Anti's MicroStealth Cab Design (Dr. Bud Method)

Notice above... the bottoms of the cabs are on arms so the shelves pull out for easy access to your ladies for watering, maintenance, or just re-arranging.

I intend to run this as a Dr. Bud style SOG so the ability to get to those rear plants easily seems worth the added expense of the drawer slides ($15 a pair at home depot for the 100 lbs. variety.)

Here's a side view:


The bottom:


Back Side:


Here's the flowering room so you can get an idea of things. Pretend that the plants on the right are bigger and near ready to harvest. Plants on left are newly rooted clones:




The base is framed 2x4s. The rest is 1/2" plywood (or whatever you please). I'm thinking the total cost on this thing will be less than $300, lights, fan & etc. included.

Love to hear your thoughts. This will be my first serious attempt at building an NGB style stealth cab.

WOW! I really like your design and you put alot of thought into it, I hope it works out great for you. My only suggestion would be to use the 42 Watt CFLs instead of the 27Watt bulbs and just use 6 per side totaling 252 Watts over 216 Watts for the 8 others. The added intensity of the bulbs will increase light penetration and bud density/production which is always good of course

Or you could use 8 of the 42's on one side and 4-6 on the other.....or use 42's for flowering and the 27's for mom/clone chamber. So many options, but if it were me, I would use 8 42's for flower and 4-6 42's for mom/clones.

Good luck with whatever you choose, if you can grow half as good as you can design, I'd say you are in for a sweet life full of green!

Very nice design u have there Anti, cant wait to see it when its all been put together and up and running.
I agree with agentsmith with regards to the light set up, but u have so many options im sure u will find what suits ur needs best.
Will u be doing a step by step account on the construction? as i for one would love to see it....Good luck with everythin

Looking good Anti,

Do you have the details worked out for ventilation yet or no? Is sound going to be an issue with you? Would you be interested in the quietest possible fan or would you prefer one that is a little louder, but easier to install?

The number one priority of my cabinet was stealth and I optimized it be as silent as possible. The particular fan I use is not an inline fan, but I think it could possibly work for your design.

Check out this thread and let me know what you think.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=45196&page=1&highlight=carbon+screen

Now there are inline fans like the S&Ps that would be easier to install with your setup, but they are said to be not as quiet.

I figured you'd might be interested in ultimate stealth after reading seeing how you plan to make it look like a CD rack.

Excellent design. I too am going with lower wattage cfl's and increasing the numbers. (10 23w for 230 watts) Check some of Thundurkle's threads, he has done experiments with lower wattage cfl's.

Your flower and mom chambers are the same size, maybe consider making the mom chamber less wide and adding that width to the flower chamber for increased yeild. Moms don't need much room, or light. I'm pulling up a chair...

Green Smoke said:

Your flower and mom chambers are the same size, maybe consider making the mom chamber less wide and adding that width to the flower chamber for increased yeild. Moms don't need much room, or light.

Click to expand...

+1 on that too

Really nice design Anti.
I second (or third) making your flower side bigger. Your girlz are going to double or triple in size during flower, and you will need all the space you can get there. Also, go with the 42w CFL's if you can, better penetration in my opinion.

The one thing I didn't see is how you are sealing it. I found this to be my most difficult issue. My cabinetry skills are not the greatest, and creating a tight seal around the door proved problematic. Ended up using weather stripping around both doors, and for a 007 touch, used magnetic locks to keep the seals tight. The door switches are hidden- one day I'll upgrade to a card swipe device, but for now it works pretty good.

I have the S&P (100 I think), and with a DIY carbon scrubber, I can barely hear it. Granted, I have a 6inch Vortex running in the closet next to it, so I might be a little biased..

Sketchup is awesome!

Here's a pic or two of my cab.

closed up


Lights on, flower side


Both sides

Agent-Smith said:

My only suggestion would be to use the 42 Watt CFLs instead of the 27Watt bulbs and just use 6 per side totaling 252 Watts over 216 Watts for the 8 others. The added intensity of the bulbs will increase light penetration and bud density/production which is always good of course

Click to expand...

I had designed an entirely different cabinet when I discovered Dr. Bud. After seeing what he achieved, and then seeing Thundurkel manage similar results, I decided I'd do it Dr. Bud style. Prior to that, my goal was to have a 150w MH for veg and a 150 MH + 250 HPS for flowering in a bigger box.

