Hey! New here, just wanted to share my project. I have a 3'(L) x 2'(W) x 2'(H) box fitted with 2 t5's and 1 t12. The box has a 2" intake fan, and 3" exhaust fan. I got these clones about 2 weeks ago, their "purple-wreck" (skip to last pic) Here is the shiesty lookin box Imageshack - img0475ws.jpg Two T5's Imageshack - img0479y.jpg T12 on the side Imageshack - img0480s.jpg Intake Fan Imageshack - img0478zp.jpg Ex Fan Imageshack - img0477rv.jpg Clones When I got them Imageshack - img0433s.jpg Now (16 days later) Imageshack - img0474ow.jpg box stays at 23.5C with just the two t5's on, and 26/27C with all 3 lights on. I keep the fans on constantly. T5 lights are on 24 hours, the t12 is on and off every 3 hours. 70% of the box is "whited-out" I plan on finishing the rest, and installing two more fans. I have another box exactly like this. After they reach the 1 foot limit for this box, i will cut out the bottom, then stack it onto of a similar box, with the top cut off that one. Let me know what you think. so far so good, any opinion is appreciated.
I'm a newb but a few things occurred to me as I was checking out ur set up. 1. Dude this is totally the type of thing I want to do when I move out into an apt (ideally a townhouse cause then i wouldn't need to worry about smell too much . Do you plan on vegging them and doing the night cycle thingy in there as well? If so will you be LSTing? or do you plan on taking them out eventually and moving them to another room? I want to do this too because i figured it'd be easier to manage smell so I was thinking two "chest" setups: 1 as set up as ClitC has done and another set up vertically to allow taller growth. Also Lining the inside of the chests with mylar might make better use of the FL's. I forget the other type of light bulb HPS...or something? Anyways were you worried about the fire hazards involved? I figured in a cramped compartment doing the best you can to spread the light evenly and throughout would be ideal. I thought I had a number 2 but I forgot. I'll post again if i remember though. good luck!
1. Ya, i'm only a couple weeks in, and my room barely smells. nothing that cant be covered with one of those fancy smell good spray timers. The lights are on 24hrs right now. If you look at the 'Now" picture, i plan on mothering the left and right one. I just started LST on the left one today, since their clones I can compare the difference between an LST under flouro's, and the other will go under an HPS in a month. The middle plant will be flowered. I'll explain how the setup will look for a LST mother and flowering plant later in this post.**** As far as heat goes I have a wireless termo i put in the box, and a digital guage tells me the temperature and humidity. (homedepot$19.99). Just monitor your set up for a couple days under different conditions; lights on for few days (if 24hr), lights with no fans, no lights...ect. As far as putting an HPS in a small space like this, there would have to be ALOT of ventilation for it to be safe, hps's produce alot more heat. ****The top will have four twin t5 strips (8 light) The LST will be elevated all the way up the the top lights, with the mother beside it. Two fluoro's will run UP 2 side of the flowering plant. Someone just informed me im not using the right type of t5's. Make sure when you are buying lights you do more research then me. If you look at the pics from when i first got the clones, to where they are now, their doing great, but i will need to upgrade down the road.
can you please elaborate on your fans? im in desperate need of fans and im going to try to find ones like yours this week. where did u get them? how do you wire them safely? can you explain man? thankyou in advance man
Alright, so basically the fans are regular ol' computer fans, run by a regular ol' computer power supply. If your just running fans off the PS, a CHEAP 250-300w Power Supply will easily run as many fans as you need an never get hot. In fact i keep my fan PS in my grow box and it pumps cold air with next to no noise. As far as getting your hands on one, Kijiji or whatever your local online used-shit for sale website is, will have one for $15-20. Fan's are $5 a pop new. Here is the Power Supply. Everyone knows what the plug looks like for a computer, i'll explain all the other wires later. (image might need rotating) http://img714.imageshack.us/i/img0493p.jpg/ There are naturally no 'open' or 'cut' wires coming out of the ps, all the wires have a male or female plug. You need to get your hands on one of these so you can wire your plants to that plug, then safely plug and unplug it into the ps. If you have no intention of using the ps for anything else, or are just lazy, you can cut straight into the original ps wire and skip this step. Plug http://img687.imageshack.us/i/img0495is.jpg/ Now what you wanna do it grab your fan. If you bought a fan and it had a connector on the end that looks like the one above, congratulations your done. If not, chop off the adapter it comes with, you should have two wires. A power and a ground. Red is power, black/blue/white/the other wire is ground. http://img40.imageshack.us/i/img0494dn.jpg/ This is the plug for the fans (clear) plugged into the power supply (white one that says 'P5' on it) The wires go as follows: From top to bottom P5 Red Black Black Yellow Clear Adapter Red Black Black Yellow Your two wires from the fan are going to connect to two wires off the clear adapter. If you only want your fans on a light speed (as if they were in your computer normally) you can go ahead and wire the Red(power) wire from your fan to the YELLOW wire on your adapter. If you want your fans on HIGH connect the power from your fan to the RED wire. This provides a lot more juice and will run the fans Fasssttt, but they will most likely be loud as fuck. Read the next paragraph to learn how to make an easy switch. If your happy with one setting Connect the Ground wire from your fan to a black wire on the clear adapter. For an "out of the box switch" use a MALE red/white rca cable and chop off one end. exposing 2 wires in each cable. Only use 1 wire from each cable for this. connect the raw ends of the rca cables to the HIGH(red) and LOW(Yellow) power cables. Use a FEMALE more rca cable to connect to the power on the fan. You can now change the power connection from high to low. http://img23.imageshack.us/i/img0498do.jpg/ Alright, now the fans are hooked up. If you plug your power supply in and flip the switch (if it has one) you'll notice it doesn't turn 'on'. If it has a fan, it wont be moving, nor will it be providing power to your fans. Normally the motherboard on a computer would till the ps to provide power when you press the on button. To over ride this locate the Main power rail off the ps, it will look like this. http://www.quietpc.com/files/images/products/atx-20-24-pin-split-connector.jpg Cut the Green wire and a black wire, strip those fuckers and tie them together. This will cause the ps to turn on when its plugged in. If your ps doesn't have a switch, feel free to add one in between these wires. http://img80.imageshack.us/i/img0496r.jpg/ You can use almost any wiring as extension between the fan's, power supply and switches. Speaker wire, rca cables, or even the cables inside a network cable if your desperate. Hope this helps, i know a couple people have been looking for info on use of a computer power supply. Cheers
And if you wanted to do it without a computer power supply, you can splice a usb cable, attach the power and ground to a fan and plug the usb end into an iphone charger. If you can find a USB charger that plugs into the wall and has multiple ports, try that. A comp fan is 12V, one 5V iPhone wall charger (little white usb wall plug in cub thing) can run atleast 2 fans for decent ventilation. ***** RIGGGED
Very cool design and setup, one thing has me worried and thats the height. Those plants don't have a lot of room even with LST. I would consider if possible putting the chest on end so that you would try 1-2 plants but be able to grow them up. Otherwise you might be hitting your vertical limit rather quickly especially without autoflowering.
I actually thought about that, I have several boxes like this that look the same. I can cut the bottom out of the box im using, and the top off another one, and stack them. Each box stacked gets me just over a foot.