Hello everyone. This is my first attempt at a grow box and my first attempt at growing in general. I have taken a look at many other awesome cabinets from you guys and done lots of reading and I think I finally got enough knowledge to dive in. I built a cabinet to fit nicely in to my closet and I'm (slowly) getting all the materials I need to get it up and running. I have pics of the cabinet and hardware I'm using and I will be posting those when I get back home from work (workin hard or hardly workin? ). Heres a list of some of the things I have already got, please post any suggestions or ideas you have as far as the hardware for the cabinet and again I will have pics up in a few hours, thanks all and keep tokin! 5' x 2' x 2' cabinet 1 CFL 105 watt light and fixture ( I know this wont do the job, suggestions?) 1 4" centrifugal fan 1 Odorsok carbon filter Mylar G13 labs "ICE" seeds
One thing I would suggest... defiantly paint the inside of the cabinet with some mold resistant paint, as the kind of wood you built the box out of I think might be pretty open to mold, especially if you are going to use mylar, it can grow behind the mylar.
Alright so I'm off of work. I just smoked a couple of bowls and took some pics of the stuff I got. A few things like my exhaust fan and a stronger light are still on their way but this is some of it. I'm also going to get a little computer type fan and various electrical pieces but I want to wait until I can see how the centrifugal fan and light fit in there before I decide on exactly what I'm going to get. Like I said in my first post this is my first attempt at this so if you see any noticable flaws please let me know. I put some pvc traps over the intakes All put together <A href="[/IMG]http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g119/nazistomp05/cabinet3_1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" ?> Heres the cabinet all snuggled in. I am a little curious if the 3 ft above the cabinet is enough room to keep the cabinet breathing with the exhaust coming out the top? please give me your opinions. <A href="[/IMG]http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g119/nazistomp05/cfllight_1.jpg" alt="Photobucket" border="0" ?> Only 105 watts. I saw a 400 watt HPS that I think I'm going to order in the next couple of days. And the whole reason I'm doing all this, hopefully soon these will be some lovely ladies. So yea thats it for now let me know what you think and keep tokin.
In response to the light question. I think that light would be awesome but that alone will not cut it. If your going to go with the whole CFL then i would strongly suggest adding more lights on the side of the plant(s) to produce more bud production and what not. I have always used 100 Watt of actual power usage per plant and then 50 watt for every plant added to the operation. The type of box you are using would also be great for Florescent tubes along the upright joints for your side light.
Thanks guys for stopping by and giving some input. Hey Knoxis I agree about the mold resistant paint. I wish I had done it while I was putting the box together (too much weed), but I'm going to have to take the cabinet out to cut a hole for the exhaust fan anyway so it shouldn't be a big deal. Great idea I need all the help I can get . Hey Law I'm only planning on two plants for now so you think that the 105 watt CFL will cut it for the main light. When you say florescent tubes you're just refering to the standard florescent lights or the long tubes right. Only problem I may see arising out of that is the amount of space the fixture and light would take up but I haven't really looked at those. I will have to go to lowes and check that out because I would really rather not get an entire new light and ballast if not necessary. Also I'm not very electronically inclined, do you know if I could just get a higher wattage CFL bulb for my existing ballast or even get a HPS bulb? Again I would rather not spend too much more money on lighting, but I don't want to have insufficient light and have the ladies suffer in the end . Thanks again for the helpful tips please check back up as I will be updating this project frequently and as always keep tokin.
Hey everyone I'm about to head over to home depot to pick up some more materials. I found out that my order for my centrifugal fan got lost in transit yesterday . The guy I ordered it from was really helpful though and has sent me a nicer replacement for no extra charge. Today I'm going to get some more electrical stuff like a Power strip, Timer, PC fan(s) as well as the mold resistant paint to keep my cab free of uhh... mold . I am also going to pick up a little bit of 4" duct so I can go ahead and cut the hole for the exhaust and paint the inside. I can connect the fan to the duct when it arrives. I just got done ordering Mylar on ebay and it should be here in a couple of days. I'm thinking that I will be completely finished with the cabinet by Monday and should be growing by next Friday. Well thats it for now I gotta get stoned and get to work.