For those not aware, Dr. Bud had a 2.7 sq ft cab that was lit solely by 5 - 42 watt CFLs. There were two reasons I decided against doing exactly what Dr. Bud did in his grow.

#1 - His cab was about 1ft deep, 2.7ft wide... this meant that a light mounted to the rear wall of the cab with a penetration of 1 ft would be able to cover the entire floorspace beneath it. Since mine is closer to square (17.5" by 16.5") I wanted a way of making sure the bulbs filled the space in such a way as to minimize or eliminate hot and cold spots. I can't figure out a good way to place 5 bulbs horizontally in the cabinet. Placing 8 is very easy, and should allow for excellent coverage.

#2 - In my two months of daily reading on this site, I came across a few CFL growers who asserted that anything above 27w in a CFL will produce more heat than lumens. So it seems to me a smart idea to use an equivelent number of watts in 27w bulbs. That way, wattage is the same, coverage should be better and heat should be less of an issue.

Agent-Smith said:

Or you could use 8 of the 42's on one side and 4-6 on the other.....or use 42's for flowering and the 27's for mom/clone chamber. So many options, but if it were me, I would use 8 42's for flower and 4-6 42's for mom/clones.

Click to expand...

I'm a little afraid of using different wattage on different sides, unless I were to use two fans, two scrubbers. Maybe someone can tell me if I'm incorrect in my assumption, but my general fear is that if I have, say (8) 42w bulbs in one (336w) and (8) 27w in the other (216w), the temperatures between the two cabs may fluctuate if they're both using the same fan. If anyone can tell me different, I'd be happy to hear it!

Agent-Smith said:

Good luck with whatever you choose, if you can grow half as good as you can design, I'd say you are in for a sweet life full of green!

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot bro. Here's hopin'.

JamrockJay said:

Will u be doing a step by step account on the construction? as i for one would love to see it....Good luck with everythin

Click to expand...

Yeah. It may be a week or two before actual construction begins. Wanna make sure I've answered every potential design issue before I start spending money. But yeah, I'll totally document the build. Thanks.

catman said:

Looking good Anti,

Do you have the details worked out for ventilation yet or no? Is sound going to be an issue with you? Would you be interested in the quietest possible fan or would you prefer one that is a little louder, but easier to install?

The number one priority of my cabinet was stealth and I optimized it be as silent as possible. The particular fan I use is not an inline fan, but I think it could possibly work for your design.

Check out this thread and let me know what you think.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=45196&page=1&highlight=carbon+screen

Click to expand...

Looks pretty awesome! I was looking at fart fans at Home Depot. They had something that was close to 80 CFM. I think it might work just fine, honestly. Here's my fan math:

mother room
23" tall x 17.5" deep x 16.5" wide
1.91' t x 1.46' d x 1.38' w = 3.85 cubic ft

flower room
23" tall x 17.5" deep x 16.5" wide
1.91' t x 1.46' d x 1.38' w = 3.85 cubic ft

intake/drying room
23" tall x 17.5" deep x 11" wide
1.91' t x 1.46' d x 0.92' w = 2.57 cubic ft
___________
10.27 cubic feet total

With all three chambers totalling only 10.27 cubic feet, it seems to me that even a 80 CFM fan ought to easily do the job. If I'm shooting for 5 complete air-changes per minute, that's 10.27 x 5 = 51.35 CFM. Once you figure in the scrubber, 80 should be able to handle that comfortably, right?

Thoughts?

Now there are inline fans like the S&Ps that would be easier to install with your setup, but they are said to be not as quiet.

I figured you'd might be interested in ultimate stealth after reading seeing how you plan to make it look like a CD rack.

Click to expand...

You figured right, my friend. Your Panasonic Whisper Fan looks like it could be just the thing I need. Stealth is the #1 goal of this project. It's going to be in a room with two computers and a ton of multimedia gear, so if it's as quiet as a computer fan, I don't think anyone'll ever notice.

I appreciate the suggestion.

re: Adding width to flower room

re: Adding width to flower room

Green Smoke said:

Excellent design. I too am going with lower wattage cfl's and increasing the numbers. (10 23w for 230 watts) Check some of Thundurkle's threads, he has done experiments with lower wattage cfl's.

Click to expand...

