Stealth Cab w/ CFL + SCROG

[Abstract Pillow]

Hey all!

I moved out so it's time to begin my first indoor grow.


So anyways I'm not a heavy smoker and I really want it stealth so I'm going to make a silent and not smelly cabinet with compact fluoro lighting. I'm going with either one 200W separate ballast or 110W built-in ballast CFL, probably the 200W one as temps shouldn't be a problem if I remote ballast it.

Which do you think would be more adequate for a scrog cab with two plants and like 2 square feet or a little less, 110 or 200W CFL?

Well here's some sketch lol you can see I'm excited...:



I'll find some good ready cab and paint it white on the inside, something like 1' x 2' x 2'6"

I'm thinking I'll have a 5" computer fan at the exhaust and another one inside moving air around and strengthening the plant...and a passive intake to create negative suction inside the cab.

I'll use a similar design for the active carbon scrubber as ambre uses in her rubbermaid box:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=253863&postcount=8


Do you think the 5" computer fan will be enough for the carbon filter?

Does it matter if I have the fan on the side or on top? having it on the side would make things stealthier...


I've got the beans already, Female Seeds X-line Cindy'99... I think these will be great as they should be quite easy to scrog and I appreciate a nice sativa high
Seeds will be planted early september, I'm hoping to have my own homegrown bud for x-mas :smile:

...more soon come when I make some progress...

 

[ChaoticEntity]

you'll need more than 1ft for the plant, I would suggest ~8 inches of height for the pot, you can use a rubbermaid tub that fits in the area, they work very well.

I would recommed at least 2ft in height for the plant, it'll take all of it.

Checkout my gallery, there are some pics of a cabinet that I made using 1 full sheet of plywood and 1 half sheet. all made out of 3/4in ply. Total it stands ~4.5ft high 21in wide and 18inches deep it fits easily in a closet and is very stealth.

What you need to keep in mind with fans is static pressure, that is that a fan may work really well in the open, but when it has to pull against pressure it'll suck nads. PC fans suck nads in most cases, spend the money and get a 4in inline fan( http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/product_info.php?cPath=76_352&products_id=351 )

These are ment to work under pressure, for another 20$ you can get a controller to adjust the speed, helps make them quieter.

Give yourself an honest assesment of what you want and then do it right, you'll yeild better and have less issues. figure on 0.5g/watt starting out and try to keep your watts per square foot in the 45-65 range (IE a 150w HPS lamp would serve about 3sq ft)

My cabinet with everything I spent cost about $300, the fan was about 130(with controller), 70 for plywood, angle brackets, rope, various bits of hardware, a 150w HPS light can be had for 38$ plus shipping, DIY carbon scrubber was about 25$.

Read read read, and then read some more, check out the NGB grow box, it's the staple of micro grows and it's ~3ft tall. Read grow diaries, look at what other people did and learn from their mistakes, see what works and what doesnt. Don't skimp on the important things(ferts, light, ventilation)

 

[Abstract Pillow]

Thanks for the input ChaoticEntity, you have good points.

About the height: I'll get some cab from the recycling centre and adjust to that. The NGB grow box is neat, but I don't need to have a mother/clone cab in the same box so I'm just going with a flowering area.

For ferts I'll be using the BioBizz series, Grow, Bloom and Top Max.

Ventilation is my biggest dilemma. I do want good ventilation with a carbon scrubber to get rid of smells, but the problem is that I'm sleeping in the same room and other people will be in there too occasionally ... I can probably mask some noise by blaming the computer, but still a noisy closet would be pretty suspicious. Can an inline fan be silenced to nearly noiseless? or is there anyway to achieve decent carbon scrubbing with a silent fan? Costs are not an issue, as long as they're somewhat reasonable...

I'm quite set on using big wattage CFL instead of HPS, I've seen some fine results with them and a lower temperature bulb makes things that much easier.

 

[mushupork5]

get a little fishtank or a fountain type thing from CVS/walgreens/whatever for $20 or so. that will make plenty of ambient noise. don't mount the fan to the cabinet directly. it should hang from bungee cords to be most quiet. you could even get a fan controller to slow it down some more and still get some good cfms.

 

[Abstract Pillow]

There have been some delays with the cab, but my goal of harvesting before xmas hasn't changed... Ftr I'll do it the pc fan way, with some kinda DIY activated carbon stuff and ONA products to back the system up. If smells get out of hands this run I'll upgrade my ventilation system for the next one.

Here is some outdoor masterlow as a bonus, ready to be trimmed