THE MAGMA CHAMBER – LED Coco Blumats Airpots T5 stealth cab

Entomology:​

The Magma Chamber [mag-muh cheym-ber] -noun: (1) a large underground pool of molten rock found beneath the surface of the Earth. (2) My cab with its molten red LED glow, in which the fuel for my Volcano grows fiery.

Im an unemployed engineer and have spent the past year (more?) thinking about my next grow space. My living arrangements prevented me from constructing, but silver lining, gave me a superfluous amount of time to plan, revise, and perfect my cabinet. EVERY component was scrutinized and redesigned several times. I present it below, and welcome your comments.

Modified 2 door cabinet found on craigslist for $40. Bonuses: previous owner made Cedar back which is much stronger than the original cardboard, adds significant structural support, and smells nice; OEM lock on the door; already flat white (except for the cedar, which was covered with white duct tape). Moving seams are light proofed with bicycle tires and super glue, static seams are light proofed with aluminum tape.


insert: Left original design, right modified design


Veg: 6 T5HO 24” 24W (2x 6500K 2x5000K 2x3000K (I wanted 4x 48” ones, but they did not fit in the space, would have been able to pull it off with some angles, but decided against it for effort and cleanliness. Then downsized to the 36” but they are a less standard size and are hard to find and thus more expensive. I am glad it worked out like this because I think the 24” are the best option anyway, providing great distribution and operating on 1 ballast).



Flowering: 27 630nm + 43 660nm LEDs (lost a few during instillation and troubleshooting, started with 28 and 48 respectively) mounted to individual heat sinks (sourced from broken Xboxs, (thank you RROD, hopefully what was inadequate for your cooling purposes will be sufficient for mine). 660nm LEDs are running at 400mA and consuming 30W (including driver) the 630s are running at 580mA and consuming 35W (including driver). All together the t5s and all the LEDs are consuming 195W



Those 2 that are missing from the 1st row 3rd from the right were causing the string to flicker, you test them like Christmas lights one at a time, shorting the string in the middle and working your way through. There are currently 5 that have been removed/ shorted for troubleshooting purposes.

Supplementing the LEDs are 4 T5s (6500K & 5000K) with aluminum tape reflectors and 2 T5’s (3000K) in canopy, attached to SCROG (no reflectors on these).



each the T5 fluorescents have their own dedicated cool tube, made out of a T12 protective plastic tube connected via a black sump pump hose (cheap black 1.5” diameter hosing) to forced air vents.



Air vents are made out of 1 gallon containers (one was steel from bulk tomatoes, and the other was a Nestle Quick with paperboard sides, and a steel bottom) with 6x 1.5” holes drilled into the bottoms.

Interior vents are molded with clay to divert the air from the sharp edges of the vent increasing efficiency, and reducing noise. (I actually did this wrong, the exhaust needs to be sculpted on the fan side down to a square hole, I will fix this after harvest, might take a few dB’s of the bottom line, which is already pretty low). It is important that both the inside of your air vents, and your tubing is black to prevent light from getting out (good bye stealth), or getting in (hello hermies).


vents attached to wall with original lids and electrical tape around edge

There is a simple aluminum tape reflector on each of the cool tubes. Initially they were ( V ) shaped inside the cool tubes using folded paper, but I realized that the fluorescent leads could short through the reflector so I scrapped it. A workaround would be to use nonconductive something (that won’t burn or melt) to levitate the bulbs. The bulbs are centered in the tubes with recycled metal wire salvaged from a used 5 subject notebook.


With and without reflector for comparison


Mechanism for floating bulbs - Recycled notebook wire and "14-16g AMP female disconnects" with the plastic removed (if I left the plastic on it would have also prevented shorting on the reflector, but would have been harder to connect and secure). The unhappy face is because this is one of the bulbs which was shorted by the reflector (have not noticed any detrimental effects to the bulb as a result).


Scraped design due to bulb shorting

The cab itself is exhausted by 1 80mm pc fan in the utility room pulling through a 5” carbon filter. All fans are adjustable via controller in utility room. The air intakes are passive and located on the rear kick plate of the cabinet. The air enters the area under the floor via 8 2.25” dia. Holes, it then travels through the cabinet floor via 5 3” dia holes, it then enters the ventilation room via 6 3” dia holes and through the 3” dia holes that the fans are attached to. The area under the cab is painted black and has a black bottom along the carpet (the extra shelves painted and cut) to prevent light leaks.

Medium:​

5x 0.8gal Airpots https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=166467
filled with Botanicare coco
watered via Blumats https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=111046&highlight=blumats
from gravity fed 5gal bucket in top space.



GH flora with H3ds 6/9 recipe.

