My first cab - With pics

[Bedlam]

hey guys, some of you may have seen me asking questions around the forums, and although my box isnt complete yet im pretty excited, and its just about done. im no carpenter, but considering all the measurements and lines were done with just a tape measure, i'm pretty proud of how its turning out.

the equipment i'll be running for its maiden voyage is as follows:
S&P 290 cfm fan
homemade carbon filter
modified 150W hps security light
6x 24 W cfl's of varying temperatures
homemade cooltube

I realize the venting might be a little bit much right now, but im running the 150w cuz it was mad cheap and money is running out. next grow, hopefully i can get a 400w, do you think i could manage a 600w in here?




the wall in the middle is on a track that slides out if modifications need to be made, and a darkroom louver will be installed between the flower and veg chambers. the box is designed to come apart into 7 individual panels that can be put together again fairly easily, which is why there is the overhang on all the edges. the only problem i'm running into is figuring out how to mount the doors, and finding an acceptable lock to install on them. i found a pretty cool concealed hinge that i think will work well.

the overhang:



anyway, any advice, criticism, suggestions, encouragement is appreciated. let me know how i can make the next box better, or even this one for that matter.

happy tokes

edit: forgot to put the dimensions of this thing, its about 2 feet deep, almost 4 feet wide, and about 4 and a half feet tall. and six thousand pounds heavy.

 

[petemoss]

Looks great, bedlam! Your flower area looks to be about 5 sq ft, perfect for a 250 watt light, or you can add another 150 watter. Your fan could prolly handle a 400 watt light but a 250 watter would give you 50 watts per sf. and less heat.

Will the veg section have a separate narrow door? That's the way I'd do it so I could work on mothers/clones without disturbing the flower section. A single wide door or two narrow doors could cover the flowering part.

I'd prefer to use two 8"X8" darkroom louvers as intakes in the flower box, mounted low on the back wall. Then you wouldn't need to light trap the intake holes on the floor. You wouldn't even need the intake holes, if that's what they are. And can you mount the louver between the veg and flower parts a little higher? The hot air will rise to the top of the veg section to be sucked out to the flower area.

I'm helping a friend modify a ready made cabinet. It's a bit too short and we'll have to add a box on top to make the cabinet taller. When I see a nice clean layout like yours, I feel like starting from scratch with a simple plywood box!

 

[Bedlam]

yeah, the darkroom louvers would have been ideal and would have made it look infinitely cleaner, but i seriously am at the end of my budget and had to make due.


yes, i plan on having two doors. i'm wondering if i should have them touch each other when closed, or add a strip of wood to the divider to space them out a little bit, which might look a little nicer but dont know if its worth the work. would there be any differnece in airtightness or light blockage?

and the reason i have the hole so low on the divider is because i wanted to leave room for another small mothering room if i get to that point, which would go right between the veg and utility rooms. since the louver hole is so much bigger than the veg intakes combined, i was assuming that the air would be pulled straight from the veg intakes into the flower room, without much air getting trapped and moving around the veg chamber. also, i figured since it enters the flower chamber at a low point, more air will be circulating over and around the plants in there.

any suggestions on locks?

the louvers on the back would have been money, but since all my intake holes are on the bottom, lightproofing will be a cinch. i'm just going to close off the bottom space on the front of the box, and then using a sort of rectangle-box i'm gonna extend the opening in the back underneath the cab to bend at a 90 degree angle and go up the back of the cab, if you understand what i mean. basically a 3 inch protrusion on the back of the cab going from the very bottom to about halfway up, that way i can easily filter all my incoming air too since i'm in a basement.

thanks for the tips pete

 

[Haggis123]

Looks good so far.

 

[Bedlam]

let there be light!

the door is bent... shit's not lightproof even with a layer of weatherstripping... what should i do

 

[opt1c]

try gluing polystyrene foam inside the frame of the door along where it should seal to make a door within the door... maybe put a layer of poly stapled to the top of the main chamber to keep the light in... lift it when you're working drop in and close the door over it... leave overhang to help seal the door... a nice tight latch or bungee/chain around the whole thing might work for a lock... just mount some o rings on the side and rund the chain through it... synch it up when you're done working on it... just some ideas... i'm sure if you've built that much you'll figure it out -opt1c

 

[donpuro]

Looks great.. wish I had carpentry skills like that. But yah I dont know about a 400 watt in there.. maybe u should go with a 250watt CMH..

 

[Bedlam]

grrrr shits impossible to lightproof! what the heck!

 

[maryj315]

It may not be perfect but i think you did a good job.

 

[Quazi]

Interesting setup so far. It can be difficult to light proof. You may have to use additional weatherstripping to get lightproof around the doors. However, you're also going to have a bunch of light leaking in/out through your intakes. Maybe not a great deal in, but your cabinet will glow from beneath when the lights are on. I see that you have plans to compensate for this, but I'm not sure I understand how your cab is going to work.

I see a much bigger problem and that is your ventilation system for the cab.

It looks like you have a closed system setup for your cool tube. If you're using your powerful fan for this, where/how do you plan on pulling the air through the cabinet? Before you get to that though, I think you may have made a mistake in your ventilation system.

I'm assuming from the setup, that you were planning on pulling air in through the veg chamber and then through the cabinet because you said you were going to have a louver between the chambers. However, you have intakes in the floor of your flowering and veg chambers. With that setup, there won't be any air flowing from the veg chamber to the flower chamber, it'll just all intake through the floor of the flowering chamber.

Even if there was air coming into the veg chamber, the hole between the flower and veg chamber is very low in the veg chamber. How do you plan on cooling the lights in the veg chamber? There doesn't seem to be much room in the electrical room so I'm wondering how you will even put hookups for the 6xCFLs, let alone cool them.

It looks like you have remote ballasted your 150W, but I don't see any air intakes in the electrical room. How are you planning on ventilating the heat produced by the ballast?

Even if you were to hook fans into the two exhaust holes it looks like you still have, you'd have an electrical room being exhausted with no intakes which doesn't do you any good and a fan in the flowering chamber that would have no affect on the veg chamber.

I'd get the ventilation/wiring figured out for all the lights before you worry about whether the light leaks out or not.

You're on the right track, but it looks like you might have some re-planning/construction to do from the pictures/description you've provided so far.

I hope I'm completely wrong though and that you already have a plan for the ventilation. If that's the case: I'd love to hear it.

-Q

 

[Bedlam]

thanks for the consideration quazi.

what hookups would i need for the cfls, they all connect to one plug?

also, I used the following link to calculate my intake
http://www.greenpassion.org/f45/what-size-vent-fan-do-i-need-intake-area-size-3704/
I have a fan that runs between 200-290, so did my calculations based on 250cfm, which although it might not run at that speed, I wanted a little more intake over a little less in case I upgrade the fan.

anyway, for that much cfm it recommends about 120 square inches of intake. the holes in the flower room are a little less than 4 inches in diameter, which equals around 75 square inches. that should not be sufficient intake for the fan, which would create negative pressure in the flower room. the exhaust would be forced to draw upon the veg room in this case, where there are currently another 4 holes at 3 inches diameter each, providing approximately 30 square inches of intake. this is still below the recommended, so there should still be some slight negative pressure in the cab.

the cooltube is hooked up to a 85 cfm axial fan on either end, and seems to work so far. i have an s&p arriving soon.

the veg chamber actually will not even be used until 2009, I just built it thinking ahead. I have a while to work out any kinks there, but for now its jsut flower. you think putting a fan on the ceiling of that room will rememdy the problem to promote mixing of air?

 

[exploziv]

this cab looks nice..
I'll grab a seat!