Soo I kind of forgot that my band has a show tonight (weed) so I wont be doing any construction today, but I did go to Lowes where I picked up 4" x 8' Duct Work, A Power Strip with circuit breaker, a cheap timer (only $5), Some wood sealant, and 2 little T12 2' Florescent Lights and fixtures. So thats it for now I thought I would just throw some pics up here for all to see. Let me know what you guys think and keeeeeep tokin.
For starters on a CFL grow a great resource is... http://forum.grasscity.com/general-indoor-growing/122824-kamel-s-cfl-guide.html The large CFL should be great for your main light as long it is used in a good way. I would say for starters make a reflector at least and turn the light on its side so more light will be able to reach the plants. Also do you know the light color on that light? With CFL and their light range some are better for flowering while others are best for the veg cycle. The link above will explain that in more detail. So back to the Tube light we were talking about; I can pick them up for 10 dollars for a 15 watt energy output (75 watt light) at wal-mart. These are 22-24 inches tall and come already with the power cord installed. Replacment bulbs are only 6 bucks each... great source of light if you ask me They do not take up much room at all either. They are about 1 inch wide and 2.5-ish inches the other way.. so if you put them in the corners they will not take up more than a 3 inch radial quarter circle Any questions? Just reply or send me a message
i like the cab, good luck with it man! im in the process of building a box for my cfl grow...im going to go with a SOG method and much smaller....cant wait to watch this come together.
Looking good! I noticed you put it together with what appears to be wood glue. I am a newbie, but is there a reason not to use screws and/or nails?
I think he also used nails or screw and caulked the inside to keep it light tight. Also that particle board is really easily broken so have to be careful with nailing and screwing into it.
Richirich and Azureblue thanks for checking this thing out. Richi thanks man, I can't wait for this to come together either, it seems like I have been working on just the cabinet for months! Azure, Richi pretty much answered your question on the wood glue but I'll go ahead and reiterate. I put the cabinet together with standard wood screws and some cheap hinges, and caulked all the joints where the wood came together to try and make it as light proof and air tight as possible and don't worry I'm a newbie too. As for everyone else hello all, its been a few days since i've been able to post due to materials still arriving and what not but today I got the mylar in the mail so I went to town. First thing I noticed about the mylar (this was my first time ever working with the stuff) is it was a much lighter material than I expected. As I struggled with putting it around my cabinet i kept ripping it and having to cover tears. I still am not done with the entire process of putting it up as a still haven't covered the door and i need to cover a couple of spots down low. After about 2 hours (more or less, I was stoned to the bone) I had covered most all of my box. Now that I had that done I went on to permanantly install my duct. I am still waiting for the fan to come, but when it does I should have everything I need to complete the box and begin the real fun, growing. I also threw my 105 watt 5500K CFL in there temporary just to get a feel of how its going to look (and take some pictures) and I installed my power strip up at the top to try and keep the electrical as far as possible from the water. Everything was coming together really nice when I hit a bit of a speed bumb. I went to lowes this afternoon to get wiring and a plug to wire my florescent tubes so I could install them. I asked the guy in electrical what I needed to wire my light so I could plug it in to a standard outlet, he gave me the wire and plug and sent me on my way. Well I wired it all together and the light would not turn on. I don't know much about wiring but this seemed pretty simple if anyone has any suggestions or links to diagrams for my problem please let me know. I noticed there were some larger florescent tube setups that had a standard plug built right in but they were all to big. Again any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Well thats it for tonight. I have some pics of what I was working on today. I still have more work to do even with the stuff I have but I was exhausted after the mylar and what not and I want to wait and start fresh tomorrow. Please check back as I will be updating regularly. Also if anyone wants to start suggesting growing medium ideas that would be sweet. Right now I am leaning toward a using a soilless mix and some rockwool cubes or coconut husk cubes to grow "hydroponically". I read that even though there are no pumps and it seems like growing with soil, these soilless mixes have no nutrients and require them through feeding making it hydroponic. Please correct me if I'm wrong and give me some suggestions on what you would use in this sort of cabinet grow. Alright now thats really it so for now so long and keep tokin heres the cab from the bottom. As you can see I still need some mylar around those intakes but I just got too frustrated, maybe tomorrow a pic of the entire cab, all that work and it seems like theres so much to go. the power strip, it says theres a circuit breaker on it. Am I pretty much safe as far as fires and sparks with that power strip or are there other precautions I can take? Heres the fixture and homemade plug. I had the white and black wires from the fixture attached to the clear coated wires, and I had the ground (blue) wire wrapped around a screw and screwed to the fixture. I don't know whats wrong. I really need some help with this so any suggestions would be awesome.
