I got fed up this winter! The few people I knew who could hook me up could only deliver ditch weed crap, it was mostly miss but an occasional hit. I had decided to grow in a county park near my house but couldn't find a spot where people wouldn't reliably be. It's loaded with deer and other critters and the thought of having to wander into the woods at midnight to water and tend to my ladies didn't appeal to me one bit. I started researching and decided I could pull of an indoor grow. I have a wife and kids and needed somewhere they wouldn't mess with it. Turns out the basement is some kind of land of make believe to them and the back corner behind the water heater, furnace, water conditioner is a scary and dark area I don't think any of them has ever been nor will ever bother going. So I had a location, I had a rough plan and I needed a setup. I did a lot of research and settled on LEDs. I managed to get into the California Light Works growers feedback program and purchased a Solar Storm. It'll be here next week so I needed to get on the ball and get my grow cabinet rocking. I found a secluded little nook that was open, cleaned it up and started. I attached a couple of before and mid-way pictures as of today. I went with a 2 level area, the bottom for my active grows and the top for my clone mothers. I'm planning on doing auto flowers first, but will be moving to a perpetual once I get used to things. Lots left to do, but it's a start! I'm pumped.
So my list of what's left to do, probably won't get to work on it again until next week, but I have most of my hardware either in hand or on the way. Cut vent holes from top to bottom Cut and mount lower intake vent Cut and mount upper exhaust vent Mount hanger/pully system for Solar Storm LED light Obtain and install oscilating fan in lower room build a carbon scrubber Prime w/kills Caulk caulk caulk Paint flat white mount power strip add a door Set up light timers get the ladies going
Got the first coat of primer on. Found parts for a home made charcoal filter at the office supply store. Still have to finish the door, maybe I'll have time Monday, we will see.
Picked up the rest of my dirt/moss/dirt other stuff and nutes today. the light shows up Wednesday, so I figure I can be done painting the cabinet and have the doors hung so that I can get the light hanging Wed night and do a heat test Wed/Thursday without the vents running, just to see where I'm at worst case. I plan to start assembling the charcoal filter and vent intakes and outbound vents over the next day or so. I'm not so sure I'll get it installed, I don't want to cut the holes for it until the box is done being painted. I just don't feel like crawling in there and putzing around with a paint brush instead of attacking with a roller. So tonight another coat of primer on the cabinet and the door. Tomorrow hang the door and get a coat of paint on, maybe work on the charcoal filter. Tuesday, last coat of paint. Wednesday, get the light hangers hung, the vents cut and if the light is on time, I plan to do a heat/box test and light test to make sure I didn't miss anywhere that air/light will leak so far. Thursday/Friday Lights, wiring, timers, vents installed Mix dirt and get the planters/pots ready to roll. Hopefully my seeds show up this week and I can start germinating those guys and be rocking possibly by next week? All depends on when my seeds show up and how much I've forgotten This is going way faster than I expected. WooHoo
Looking good bro. Make sure you take venting issues into account. I have that same light in a 4x4x7 tent and on the veg setting it pulls about 450 or so watts. I have a inline fan 4 inch one hooked up to a carbon filter and on max the temps increase in the tent about 8-10 degrees above ambient....70 for my place. On max lights which is flower mode and T8's on about 81-83. Whats cool is the heat is directional on the sides. The 2 fans suck in air out of the top and push it through the giant heatsink out the sides. Not much heat coming from under at all. Id make sure you have a fan of some sort to pushing air around in there.
I plan to put an oscillating fan in there on the lower chamber where the main grow is happening. I'll have a 6" vent in the upper a 6" inline fan through a carbon filter. I took a crack at the carbon filter tonight. I think I have significant room for improvement over those stupid pencil holder hacks people are using. I can probably fame something in with a screen for a window screen replacement and a little magic. We will see, I don't like the cup holder thing at all, it's cheesy and doesn't let me add the charcoal easily. I'm sure I can do something better on my own, we wil see. So my lower chamber to the upper has a full 1.5" gap on each side. The lower chamber will start with a single 4" intake vent, hopefully my 6" vent and inline fan/filter on the upper chamber will pull the heat up and out through my filter. Time will tell if I've done a good job sealing it up or not. Good to know on it being directional, i can work with that kind of thermodynamics rather than ramdon heat all over the place. I'm so excited, I get more excited every night I work on it. Painting sucks, it's so time consuming and so much wait wait wait. I think I can do one more coat of paint and be done. The primer is going on good and thick and it's pretty darn flat already. Hope I don't shit the bed on this first grow, I'm starting to have high hopes
Plan sounds good bro. Yea I imagine you could figure out something to directly suck the heat from the heat sinks. Included a pic of the Solarstorm. The heat sinks are in the middle and on both sides. When I use my laser thermometer the inside of the heat sink with lights on max is about 118. Its like 90 something on the lights but that heat doesnt extend down to much its a byproduct mostly of there huge heat sink so if you could like make a plenum force air through it and suck it out the other end I imagine be zero heat issues. If you do post the design so I can make it!!! Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Sweet, so it just basically has heat radiating out of those fans! I think I can work with that. I think I've got enough venting built in, my biggest worry is once i have real plants (not autos) going and I need to keep the bottom dark, I've got more work to do. Right now there's a 1.5" gap that is about 36" long on each side between the lower/upper levels. Hoping to get a good flow with that. If that doesn't work, I'll add some more internal venting/fans to get it rolling in the right direction but if the cold intake is low and the pushed exhaust is high, it should flow just fine. I may need to invest in a thermometer like you have. Would be handy to have around for other purposes as well. If I do design something I'll get the plans out, I'm not terribly ambitious about these things usually, so don't count on anything solid from me more than some hack.
