Red' Greenery's 150 HPS Cab

[Guest]

hey mj - thanks for the comp's. Have you found an intake for your box yet?

Hey Budless - that's great that you're gonna get another grow off the ground. Your plants were doing really well in the Rubbermaid. This box is a hardsided copy of the Rubbermaid. You won't have any problems moving your CFL over from the Rubbermaid into the cab. There's tons of these cabs at all the hardware/department stores.

Hey Bonsaigrower - pull up a chair and stay awhile.

 

[bongasaurus]

looks very slick. good job man

ive been thinking about putting together a new cab. youve inspired me. i love how neat and organized it is. mine maybe not quite as big as taht but bigger than the 2feet ive got to work with now. ill probably stick to the cfls as their so simple. thinking a vanity fixture with the y sockets, probly looking at 245 watts if the heats manageable. probably custom size. been considering converting a security lite like that but im so paranoid about fire as it is. love to hear some input from you RG.

hows your light trap work exactly Red? im a bit confuzzled

anyways, ill be watchin

 

[Guest]

Hey Bongasaurus - thanks for dropping by!

I did enough experimentation with the HPS-Rubbermaid to shake out the bugs and build this cab. A 38 CFM fan is all you need to cool 254W of CFL's or a 150 HPS. I was a bit apprehensive of the HPS light at first. They do get hot and a lot of the heat is radiant. I don't believe it will get hot enough to start a fire if a fan dies. There is a lot more heat in the lighting chamber with CFL's because of the ballasts.

Anyway, my design works for 150HPS and 254 W of CFL's so you can go either way.



Here's my light trap. There is a nice 3-1/2" space under the floor of the cabinet with a kicker board on the front. I've cut a 2-1/2" x 10" intake (25 sqin) so the air comes up from the bottom chamber.



I made the light trap as simple as possible. I cut one board 10" long to block the back and two smaller boards to go on either side of the intake.



The air comes in from the back on the sides, flows to the front along the sides and turns and goes to the back through the center and turns again and goes up through the intake hole.

I make sure that the internal spaces did not cause any restrictions to air flow.
There are 2 chambers that have to provide at least 12.5 sqin. With 3.5 inches of height, the chambers have to be at least 3.6" wide. My chambers ended up about 5" wide.

 

[Guest]

things are lookin great Red!
aaah, the shelf! glad to see you got a shelf goin! that'll definately help your plants get max amount of light throughout the grow.
how far along are they? are those the shiskaberry?
- SubN

 

[Guest]

Hey Subnoize

I'm at day 24 now and the Shiskaberry's are doing great!

I found that they were stretching and moved them right up to the light with the shelf. The growth rate really increased.

 

[Guest]

good, i'm glad to see everything going well for you!
shishkaberry ladies are looking most righteous!
- SubN

 

[Guest]

Oh the cool-box design works very well. The exhaust from the 6 x 42W lights is about 83F and the lights themselves run in the low 90's. The 150 HPS is about the same. All the heat stays in the light section so only a little airflow is needed in the grow chamber. My scrubber only draws about 15CFM.

 

[Guest]

Hey guys, I've decided to take a crack at building a muffler to silence the air noise coming from the cool-box light section. The 65 CFM computer fan really zips the air through the 4" ducting. There's no motor noise since I put some rubber mat under the fans.



I'm just taking a cardboard box and a 4" to duct adapter.



Cut a hole with a utilty knife.



Attached it by bending the tabs over.



I bought a package of this furnace filter cloth to use in my scrubber. I have ton's leftover so I'm gonna line the inside of the box with it.



Here's the box lined with the furnace filter cloth.



I cut the top wide open and covered it with furnace cloth.




I cut and fit the exhast duct in to take out any unnessesary bends and made it as straight as possible. This takes a lot of noise out of the ducts caused by turbulence.



Here's the finished muffler. It works really good and cuts the noise down considerably. I'm going to replace the filter cloth with some foam when I can find some.

