An Introduction of a Genius.

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Hey joe! 3town doesn't visit these boards anymore, he found it kinda boring, just not his thing, I like this place myself, but to each his own.

Neither of us grow indoors at the moment, I think it will be a long time until I seriously grow indoors again. I am putting my energy more into outdoor growing. But who knows, 3town might be back if he starts growing again.

The beast is silent, and partialy disassembled, maybe he will live again, in a new setting, but for now he is sleeping on his side, in storage.

Thanks for following the thread!

 

[Ordinary Joe]

Backcountry, what a shame that box has been mothballed. I really liked it. Infact, I liked it so much I thought of some improvements that might help someone if they decided to build it.

Here it is, if you don't mind. I used your artistic rendering.

1st, instead of a complete box for the filter unit. Just build a bottomless box to sit on top of the grow/flower chamber. It would save wood and you wouldn't have to worry about lining up the cut outs for the filters.

Next, place the bathfan in the filter unit and vent straight out. Now the vent hose is not needed and the heat from the lamp goes straight up.

Third, replace the ABS 2" pipe and elbows with a 8" by 8" Darkroom vent. The cost would go up, they run around $20 bucks and you would have to mail order them. Not cheap and not at your local home improvement store.



I must say, Backcountry, I have a new appreciation for you and anyone else who builds a thread like this. I used "Paint" to make my changes and it was very time consuming and really a pain in the ass if you don't know how to use it. I got the hang of it about three minutes before I was thru. Using the magnifying feature and copy/paste makes it much easier.

Pull that thing out of the garage and grow some basil, green onions, oregano, and pot. Let it be your pizza topping grow box.

Let me know what you think about my ideas: pros/cons.

Edit: How long did that Cat litter hold up? I just packed some in my filter and wanted to know when it would crap out. Heh hee. Litter, crap out.

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Hey joe!
The main problem I see is that you have changed the flow of air through the cab, basicly you have eliminated the nice smooth flow of air from the lower front to the upper back like in my cab(follow the blue and red arrows), and your "in" vent is to high in the cab.

The main reason my cab was designed like this began with my desire to have the Bath fan on the back wall, rather than right in front of my face, also I needed a way to have a light trap, so thats why mine is designed the way I did.

As for the filter, the reason it appears to be overbuilt and backwards is again, a need to accomodate air flow. It was built so that the air flows down through the Carbon, insted of up. I did this to prevent the flowing air from blowing the carbon arround inside the filter element, and to prevent it from creating air gaps as a side affect, do you get me there?

Positioning the fan where I have it puts alot of sound abbsorbing materials between the fan and the exaust, you really couldn't hear much fan noise at all. Where you have it, it will be quite noticable. Also the darkroom vent does not provide much surface area to control sound in the opposite direction.

I'm not saying your design couldn't work, I'm just showing you why some of the quirky things about my cab were done, and why in my opinion, changing them would not be a improvment at all. There is a method to my madness!

PS-We never got a fair test of the kitty litter done, the second beast was never completed enough to get it nice and sealed up. My personal preference would be to just use the Carbon insted, and know it will work.

 

[Ordinary Joe]

OKay, now I have a better understanding of the Madness. I wasn't taking into account the sound that the bath fan would put out and the need to keep it quiet in an apartment. The cheap fans ($13.00) are quite noisy by themselves. The closer the fan is to the vents, the more noise would exit the box. You hung the fan in midair to keep the vent from vibrating the cabinet, didn't you?

I don't grabst the carbon floating around between the filters. If it is a solid layer, I doubt it would go anywhere. Just my thoughts.

With the fan in the same area as the plants, it would stir up the air. My design would just draw the air upward. The vent could be moved lower but it would not stir the air, just replace it.

I made a blowup of the filter box. Is this the way looks with the gap underneath?




Oh, did 3town ever get that USB cable he kept talking about?

