Chester Cheeba's 250w Cab Grow

[Guest]

Good day everyone and welcome to chester cheeba's DIY cab grow which also happens to be my first post on this fine site here. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute a little something a learn a whole lot.

Little background...
I've grown a few plants here and there. Started something like 2 1/2 years ago and have probably 6 successful harvests since then. 2 of which being outdoors. I had my first experience with a named strain my last two grows and have since tried to do a little breeding between two of the strains I've dealt with. But enough about me,

Onto the cab!

Basically, I've designed and built this little grow myself (with a little help from some of the DIY links around here) and can hopefuly get some monster buds coming out of it now.

Edit: Well it seems I can't add pics to the gallery... I will try to figure that out, then I will have pics posted...

 

[1toke]

welcome to the boards, im new myself.

Getting ready to get a 275w grow in an area a little smaller than your flowering cab, and I've been trying to get some feedback on equipment. I was wondering if you wouldnt mind posting the specs on what kind of reflector and fan your using?

Good luck on you on your grow.

I wasnt allowed or couldnt figure out how to post a picture the other day either, lemme know if you figure that out too..thanks

peace,
1toke

 

[Guest]

Thanks for stopping by 1toke. I was able to get the pictures to work for some reason. I just hosted them on photobucket and copied the image code. It wasn't working before, but it worked this time... Weird...

All about the cab....

The overall box is 48 inches wide, 19 inches deep, and 60 inches high and is seperated into two main sections, a veg and flower chamber which will hopefully be able to house 5 plants +/- 1.

Here's an overall shot of the cab with the veg chamber on the left and the flower on the right ...

The veg chamber (12 inches wide, 19 inches deep, 60 inches high) is split up into two sections: the top for clones and the bottom for plants. On top there is 1 23w cfl and the bottom has 3 20w floro tubes. I have countless numbers of cfls lying around and if plants start to stretch I'm gonna have to throw in a couple more of those bad boys. There is a pc fan pulling ~25 cfm out of the box with passive intake holes down in the bottom.

3 20w floros

Whole veg chamber

Clone area

No lights

The flower chamber (36 inches wide, 19 inches deep, and 60 inches high) is under a 250 watt HPS and is cooled using the DIY bake-a-round cooled bulb found here ---> http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=62161.

250 w hps

There is an 80 cfm fan pulling the air over the bulb and another 80 cfm fan pulling air from above the bulb out of the box with passive intake holes again at the bottom of the cab covered by a removable floor

250 w hps with vent holes above

Bottom intake holes under floor with electrical

Intake holes in floor

Exhaust fan outlets

Sneaky Stealth over the ducting

The whole cab is somewhat of a tight fit into a closet so instead of being able to make normal doors, I had to make an acordian door on the main flower cab.

Door

And finally, there are two security locks. One on the flower portion, and one on the veg portion.

Veg lock

Flower lock

Bear in mind I still haven't taken the effort to go ahead and light proof the front. (Everything aside from the door has been caulked) I will be using some type of reflective material, whether it is mylar or panda film and place velcro alone the inside 2 x 4's so there is no light even reaching the doors.

Still gotta paint some 2x4's and install that pc fan in the veg chamber and i'll be set to go. As for reflectors, I'm not using one because I'm painting white. Right now with those fans in place (minus the pc fan) lights on for 2 hours, the box sits around 82 deg F. I'd be satisfied having it sit at 80.

 

[Dr Dog]

Welcome to IC mag
Lots of work you have spent making your cab, hopefully you have no issues with that, the lightproofing looks like it would be difficult.
Good luck with your grow

 

[i_score]

very nice work man, i wish i could build me one!!it looks very tight!!

 

[Guest]

Should work fine!!!

Welcome man,you'll have fun here!
Glad you got pics up and the grow looks ok..
82 degrees is ok them 250's are hot in cabs?
Good luck,update!

 

[Guest]

Welcome to IC mag
Lots of work you have spent making your cab, hopefully you have no issues with that, the lightproofing looks like it would be difficult.
Good luck with your grow

Hopefully some velcro and panda film will take care of the lightproofing. I have to get away from this indica im smokin. I don't get off my ass...

very nice work man, i wish i could build me one!!it looks very tight!!

If you build it, they will grow...

Should work fine!!!

Welcome man,you'll have fun here!
Glad you got pics up and the grow looks ok..
82 degrees is ok them 250's are hot in cabs?
Good luck,update!

My last cab I didn't have an air cooled bulb and temps would spike at 92 during the day. Granted the cab I had was a little smaller, but at 92 the plants were frying!

Thanks for stopping by all. Had a seeder pop out today, still germing another 6 or so. I need to get myself a pretty girl so I can clone away. I'll be painting the rest of those 2x4's today and probably will throw some more pics up later. I'm a pic whore...

Cheers

 

[Guest]

Now onto what I will be growing...

