ANTI - I have to say I am impressed with ur setup, very innovative, efficient, and ECONOMIC!!! I am interested in starting a cfl grow of my own. I have been researching cfl setups for a week or two and yours seems top notch for sure. I am debating between the 27w cfl's and the 42w cfl's, i will probably have more than one flower room to try this out in, so thinking about experimenting with both(seperately). What should determine my decision; heat? size of box? strain?DESIGN! BUILD! GROW!This thread describes the design, construction and initial harvest of a STEALTH MICRO CABINET utilizing 125w of CFL per sq. ft.
In the following pages you will find pictures and detailed descriptions of the whole process, including the build of the cab, parts list, price tags and grow in progress.
This cabinet can be built according to the exact specs that I used, following detailed pictures through the whole thing, for about $500. This $500 covers everything from tools to parts to soil to nutes. Everything but your seeds, for $500 or less. Many items may already be in your home.
Directly beneath this edit is the first version of the design. The first version was modified based on the discussion on the first several pages. That modification process led to the creation of three different virtual prototypes, each building on the last. As a result there is a significant difference between the final cab and the one you see below. The third (hence "3000") virtual design actual got built and is currently drying its first harvest!
As of this edit, the first plants have been harvested and the buds are drying. The plants themselves are reverting back to veg and there's a batch of clones getting ready to go in!
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Ok. Welcome to the beginning phase of my stealth cab design!
I am posting the work in progress in order to get critiques from the community. I welcome your comments and insights.
Please understand from the get go that I have based the room sizes, heights and wattage on Dr. Bud.
I have deviated from him in that instead of achieving my wattage with (5) 42 watt CFLs as he would, I have elected to use (8) 27 watt CFLs instead. (approximately same wattage/lumens).
Additionally, I have attempted to make use of space I originally intended just as a heat buffer between mother/flower cabs, by converting it into a drying cab. The beauty of this design is:
If it works, I'll be able to grow, clone, flower and dry all in one 4'x2'x3' space!
Notice the airflow diagram on picture 2. Room Temp air comes in bottom, rises up (through drying buds) to vents on top of cabs, which then channel air back down the light-traps to 9" up in the two growing chambers. (Planning on using 8" pots and they're on a 1" shelf, so 9" will be right at soil level.) Air is then extracted through (5) 1" holes mounted above lights.
The pics pretty much say it all. I made this in Google SketchUp 7 (freeware) and I have to say, awesome program guys! Nice job!
Anyway... on with the show:
The next picture is an attempt at explaining the ventilation setup.
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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.
Also, you had said you've elected to use (8) 27w cfls instead of the 6. Of those 8, How many 6500k cfls and how many 2700k cfls?