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

The Carbon scrubber is based on plans found in the GrowFaqs on OG.
One furnace filter element is placed on a flat surface, then a second stacked on that with a layer of Activated Carbon poured on it. The third filter element is placed on that one, also with a layer of carbon, the fourth element is placed ontop of that. Now the filter elements are taped together with Foil tape.

The Furnace elements are then placed in its compartment inside the carbon scubber box, the side panel is replaced, and sealed. Ready for action! Air is blown up from the bathroom fan, through a duct, and into the Carbon scrubber compartment, where it exits the back of the box, after flowing through the activated carbon.

So far temps are staying in the mid-low 70f range with the light on, I hope my new air cooled hood will alow me to keep the temps low with 2 150s running at once.

The carbon is not a solid layer, it is a layer about 3-4 grains deep, with air gaps between the filter elements.

The idea is to keep things as loose and under compacted as possible, to allow for maximum airflow, if things were tightly sandwiched together your fans ability to exaust air will be greatly diminished.

Its called a low pressure scrubber, its whole design is to reduce air pressure and make more efficent use of the exaust fans abilities.

Rather than using more powerfull and possibly noisy fans to force air through denser, smaller scubbers, you use a weaker cheeper fan to blow through a larger, less dense scrubber.

As such , I prefer to let my exaust air get slower and more difused over a larger area before it hits the carbon, so the air current doesn't find (and widen over time) easy gaps between the loosly layered carbon.

I was not aware of the fan stirring up any air in this cab, it pretty much sucked the air straight out.

Another reason I used the long pipes as vents was not just to act as a light trap, but also to help slow the flow of stinky air back out of the cab.
I'm not sure I could trust that darkroom vent.

Yes, your graphic looks exactly like my scrubber.

This box was designed to be used in a small appartment, it had to be hidden, quiet, scentless, and capable of providing enough for 2 stoners Thats what I designed it to do, and basicly thats what it did. One of the few bright spots in my cultivation career.

Given the chance to have a bit more privacy, 3town will probably be able to grow in a less retrictive maner, and not be restricted to a box in the closet. Myself, I like to grow outside in the wilderness, if I grew indoors, the carbon filter would probably be tighter and driven by a bigger, louder fan, or not used at all, considering I live in the country and my nearest neighbor is nearly a half mile away. Security is a ruling factor in Marijuana cultivation indoors and out.

If you decide to build a box, please let me know, I'd like to see it. By the way, what are you living conditions? What kind of dwelling would your box reside in?

I'm sure you would do well, even if your blueprints don't agree with mine, I'm sure you will find your own ways.

 

[Frogger]

The grow box looks great how much buds you guy’s getting ?

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

Frogger-The box has been shut down since mid-summer. In 3 harvests we averaged a little more than 3 Oz each(harvest), so about 1 Oz per square foot. I think if we had used scrog, we could have pushed that to 4 Oz per harvest.

 

[Frogger]

BC.. thanks for the info.

 

[teddybud]

thanks for this wonderful thread it is helping me greatly with coming up with a new indoor covert grow

 

[guest5703]

oh sick BC i didn't know you guys were running indoor too! good shit man i love that mix you made of the organic. Someday I won't be lazy and i'll try to make my own mix. Until then...straight coco! Good luck with your second grow guys. PEACE!

 

[BACKCOUNTRY]

thanks for this wonderful thread it is helping me greatly with coming up with a new indoor covert grow

No problem, inspiration for others is why we posted this thread.

oh sick BC i didn't know you guys were running indoor too! good shit man i love that mix you made of the organic......

Its not running anymore, but it was fun while we did it. Be carefull how rich you make your mix, ours was too strong we believe, the plants did horrible that crop. The earlier mixes used regular peat/perlite and were fed with Miracle grow.

 

[Ordinary Joe]

I love this thread, simple but very effective design. I wish those boxes were still in operation.

Bump, Bump, Bump!