Ladies:​

(name - strain - meaning (if known) - origin)
Tatyana – Train Wreck - Russian
Chinwe – Cheese – “God owns” - Igbo
Lilly – Lemon Skunk – “Lily flower” - English
Wren – White Rhino – “small bird” - English
Ginger – Great White Shark – “redish orange color” – English





-Soldering things this small is a PITA, even with a high quality soldering iron. Silver epoxy makes the job MUCH easier, and does not expose the LEDs to the heat stress of soldering; also good for securing wire copper tape connections.
-When connecting heat sinks together lay out wires and connect before screwing in, it creates a cleaner and better connection.
-redundantly reinforce the connections between wires and copper tape. When flipped upside down gravity pulls on wires and breaks connections.
-Reflectors shorting out bulbs (see above)
-Make cool tubes longer so that you can store the tubing in them allowing easy raising and lowering of lamp.
-Let the clay in the vents dry out slowly because otherwise they will crack (NBD if they do because you lather them with paint anyway).
-Want to figure out a drainage system for the bottom (currently no drain with the blumats, but would like the ability to flush).

Special thanks to KNNA for sourcing the LEDs and helping out a ton.
Special thanks to my buddy Citizen-S for all the soldering help.

ADDED 12/27/2010: And the results are in:

Chinwe: 37.6g

Tatyana: 27.5g

Lilly: 16.3g

Wren: 13g

Ginger: 19g

TOTAL: 113g = 4oz

.68 grams per watt

awesome is an understatement!

+k

wow. amazing design, you are way ahead of the curve. I love the idea with the clay to smooth out airflow. It's sad about the reflector shorting out, it was a really nice idea

wonderful engineering skills. reminds me of something I would build if I was a little bit smarter

Color me impressed!

A little more cab porn

I got a few questions, and I have a few more minor things to show you.

Here are all my stats on lighting, the top 3 graphs are the spectral distributions for each type of fluorescent. Beneath that are their lumen maintenance and survival stats. Below that is the spectral absorption for chlorophyll. On the right is a color temperature chart (not 100% on what this is trying to tell me, but it looks cool).


Here is the stats on my LEDs (except for the Golden Dragons, because there are only 4 of them), recall the SPNovas are running at 400mA, and the KNovas are running at 580mA.


Here is the layout and wiring diagram for the LEDs. The ones with X’s have been jumped or removed.


This setup seems ideal to try the Martian Method i.e. 24/12 http://www.treatingyourself.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=30203&highlight=Martian (feel like it is ok to post this since they are an IC sponsor), but I will probably wait to try it until next round, just in case something happens.

This is the utility room. Points of interest:
-Top right: fan speed controller to control each fan speed, need to get an infrared thermometer so that I can regulate the fluros temp to 95F (most efficient running temp for T5’s).
-Bottom left: Kill-A-Watt power meter for monitoring power consumption.
-Timer with orange splitter for lights, on 12/12
-Timer with blue buttons for air pump, on for 30min every 6hrs just to agitate reservoir, has a convenient switch for quick on to facilitate mixing when adding nutes. I figure between the Air Pots and the coco, that the plants are getting plenty of DO, and i do not need to constantly aerate the rez.
-Blue boxes: LED drivers
-Fluro ballast sitting on leftover and random heat sinks to dissipate heat.


Here is the reservoir. Points of intrest:
-Wrapped in Aluminum foil with duct tape for light proofing.
-Hanna PH and EC combo monitor with clean cable management.
-Red circle: adapter from Blumat patio box
-Yellow circle: air pump (on 30min/6hr)


Carbon filter, with divider to keep light away from nutes. Filter is simply flush mounted against back with L brackets and weather striping for sealant, with 80mm PC fan stuck inside.

Cooltubes are active on both ends, air intake on right, and exhaust on left (notice the arrow on the exhaust port, intake too). The tubes are secured into the vents with silicone.

great writeup and detailed pics.

I see your scythe fan controller I love those things...

I just installed a "kaze server" in my cab.

Thanks Stealth, i would love to be able to add a timer to the fan setup to be able to turn off the cool tube fans and the utility room fan when the lights/basalts are off, but I can not think of a way to do it while keeping the C-filter and air circulation (just below canopy) fans on. The only think I can think of is buying another AC-DC converter, and having one timed, and one always on, unless someone makes a DC timer which I could put between the Scythe controller and the fans

that is some seriously sick werk on that thing!!!
you have some beautiful concepts...keep it green!
grin

Looks great, best of luck with the maiden voyage,

ahhhavalanche! said:

Thanks Stealth, i would love to be able to add a timer to the fan setup to be able to turn off the cool tube fans and the utility room fan when the lights/basalts are off, but I can not think of a way to do it while keeping the C-filter and air circulation (just below canopy) fans on. The only think I can think of is buying another AC-DC converter, and having one timed, and one always on, unless someone makes a DC timer which I could put between the Scythe controller and the fans

Click to expand...