Oh yes. I'm all over Thundurkle's grow. He's the one who convinced me, honestly. I read the Dr. Bud stuff. I mean, I read every post in those old Dr. Bud threads... and took notes. And in there, Thund shows up and says "here's some pics of what I'm doing" and I was like, "Ok... If the horticultural PhD guy can achieve something that's one thing, but here's this other guy using the method on a low budget and getting gorgeous looking colas on his first try? I'M DOING THAT!!!!" (So Thund.... whereever you are at the moment... kudos to you, buddy.)

Green Smoke said:

Your flower and mom chambers are the same size, maybe consider making the mom chamber less wide and adding that width to the flower chamber for increased yeild. Moms don't need much room, or light. I'm pulling up a chair...

Click to expand...

Thought about that. Here's why I'm not doing it:

Dr Bud's grow was 36 plants in a 2.7 sq ft space. Avg plant density of 16 per foot.

I'm working with slightly less real estate. (2.015) sq ft.
I'm planning on using a soil container that is slightly less than 3" square. (It's a 32 ounce wax paper half & half container, with the top cut off so it'll be roughly 2.75" l x 2.75" w x 8" t. I can fit approximately 25-30 of them in a 15" x 15" square.

If I put 5 clones in the box every week and harvest 5 plantlets at an average of 5g each, dried and cured (Dr. Bud was around 8.5g each) that'd leave me with 25 g a week. Almost an ounce a week? That'll hold me fine, just fine. Why go bigger? Of course, it will take a little longer the first round, since I'll have to grow some plants from seed. Got some Serious AK47 beans I've been holding for a while. Gonna throw 'em in (with random "good" bag seeds) as soon as it's ready to roll.

No point in growing more than I need. Not gonna sell it. Not gonna talk about it. Just gonna smoke it and smile and stop paying for it.

I want a decent sized mother cab because I'm gonna be cutting at least 12 clones a week and I'll need room to veg them til they hit their "sweet spot". (anybody happen to know the sweet spot for ak47? save me a lil effort?

Ideally, I'll eventually have 6 or more mothers in the mom cab so I can harvest a different strain each week. Variety being the spice of life.

Much love! Thank you for your support!

strydr said:

Really nice design Anti.
I second (or third) making your flower side bigger. Your girlz are going to double or triple in size during flower, and you will need all the space you can get there. Also, go with the 42w CFL's if you can, better penetration in my opinion.

Click to expand...

The bulbs are going to be hanging around 11.5" from the top of the soil. If lumen measurements on box are at 1 ft distance from bulb, every inch of my cabinet will be within that 12" footprint. No portion of the canopy will be more than 11.5" from any given light... even at soil level.
The idea - at least as I understand - in the Dr Bud method is to encourage your plantlet -- which has been vegged only long enough for the plant to reach the sweet spot, aka the spot you've discovered by experimentation to be the perfect height for the plantlet to finish within a few inches of the bulbs -- to stretch and thereby end up with a stick of weed with only minimal lateral branching. The idea is to grow in a perpetual SOG so that I'll be harvesting 5-6 budsicles a week that require very little trimming before being whisked into the drying room.

The one thing I didn't see is how you are sealing it. I found this to be my most difficult issue. My cabinetry skills are not the greatest, and creating a tight seal around the door proved problematic. Ended up using weather stripping around both doors, and for a 007 touch, used magnetic locks to keep the seals tight. The door switches are hidden- one day I'll upgrade to a card swipe device, but for now it works pretty good.

I have the S&P (100 I think), and with a DIY carbon scrubber, I can barely hear it. Granted, I have a 6inch Vortex running in the closet next to it, so I might be a little biased..

Click to expand...

Well, my plan for sealing it is pretty much what you just described. I was looking at the totlocks. Is that the brand you use or did you go with something else? I'm also planning to glue and screw the cabinet together as I go, and then caulk the seams after painting.

Haven't decided yet if I'm going to use individual doors for each room or just make one big panel that comes off with the magnetic locks. I'm thinking I should be able to time things so that I just check my plants at a certain time each day and arrange for my 18 and 12 cycles to be overlapping at that point every day. So I'll know my window for working... any thoughts?

I know 3 doors would be more convenient, but I think if anyone was to look back there and see three seams, they might wonder what was behind that seam... if they see one big piece... it looks like the back of a cabinet.

Haven't got an answer yet.

Here's a pic or two of my cab.

closed up


Lights on, flower side


Both sides

Click to expand...

