Alright i was thinking a box the size of 4' deep 4' wide and 5' tall. the extra height gives me a better way to hang the light without sacrificing too much grow space.. The light i bought was a 300watt led(manufacturarers say its good for flowering and vegging) they say its optimal for a 3' by 3' area so if i use 5 gallon pots(approx 12inch tall) Ill have the 3x3 area covered while the extra 6inches on each side give room for fanning and work space. I have a 190 cfm exhaust carbon filter combo. the box would be 80cubic feet. so thats roughly 2.3x the air is being withdrawn out. i would use soil as the grow medium and line the sides with mylar. i have a timer that would be positioned on the outside of the box. Questions i have include. What should the box be made of? Is this a decent setup? What am i missing?
I built a box on my first build, 4x4x6' out of osb sheeting. It works really well but honestly i like my new tent better than the box.
Is this a decent set up? Ummm, not really if I'm honest. There are a few problems. Most 300w LEDs actually use 150-170watts. That is something you should find out. If that's the case it will cover a 2'x2' area. So you would want 4 of those lights to cover that 4'x4' area. Now I know you said you will only use 3'x3' of it. But it doesn't work like that because you rely on the reflected light to make up the difference at the border. So your reflective walls would need to be at 3'x3', if your light was up to the job. 5' of height is not good if you have enough light to cover a 4'x4' area. You are likely to have heat problems and run out of height pretty quickly. Cfm ratings on fans are worthless. They don't take in to consideration the ducting, filter, and height of the set up. If I were you I would work out what you can afford to spend, or how much bud you want and buy a light and tent of suitable size. It's important to get the foundations of your set up correct otherwise you will be fighting problems all the time You could grow a plant in your proposed set up, but it won't be very efficient. If you have 4'x4' space to grow in, you could get a lot more bud with more height and more light. If you're going to use a 150w LED you may as well just use a 2'x2' area, but still give yourself as much height as you possibly can
If you make it a little taller and put a 600 watt HID in there it would definitely improve the yield.