Yea there still head radiating from it but once you turn it on your see what im talking about you can feel the air being pushed out on both sides. Id love to build like a large frame for it one day with just the bottom showing below and you could like even hood it and have exhaust that way. This works like a charm and cheap. http://www.amazon.com/HDE-Temperatu...3FS4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331525100&sr=8-1
I was hoping to avoid a hood, half the reason I like the LED setups, Shouldn't be too bad to build a hood for it though. Maybe in revision #2 Might be a while until I get there.
Got my cabinet closed in today, the door is nice and tight, no light leaks so far, but I haven't done a really solid test of that just yet.
Looks good! Wait until you have plants you be super excited I used weather stripping on my door it helped with light leaks.
I've got it all weather stripped, I'm already excited. I might get a little out of hand once I get something growing in there. Need seeds and a light and I'll be rolling.
wow man thats neat. my friend had something very similar in his basement a while back. i think he still does. good luck!
rhapsodyrcks, Do you have any picture of how it gets mounted/hung? I'd like to get my raising/lowering stuff going before it arrives, but want to be sure I'm not making something I can't even use.
Sure do buddy. It comes with the things that that rope hangers are hooked to. It so dam heavy I have to have it laying on the ground then i pull both ropes up at the same time. I wish they had put the bad ass Solarstorm logo on the front rather then the small one on label but oh well. The light is kick ass from the cool paint job and design feels very custom hot rodish. The dam light is so big it makes my 4x4 tent which is pretty large at least to me feel very small LOL. Your gonna love it. My other LEDs and other ones there was always a doubt..can it grow? Should I go back to my 600w HPS? Solarstorm silenced all for me. I think to that after a few grows depending on how much you smoke etc it will pay off for itself, plus it has a 80,000 hour life span. Thats 9.1 years with it on 24 hours a day 7 days a week...which it wont be most likely. HPS I had to change my bulb out every year just about. I also emailed George about say the parts that might need to be replaced in the future and basically he said that for the most part its the T8 bulbs...cheap cheap, and possibly the fan and that is a cheap fix. You can also see in that pic why right away I thought if I built something around the heat sinks to directly push air through one end and route it out the other most of my heat issues would be zero. Thats actually the majority of all the heat generation and it blowing down before my fan picks it up. They put those massive heat sinks on just for that so you could have it pretty dam close to your plants if you like. Anyhow babbled enough about it!!! Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Cool, so it came with those hooks, that's what I wasn't sure about. I can get my ropes hung tonight then. I need to get some of those quick locks for my ropes, right now it'll be knots, not really ideal there but it'll get me started. I was really hesitant to order it because I was worried about replacing lights/parts on that costly beast, but saw the MTBF listed and was shocked. I can handle a new one in 10 years I don't mind replacing other parts, I'm pretty comfortable with electronics and their components, so in the event I need to do something I don't think it'll bother me. Mine arrives tomorrow! Still missing seeds Grrrr
The light came! I got it mounted and hung and am still missing a key ingredient to do anything useful with it. Hopefully this week sometime. I also cut and mounted the cold air intake and warm exhaust. The Inline fan also arrived today and I worked on a charcoal filter but need a few parts from the bank of home depot before I can finish that up. Right now I'm doing a closed door test to check how much it raises the air temperature in the box without my exhaust fan running. I'm so excited, it's probably best the seeds aren't here as I'm not really ready to start yet and I'd be trying to get things going right now if they were. I suppose I could start as they need to sprout under my CFLs in another room at the moment, grrr, stupid seeds. Few pictures of the power/vents and the light hanging. I know it's not level right now, I need some rope ties/releases instead of tying knots like I am at the moment. I'll get to that later I suppose.