looking real good man! Im hoping to start building mine tonight. how many cfm's is your exhaust fan? And how do you plan to keep your intakes light tight? I you might have mentioned this but how many plants you planning on growing? keep up the good work, and the pics!
Hey Richi thanks again man. My exhaust fan is a 4" centrifugal fan 152 cfm and I still haven't got it in yet . I still don't know why but I have heard from a few people on this forum that although rated low, these fans will move a lot more air than a higher rated impeller type duct fan. I'm also going to get a little computer fan to keep the air moving around the ladies and keep things cool. As for the intakes being light proof, those PVC fittings that I caulked on there work perfect. No light at all gets out of those! Unfortunately I had to make another hole for my wires to exit because they would not fit through the PVC traps (oops). I'm going to try to put another fitting on the this new hole though that will fit the wires through. That last question is a real tough one. I don't know how many plants to grow because this my very first attempt at growing and I feel that I should do only 2 plants so I can stay on top of everything, but at the same time there is only so many things that can go wrong and having 4 plants is only a little more work but would essentially double the yield and make all this effort that much more worth it . I will probably do 4, but that means I have to get more light some time to make sure all of the plants will get good sufficient light. Does anyone have any ideas of how to add some more smaller CFLs to my cabinet? I have very little room to work with on the sides of the cab so I was thinking maybe 4 ceramic fixtures on the door but I can't think of a way to do this without drilling through the door thusly taking away all of the stealth. So please any ideas how to add more light would be appreciated. Today I'm going to try and get those florescent tubes going. I was told on another thread I made specific to lighting and wiring, that I could cut the end off of an extension cord and it will have a white, black, and green wire exactly like what I need. Does this sound safe? It makes perfect sense to me so I'm going to give it a go. Thats it for now so long and keep tokin.
I believe they also sell florescent tube fixtures that simply plug into the wall. Then you can buy your bulb snap it in and show time. That is if you don't want to be messing with wires and extension cords.
Hey Buuuda thanks for checking this out. I wish I had just bought one that plugged right in but I got these and lost the receipt. I worked on the fixture for about 20 minutes trying to wire it different and make sure it was connected perfect when I thought "maybe I should check the other bulb." So I popped the different bulb in and it lit right up. I ended up using old extension cords that I had laying around and returned the materials that I bought to make my own plug along with the defective bulb. Once I realized the problem I had them wired up and ready to go in about 5 minutes. I am going to wait until my fan comes to install the florescent fixtures but I took a couple of pics of me working on the lights and the end product all lit up. So check these out and hook me up with some ideas on growing mediums. Eureka!! This is a pic of when I finally figured out that it was the bulb not the wiring that was holding me back. Heres a good pic of where I connected the old extension cords to the ballast. and this is the lights side by side lit up. I had to light them both up when I got the new bulb. Slowly but surely everything is coming together. I can't wait till these lights are growing some little ladies.
hey man, could you post some pics of your intakes and how you made them light tight, i didnt see any pics in the post. Im using some 4inch ducting to make my exhaust light tight with a 4inch inline fan. Thanks man, and its looking good! I would go with 4 plants if i were you, just in case one or two die for some reason, you still got a few more.
