Hello, and an extra big welcome to all the ventilation experts I hope are just dying to answer my questions. So... I'm building a grow-box. The link to the project is in my sig. Check it out if you want, but to save you all some time. I'll just tell you my lighting and space situations. I want to use my 400 watt HPS lamp inside of a 3x3x5^ space. (I'll mount the ballast outside of the box.) I will also have a another compartment to start plants and veg them, which will be 2x3x5^. Thus, all together it will be 5x3x5^ I want to use a carbon scrubber. Any idea what the most economic ( ie cheapest, smallest, lowest wattage in order of importance) fan I could get away with would be for my exhaust? If I come up with something, I'll report back for approval.
Ho hum! I return seeking approval! I will put a Plexiglas shield in front of my lights to reduce the amount of heat that gets to my plants. It will seal them in a very small, airtight chamber. I will also install separate ventilation for this Plexiglas chamber. I plan on using the smallest, cheapest fans possible. The high pressure sodium chamber will be 3x3x1. That's 9 cubic feet. I think I can vent that with a strong PC fan. If someone puts doubt in my mind, I will purchase a booster fan for this chamber as well. I think I can get away with buying the cheapest inline fan that is sold at home depot, because I will use one for the flower partition and one for the hps lamp. One fan will be venting the very small lamp chamber, which I would like to have vented in its entirety as many times per minute as is necessary, keeping with the economic trend. ( I want these box's to be as low-cost as possible to encourage my friends to build one too!) Anyone know how many x/m I'll need to keep the lamp cool? The other fan just needs to replace the air in the entire grow box to provide enough C02 to feed the plants. I would like to pull enough air from the veg partition to not have to install a third muffin fan to boost airflow through the veg and into the flowering. Let me explain... All of the intakes would be passive. I would have two intakes coming from the outside to the veg partition, and for the flower partition I will have one intake from the outside and one from the veg partion, as to get air to flow through the veg compartment. but I think I would be safest with this setup: Veg intake: Two long passive vents Veg exhaust: One strong muffin fan w/no carbon filter Flower intake: One strong muffin fan from the veg and two 8 inch duct passive vents. flower exhaust: 6 inch inline fan with carbon scrubber hps intake: Passive 8 inch duct hps exhaust: 4 inch inline fan w/no carbon filter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a picture I drew like a five year old, depicting my plans for the ventilation of my grow cabinet. I am also posting this on my grow-cab thread, so don't flame me for that. If you don't get this from my artistic styling, the pink border denotes a legend. The green x denotes the HPS fan, the pink x denotes flowering vent and the brown x denotes the muffin fan for the veg exhaust. So now I would really like some feedback. Please help me, I just need validation or correction.
never tell your friends your growing... ever... if you plan to share.. you just picked up some bomb ass stuff... heed my advice at your own risk... mount the ballast outside of the grow unless it is connected to the socket... ballasts create heat.. and you need to control the heat that your light is going to create not fond of a non move able light.. but you should be able to make that work your right your drawing is pretty horrible, but it looks like a workable design from what i can tell change the desk fans to PC fans and just get yourself a ac/dc converter from radio shack.. this will help save space go ahead with your plan.. your design will have to be tweaked and modified along the way.. so you have a good starting point.. start a journal carry on
I'm way super new to growing, so my word probably isn't worth the bandwidth used to transfer it. But, I've read here at GC and at other cultivation websites that even vegging plants can stink, so maybe you should consider throwing a carbon filter on the veg chamber exhaust. Good luck!
for a closet you dont need carbon filters just get some ona gel dude save money for fans ,no one plant needs a carbon filter even if its a monster ,its only gonna smell for a couple weeks bad anyway. i would scrap all that box shit and use any closet you have is bigger than that box dude your closet is a box.i want to help you ,so scrap the box thing is gay put 2 400w lights with like 16 small plants and ona and fans timers and sun pulse bulbs so you can have one bulb for veg and flower and you can figure out the rest.
I'm sorry, but I don't have any closet that size nor do I have another 400 watt lamp. I will use floro's for vegatative. And since I'm only going to need 400 watts for my 3x3 space, I think I'll be okay. Look in the DIY section for easy to build/cheap carbon filters. The one I plan on making is 10 dollars in parts and takes five minutes to make. I will not be growing one plant, I will likely have 9+ flowering plants in 3 or 4 gallon containers. I also plan on growing some very stinky strains. NYC Diesel to name one. You can grow in your closet with tons of lamps if you like, but I'm going to build a self contained grow-box.