stealth DIY idea with uk stores

First of all hello, I have been looking at grass city for a couple of years on and off, coming up with an idea for a stealth grow box for putting together soon.
 
 supplies and sourcing rough pricing:
 
stackable plastic storage boxes with lids, set of 6 (£14.99 argos)
cfl light holders (batten holders, £1.25 ea wilko)
pc fan 38.15 cfm  or 2  (maplin £5-£10)
ac/dc adaptor 12v (£12.99 maplin)
Kitty litter tray, poundland (£1, just to make sure) to put plant pots in.
2x emergency shelter for reflection (99p stores cheapest or anywhere that sells outdoor or prepper gear)
 
Some kind of thermometer thingamybob to check temperature either radiant or air.
Roughly £50 for set up so far.
 
 Need to get bulbs depending on which colour temp/s and some materials to use for passive intake and active exhaust. Also to sort some kind of  air filtration out.
 
The nuts of this design is that I want to have stealth and to adjust height by adding hollow boxes (bonus is they can stack underneath the grow area to save space).
 
Lights and fans mounted to top lid, use 2 for strength. Can also use space between lids to house the wiring for lights and fans so not in the grow area itself.
 
update with pics as am constructing.
 
Growing Auto's, if have to be out overnight leaving the lights on shouldn't hurt them too much.
 
 
 
 
-If something is fun and you can do it at home on the cheap, it's probably illegal.
 
 
 
 
 

 

Am just brainstorming at the moment, it's going on paper and am finding/ developing ideas as I go along.
Drawing a circuit plan so that I can just bang it together once ready.
 
Internally as there's a lot of light going to be bouncing around, contemplating one or 2 small solar fans or a pv cell to power a small intake fan (usb laptop cooling fan)
 
For my circuits going to run them in series (easier to identify broken bulbs), switch for each set of 2 and depending on what's needed for the cooling fans to be able to turn the second one on also. Different switches needed for motors apparently.

 

Have seen these and think they're pretty cool, may as well go for form and function.
Photo from maplin and they're just under £3.
 

 

Testing, testing, 
 
Waiting until next week to build my grand design, which am very looking forwards to (shifty face) but had a thought!
Why not test fan wiring! Old pc fan found! Some 12v adaptor just lying round, probably to charge nan's pacemaker or whatever. I'll never forget the last words she said to me "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT HAMMER!?"
 
Jimmy rigged it all to a shoebox with masking tape, gave myself a passive intake on the opposite side of the box to the fan out-take. Made a small intake exhaust with sheet of paper to simulate crude piping.
 
Marked one of the wires on my power supply with a piece of tape, touched them to the wires in sequence to find out what made it start.
 
Works for me by touching the white tagged line to the black wire and the red wire to the other wire on the power supply. (photo attached of tagged wire) 
 
Alright!!  Now is my actual intake and exhaust working as it should? to test this, lit a smoke (cig if you must ask, not a big toker )
 
Hold smoke below intake, smoke gets drawn in, see it exhausted by the fan and winner-winner chicken dinner!
 

 

Haha, success very nice. 
 
Hopefully ninja level +1
 
First pic is end result. Intake is in an empty shoebox which has most of the sides missing, paperwork will build up around it anyway.
 
Loose bits of paper scrunched up and added to inside of box behind the foil, makes it look like a box full of paperwork and junk.
 
Extract fan is at back towards wall.
 
Used a soldering iron to sort out holes and openings where I want to put things, lights, fan wires. 
 
Box is all made and ready to go except for being wired up. Which I will be doing some point early next week/ over this weekend. Going to use my funky switches to have 2 lights on or all 5. 2 for germination all 5 for the rest of it.
 
Top box can be flipped over to have lights close to seedlings at 2 bulbs. put back to normal position for all lights on.
 
May swap out the emergency blanket for flat white paint as it was a pain to stick to the sides. 
 
 

 

update for here: sorry its been a while, let me know what you think.
 
photo from the end of feb. just moved them out of amp stealth propagator into my box contraption.

 
 

 

Then a week(ish) later on we were looking like this.
Hardest thing so far is not peeking in the box every few hours haha

 

coming up to more recent, next time i grow in this box I'm going to make the light moveable, these are some long leggy leddies.
 

 

Larger post here, going to feed them again, tie them down properly and leave them to it till next weds.
next time definitely sorting a light hanger out haha to stop them stretching as much.
areas they're in is a recommissioned cardboard box, sandwich bags, drainage holes, figured these plastic bag disposable plant pots is a case of harvest, tie it and dump the soil while walking the dog

 
 
That's all for now, back next week
 

 

Ok, they getting left to it now. Last pics before next weekend, first grow from start to nearly finish.
 
Here they are
 
Looking forwards to getting paid next month, can get some more bits to improve my little grow, more specific ferts, making a proper soil mix. will be good times.
 
Although on the other hand, having a grow that's not died on me under my belt will be nice.

 

their only little plants and all though, maybe just over a foot tall, I let them get to it for a bit then made sure they were on 12/12 to force flower if one of them wasn't an auto flower, being a noob and not expecting them to grow let alone flower i wasn't too careful with the labelling so 2 are unknown, one if auto heavy bud and the other is a northern lights auto.

 

pulled it all 3 days earlier than i wanted to but have to be away with uni over the weekend, they would have looked pretty sorry afterwards imo haha. got a wee bud off them and the worlds smallest bit of charras next time is the daft punk grow, harder, better, faster, longer