Your plants look very lush. I'm jealous. I'm still months away from a harvest. Sigh.

And here is my flowering room with T vent and 300 cfm T&D handling 2x600 hps with 60% of full power

Sweet design and illustrations.

Ezgo

Are those cooltubes? unless you have air flowing through them, they will just trap hot air and radiate heat. You would be better off bare bulbs, allowing the heat to rise to the top of the cab and be pulled out the exhaust holes. If they are not cooltubes and just representative of the bulb ignore what I just typed haha.

I'd reconsider your ventilation setup almost entirely. Pull through the carbon...it will be more efficient. Blow the hot air out of the cab as directly as possible. With your current design, warm air will just sit in the box elevating its temperature. The through-wall airflow is good, but you go from 2 slot intakes that looks to be at least 12"x1" to five 1" diameter exhaust holes, 3.9sq inches total per side. The ports surface area should remain about the same through out....never going below the port size of the fan your using. I'd go with more and larger holes for the exhaust above the lights.

About your drying room. Airflow will be high and buds will dry out in a couple days do you really need that much volume for your drying room? Wouldnt the space be better served for as additional flowering space?

If you have more wattage running in the flowering side, you account for it by giving that side larger ports for exhaust and intake. And as a last ditch effort you can partially block ports of the opposing side to force airflow through the warmer side.

I cant really think of anything else at the moment....sorry if this came off a little blunt, I'm just too tired to think happy thoughts right now. Plus I'd really hate for you to do all that work and then have to start drilling holes because its getting too warm. I know that feeling all too well.

Anti - The Panasonic Whisper Is your ticket just like it was mine! The version I have has a variable speed DC motor that automatically increases RPM when static pressure is presented (up to .25 static pressure) so that the fan will still move its rated CFM! If you are going to commit to this expect to pay about $100-140 for the fan and maybe only $30 in supplies to make the DIY carbon tray (included cost of carbon too). I was on a budget for my grow, but because I had my priorities straight, I never skimp on security. I'd feel pretty dumb sitting in a cell knowing I could have shelled out an extra $80 bucks to have avoided it. What are the odds the extra benefits could save ya... I'd agree it is ridiculously low, but still the consequence is almost as extremely undesirable on the other end of the spectrum and its 80 bucks to a just for a little amount of peace of mind. I have a 120mm Silverstone brand 110 (or 120) CFM 12V DC and when I dial it to what I suspect is 80CFM. It is much louder than my 80CFM Whisper. If I didn't have my PC to drown the noise I could make a muffler. My point is if you really want quit, you have some designing work to do and stick to your guns as there are down sides to purchasing this fan to say the S&P mix vent fans.

Patterson- I'm not going to even express an opinion on your setup (I haven't studied it to know), but I do know you would have what Micro growers consider to be a "jet engine noise coming from the cab/closet." Most of what you had said is irrelevant to the Micro style and feel most here would agree. I'd imagine you get some great yields and quality with that so I am by no means criticizing your design, but it would simply be way, way too loud. I know those S&P are rather quiet compared to In-lines, but you still can't move 250-300 CFM without hearing it without a muffler. My cabinet sits 3 feet from my computer and my PC with 1 120mm, 2 80m, and 1 92m easily drowns to the sound of it where I could have my cab in my closet behind the closing doors and would let anyone use my PC. They can't hear a damn thing!

Peanut Butter said:

Are those cooltubes? unless you have air flowing through them, they will just trap hot air and radiate heat. You would be better off bare bulbs, allowing the heat to rise to the top of the cab and be pulled out the exhaust holes. If they are not cooltubes and just representative of the bulb ignore what I just typed haha.

Click to expand...

Yeah. It'd be too hard to try to render accurate looking CFLs, so I just went for the right size. Those are bare bulbs, not cooltubes.

I'd reconsider your ventilation setup almost entirely. Pull through the carbon...it will be more efficient. Blow the hot air out of the cab as directly as possible. With your current design, warm air will just sit in the box elevating its temperature.

Click to expand...

One thing I was considering was building a DIY carbon filter that could go in the space between the exhaust holes for each room and the room above. That way, the fan could be mounted in the upper room and the filter could be directly below it.

The through-wall airflow is good, but you go from 2 slot intakes that looks to be at least 12"x1" to five 1" diameter exhaust holes, 3.9sq inches total per side. The ports surface area should remain about the same through out....never going below the port size of the fan your using. I'd go with more and larger holes for the exhaust above the lights.

