CFL Club!

[Anti]

Anti, I love your cab design especially the air flow. I can tell that you have a good understanding of how important air flow is to the sucess of a great grow. I think that this is one of the better cab designs that I have seen in a while. The only thing that I don't really care for are the light shields. I think that with the air flow the way that it is the lights will be cooled down considerably. Just my two cents. I give you mad props on this one !! Can't wait to see it in action !!

I added the glass partitions on the suggestion of Red Greenery. With the lights being separately exhausted from the rest of the grow environment, I can use smaller, quieter fans. Since this thing is gonna be sitting right out in the open, I don't want it to sound like there's a jet engine firing up for takeoff. Planning to use some DIY soundproofing in the uppermost segment of the cab, where the fans will exhaust. Thanks for your support.

Looking BEAUTIFUL, my friend! LUSH!

 

[Joey56789]

The way you are planning with it exhausting right above the lights in the middle of them is very efficient. That is the way mine is set up, and I don't think a separate chamber is necessary. I cool off 4 42w with just a single 120x120x38mm fan on a controller, and I leave it almost all the way down. Mine is a rubbermaid, but for cooling it should be relevant. Pics here:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=2531

 

[Anti]

The way you are planning with it exhausting right above the lights in the middle of them is very efficient. That is the way mine is set up, and I don't think a separate chamber is necessary. I cool off 4 42w with just a single 120x120x38mm fan on a controller, and I leave it almost all the way down. Mine is a rubbermaid, but for cooling it should be relevant. Pics here:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=2531

My original design had the whole thing exhausting out the top of the two lighted rooms into a shared duct and out through an inline fan and into a carbon scrubber.

I redesigned it after posting the original design and recieving feedback from the community. People felt that all my venting, bending and etc to get everything to flow through one fan would have required a fairly high volume, high velocity fan. Because stealth is of SUPREME importance in this growbox, I decided that 3 fans of a type similar to what you're using would work better. I could get by with 2 fans and no glass, but then I'd need two carbon filters (one for each room).

Anybody got opinions? It's not built yet. No parts are paid for yet. This is an excellent time for suggestions.

 

[Anti]

Here's the original and the updated side by side so you can see what I'm talking about:

The original (designed last week):

Below is the current design:

 

[joenjonaCFL420]

If you could build that, it would be pretty sick, Its a great Idea, I like the glass over the lights, but U would have to make the Light fixture areas movably vertically, so u could get them closer to the plants. I would love to see if you build this and I think its a pretty good Idea, I dont really worry about Stealth, I use a closet, But thats A sick design!! How tall would the whole Cab Be??

 

[stink.whistler]

I would worry about both chambers really getting an equal air flow. You also should probably dedicate more room to flower, and less to mom/veg. Go w/ some bonzai moms, a smaller mom/veg area, use the space to flower more.

2/3 flower, 1/3 mom/veg would be enough, unless you want tons of moms for strain selection.

 

[Anti]

4ft wide x 2ft deep x 3.125ft (33") tall

4ft wide x 2ft deep x 3.125ft (33") tall

If you could build that, it would be pretty sick, Its a great Idea, I like the glass over the lights, but U would have to make the Light fixture areas movably vertically, so u could get them closer to the plants. I would love to see if you build this and I think its a pretty good Idea, I dont really worry about Stealth, I use a closet, But thats A sick design!!

The lights are mounted approximately 24" above the floor of the cabinet. (23.5" until the plant hits the glass.) I originally planned something that would allow me to move the lights, until I studied up on the dr. bud-style perpetual sog. He incorporates the stretch for the lights into the design of things. My understanding is that the distance to the light, plus the density of other similar plants around it, cause it to grow vertically rather than bushing out, creating a branch with growing tip and few lateral branches. A budsicle.

This pic is from my original design, so just imagine that the lights (represented as cylinders) are ABOVE the top instead of below as pictured:

So the idea up here is that 8" pots will be clustered in 5 rows of 5 so that i can perpetually harvest 5 plants per week or so. I have relatively low expectations as this will be my first CFL grow and the only evidence I'm working on is the original threads by Dr. Bud and the threads by Thundurkel who got some pretty impressive results his first try. Dr. Bud reported a cured avg weight of 8.4g per plantlet. I'm modest. If I could achieve 5g per plant avg, I'd be pulling 25g per week! Almost an ounce a week would be about 4x what i normally can afford to pay for now. So I could smoke considerably more and experiment with tinctures and cooking without worrying that I'm going to run out. Even if I only manage to do 2g per plantlet I'd be able to smoke "in the style I've become accustomed to" and remove myself from the blackmarket. I'm optimistic, and I've done a lot of homework. Still more than humble enough to know that I don't know shit, and I welcome anyone's continued criticism.

How tall would the whole Cab Be??