The strain will be New Purple Power (Nirvana) x Hashberry (Mandala). This season outdoors, I only grew 3 hashberry all of which turned out to be boys. So I made some seeds cause I have fallen in love with the new purple power and the high it gives. Throw a little indica in there and now hopefully it stays a little shorter. This was my first attempt at crossing two plants, so we will see how these seeds end up.

Sensi NPP bud shot

****in yummy

Live easy fellows.
CC

 

[chubbynugs]

Plants are lookin good man. Hopefully your cross comes out nicely, it really sounds good/tasty.

 

[Guest]

So, I've gone through, painted the 2x4's, installed the PC fan in the veg chamber, and lined all cracks in the wood with mylar and I have some bad news.

After putting in the mylar my temps shot up to 85 in the flowering area

Right now I have one fan running directly over the bulb cooling it and one fan blowing out of the top and intake holes at the bottom. Anyone have any ideas on a nice and simple way to drop it down a few degrees without breaking the bank on a new fan??

And say hi to my first seeder... (Camera phone )

Cheers and toke it easy...

 

[Dr Dog]

Two cheap ways I can think of would be to put a couple pc fans at your intake holes, to blow cool air in from the bottom, or you could put a tray of water under there, if you humidity is ok, it should not really make a difference to that

 

[FlamingPoo]

you could always use the fan thats cooling your bulb to vent a lil from the chamber (looks like your pulling warm air across the bulb by pulling air straight from your room instead of inside the chamber), or just switch to night time flowering instead of during the day. i could be wrong but it just looks like your venting into your room making it warmer and then pulling warm across the plants and your bulb or at least thats the prob i have i need to exhaust outside of my room or else my box heats up too much because it moves the air in the room to fast. now extra intake has helped me a lil and the best thing i can do is just watch them close( my temps 76-78 dark 79-81 lights) 400w

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the input guys!

Two cheap ways I can think of would be to put a couple pc fans at your intake holes, to blow cool air in from the bottom, or you could put a tray of water under there, if you humidity is ok, it should not really make a difference to that

The tray of water would probably fit perfectly underneath the cab. I'll give that a go.

you could always use the fan thats cooling your bulb to vent a lil from the chamber (looks like your pulling warm air across the bulb by pulling air straight from your room instead of inside the chamber), or just switch to night time flowering instead of during the day. i could be wrong but it just looks like your venting into your room making it warmer and then pulling warm across the plants and your bulb or at least thats the prob i have i need to exhaust outside of my room or else my box heats up too much because it moves the air in the room to fast. now extra intake has helped me a lil and the best thing i can do is just watch them close( my temps 76-78 dark 79-81 lights) 400w

So, if I took this the right way, I should have my bulb pulling air directly from the cab instead of outside of it??

But I think you might be confused on my fan setup. Maybe this will help...

And anyone think pulling air directly from the cab, over the bulb and out would be a better idea? As opposed to now where the air comes from outside the cab, over the bulb, and back out... I might be able to get a little more negative pressure inside that way. Hopefully pull some more air in from the outside.

Thanks and cheers.

Edit: Can't even thank you guys with a little rep. Instead you get this ------>

 

[FlamingPoo]

yea thats how i thought it was set up, mine is same way my room stays to warm so i'm working on venting solutions (keep room door open when box is running for air exchange or window open). Anyways it wont hurt to try it out u can always rehook the intake and exhaust back up the way u had it

 

[MoleMcHenry]

very cool clone cab, man! Can't wait to see how your cross turns out.

 

[i_score]

your passive intake should be near the cab´s floor, the air is cooler there, and the hot air goes up so any passive intake there will get hot air and thats not good!

 

[Guest]

your passive intake should be near the cab´s floor, the air is cooler there, and the hot air goes up so any passive intake there will get hot air and thats not good!

The passive intake coming into the cab is down by the floor. The intake on the top of the box just passes directly over the bulb and right back out...

I think I'm going to try pulling air over the bulb from inside the cab like flaming poo suggested. Along with the water underneath the intake holes, hopefully that will help just a little.

Thanks for the input guys.

Cheers

 

[Guest]

Hows it going everyone, a little update on the seeders.

I had them in a mix of 65% peat moss and 35% perlite and growth has been minimal with some yellowing starting on the oldest seedling. They have been getting 40mL of water a day in 4 inch pots. The peat was drying out on me fairly fast and i would throw enough water in just to wet it. The water pH was at 6.5 and had been tap water that had sat out for a few days to get rid of the chlorine. No ferts no nothing, and I'm seeing yellowing...

Any ideas. Ill try to get a shitty camera phone pic...

Edit:
Here's the yellowing on the oldest. Only 5 days old, with little to no visible growth...



Cheers

 

[i_score]

you should try a medium that retains moisture better, because seedings can be very touchy and the humidity should be constant,try coco instead of peat, because peat once it drys out becoumes hygrofobic, and nolonger as the same water retention capabylity.
peace

 

[Guest]

no coco around, so I popped in some MG organic soil I had lying around. Hopefully that will help retain some moisture...

Cheers