The Mill's Pride Club

[-~Wind Walker~-]

Feedback, please

Feedback, please

Alright after much over planning and labor I have my c-25 cab almost complete.

I want to get some feedback regarding the airflow intake through the cab.

Earlier I received some great info from notjonesinNEmor regarding some 8 inch square dark room louvers that he found online. I did some searching and found some that were 4 inches and circular.

Check'em out here:

http://www.builderdepot.com/seo/midgetlouver/11367_Midget_Louver_Darkroom_Vent_Black_-_4-inch.ihtml.

This worked better for me because I bought a 4 inch hole saw and these could easily be inserted in the intake and exhaust holes.

The details:

I have a 150 Watt HPS Mini FLoraLux which has 4 inch circular flange attachments available which enable heat to be vented away via a 4 inch dryer hose and fan.

I am going to use the flang to vent heat away and circulate the air through my cab and ultimately through a negative pressure DIY carbon scrubber.

The issue I need some feedback on:

Back to the 4 inch circular darkroom louver. The louver does not let in four inches of air however. Half of the circle on the outside of the vent lets air in through mini vents. Behind those vents is space for the air to move through but exactly behind the "open mini vents" on the back side is material to block the light from coming straight through. The back side of the louver has just about an approximate 2 inch semi circle hole for the air to flow into my cab. Think of a circle with a line drawn from one side to the other. One half of the circle open on the outside to let air in through the cab and on the flip side of the circle (the inside) the opposite semi circle being open for the air to flow. In essence the air takes an almost 90 degree turn from the outside of the louver through the vents and then another 90 degree turn through the 2 inch semi circle into the cab. Almost like an L and then an upside-down L with a gap between them for the air to flow. (I hope this crappy explanation is understandable).

I ordered two of these louvers and so far only drilled one 4 inch intake hole in the bottom of the cab along with a four inch exhaust at the top were the scrubbed air will exit.

Should I drill another intake hole several inches next to the original to use the other dark room louver I have to make enough space for the air flow into the cab?

More details.

Based on info gathered at this site and the research and calculations I did with the info I received, the fan I am using has plenty of power to move enough CFM (cubic feet per minute) of air to keep the cab cool.

I have a little Ultimate Moonshine seedling started in a DWC air stone hydro set up.

On a personal note.

In a past grow I would label seeds from different sources / strains by A , B (etc.) for an accurate grow log. Later I gave these plants women's names in hopes of getting female plants (and by GOSH it works, LoL). For example, my last grow I named A: Abigail and B: Bertha.

This time the lucky seed who shed her shell helmet after touching down on my rock wool starter cube was in one of my cups labeled B.

When the seedling pushed her small starter leaves out and was growing healthy I pondered a few names. Thinking of a few tame names over a few days and a few jays I came up with a good one...

BANDITA is still going strong, she has two pairs of regular leaves and the roots are busting through the rock wool cube. Today I took her from her Styrofoam pontoon and nestled her into a 3 inch net pot filled with hydrotron balls and a small bit of rock wool down at the bottom of the pot.

I plan to FIM her soon after she adjusts so I can clone her.

Go Bandita Go!


TY
-~WW~-

 

[pinecone]

Should I drill another intake hole several inches next to the original to use the other dark room louver I have to make enough space for the air flow into the cab?

You should certainly use both vents. Also - you may find that things would work better with a third - or a fourth or a fifth.

Many people using the 8" square darkroom vents use 2. These vents have a surface area of 64 square inches. In comparison, each 4" circular darkroom vent has a surface area of 13 square inches. Assuming that airflow-resistance is proportional to the surface area of the vent you would need a lot of 4" circular vents (5) to provide the air flow of just one 8" square vent.

Honestly the 8" vents are a much better option that the 4" circular vents - beacause all you need is one. To install these you just need a drill and a jig saw.

Pinecone

 

[StealthFarmer]

Ya I would go with the 8" inchers, doesnt sound like the 4" circular ones will let in enough air unless you have like 8 or more of them.

 

[mysta177]

yea I agree.....the 8" are better IMO. I just added a 3rd 8in in my c13. temp dropped 2 deg at canopy. Remember not to put the vents to low...... as my pots caused restriction.

 

[tokinsmokin]

I have 2 8" louvers, and I would like to have 3 or 4 of them in my c22. Thats the loudest part of the cab is the air rushing in the louvers.

 

[mysta177]

6 in fantech........and still have plenty of suction. I use kickass filters in the louvers that also cause restriction a long with the restriction of the pots in the way. I put it in the mid of the backboard 1/3 of the way up. The light would cover it in the pic!

 

[icough2getoff]

Yeah I concur with all the 8" louver users. I've heard our intake should be about twice the size of our outtake. Those louvers restrict the air so I'd go with as much as you can afford. Otherwise you can really stress your fan over time if you under do it too much.

For those that might not know, to find the surface area of a circle it's pie x radius squared. So a 6 inch hole would be 3.14 x 3 x 3 = 28.26. It's kind of an optical illusion but you loose a lot by decreasing the size of the louver and when you try to make up with lots of smaller ones it just doesn't compare to having a couple larger ones

 

[pinecone]

I've heard our intake should be about twice the size of our outtake.

In one of the books I bought in preparation of my growing escapades (either the Cannabis Grow Bible or the Indoor Marijuana Horticulture) said that intakes should be 1.5 times the area of the outtake.