 

[Joey56789]

Anti,

I certainly remember your original design from the other threads (your CAD drawings are getting better and better! ). I did not account for the fact that you are spreading the work over 3 fans instead of 1, so that should be quieter. A lot of this also depends on how well the air moves, so that is a bit of a variable. There is certainly more then one way to do things, so it's your call on 1 vs 3 fans.

RE: the second design... One issue I see is that all three exhausts are exiting into one chamber. If the light chamber fans are pushing harder then the carbon scrubber fan, and you don't have an adequate exhaust hole, you are going to effectively reverse the flow of all the blue arrows. Remember, the carbon scrubber will impede airflow. If the carbon fan is too strong, you might not get adequate cooling to the light chambers. If I were you, I would think about just making all three exhausts empty directly out of the cab. The downside is that you don't have a chamber to add noise dampening material to. I guess if you made the exhaust exit plenty large, you would be ok. You could even split the one exhaust chamber into 3, but that may be overkill. . As I said before, go with the 120x38mm fans. I also highly recommend Scythe brand computer fans. 9 out of 10 PC hardware geeks will tell you they are the best. They offer 3 different flow versions in the 120x38 size. Also, get a fan controller that can do all 3 fans. That will help a lot towards fine tuning.

As you can probably tell, the cooling, airflow, and carbon scrubber system is the most complicated part of building a cab/rubbermaid. You are very smart to thoroughly plan that out. What kind of scrubber are you planning BTW? Make sure you figure that out, and plan it so it will fit.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

If you're going to take the time to build a cab, take the time to get a quality fan. You'll thank yourself.

Make sure your intake is large enough to keep the fans unrestricted, the odor scrubber will do that enough as it is.

 

[Anti]

RE: Tons of moms for strain selection.

RE: Tons of moms for strain selection.

I would worry about both chambers really getting an equal air flow.

I am planning to. They'll have equal access to air, equal vents, equal spacing, equal exhaust ports, etc.

2/3 flower, 1/3 mom/veg would be enough, unless you want tons of moms for strain selection.

That's exactly my plan.

 

[Anti]

Intake Size, Scrubber Formulas

Intake Size, Scrubber Formulas

If you're going to take the time to build a cab, take the time to get a quality fan. You'll thank yourself.

Make sure your intake is large enough to keep the fans unrestricted, the odor scrubber will do that enough as it is.

I'm not trying to skimp on the fan cost, I'm trying to minimize the sound. I could easily build a partition into the upper exhaust area so that each fan had it's own space. (roughly a 16x17x6 inch = 0.937 cubic feet per "exhaust room" of that will keep the fans from competing with one another. It's just another few inches of plywood. Probably can be made out of scrap. Plus, if I mount the partitions in non-90 degree angles it'll help with sound diffusion.

The intake on the room is something like 15"x8" rectangular hole in the bottom of the center "drying chamber" which then routes through identical 1" x 15" light-canceling vents. The space inside the vent is larger than the vent holes themselves, which I'm hoping will help to keep the fan's workload manageable. Any advice will be considered.

On that note, does anyone have any formula or rule of thumb as far as carbon scrubber size vs fan power vs size of cab?

Like, I know that I want to exhaust the room at least once every minute or two, more like 5 times per minute on the light fans. So I can measure the volume of the sealed light chamber and multiply by 5 since there should be little resistance on those fans. So that'd be about 4"x17"x17"= 0.67 cu ft. So a 30 cfm fan should exhaust that tiny space 44 times a minute? Am I on the right track? What do you think is the lowest CFM that could handle duties here? I'm thinking of switching from 8 - 27w to 6 - 42w per chamber.

What do people think it'd take to exhaust that 0.67 cu ft lightbox?

The mother and the flower chamber are each 3.82 cu ft and the drying/intake chamber is 1.59 cu ft and the vents are 0.40 cu ft each, so the total volume of the area to be exhausted through the scrubber is:

3.82+3.82+1.59+0.40+0.40= 10.03 cubic feet

I posted the math so everybody can jump down my throat if i got it wrong. Need that kinda feedback.

So if I wanted to exchange that volume of air once every 5 minutes I could get a 50 CFM fan to do the job for me right? But then the scrubber adds resistance... but how much? Anybody know?

Edit: I'm planning on building a carbon scrubber like red greenery's. Basically two rectangular cube shapes, one fitting into the top of the other, carbon sitting on web of silkscreen in the cutout bottom of smaller cube. Air comes into larger tub and is drawn up through the smaller tub and out through the fan. Seemed a good fit as far as getting it in there with minimal ducting. Open to suggestions on anything.

Most common suggestion so far has been to make the flower chamber bigger. Gonna try at least one grow this way before I go bigger.





