Anti's MicroStealth Cab 4000 (The PL-L adventure!)

[Anti]

Ok. Yet another design idea:

Basically, it's building on the previous ideas thus far.

Same fan on same controller (240 CFM on dual day/night temp controller)

Same exterior dimensions of cabinet (1.5' deep by 4' wide by 6' tall.)

The major difference is that we're swapping in a 400w Philips MasterColor Ceramic Metal Halide bulb in a Sunlight Super Sun reflector to replace 8 of the PLLs in the previous design and moving the remaining 4 to the far corners of the cabinet to provide supplimentary side lighting to the 400w CMH.


To try this idea, I need suggestions from others:

Should I hook the 240 CFM fan up so that it is exhausting all air in cabinet through the reflector or should the light get it's own vents?

If the light should get it's own vents and fan, what size fan do I need to put on the light alone? Anyone care to hazard a guess?

My understanding is that CMH bulbs will be much cooler than a 400w HPS would be and will "throw" less heat.

 

[chadbudsicle]

amazing again man, i read your entire 3000cab thread, and liked it so much, im actually in the middle of building it! at first i followed it to a "t".... but ive started to make a few alterations to fit my needs better.

i know you got alot of ideas and inspiration from drbud, as i did, but your attention to detail, and affinity for awesome sketchups and step by step directions really drove all of this home for me.

again, great job, keep up the good work! ill be keeping an eye on this one too, i like where your going with it

 

[Anti]

amazing again man, i read your entire 3000cab thread, and liked it so much, im actually in the middle of building it! at first i followed it to a "t".... but ive started to make a few alterations to fit my needs better.

i know you got alot of ideas and inspiration from drbud, as i did, but your attention to detail, and affinity for awesome sketchups and step by step directions really drove all of this home for me.

again, great job, keep up the good work! ill be keeping an eye on this one too, i like where your going with it

Thanks, bro.

If you're building the 3000 cab, I highly recommend that you heavily reinforce it. I wasn't much of a carpenter and assumed the plywood would hold to itself well enough... and for the most part it does, but it can warp and flex when exposed to humidity and heat/cold fluctuations. Having some kind of framing or L braces in your corners would be a big improvement. (You'll notice the frame in the new cab design.)

I wanted it to be super detailed so anyone could follow, because I remember feeling intimidated about the wiring and the lights and everything. Glad to see I may have succeeded there.

Love to see your results.


Here's the current cab's current incarnation:

1x400w CMH in a Super Sun II air-cooled hood. 4x55w PLLs with reflectors in the corners.
Pictured with 1 gallon airpots (everything to scale)
Frame is 2x2 with .5 plywood walls.

Planning on adding 250+ CFM fan on a dual day/night controller to exhaust near the top, intake at the bottom coming up through teh floor beneath/between plants. All ballasts in top of cab in separate chamber from main plant chamber. Plants have 2ft of vertical space with an additional 6-8" if needed (by moving 400w light).


​

 

[Marijuanasaur]

thats epic. I think you should go CMH. the side lighting will only improve it even further.

 

[Voidling]

Tell them it's a hope chest. {hope it gives you lots of weed}

I told my girl if anyone wants to see the inside of my cab. I will tell them thats where I keep all our s&m sex toys at

I was thinking of making a cab into a head board for my bed with built in tie down rings. When asked why it's overbuilt say it has to withstand rough use.



@Anti - Thanks for your 3000 cab thread. I read the entire thing through and probably will have to again to take notes.

I know you're getting away from your pl-l idea but hope you can still answer questions about it.

The setup from post 48 here would work well for a headboard grow, put a bookshelf with built in reading light and fan on top to explain electrical wires. What would you use to light the mother/clone room? Would venting like the 3000 work since the rooms are different sizes or would they need independent ventilation?

Is there a way to seal the cool tube at the top to the wood? I'd like to do an air manifold on the cool tubes to cut down on the carbon filter extraction. Would this work and be of advantage?

Also, where did you find the workhorse 8's for that cheap? Thanks

@jakeh what size containers would you use for that arrangement? Should this give equal or more yield than the higher plant count anti was looking at? He was thinking he'd pull an ounce or more with 7 plants a week.


I can't deal with the heat off of the cmh. It's middle of winter and my room is staying at 80 degrees with several 32 (?) watt cfl bulbs and my overhead 75 watt incandescent, the heater is set to 68.

 

[Anti]

The setup from post 48 here would work well for a headboard grow, put a bookshelf with built in reading light and fan on top to explain electrical wires. What would you use to light the mother/clone room?

I would think you could use a couple of CFLs or you could put a couple of PLLs in there. They'd need their own ballast, however, so CFLs might be a cheaper way to go.

Would venting like the 3000 work since the rooms are different sizes or would they need independent ventilation?