Click to expand...

Most of the threads here suggest having at LEAST double the passive intake that you have in exhaust. Since my exhaust is ultimately a 4" circular hole, I put (5) 1" holes in the top. Just figured that having the holes evenly spaced around the top of the cab would allow for uniform heat transfer with minimum LUMEN loss because of light escaping through the holes. So having more intake than exhaust has never been mentioned as a problem on anything I've read. Anybody else think that this is an issue?

About your drying room. Airflow will be high and buds will dry out in a couple days do you really need that much volume for your drying room? Wouldnt the space be better served for as additional flowering space?

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I'm going to be running staggered perpetual SOG harvest. So each week I'll be pulling buds out and putting more in. The original purpose of the drying room was simply to put some space between the two lit cabs because they'd be generating heat and I didn't want them sharing a common wall. The size of the flowering room is based on Dr. Bud's cab, which was 2.7sq ft with 36 plantlets in staggered perpSOG. This chamber is 2.01 sq ft and I'm planning on 25-30 plantlets. Bigger just means more watts, more plants, more time. If I can get 5g per plantlet, 5-6 plants a week, I'll be sitting on about an ounce a week. That'll more than supply my needs.

I cant really think of anything else at the moment....sorry if this came off a little blunt, I'm just too tired to think happy thoughts right now. Plus I'd really hate for you to do all that work and then have to start drilling holes because its getting too warm. I know that feeling all too well.

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I appreciate the input. Blunt doesn't bother me a bit. Rather hear what people are really thinking. Thanks for your suggestions.

Anti said:

Rather hear what people are really thinking.

Click to expand...

I think night baseball is a commie plot.

Oh, yeah, nice cab.

Has anybody else heard of this "27w threshold"? I could build it with 6 42 watters if people don't think it would create a heat-stress environment.

Because of the stealth nature of this cab, I think something more along the lines of those whisper fans would be best, unless of course someone can show me a way to reliably muffle the sound of a megawatt high CFL inline.

The top chamber where it'll vent the fan could be partitioned and soundproofed, but I assume that doing this will increase the workload of the fan.

Anybody else got an opinion on this issue?

Has anybody else heard of this "27w threshold"? I could build it with 6 42 watters if people don't think it would create a heat-stress environment.

--I've read through Dr. Bud's threads (That's what inspired me to build my cab), and I believe he was using the 42 watt CFL's in his flower box. If you are following his method, why change the lights? The nice thing about using a bunch of CFL's is you can always unscrew a bulb if things get too hot. Also, you could run a mixed spectrum and fine tune your environment.

Because of the stealth nature of this cab, I think something more along the lines of those whisper fans would be best, unless of course someone can show me a way to reliably muffle the sound of a megawatt high CFL inline.

--No experience with the panasonic fans, but my S&P100 is pretty quiet. With a DIY scrubber, some insulation, and a stealth install, I really can't hear it (I sleep with it 5 feet away). Granted, I have other things making noise in my room, but out of all the fans running, it is the quietest. I think with some R&D, you could make it practically silent.

The top chamber where it'll vent the fan could be partitioned and soundproofed, but I assume that doing this will increase the workload of the fan.

--There's two types of noise from a fan. The sound of the motor, and the sound of the air. You can quiet the motor with insulation, speed control, and location. The air should be diffused to quiet it down. Yes, any extra routing or filtering will provide backpressure on your fan, increasing the workload. I would suggest buying a fan that is more powerful than you need, and slowing it down. Since you are building this into your cab, and probably don't want to rebuild it any time soon, overbuilding it a bit is better than underbuilding it..

Anybody else got an opinion on this issue?

Anti said:

I think something more along the lines of those whisper fans would be best, unless of course someone can show me a way to reliably muffle the sound of a megawatt high CFL inline.

Click to expand...

If you've any interest in stealth, no inline for you.

Check through this Great Inline Fans (S&P) and know that, Whisper or S&P, there WILL be noise. Can't speak for the Whisper but, I just got my S&P 100X and it's noise level can be dealt with. Start thinking now about how to deal with yours. Overpower it with something else or, as I'm trying to get back to, find the noise a patsy. Oh, it's a: Freezer, Aquarium, PlayStation, Computer Server, Hepa Filter ... "Show" them the noise and it disappears.