Designing a dual 150-watt CMH cab

[ReikoX]

Cut List

Cut List

Sheet 1

• Top 32.75" x 80.125"
• Kck 4" x 79.5"
• LBak1 4" x 9.5"
• LBak2 4" x 9.5"
• LSid1 4" x 7.25"
• LSid2 4" x 7.25"
• LSid3 4" x 7.25"
• LSid4 4" x 7.25"
• LClt 4" x 30"
• RClt 4" x 30"

Sheet 2

• RRGb 35.75" x 31.5"
• RLGb 35.75" x 31.5"
• CRGb 35.75" x 31.5"

Sheet 3

• RTop 30" x 31.5"
• RBot 30" x 31.5"
• RBak 30" x 30.25"
• DSid1 15" x 10"
• DSid2 15" x 10"
• DSid3 15" x 10"
• DSid4 15" x 10"
• DBot1 15" X 13.125"
• DBot2 15" x 13.125"
• CBak1 15" x 24.25"

 

[ReikoX]

Cut List (cont.)

Cut List (cont.)

Sheet 4

• CLGb 35.75" x 31.5"
• LRGb 35.75" x 31.5"
• LLGb 35.75" x 31.5"

Sheet 5

• LTop 30" x 31.5"
• LBot 30" x 31.5"
• LBak 30" x 30.25"
• DFnt1 16.25" x 12.5"
• DFnt2 16.25" x 12.5"
• DFnt3 16.25" x 6"
• CMid1 15" x 5.25"
• CMid2 15" x 5.25
• DBak1 14.625" x 10"
• DBak2 14.625" x 10

Sheet 6

• Dor1 15.625" x 31.5"
• Dor2 15.625" x 31.5
• Dor3 15.625" x 31.5"
• Dor4 15.625" x 31.5"
• CBot 15" x 31.5"
• CBak1 24.25" x 15"
• CTop 15" x 31.5"
• CMid 15" x 31.5"
  
  
  
  And here are all the pieces all cut. Next steps will be cutting out the gables and ventilation holes. After that I will prime and/or finish the edges with veneer.
  
  

 

[thcrefugee]

Super cool! Nice work! looking forward to the progress on this!

 

[ReikoX]

CT-1337

CT-1337

I present to you the Clone Transport Elite (CT-1337).

I plan to make a trip to Denver this weekend. I may have a lead on some clones out there. I may even have to do the CL thing. I wanted to bring some home, but it's a long drive. So I was going to put them in a cooler and transport them. I also don't want to bring any pests into my garden, so not only do I need a clone transport, but also a quarantine.


So I went out and bought a foam cooler for $4. This would have been fine for transporting the clones.


I was going to use my PC for quarantine, but I still have plants in there. So I bought these battery operated lights for $6 each. I had foil tape, light louvers, a fan, etc.


Here is a test with some 9 oz beer cups. Running about 3*F above ambient. Hopefully we have enough room for clones. Are they usually in rockwool cubes?


The battery operated lights, also work off of a 6 V plug. The fan is 12 V. I had these female plugs from an old aquarium light. I even added a speed control for the fan (when plugged in). On the bottom is the intake. It's a ScrubNinja light louver that I had made for my old PC build. The top is the exhaust, also a ScrubNinja light louver. I have black weed screen on the inside of these and white pre-filter material on the outside. It helps to conceal the light louvers.

 

[Dropped Cat]

That's very nice.

I know guys who just kept cuttings wrapped in paper towels
double bagged in iced ziplocs.

Be safe.

 

[ReikoX]

2016.06.17

2016.06.17


Remember that trip to Denver to get clones? Well I left them with my brother. Here they are in his setup, they are the ones in the big pots. They are Tahoe OG, Agent Orange, and Strawberry Blues. I went by and took some cuts, so they should be in my garden in a couple of weeks.

 

[ReikoX]

Making progress...

Making progress...

Had the day off today, so I got a chance to work on the cab. I cut out the ventilation holes. After five holes, I think I have finally killed my 4" hole saw. The intakes are rectangles and I used the jig saw.


Next I used the Kreg pocket hole jig to pre-drill my pocket holes.


After that I put the edging on. It comes with a thermal glue on them so you just attach it with an iron then trim up the edges.

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The joints are glued with melamine wood glue and held in place with corner clamps. Then everything is screwed together with the pocket holes.


Here is one box put together. This thing is solid. It also wont fit through the door, so its not going anywhere. I still need to caulk the interior edges and prime any exposed wood.

