Not new to growing plants, but ganja yes. I've been browsing many different forums, reading, collecting ideas. I suppose I decided to grow in a computer case simply because of the size. I'm sure I could grow some fine buds in a nice Rubbermaid trash can but that would be a bit unsightly in my 1 bedroom. So I got a couple of clones from a friend of mine. As you can tell, I didn't read the how-to on rooting clones. These pictures were taken after 24 hours. I setup a slow drip irrigation system on the clones to keep the soil at a specific moisture level. I don't have any scientific measurement for this, but 1 drip of water every 5 seconds seems to do pretty good. I have a couple of bag seeds in smaller cups with soil to see if they germinate. I'm running 4 26 Watt (100 watt equiv) 6500 K cfl on a 24 hr cycle at the moment. Temperatures seem to stay right about 80 F near the plants. Wish me luck!
niceee setup really diggin it! the lights are adjustable with ropes, are you gonna flower in their too? i think you can do scrog and i want to know, how are you wiring all the those fans together? i have 3 fans also, but i dont wanna wire each of them to their own charger.
@Bongsauce: I assembled everything and bought most of it at wally world. The case was a bitchin antec that I really had to convince myself to chop up. Luckily, all the drive bays and stuff where riveted into place so I only had to take my drill to it. I could reassemble it in the future but eh. Thank you for the compliment sir! @swishers: Yes sir, I thought the ropes would work well for adaptability. I will probably add magnets to mount them sideways when they get bigger. Luckily the case had some small holes at the top that had enough tension to hold the rope + lights in place. The rope is basically parachute cord from a surplus store. The fan wiring is done by myself. I attached an image of the basic wiring layout. I will probably gut the wiring soon so I can run it along the top of the case to get it out of site. I may add switches for each fan. For the wiring, basically you are connecting all the positives together and all the negatives. You also need to take into the account the amperage draw of each fan since they are basically going to be running at full speed in this basic setup. So in this configuration, each fan draws 100 ma. The power supply is rated at 500 ma. 4 Fans x 100 ma each = 400 ma; right within spec for a 500ma transformer. If the transformer did not have enough ma for each fan combined, then the fans would run slower and this could potentially do bad things to the transformer (read: FIRE). If the fan has a yellow wire, ignore it. That is for speed control by pc motherboard. You should be able to find transformers at thrift stores and goodwill for like $2. I checked all my thrift stores though I could not find a 12v solution and so I had to buy it at radioshack. $20 for the lose. Let me know if you need additional info and I can take some photos or something. I will most likely be flowering in this box as well. That is unless the two bag seeds sprout, the clones live, and these few other seeds I have soaking sprout and live as well. Thanks for the comments guys!
thanks for the explanation, still kinda confused. Sorry i'm relatively new to electrical aspect of things, my setup will be 3 fans i took off some old pcs they are 12V each and 0.25A .. so as an example that is 36V along with .75A? i'm not sure if its ma or A, it says A on my fan. i dont think they are the same... lol ..then i would get a transformer thats around 1A and do everything like your pic i presume? Can't wait to see what your baby grows up to be keep me posted!
@swishers: Ok, I took some more pictures of my wiring. So where to start... .25 A = 250 mA A is for Amp and mA is for milliamp (Thousandth of an amp). I won't go into depth on electronics but Ill explain this setup. When you wire stuff in parallel, meaning that you simply connected like colors together (all negatives wired to each other and all positives wired to each other) the voltage requirement does NOT increase. The Amp requirement increases. So in your example, you are correct on the .75 Amp. You do not need 36 Volts however, only 12. A 36 volt transformer would surely smoke your fans. In conclusion, you could buy a 12 V .75A transformer, or you could get a 12V 750 mA transformer. Both are the same. Now, you could get one that is like 1.5 A (1500 mA) and you would be fine. You would simply have more amps available to additional electronics. Edit: I do not claim to be an electrician. Proceed at your own risk! I can claim that this is working for me though. Here is a pic of the clones as of this morning. They look a bit rough but I think they will make it. Thoughts?
Thanks alot man! and yes no fires will be great haha. Um as for the plants, they look a bit droopy, how far away from the lights are they? might consider raising them? are you giving them nutes as well?
I haven't given them any nutes yet. Was thinking about it but that's as far as I got. I was afraid they were too fragile. I was going to start them with Bonnie Herb and Plant food. Should I start them now? I clipped these clones on this past 4th, immediately treated them with Bontone Rooting powder and planted them in my soil medium. I didn't clip them in the exact correct fashion, meaning I didn't cut it at right below a leaf node and then trim off the node. I did slice it diagonal with a razor blade I sterilized with a torch at least. Right now the lights are about 6 inches away. Looks like the temp at the plants is about 84 F. I was thinking about reworking the airflow and directing over the lights to increase cooling. Thoughts?
whoa my post disappeared in the matrix.. I'd actually only be using one of the lights for clones and keeping it far away...clones need lowlight..to much will kill them before they root.
So I moved the lights as far up as possible using the rope system. I am going to go get some high powered magnets to mount to the power/light strip so I can stand it on its side at the top of the case. I also took out two lights. Turned on the ac too! It's 101 outside. I am going to start running a 23/1 light schedule to give them a short break during the day. I think I may settle on a 22/2 schedule if they get healthy. Thoughts?
Nice set up but you only have 104 actual watts. I would only do 1 plant in there and scrog it. If you can add 2 bulbs for each socket, 2 plants would do good.
Since these are clones, I recommend increasing humidity..They need a good 80%+ to get good rooting and lighting isn't all that necessary. If you give them too much light, they focus on trying to grow foliage rather than roots. My previous clones drooped as well until I put them under the humidity dome. Perked right up once I gave them a good spray of pH corrected water and covered them with the dome.
I wonder what the easiest way to add a dome to those cups would be... I'll go look for clear plastic cups today. Any other ideas?
the bottoms of water bottles work great ...the tops too..then you can remove the lid to let em breathe too.
So I made some tents for the clones using saran wrap and a rubber band. Well that lasted all but 5 minutes. I decided to use a ziploc bag. Seems to be working gooood. The clones perked up once I removed the second light and added the bags. I also redesigned the cooling system. Also JB Welded some magnets to the power strip so now I have LOTS of options as to where to put it in relation to the plants. Here's some pics! I picture of the box in low light. Overview: Optional light placement: New exhaust port (2 fans 1 port): Fan Inlet 1 (Single fan): Fan Inlet 2 (Single fan): I should mention that there are two inlet fans. They are separated in the ducting so one uses inlet 1 and one uses inlet 2. The girls in their tents: Thanks for the comments, help, and opinions so far!!!!
cool man, smart move with the ziplocks... IME if they stay nice and crisp there's a good chance they'll root. Once they start to root you might start to see some yellowing appear..at that point you can make a couple snips in the baggie to start weening them off of humidity..