black coroplast corrugated plastic sheet. It can be scored before bending to get a perfect angle and cut with a utility knife and a ruler. It weighs next to nothing - but it's damned strong stuff.

Whether 4mm thick would be "too thick" is another matter. I expect it would be ok, if you are prepared to put up with a larger profile on your intake.

 

[ScrubNinja]

DI - thanks heaps bro. I'll look into that bokashi. My biggest problem is I can't really plonk a compost heap in the garden and the only real private place is inside where I live. I eat out nearly all the time too.

Archi, I'm honoured.

Fatigues: doh! Okay we're on the same wavelength now, sorry for confusion. I think plastic angle would work well as long as the inner and outer angles are sharp 90 degree angles, no roundness to them. You could make your own angle out of the plastic you showed but is it really making things easier? The beauty of the angle is that it's made like that. If you could find black plastic, sharp-edged angle, about the same dimensions I theorized about, you would be on easy street.

You are technically correct that the wood's thickness wouldn't matter if you make things bigger but, it is the micro forum after all.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Temps are not amazing - 8 degrees F over ambient. Could this be because it's black inside? (haven't painted it yet)

Nah.... CFL's don't pump out much InfraRed light so there won't be too much heat from it absorbing the light. Depending on how close it is in there, you might pick up an extra degree of cooling once it's painted white. Not much but probably help.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Cool cool well I better get onto that soon. I thought I'd better give a cupboard update. Are you sitting down guys? (of course you are, it's the internet). Well, I don't think any of the VBSs are going to make it. I killed them with kindness One might make it but frankly I think they're all gone.

The 2 "outdoor"s look much better in comparison. Here is the most advanced plant. The other one is perfect health but not so advanced. It's day 8 and this seems pretty slow growth to me? I'm still on 1 x 55w pll and a 13w daylight fluoro. Should I up the wattage or move them closer? Or just write the slow growth off as being waterlogged?



5 AK x PD popped and they look uniformly healthy. Here is one before I kill it.



VBS at rear (wire stakes), 2 outdoors at front, and AKs in the cups.



The Hashcan: Here is the rubber weatherstripping I've used to help seal the top section. Also seen is the 93 CFM 0.48A 120mm fan used to cool the bulbs. Gigantic improvement on the 0.22A 80mm fan! The bulbs are pretty cool. And that's with a safety grill (which is needed for sure). I suspect I may be getting a fake temp reading because this thing is a hurricane in a trashcan. I can stand metres away and it feels like I'm outside in the wind.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Should I up the wattage or move them closer? Or just write the slow growth off as being waterlogged?

Waterlogged Those seedlings should only use about 10-20cc's of water directly at the base of their stem until they're bigger. Looks like you're watering the entire cup.
If you put a bit of water in and let it sit, it wicks to the rest of the soil/coco and creates a balanced humid medium.

Don't increase the light, looks like you have plenty.

 

[ScrubNinja]

Thank you Hydro that is how it's gonna be done from now on. I've been meaning to get some hydrogen peroxide also. And yeah, I'm an idiot At least the AKs will get treated better. I won't be using pure coco for germinating any more - too picky!

 

[Aerohead]

Looks like we are both off to a bumpy start, hang in there bro, we will see that cupboard bloom out soon.. Props on that light trap design, excellent work!!

 

[ScrubNinja]

Thanks buddy. It's quite hilarious in a way. Page 18 and I *might* have it sorted now, lol!

For real though, I let the driest one dry right out, it was hard, then gave it just under 20 ml's near the stem, and today it still looks good! The little pot feels "just right & slightly damp" instead of "heavy as shit & obviously soaking wet". So now I'm feeling pretty confident about pulling all the AKs and 1 or 2 of the "outdoors" through! Thanks a ton, Hydro!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Thanks buddy. It's quite hilarious in a way. Page 18 and I *might* have it sorted now, lol!

For real though, I let the driest one dry right out, it was hard, then gave it just under 20 ml's near the stem, and today it still looks good! The little pot feels "just right & slightly damp" instead of "heavy as shit & obviously soaking wet". So now I'm feeling pretty confident about pulling all the AKs and 1 or 2 of the "outdoors" through! Thanks a ton, Hydro!

Sweeeeet