Whats up guys. Orga, thanks man I hope I can help you out with your build. I know that without this forum I could not even think about doing this and already my knowledge has grown exponentially (and I haven't even got to the fun part.. GROWING) but thanks again for the compliment and if you have any ideas or suggestions hook me up. As for your question Richi I took some pics of the intakes but you can't really see much but the fitting and caulk. Really all that it took was I got the PVC fitting at lowes and I had some thick super glue (I think maybe some rubber cement would have worked better) and glued it where it covered the hole in the back wall of the cabinet. I caulked around where the fitting met the wood to seal it up, and after it dried for a couple hours I added another thin coat to be sure. The caulk also acted like a stronger adhesive and attached the fitting really good. Because the fitting is shaped like an "U", the light can't travel all the way through the fitting to the outside. I have read of people even painting the inside of the fitting with flat black paint, so the light doesn't reflect off the white PVC but I don't know how necessary that really is because I have no light escaping at all. I recomend the PVC "Trap" because of the "U" shape on top of a standard PVC elbow, opposed to just a 90 degree elbow type fitting. Heres the pics, I hope they help. if you need any more than this just let me know. I have some more free time today, so I think I'm going to mylar my door and patch up the areas that look sloppy. I can't decide if I want to go ahead and install the florescent tubes while I'm working on the big thing. As soon as I get my exhaust fan I am going to germinate my "ICE" seeds as well as a couple of "Belladonna" seeds my friend ordered a couple of years ago. If anyone could post some of their experiences with growing in small areas that would be awesome. This is my plan right now, tell me what you guys think. I'm going to germinate 8 seeds, and plant all of them in little rockwool cubes (the ones that germinate). I'll transplant them when they have adequate roots. I'll grow them all until I can determine the sex, and than I will remove the males and any really weak looking females (basically select the 4 best looking plants). Then I'll veg. them until there ready and flower them and harvest and smoke. Thats just the general idea obviously but I haven't planned too far in advance yet though because I don't really have a strong plan for starting. PROBLEMS: I don't want to transplant twice but I can't see any other way to fit 8 plants in my box. Will I be able to determine sex while they are still relatively small? I don't know which medium to use Hydro or Soil but I'm leaning toward a soiless type mix where you add nutes to the water when watering. Can I get nutes that will work for weed at a hydroponic store (I have one 5 minutes away)? Please give me suggestions on this because the options are overwhelming and I'm definately having trouble deciding. Also I've meant to mention this in my last couple posts. When I began working on this I had a $350 budget and I thought I would have a small forest in my bedroom by now , but I have now spent somewhere around $500 without any of the grow stuff I need and have not even completed the cabinet. Granted I didn't get any super deals but I did use stuff I had around the house and ordered about half of my stuff on ebay (which is cheaper for most everything). I'm not saying I regret it at all, quite the opposite really, but I just thought I should throw it out there because I have seen people say that you can build a quality grow box for $150 and I can't possibly believe that now. This project has already been much more time consuming than I imagined as well as costly but if I can even get a couple ounces off my first grow I will have just about broke even, but without spending the extra $100 - $150 a week on bud . Plus this is a funner way to get weed than waiting an hour, than driving 15 - 20 minutes to pay $60 for an eigth of O.K. bud . I'm rambling cause I'm stoned but I just wanted to say that. Well thats all I got for now but I should have some more stuff up tonight, peace, and keep tokin.
Nice lamp there bro i got a 250 of those like yours this is how far you can put them to the plants. Would be good to paint the inside of the box flat white emulsion to seal the timber to prevent any mold growth behind the mylar bro. Looking good there. Best of Luck