350 PL-L & CFL grow armoire with coco and drip

[ahhhavalanche!]

ATTENTION GRABBING PICTURES!!! – READ MY THREAD!!!

Hello fellow horticulturists. Here are the plans for the cab I plan on building (once I find a stupid job, and pass their stupid drug test, and move into a stupid apartment). This will be my third cab design, and I would like to think that I picked up a few tricks along the way.
This is going to be a gutted armoire with 350W of fluorescent lighting, 220W of PL-L (55x4) and 130W of CFL (25x5), with a SCROG and a drip Coco Coir system.

The unique feature of this cab is that I am going to have 2 of the PL-L’s integrated into the SCROG so that the canopy grows around them and utilizes all the light coming out of the bulb while eliminating the need for a reflector and giving some of the undergrowth some penetrating light. The lights in the canopy will be housed in fluorescent protector tubes to keep them cool, much like in the high-pod ( http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=92259 ). The tubes will be connected to the exhaust fan (probably a 218CFM S&P TD-150) via flexible tubing. The intake end will draw from the cab, the ends will be open and extend past the end of the bulb, and the extended portion will be perforated like a machine gun barrel to increase airflow while deterring the leaves from being vacuumed in.

There will by a large passive DIY light trap ( http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=135524 ) intake at the grow floor level on the back of the cab. There will be a small oscillating fan blowing down at an angle on the lights and canopy to cool the lights and strengthen the stems. There will be parabolic reflectors on the above canopy CFL’s and some kind of reflector on the above canopy PL-L’s.

The SCROG screen itself will not be permanently affixed to the cab to allow it to be easily inserted in the middle of the grow and allow the lights to be lowered during the seedling and toddler stages. To do this I will make a wood frame with a string screen and have it slide in between supporting wood blocks at the proper time.

Up until yesterday I was planning on doing 5 individual bubble buckets (all I know) hooked up to the same 5gal rez. But now I am leaning towards 5 Coco buckets hooked up to a recirculation drip system and 3gal rez. I am leaning towards coco because it will require a much smaller water pump and will eliminate the need for an air pump (should I still have on in the rez?), and people seem to love it… can anyone suggest a watering schedule for the coco, I have poked around in the coco room and haven’t found much consensus, I’m thinking like a small fountain pump _______GPH on for _____ min every _______hours??? (I am planning on 5x 2Liter containers of coco)

The reason I need separate buckets is because I will be running 5 strains (Green House Seeds mixed packs), and may towards the end need to flush/harvest at different times. This setup will give me the convenience of one shared rez for the majority of the grow, and the flexibility to isolate plants (remove drip and hand water) at the end. Also 5 plants is the theme because it is the maximum number of plants you can grow under a misdemeanor charge in my state.

The bottom portion of the cab will house the rez bucket and have a divider with a small area available for vegging, cloning, drying, storage, or whatever I need it for. This area will be totally sealed from the cab and will have its own PC fan ventilation and 1-2 CFL’s if necessary.

Thanks for reading, let me know any answers (about the coco), questions, suggestions or comments you have.

 

[ScrubNinja]

It looks incredible bro. I can tell you've put tons of thought into it. The only suggestion I can think of is a slide out floor on rails. I did that in mine and I thanks myself every day! I think you may have a fairly elaborate rack setup to hold all those lights, you definitely want good access. As long as you can easily raise the lights I guess it's not a problem. Keen to see how the pll scrog goes!

 

[tjc1088]

nice design there, looks like you have been playing in google sketchup...i tried it but gave up after a lil while, Ill just be stickin to my paper I guess.
Ya like Subaninja said, it would be nice to see it with two pull out floors, for the bottom for the rez and for the shelf the plants sit on, heck and maybe even the scrog net on rails too... that would be really nice for working/ adjusting plants with minimal effort
Im getting ready to post a diary of my whole Armour destruction/reconstruction/production show here in a few days, Ill let you know when I get it up,
Good luck on the job hunt man,
ill see round

 

[tjc1088]

ha always ravin' about those CFLs but that top nug looks like it was grown under a CMH if im not mistaken.
Ha,
Put down the kid toys and pick up a the big guns, you know you want to.

Haha im just kiddin man, good luck
What kind of lights are those PL-L's (never heard of em)

 

[ahhhavalanche!]