I got both other boxes cut, drilled, and edged. They will go together soon. I ordered some white plastic plugs for the pocket holes, and a 4" Vortex and speed controller. I didn't think the S&P was going to cut it. I also got the bigger filter, so might as well use it. With the Vortex I could run both sides at the same time if I wanted.

Still lots to do, but it's starting to come together.

 

[Dropped Cat]

I always upvote for construction threads, real good project.

And great skills too.

 

[Gry]

Too nice.

 

[ReikoX]

I always upvote for construction threads, real good project.

And great skills too.

Thanks DC for the approval! It's coming out better than I had hoped.

Too nice.

Thanks Gry, it should start coming together pretty quick now. :yay:

 

[ReikoX]

Fit, filled, and painted

Fit, filled, and painted


I got all three boxes built, filled all the pocket holes, and primed any exposed wood. I got the edging on everything except the doors.

I ran into an issue with the ventilation holes. I transposed my measurements. It should have been five inches from the back and nine inches down. Well I cut it out at five inches down and nine inches from the back. I'll still have room for my ballasts, but the timers may need to be turned sideways or modified in some other way. I re-cut the back pieces out of some scrap pieces, so no worries.

Im in CA for five days, so no progress until this weekend. Next up will be getting the electrical figured out and ran. I'm going to build a themostat controller for my fan, so I'll take pictures.

 

[Nestor bilou]

Good job!!!

 

[ReikoX]

Decisions decisions...

Decisions decisions...

No progress has been made on this cab for a while now. I have had to work in CA for the last 3 out of four weeks. I have, however, been thinking a lot about how to run it.

At first I planned to do a perpetual SOG like I've been doing in my PC. The advantages here are I can have plenty of variety, I'm never more than a week from harvest, and I only need a small number of clones each week. I have the space for mothers and clones on that scale. The disadvantages are the constant work cloning and trimming, difficulty with canopy management, and having to mix nutrients for multiple plant phases and strains at once.

Then I decided it would be more efficient to monocrop each side and space them about five weeks apart (10 week cycles). The advantages here are less frequent cloning and trimming, better yield as I can dial in each strain, and only having plants in two different phases at once. The disadvantages are longer wait between harvests, larger work load trimming, and getting enough clones to fill the space. I don't have the space for taking that many clones at once unless I use my filing cabinet.

Finally I am considering a 13 week cycle. The advantage is having an area to clone/veg in. The disadvantage is loosing a cycle each year. I graphed this out, and it looks a little something like this:



To make this decision I must set some goals. The goal of this cab is to allow me to be self sufficient and maybe have a little surplus for gifts, extracts, and cooking. I typically smoke 1-2 grams a day, let's just say 14 grams a week. With the perpetual SOG, I would harvest seven plants a week (actually it's 6.66, but let's make the math easy). So that makes an average of about 2 grams/plant. If I did the 10 week cycle, I would harvest 30 plants every five weeks. So that makes an average of about 2.3 grams/plant. Finally if I did the 13 week cycle, I would harvest 30 plants every 7.5 weeks. So that makes about 3.5 grams/plant.

Now, if I want to hit 1 gram/watt, I would have to get about 5 grams/plant. Notice how the grams/watt doesn't take into consideration the frequency of harvests. This is one reason it's a bad metric, but let's chase the rabbit down the hole. If i do perpetual, I would harvest 6.66 plants per week at 5 grams/bud. That comes out to about 1733 grams/year (this is the same as a 9 week cycle). With the 10 week cycle, it ends up being 300 grams 5.2 times/year. That comes out to 1560 grams/year. Finally, with the 13 week cycle, it ends up being 300 grams 4 times/year. That comes out to about 1200 grams/year.

In conclusion, while the perpetual (or not) 9 week cycle may be the most work, it also gives the most yield over the course of a year. The 13 week cycle has the lowest yield, but solves the problem of where to run the clone factory. The 10 week cycle is in the middle yield wise, but will require a separate area to veg, thus loosing whatever flowering potential that other area has. With my filing cabinet empty, I can make up the loss in the 13 week cycle by flowering stuff in there. That can be used for my variety and head stash. My PC will probably be retired and/or used as a quarantine/breeding area.

Any other advantages, disadvantages, or options I should consider?

 

[Dropped Cat]

I was hoping you'd post a what if.

When I did micro sog, three in/out every month.
Nine plants at a time in flower.

Was fun at first, but any glitch in cuttings/veg made
for fucky staggered timetables.

I started smoking less, am recreational, so no biggie.

Now I top my vegging plants and run two at a time,
get around 25 grams per couplet. At any given time
I have six plants in flower, less cuttings and more
forgiving scheduling.