How about a relay with an AC coil? Feed the coil with AC from the same timer running your lights, with the SPST side of the relay interrupting the + supply of your cooltube fans.

looks really nice and clean! but how much do you realistically expect to get out of there? seems like a 400w hps, cool tube, 4" inline fan, and a tad bigger cabinet and your golden. I respect the challenge, but seems like a bunch of work, for a couple oz's

odium33 said:

looks really nice and clean! but how much do you realistically expect to get out of there? seems like a 400w hps, cool tube, 4" inline fan, and a tad bigger cabinet and your golden. I respect the challenge, but seems like a bunch of work, for a couple oz's

Click to expand...

he's an engineer...nuff said.

good luck man. how are you temps? cab is wonderfully designed

WoW I thought my shit was complicated. Very interesting I will keep an eye on this one.

odium33 said:

looks really nice and clean! but how much do you realistically expect to get out of there? seems like a 400w hps, cool tube, 4" inline fan, and a tad bigger cabinet and your golden. I respect the challenge, but seems like a bunch of work, for a couple oz's

Click to expand...

What do i expect to get out of this, some sick dank. I will refrain from making weight predictions because this is my first time with every element of this design (except for the GH nutes). I have gone the 400w (CMH, not HPS) route, and the helicopter of a fan I needed to stick in there was so loud i thought my cab might take off at any minute. This time around my cab is in my room, and if i had that fan screaming 24/7 I would probably go insane.

thehappyguy said:

he's an engineer...nuff said.

Click to expand...

In addition I am an environmental engineer, and I kills me that I need a coal motivated gro box when there is the free gigantic HPS in the sky, so every little watt I can axe is added to my carbon karma (even my pH meter is on a switch, so it is not sucking up juice while no one is looking at it).

thehappyguy said:

how are you temps?

Click to expand...

Temps are 2-5 above ambient. Now that winter is approaching and my apt is getting colder they are staying in the low to mid 70's

Nice setup! Ideas I have for you:
- small computer fans in between each LED group with air flow pointing down and a speed control. This will keep your leaves dancing in the wind and increase yield and temps down.
-- wire the LEDs with wire connectors so that they can be replaced if needed, modified or upgraded.
--- make more and sell them if you get good results.

The color diagram for your LED's might be related to the inverse square law, but I am just stabbing in the dark on that one.

How is the Hanna meter holding up for you?

:jawdrop:
stunning setup

raphenilweed said:

Nice setup! Ideas I have for you:
- small computer fans in between each LED group with air flow pointing down and a speed control. This will keep your leaves dancing in the wind and increase yield and temps down.
-- wire the LEDs with wire connectors so that they can be replaced if needed, modified or upgraded.
--- make more and sell them if you get good results.

The color diagram for your LED's might be related to the inverse square law, but I am just stabbing in the dark on that one.

How is the Hanna meter holding up for you?

Click to expand...

Thanks for stopping by raphenilweed:

-That would be a lot of fans, and an associated lot more wiring on the lamp. The LEDs dont give off much heat, so I am not having any heat problems (I will test sometime, but Ill bet without the fluros on (i.e during the Martian night, see Martian Method)I would be at ambient +1ish). I would like to at some point add a few fans to the underside of the lamp blowing laterally across the canopy. I do currently have 2 80mm fans on the floor pointing up to agitate the canopy and send the heat up towards the exhaust (wish there was some way to make them oscillate). My leaves are certainly not dancing, although I have been told that the plants have stripper names.

-- The contacts on the LEDs are PITA small and it would be next to impossible to connect them with anything besides copper tape. I have had to remove/replace a few during my trouble shooting phase and they are not that hard to remove (the only one I replaced started acting up and was later jumped, so I can not speak to that). To remove you either peel the LED + solder + epoxy off copper tape, or if that connection is too good, you can simply cut a section of copper tape and lay a new trace on top.

---I would love to be able to make and distribute these (you are not the first to suggest that), but I can not think of a way to do that, that is not obviously tied to my name and my illicit activities (im talking to you LEO, hope you can at least appreciate my set up too though). But just out of curiosity is there an interest in buying individual heat sink modules with LEDs and connections pre-attached? How much would people be willing to pay for those (they are almost $10 each with no included labor)?

The Hanna meter is actually borrowed from a friend, and he neglected the crap out of it. It was sitting in a box in the basement dry as a bone (for at least 6mo). I put it some water and calibrated it, and it was dead on somehow. Since I have been in possession of it, it has not had a dry moment, and it is doing awesome.

Also, thanks tricky, that was the emoticon Ive been waiting to get!

bonsai said:

Looks great, best of luck with the maiden voyage,



How about a relay with an AC coil? Feed the coil with AC from the same timer running your lights, with the SPST side of the relay interrupting the + supply of your cooltube fans.

Click to expand...

Thanks bonsai-
I really like that idea, I never thought about using a realy... Radioshack does not seem to have any AC relays, do you know where I would be able to find something like that (cheaply?)

Mouser or Digikey if you're in the USA, which I assume you are by the Radioshack reference.

have you considered a digital house thermostat as a dc timer? You can probably dig up a link that shows how to do it.

...also, the "kaze server" fan controller I got should be able to sense the temp difference of lights out and kick off my fans shortly after the lights go out..but I haven't tried it yet because of the interference I'm getting with the temperature probes vs. the e ballast.