I've got the go ahead financially so I'm going to put this thing into action within the next week. I'll post step by step of my build as it happens.

Also, get a fan controller that can do all 3 fans. That will help a lot towards fine tuning.

Can you recommend anything? I know 0 about fan controllers.

 

[joenjonaCFL420]

Anti: Thats Pretty Short for the whole Cab in my opinion but that what I think..... U should start building already I want to see how it looks all up and running!!!

Anyone have any pics of an up and running Stealth Cab, with these similiar Desings? I would like to see one or more, I have only seen one but it wasnt two cabs, just one in a Dresser!

Happy Smoking!! Try This Nugget!! Its some shit called....Nice

 

[Joey56789]

There is a carbon scrubber formula here:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=509470

That's for can types though. I'm not sure how you would apply it to Red's design. Check this out for some ideas:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=88318

I made one out of hardware cloth (page 4). It's nice that you can make it whatever size you want. How much resistance the scrubber adds is a variable. How thick the carbon layer is, how much surface area, and how tightly the scrubber is packed, and how well th fan performs under static pressure all make resistance vary. Just get a fan with more then enough CFM, and put it on a controller, and you should be able to adjust it to the right CFM.

RE: Fan controllers;
I just used the cheapest I could find, and it works great:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118217
That's for only one fan though. Being a cheap ass I would have grabbed this one for multiple fans:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999137
It got better reviews then this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811998808
If you want a nicer one, just go through the reviews at newegg. It takes a little while, but they are all people with direct experience rating the product.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...escription=fan controller&bop=And&Order=PRICE
Just ignore the haters and incompetents, and you get some good info.

 

[joenjonaCFL420]

Heres a Update of babies, More in the Thread in my Signature!!

 

[joenjonaCFL420]

Thats a sik little Carbon Filter Thread!! I like!! Happy Smoking!!

 

[joenjonaCFL420]

Small Update on Day 1 Flower!!

Small Update on Day 1 Flower!!

Heres 2 pics of my planties on first day of 12/12. Already got some nicestretchin going on!! Superthrive might of helped that a little!! Here the ladies!~!

and...

Theres will be more pics of my ladies tomorrow and they will be in my signature thread!!

 

[Anti]

I'm actually building it now, kids!

I'm actually building it now, kids!

Ok. For anyone who's been watching... this:



.... is starting to come together:





Check the sig for the full scoop.

 

[BlueHalo]

Hey Joenjona! everytime I come in here the girlz are looking better and better. can't wait to see them blow their tops. Looking good !

It's been a week or so since I have been in here. I went back home to Hawaii for Spring Break and helped my Bud put some things in the ground for short season. Got the Sage goin on. In my opinion one of the best outdoor stealth strains out there. Man, Operation Green Harvest was flying their Grid like Bee's.

So, I got back and started to put together my ghetto cab. It is 7' tall, 3' wide and 19" deep. I put a 5" S&P TD series Mixed Vent inline fan in there and have the exhaust running to the attic. I also put in a bunch of mylar (this stuff is a BITCH to put up !!) The cab is seperated by a shelf with the bottom half for mothers and the top portion for flower. I have a passive intake system with 12 X 1.25" intake holes in the bottom of the cab and 2 X 1.25 intake holes running from the mother cab and through the shelf and into the flower cab. I put my CFL'S in the mother cab and the temps are pretty high and are in the high 80's. I desperately need to get these lowered ASAP, especially since I will be putting in a Cooltube 400 HPS in the flower cab. I definately have some negative pressure goin on because when I turn on the fan the doors suck shut but I can also hear the fan wind up as well. I don't know if this is good or bad ? Do you guys think that I should put in more than the 2 intakes leading from the mother cab and into the flower cab ?
I think that I have enough intake holes on the bottom of the cab and equal 2 X the 5" diameter of the fan, I think. Maybe my math is all wrong. I was pretty baked when I figured it out. Also, I don't have a fan speed controller hooked up to it yet. I bought one from Lowes but it didn't have enough amps. I don't know if this would help get my ventilation in check ? Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. Oh yeah, in one of the photos it only shows 6 intakes on the bottom but I ended up putting in 12 after doing some very medicated math.

One last note: My Tundra's (Auto's) are on week 5 and have yet to flower. My experience with Auto's is that they typically flower around week 5. I supercropped them but don't think that this would prolong their veg time in an Auto. I was hoping for a April 20 (420) harvest ! Oh well. Maybe they will pop soon. Peace !!

 

[winkdogg]

460 watt cfl grow

460 watt cfl grow

all walmart no hydro stores no internet orders...all built budget minded...no big name ferts just shultz10-15-10 and cfl lovin

http://i657.photobucket.com/albums/uu295/weedstuff/IMG_0670-1.jpg

 

[winkdogg]

cool cab brother nice work!