I was planning on putting the rez on some rollers to be able to add nutes and test easier, I have had experience with inconvenient rez's... I had not thought about putting the grow floor on rollers, but that is an interesting idea, It might get too complex because it will need to be able to move with the screen which will have electrical and ventilation stuff attached, but I will have to see once I put it together...

@tjc, PL-L's are like the most efficient fluro tubes that exist, they are essentially stretched out CFL's with external ballasts, these are the 55W flavor, and yes that top nug was under a CMH, but in a few months i will post the monster nugs im gonna pull with my small guns

 

[hilbie]

for all the talk about pl-l being so efficient you dont see any decent harvest with them do you? ive seen cfl nugs and some decent t-8 nugs but i believe that pl-l are overated and overpriced, like ive said ive seen no good yeilds of anyone useing them. i think there bunk untill someone proves me wrong.

 

[flat5th]

for all the talk about pl-l being so efficient you dont see any decent harvest with them do you? ive seen cfl nugs and some decent t-8 nugs but i believe that pl-l are overated and overpriced, like ive said ive seen no good yeilds of anyone useing them. i think there bunk untill someone proves me wrong.

Did you read the "high-pod" thread? maybe not the most astounding yield...just under 6oz...but it ain't nothin to scoff at.

just sayin.
Fifth.

 

[tjc1088]

The highpod thread and a few others I found looked pretty interesting...lets see it happen!

ill be watching this one forsure

 

[tjc1088]

check out the new Armour



$30 off craigslist, its made of 5/8" solid wood (im not sure what kind)

 

[hilbie]

do you have the link to the hi pod grow, i didnt see it in the search funtion. 6 oz of what? how many lights,,wattage?

 

[ahhhavalanche!]

there is a link to the high-pod in the second paragraph of my main post... but here it is again, enjoy: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=92259

 

[flat5th]

do you have the link to the hi pod grow, i didnt see it in the search funtion. 6 oz of what? how many lights,,wattage?

Yes...like Ahhhavalanche! said...the link is in the first post of this thread.

6 oz of weed. what else would we be talking about?

read the high pod thread...all your questions will be answered.

 

[hilbie]

i meant to say off not of, meaning ''off'' how many watts, its was a excellent grow hi pod had, very talented grower. for the space its excellent but its just shy of 400 watts and the harvest is less then .5 per watt. and thats what i mean about pl-ls being just glorified floros, even with this perect setup its still a .5 watt game. not bashing just saying that 70 bucks for a 200watt 2ft system of floros isnt on my shopping list, i thought they had more potential then t-8s but i just dont see it.

 

[flat5th]

i meant to say off not of, meaning ''off'' how many watts, its was a excellent grow hi pod had, very talented grower. for the space its excellent but its just shy of 400 watts and the harvest is less then .5 per watt. and thats what i mean about pl-ls being just glorified floros, even with this perect setup its still a .5 watt game. not bashing just saying that 70 bucks for a 200watt 2ft system of floros isnt on my shopping list, i thought they had more potential then t-8s but i just dont see it.

Valid. i hear that.

 

[fatigues]

for all the talk about pl-l being so efficient you dont see any decent harvest with them do you? ive seen cfl nugs and some decent t-8 nugs but i believe that pl-l are overated and overpriced, like ive said ive seen no good yeilds of anyone useing them. i think there bunk untill someone proves me wrong.

Someone already did. The Hi-Pod. 5.7 ounces out of a 33 gallon garbage can. 6x55w PL-L. No scrog. 1 plant.

The grams per watt game of measurement is entirely illusory. No one is arguing that PL-L yield more than HIDs. They don't. They do yield well in incredibly small spaces without the need for significant cooling. They are in that sense, ideal for micro and smaller cabinet grows. They are superior to T5, T5HO, T8 and T12s as they yield far greater lumens per square foot to a relatively small number of plants.

There is no question that PL-Ls are far and away the most efficient flourescent grow light technology. Nothing else touches them. They are cheaper - by a lot - than T5HOs. Moreover, there is nothing "overpriced" about PL-L lights, provided you don't spend stupid money on 6500k bulbs and stick to vegging under 4100k. What are you talking about? 4100k work demonstrably well for both veg and flower.

As for the OP, I think the idea of using a cooltube PL-L from the HiPod's construction is a neat idea to incorporate in a scrog screen and I look forward to seeing your results with that approach.