I think they'd need independent intakes and exhausts because of the room size difference. Also all those plls in the larger flower side will probably require more heat extraction than the veg side. I'd think you could get away with a PC fan on the veg side. ON the flower side, you'd either want 1 PC fan PER PLL (see tilt's thread) or you'd want some large 200+ CFM fan exhausting the whle room.

Is there a way to seal the cool tube at the top to the wood?

Several people (Fatigues comes to mind) have suggested using a 2" clear vacuum tube to surround each PLL. If the tube were long enough, you could have it run up through the ceiling of the grow chamber and then caulk around it to ensure an airtight fit. Then put the fan up above the chamber and it'll have no choice but to pull fresh air in through the tubes and over the bulbs.

I'd like to do an air manifold on the cool tubes to cut down on the carbon filter extraction. Would this work and be of advantage?

Not exactly sure what you intend here. Don't know if it'd work because I'm not sure what you want to do. More details, please.

Also, where did you find the workhorse 8's for that cheap? Thanks

I've seen them on ebay as cheap as 30 dollars, but that's hit or miss.

What I do is go to google and type in "fulham workhorse 8" and then click the "shopping" tab. There are several places on google right this minute selling them for less than 40. Best price looks like 35, but I don't know what their shipping rate is.

@jakeh what size containers would you use for that arrangement? Should this give equal or more yield than the higher plant count anti was looking at? He was thinking he'd pull an ounce or more with 7 plants a week.

I pull AT LEAST 4g per plant (dried) in my current 252w CFL cab where the lights are fixed at about 23" above ground. If you harvested seven 4g plants a week, that's .5g short of an ounce. I think in the all-pll design, if you were harvesting 7 plants a week, you'd have to be doing a really shitty job not to harvest at least an ounce a week.

But you'll also have to clone 7-10 plants a week in order to keep it going. So you'd be harvesting 7, cloning 7, putting the 7 you cloned last week in and then regular watering and tending of the whole cab.

I'm considering giving 1gal airpots a try when I get my CMH setup. I will probably experiment with different container sizes for a long while.

I can't deal with the heat off of the cmh. It's middle of winter and my room is staying at 80 degrees with several 32 (?) watt cfl bulbs and my overhead 75 watt incandescent, the heater is set to 68.

You've only got 32w CFLs and you have a heat problem? You need to upgrade your ventilation.

I'm sitting right next to my 3000 cab right now and it's 3 pc fans keep the cab under 80 all the time. (summer or winter). If PC fans aren't doing the job for you, there are many fans that are relatively inexpensive that you could use to bring your temps down.

There was a time when I thought I was doing myself a favor by only spending 30 bucks on ventilation, but when you're looking at pulling an ounce or more of dank per week.... your savings alone should justify the fan purchase. I mean... one 250+ CFM moisture rated inline 6" fan will run you about $140... but one weeks' harvest will be worth more than $300.

Just sayin'.

Hope this helps.

 

[Voidling]

Thanks Anti.

My entire bedroom temperature is up to 80 degrees, thermometer is saying 79.6. The central heater is set to 68. It's 50 outside so I'm going to try venting my bedroom to cool it off some. It's a big reason why I want to isolate the light heat from the cab heat since the ambient room temp is so high to start with.

I've seen Tilt's thread, and pretty sure I read the entire thing. My original idea was running 8 lamps with one fan per 4 but since the workhorse 8 can only do 3 55w lamps I'll have to modify it. My idea with 8 lamps would be an air manifold on bottom like I have seen others show in designs with the cool tubes running up through the top board. I planned to have a small box with weather sealing on the bottom edge to clamp down over the tops of 4 pl-l's in a square config with a fan mounted and blowing out the top of this box. The air should be pulled fairly equally in this configuration. With six tubes I could try one big box over all six, or an H shape with the fan in the cross but air won't flow as equally and not positive enough air would go through the end ones. I'm working on a 3d representation of I can post if that doesn't make sense.

(EDIT) Green would be the box over the light and the cylinder would be the fan(s)

Would it be better to run 8 50's in that size than 6 55's? I know my cooling idea would work a little better with 8, just not sure if it's worth the added expense.

As for fans, I need it quiet as it is to be a headboard of my personal bed as I plan to use it. Using a larger one wouldn't be as much of a problem on 12/12 if only I could tame my sleep schedule.

The cheapest I found the ballast before was on Amazon but I don't like them. I put a cart together and couldn't see shipping prices until after I gave them my credit card info and stuff comes from different places so multiple shipping charges. 1000bulbs or whatever sells cheaper on amazon than they do their own webpage.



I'm debating on the framing portion of the design, using 1 x 2 or 2 x 4 and how much of the floorspace that's going to eat up if using an internal frame vs the looks of using an external frame.