Guessing I do 175-225 grams per year. A casual grower,
with casual results, lol

Real good set up you got, and I admire the attention
to detail.

 

[ReikoX]

I was hoping you'd post a what if.

When I did micro sog, three in/out every month.
Nine plants at a time in flower.

Was fun at first, but any glitch in cuttings/veg made
for fucky staggered timetables.

I started smoking less, am recreational, so no biggie.

Now I top my vegging plants and run two at a time,
get around 25 grams per couplet. At any given time
I have six plants in flower, less cuttings and more
forgiving scheduling.

Guessing I do 175-225 grams per year. A casual grower,
with casual results, lol

Real good set up you got, and I admire the attention
to detail.

Thanks for joining in the conversation DC. It helps to think it through with other experiences.

The glitch in timing is the issue I want to avoid. I found in my PC that even if I stayed on schedule harvests wouldn't be on schedule. Granted this was multiple strains running 12/12 from seed. Something else that happened in there is the gradual increase in canopy height. As the seedlings would get shadowed out, they would stretch for the light, then stretch more with flowering. Now it's a fight to keep them off the COBs. I'm retiring the PC SOG when this is built.

I'm medical, but have my storage cabinet for that (Juanita 50:50 THC:CBD). I really don't need that extra 300 grams or so per year I would lose out on with the longer cycles. For the first couple of rounds I'll try to keep with the longer cycle and try to shorten them as I dial the cab.

 

[ReikoX]

Alright, so I managed to get a couple of hours to work on the cab this week. I wired up my bulb bases, timers, and plugs. The plug on the left will be connected to the timer, while the one on the right will be connected to power all the time. I'm using 14-3 wire so I don't have to run two cables for each box. The empty box below will house my fan controller. I started some work on that, but pictures will have to wait until I get back.


I wired up the bulb base and plug using conduit. The conduit exits by the plug into the top of the center box. The hole is my exhaust port. And the same was done for the other side. I started organizing the conduit on the top side, but ran out of parts and time before I could finish.

So I still have a lot to do. I need to complete my temperature controller, wire up the main power and conduit on the top, silicone the seams, finish the ventillation ducting, install the doors and light proof them, and install the drawers and exterior hardware.

 

[ReikoX]

2016.08.16

2016.08.16

I've gotten most of the ventillation figured out. I didn't notice the potential light leak from left to right chamber, so I'm making some simple light traps to install. It's going to be tight, I can barely fit them on either side of the Vortex. After those are installed, I will seal the fan to vent connection, it's crooked right now. Once that's done, I'll screw in the false back with some weatherstrip to seal it up nice and air tight.

I ran into a snag with the drawers. Turns out I had the wrong clearance for the slides I bought. I'm going to have to re-cut the bottoms. I can reuse the back and sides. The good news is the glue holds the joints real tight. The bad news is the glue holds the joints real tight.

The next thing I did was run all of the wiring through the conduit. This part was a bitch! I still have to make the connections to power to the sides and wire up the fan controller.

But, I'VE GOT LIGHT! *evil laugh*

 

[omgwt]

Looks great, I love seeing people build grow boxes!

What is the different between one of these CMH and a regular HPS bulb?

Oh and whats the noise level at? Could you disguise the box with like a computer or something?


Looking forward to the next update!

 

[ReikoX]

Looks great, I love seeing people build grow boxes!

What is the different between one of these CMH and a regular HPS bulb?

Oh and whats the noise level at? Could you disguise the box with like a computer or something?


Looking forward to the next update!

Thanks for stopping by!

The the CMH is, basically, a bulb between the HPS and MH in spectrum. These are 3000K so you can see a slight red/yellow compares to the more blue of a standard MH. This is my first time using CMH or any HID I have no so first hand experience with them yet.

As far as noise, on full speed that Vortex is pretty loud, mainly an air whooshing noise. With the speed controller it's not as bad. I don't think you could cover up the sound with a computer. My cabs are all in a room that is closed and locked at all times. I can't really hear it from outside that room.

 

[ReikoX]

More progress!

More progress!

More progress! I got the power wired up and closed up in the junction box up top. I also got the temperature controller hooked up. I did a dry run and the temp was pretty steady at 25°C. Now that all the electrical and ventilation at the top are all taken care of, I put the top piece on. I also got the drawers re-cut and put back together.

The whole thing is running, fans, exhaust, lights! And less than 450W total!


So im getting I to the home stretch. I have to install the light traps, drawers and slides, doors hinges and locks, external hardware, the Lazy Susan for each side, and the second coliseum.

But first,