That said, your design would benefit from the use of 4 more 55w PL-L lights and ditching the five coiled CFL's you have in your design entirely. You are better off with HID using a CMH bulb. If you prefer PL-L - great, then use those. But throttling it back a further step to use CFL's in your cab is a waste of your time and money, imo. Stick with 8x PL-L.

 

[superpedro]

Looks like a good plan, I like you drawing!

Nice bud dude

 

[ahhhavalanche!]

Someone already did. The Hi-Pod. 5.7 ounces out of a 33 gallon garbage can. 6x55w PL-L. No scrog. 1 plant.

The grams per watt game of measurement is entirely illusory. No one is arguing that PL-L yield more than HIDs. They don't. They do yield well in incredibly small spaces without the need for significant cooling. They are in that sense, ideal for micro and smaller cabinet grows. They are superior to T5, T5HO, T8 and T12s as they yield far greater lumens per square foot to a relatively small number of plants.

There is no question that PL-Ls are far and away the most efficient flourescent grow light technology. Nothing else touches them. They are cheaper - by a lot - than T5HOs. Moreover, there is nothing "overpriced" about PL-L lights, provided you don't spend stupid money on 6500k bulbs and stick to vegging under 4100k. What are you talking about? 4100k work demonstrably well for both veg and flower.

As for the OP, I think the idea of using a cooltube PL-L from the HiPod's construction is a neat idea to incorporate in a scrog screen and I look forward to seeing your results with that approach.

That said, your design would benefit from the use of 4 more 55w PL-L lights and ditching the five coiled CFL's you have in your design entirely. You are better off with HID using a CMH bulb. If you prefer PL-L - great, then use those. But throttling it back a further step to use CFL's in your cab is a waste of your time and money, imo. Stick with 8x PL-L.

Running 8 PL-L's would end up being 440W, which is more then I would like to have in this space. The reason that I chose this combination of CFL's and PL-L's is that I want to be able to but one set of PL-L's and run them off of one ballast (workhorse 8), and use the CFL's to control the lighting color. Right now I have 2 Philips bulbs (PL-L 55W/950 2G11/4P) they are rated as full spectrem and somehow also rated as 5300K (according to 1000bulbs). They have a nice red peak, and a nice blue peak (but also a large green peak )

Because of a pricing error I was able to get them at the dePOT for $1 each I was going to use these in the screen and find others for the tops. I would not be against buying a set of blues and a set of reds for the tops, but I have had a very hard time finding spectral distributions for other bulbs.

I was going to combine these with daylight, soft white, and reptile UV CFL's to hone in on the color I want for the specific plant stage. @fatigues how much more efficient are PL-L's then CFL's, because I am considering using 6 PL-L's (either 2 in the screen and 4 on top, or 3 and 3).

@hilbie I picked up 4 bulbs @ $1 each (gave 2 to a friend, don't think he is using them, can probably get them back), and can pick up a workhorse 8 ballast for $40, so that is a 220W system for $44 <$70

 

[hilbie]

once again its a typical floro light chart, with the majority of your dollars going into useless green, thats why its always better money spent to just buy bright blue bulbs n bright yellow orange ones, why pay for green light, u pay for the watts, your plants use the lumens, after u realize your lights are putting out most of their power in green the lumes per watt goes way down in truth, just have a look a good look at certain floros rooms even in the warm spectrum, u can even see the green tint to certain brands of light, thats useless electricity your paying for, hi pods lights do have a nice chart in some ways, both the blue n red are getting supplied but with strictly 6400k n 3000k bulbs it would be even better no questions asked.


''The grams per watt game of measurement is entirely illusory'' fatigue. Common u can write better then that, and then u go on and say bulbs in the proper spectrum are a waste of money, thats two strikes against common sense. your better then that-


avalanche-@hilbie I picked up 4 bulbs @ $1 each (gave 2 to a friend, don't think he is using them, can probably get them back), and can pick up a workhorse 8 ballast for $40, so that is a 220W system for $44 <$70

do u have any links for me, i might be interested.

 

[ahhhavalanche!]

picked up the lights in store at the dePOT, the ballast is of 1000bulbs http://www.1000bulbs.com/Fulham-Ballast-Workhorse-8/ @hilbie, I did not see a spectra chart in the high-pod thread, and I dont feel like sifting thorugh all 20 of its pages now, could you tell me what page it is on?

 

[tjc1088]

damn, I spent way too long reading the Hipod thread. Im impressed by those lights, Im excited to see what your going to be able to do with those.

Get em goin!