Thank you very much Anti

 

[Voidling]

Hey Anti, not sure if you are ordering online or not. HTG Supply has a 400 watt complete hps setup for less than I spent on two workhorse 8's with 6 bulbs and sockets. They have a diy ballast options that would of been cheaper at 400 or only like $20 more for the 1000 watt. I'm really wishing I'd looked into hps before getting the pl-l's now.

Granted only the first option includes the price of the hood in cost calculation since I have no hood in the cost for my pl-l's.

 

[Anti]

Hey Anti, not sure if you are ordering online or not. HTG Supply has a 400 watt complete hps setup for less than I spent on two workhorse 8's with 6 bulbs and sockets. They have a diy ballast options that would of been cheaper at 400 or only like $20 more for the 1000 watt. I'm really wishing I'd looked into hps before getting the pl-l's now.

That's exactly what got me thinking about going HID instead of PLL... the PLLs plus all of the stuff I'd need to do them right ended up costing significantly more than the HID+reflector+ballast.

I already have a cab that is producing. My next cab will be built sparing little expense. I want it done right the first time.

If I didn't have a cab at all right now, I'd be more concerned about costs.

I think you can probably go with 4x55. Ask tilt, he's an electrician. But he's doing it, and he thinks it's no issue and there are several growers on this site running 4x55. Apparently Fulham USED to rate it for 4x55 but they dropped it to 3x55 to cover their own asses.

It's only 30 bucks if you blow your ballast up, so maybe worth the risk? Kinda up to you. I have 0 real world experience with the PLL ballasts.

Thanks for your kind words.

 

[Voidling]

Got to love the cya crap that companies have to do because of the sue happy culture.

I had just assumed HID was going to be much more expensive so didn't even look into it. The heat would of still been a problem. My bedroom was up to 81 degrees before going to work earlier today.

I think I'll find more sockets and run 4 on each of them, hopefully all my bulbs arrive unbroken. Only ordered four of each thinking of having a spare on each color for 3x3.

Thanks

 

[420ish]

Got to love the cya crap that companies have to do because of the sue happy culture.

I had just assumed HID was going to be much more expensive so didn't even look into it. The heat would of still been a problem. My bedroom was up to 81 degrees before going to work earlier today.

I think I'll find more sockets and run 4 on each of them, hopefully all my bulbs arrive unbroken. Only ordered four of each thinking of having a spare on each color for 3x3.

Thanks

ran 4 bulbs on workhorse 8 for 2 years no problem.new config only has 3 per right now.havent noticed any differnce running either way in amount of light per bulb and havent had any problems with ballasts

 

[ZAPOT]

Hi!

I have been wondering about this heat issue with PL-L´s as people seem to have.

My question is: Are you aware that PL-L as a lamp needs to have a certain temperature to work properly, to give the estimated wavebands it has been designed to give or are you truly aware of this fact and just experimenting with that issue?

If you change that certain designed temperature of a PL-L bulb by force you are affecting to it´s ability to function well or at least to it´s full potential and you just might shorten it´s lifespan (in a certain waveband at least) pretty well. You might even shorten the ballast´s lifespan too but i´m not an electrician so i wouldn´t know for sure.

So are you actually aware what you are doing when forcing a PL-L bulb to cool down even a bit or not?

btw. there are only a few plastics that are suitable covering a PL-L bulb when considering that you want as much light pass that plastic as possible and all wavebands there are in that PL-L, right? I can assure you that a clear vacuum tube is not one of those plastics that is suitable for that job as the needed material is quite a bit more expensive then what is used in that tube. It could even be/have PVC and i would not use ANY PVC in a small cab for any reason what so ever... not even when it´s actively cooled down as that is not always the case, is it? In my opinion using PVC in a small cab is the same as using DDT or PCB as a pesticide. Not a very smart thing. Avoid it!

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Tilt]

Hi!

I have been wondering about this heat issue with PL-L´s as people seem to have.

My question is: Are you aware that PL-L as a lamp needs to have a certain temperature to work properly, to give the estimated wavebands it has been designed to give or are you truly aware of this fact and just experimenting with that issue?

If you change that certain designed temperature of a PL-L bulb by force you are affecting to it´s ability to function well or at least to it´s full potential and you just might shorten its lifespan pretty well. You might even shorten the ballast´s lifespan too but i´m not an electrician so i wouldn´t know for sure.

So are you actually aware what you are doing when forcing a PL-L bulb to cool down even a bit or not?

btw. there are only a few plastics that are suitable covering a PL-L bulb when considering that you want as much light pass that plastic as possible and all the wavebands there are in that PL-L, right? I can assure you that a clear vacuum tube is not one of those plastics that is suitable for that job as the needed material is quite a bit more expensive then what is used in that tube. It could even be PVC and i would not use ANY PVC in a small cab for any reason what so ever... not even when it´s actively cooled down as that is not always the case, is it?