 

[Guest]

so your exhaust runs through the filter and then to your muffler...ingenious especially since it looks super low cost and highly effective

 

[Guest]

Nope, my system uses two separate ventilation paths.

The light chamber exhausts into the muffler. There's no restrictions on the 65 CFM fan cooling the light chamber.

The grow chamber exhausts into the scrubber. The air flow is 15 CFM.

 

[Guest]

ooh...even better

 

[Jerry Maine]

Ingenious

I'm designing a cab with a 250W HPS but it's only going to be 24"x22"x36". I'm definitely going to be using some of these ideas Red. With the 250W I will probably run two PC fans for the cool box, and have them exhaust via the utility box. The growbox will be tight, approx 24"x22"x24" allowing 8" for the pots, another 8" between the pots and the scrog, and the last eight from the scrog to the coolbox. There will be another PC fan or two in there.

If I can keep this 250W HPS and growbox cool with a few PC fans and your coolbox I'll be ecstatic. I might well pinch that scrubber idea too.

Jerry

 

[Guest]

Hey Jerry

I've been able to cool 254W of CFL's using a single 38CFM computer fan with this same design. I don't think you need any more fans and would run a single 4" 65 CFM in the light chamber.

You will need a bit more airflow in the grow chamber than what I'm running. My scrubber is a bit undersized and only pulls 15 CFM. It has an area of around 1 sqft with 1" of carbon. I'd make a bigger scrubber with an area at least 2 sqft, it would run about 30 CFM.

 

[Guest]

Woohoo!!!

I just relined my muffler with foam from an old sleeping bag mat and it's working great. You can stand infront of the closet and just hear some faint noise. It's the scrubber that's noisy now!

 

[I2KanGrow]

Hey Red!

Hey, I'm really enjoying this thread - thanks!!

1 quick question (for now, Heh-heh) - I'm really liking the stealthfull concept you're using - the "hiding in plain sight", and using a very common cabinet. I see you have foam tape around the perimeter of the front to seal light, but, how are you able to keep light from leaking out between your 2 front doors?

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

I lucked out. The doors fit tight enough there's no light leaks, just a razor thin sliver of light.

If I want to make it light tight, I would attach a flap on one door so the other overlaps it.

 

[Jerry Maine]

Fantastic. so I'd potentially have my 250W HPS growbox stealthed and cooled with two decent sized PC fans instead of a more expensive inline elicent or vortex, simply by having a well designed setup. This is exactly what I wanted to hear.

If those two fans don't happen to be enough I can install a 3rd or 4th pretty easily, without having it impede on the growspace, I've designed it so there is room for them. The coolbox fan will exhaust up into a light trap, then across the ballast utility, and out a large vent at the back. I'm thinking I could mount a small muffler in the light trap too.

Also, for the growbox, if two fans become necessary, can I place them inline and exhaust into the scrubber, to help overcome the scrubber resistance? I think I read that somewhere.

Jerry

 

[Guest]

Sounds pretty good! I'd like to see it when you get it finished.

Here's a chart that I've found is really accurate for sizing ventilation systems. I got this from the OG HPS user's group for sizing a one pass cooltube design with no inline scrubber.



This is another chart from an electronics manufacturer for cooling general purpose circuit boards which is accurate for CFL lighting and corresponds well to the cooltube curves as well.



I also have a computer program from an electronics cabinet manufacturer for sizing cabinet ventilation. It gives similar results as both curves.

 

[Sunset]

Wow Red, you have come a long way baybay! Congrats on the new design. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge! It was your rubbermaid design that made me get off the couch & try my hand at this new adventure.
Haven't been able to get online much lately. I have built a much larger box myself. Running a 400hps now. My rubbermaid, just wasn't gonna produce enough for a head like me. LOL Works great as a dryer though now.
I will update a few pics tonight or tomorrow. Planting time now, so just not much time for reading. Finally was able to till Wednesday.
My yuppieville farm has started it's new season.

Take Care & Happy Growing!

 

[Guest]

red lookin good buddy.. i'm still slackin on my grow box.. i canned the cfl idea and went back to my hps 400's.. any updates?