Just my 2 cents.

All very good points.These topics have been covered in other threads. All the points you brought up have been covered in depth. Read and search more then comment. Just my 2 cents....

 

[ZAPOT]

All very good points.These topics have been covered in other threads. All the points you brought up have been covered in depth. Read and search more then comment. Just my 2 cents....

Thanks! That is what i have been doing every once in a while as i am not a very professional grower so i do lack some information myself too.

Edit: never mind, peace!

 

[Voidling]

There definitely are a couple of nice conveniences with it, not sure about the technical stuff you asked though. Plants can touch the cool tubes without fear of them burning, plus lowers the amount of air you need to pull through your carbon scrubber to keep the plants cool. Those were the two reasons I had planned on doing it. Unfortunately it's taking me so long I'll probably go wit KISS for my first box here as it's already taking me so long to get it built.

My cab dimensions have become 4 foot wide, 4 foot tall, and 1.5 feet depth front to back. I have two workhorse 8's. Since my mother/clone/veg room is less than 2 foot I'll have to pl-l's at a diagonal so that the lights are lowest over the rooting clones and tallest over the tallest mothers. Or if I run the 4 pl-l's in a box shape and do two levels of 1.5 foot tall each. I'm not sure which is the best way to do this now. Any suggestions Anti or Tilt? That leaves me only 4 lights in the flower room though instead of the 6 Anti had planned.

Maybe I can run on 4 until I can get the sulphur plasma I dream of. Would 4 pl-l's vertical be enough in flower room to get a decent start?

Thank you much

 

[Anti]

My cab dimensions have become 4 foot wide, 4 foot tall, and 1.5 feet depth front to back. I have two workhorse 8's. Would 4 pl-l's vertical be enough in flower room to get a decent start?

Thank you much

With 4x1.5 if I only had 4 plls and wanted to do a vert pll setup I'd probably do this:

make a tic-tac-toe grid in your cabinet where each rectangular section of grid is identical to the others and then put your 4 lights vertically in the corners of the center square.

I don't have time to draw a picture right now, so i tried to use the tic tac toe illustration. Draw it on a napkin and it'll probably make sense.

(Since your cab isn't square, your tic-tac-toe pattern won't be 9 squares. It'll be nine rectangles. As long as their equal, you should be good.)

 

[Voidling]

Thanks for the input Anti. Have you started building your new cab yet?

I understand your illustration.

Well the outer dimension is 4x1.5 and need at least a mother/clone/veg room and flower room. I have two workhorse 8's so both rooms can get 4 each. Considering rooting clones and short veg time, they won't get tall so vertical seems a waste unless I put two levels with the lights running through the shelf to light both levels.

At this point I'm eying the hps but still afraid of the heat. I've got 3 55 watt bulbs heating up my room right now and it stays near 80 with the a/c set at 70. Summer is going to be horrible when temps outside hit 100+. I'm wishing led lights would come down in price.

I was thinking of the topsy turvy commercials and thought about a grow with the lights in the middle with plexi on both sides with plants growing under and upside down above to double the usable width and depth if one builds taller rather than out.

 

[Tilt]

If I was using your dimensions voidling.

grow chamber left
27" wide
18" deep
30" high

veg chamber right
20" wide
18" deep
30" high

utility top
48" wide
18" deep
18" high

set up lighting in grid pattern in flower vertical
use regular cfls in veg 23 w 6500 k horizontal
Do you have a build thread we can post there and not mess up anti's thread

 

[Voidling]

Not yet. I had planned to start one once I got my plans figured out to an extent to have something to post/show. I'll go start one and quit taking advantage of Anti's good nature to answer questions that aren't related to his thread.

Brb with a link.

Edit
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=4139467

 

[LoKey]

Well figured i should share this here as it was Anti and Tilt that partially sparked the idea for a vertical layout, but i was learning how to use google sketchup today (first time using it), and this is what i created to get to know the program better.

Mind you i already had these ideas going through my head, but its a cab designed solely around one 55w pl-l in a vertical orientation, with an integrated veg chamber, light baffles, and 2" carbon bed, only thing i didnt add to the mock up was the pll ballast, wiring, timers, door hinge and lock.

But over all foot print is 13"x13" with a tall 55 1/2" height, and would allow me to fit 8 of my DIY 4"x8"tall smart pots, which im seeing good results with so far.

Also depending i might even downscale it in height to use a 36w pl-l, but how well it will do for growing who knows, as yes there is the inverse law but i dont know if it will be enough light, always better to have extra than not enough, and if i did go with a 36w pl-l i would design it so that i could run two of them in the center if i found out i needed more light., but even still this design would be using half to a third of the wattage my current cab is running.


anyways enough of my yabbering