Using this figure I installed 1 of the 8" louvers, with the idea that I might need to add another as I wasn't sure about how much they restrict air flow. I haven't needed to add an additional louver. As long as the filtering material I use is clean the cab there is no difference in cab temps with the louver and filter cloth on versus just having an 8" square opening in the cab. With clean cloth my inside cab temps are always within 1-2-degrees of the incoming air temps. If the filter cloth starts to get dusty this differential climbs a bit.

Most people running the 8" louvers are running 2 (or more). 2+ louvers maybe necessary in some instances. Except for the expense and extra cutting running 2+ louvers is never going to be a problem. More intake area will slow the speed of the air coming and reduce the whoosh sound. If you get too much intake area you will lose the negative pressure - vacuum in the cab, but this can always be solved by covering up some of the intake area. I think you would need a lot of 8" louvers to get to this point anyway.

Pincone

 

[mysta177]

Most people running the 8" louvers are running 2 (or more). 2+ louvers maybe necessary in some instances. Except for the expense and extra cutting running 2+ louvers is never going to be a problem. More intake area will slow the speed of the air coming and reduce the whoosh sound. If you get too much intake area you will lose the negative pressure - vacuum in the cab, but this can always be solved by covering up some of the intake area. I think you would need a lot of 8" louvers to get to this point anyway.

Pincone

Very true. Im pretty sure I can add 1 more 8in with no problems. If I notice a big diff I turn the inline up. Thanks for the info!

 

[-~Wind Walker~-]

Tremendous feedback

Tremendous feedback

I had a feeling that most folks would say to open up the intake some more. I have limited internet access right to get info from ICMAG now and I decided that it would be easier to start small and increase the intake as opposed to cutting too big of a hole or too many and trying to patch it up.

Thanks everybody for the info.

Its funny, when I first started growing I thought the hard part was growing some quality nuggets. But now, after having success with an unstealthy closet grow, I realized that I needed to be way more subtle (the stuff stunk my place up fierce) and now find the hard part to be is figuring out how to get rid of the "Whoosh" sound from my C-25. LoL.

I did not expect so much feedback.

I will for now drill another 4 inch intake hole for now with plans to probably go even further with more intake volume down the road based on everyone's feedback.

When you first try a new set up it is unsettling to get the system to as they say "dial in" when your new set up is a working work in progress. For me much of this is trial and error, with thankfully little error because of everyone's help here.

It is funny having tools and various parts or components all over the place while trying to get the details ironed out. My friends tease me about how messy my place is.

BTW nice budshot Mysta777

 

[AbbieDoobie]

As promised, here's a picture of my 25 plants in my C13 at day 27 of veg:



~Abbie

 

[notjonesinNEmor]

The Doran louvers have a stack of 4 plates. I removed two of the plates to improve the intake flow. Depending on your stealth needs, this may not be an option. I'm am only worried about light leaking in, not out. I also use a black furnace filter material to help reduce any glowing that might make it through the louvers. I also cut the slats (It's now just a frame) from one set of the plates and use it to clamp the filter material down to the back of the louver. Works great.

 

[raygun]

Gota love the personal cab growing!!!
I got mine at ikea and its great. Real wood and the dimentions are aprox 3'wide 2'deep and 6.5' tall




I now grow in coco but basically the same set up. I have removed the roof that was my drying and utility area.


I needed the extra height when growing Apollos Mist and Petrol. It works better for me now.
I have also returned the carbon filter to the inside of the cab and use a high rated 6"CPU fan to cool my DIY cool tube. I cut off the plastic frame and installed in inside two 6"-4" reducers sandwiched together <[]> like that if <=4" and [=6"
sorry no picts.

Safe Growing everyone
~Raygun~

 

[icough2getoff]

Hey raygun, nice cab and plants. Just curious, was that some kind of ebb and flow setup you had in those pics? I'm curious how you kept that smaller tub from overflowing. Did you just have to have the pump on all the time?

 

[raygun]

Hey raygun, nice cab and plants. Just curious, was that some kind of ebb and flow setup you had in those pics? I'm curious how you kept that smaller tub from overflowing. Did you just have to have the pump on all the time?

Thanks for the kind words. Actually it is Bio-Buckets
and yeah i had the pump on 24/7. I actually lowered the amount of water in there once i got an auto topper hooked up. When i would shut off the pump the water in the buckets would fill the tub to the top but not over flow.

Now I run coco in 3.4Lt pots. I still only keep betwen 4-5 gals of water in the res but i do have it hooked up with an auto topper.

 

[tokinsmokin]

raygun, thats a cool set up you have there, bio buckets are cool. I'm about to have my ebbnflow up and running again here real soon, just waiting for these mothers to grow bigger to take clones to put in my 7 buckets.

 

[simon]

Pincone

Hey, Pine! It's good to see you're around. I still don't feel all that comfortable posting, but I'll keep checking back.

Simon

 

[mysta177]

Simon.....nice to see ya bra! Welcome back. I always love to read your 411 and truth you brought to the forums.....I hope you get comfortable soon Bra! K+

 

[JohnnySixString]

Well, after lots of reading...including reading this thread like three times...I think I'm about ready to try building my C24 cabinet to house a 400hps. It's going into the back corner of a walk-in closet that has a central ac/heat vent and averages around 74 degrees. I'll be using a Stanley blower and 6" duct to exhaust into the attic. I haven't figured out what to do as far as a carbon scrubber/odor control goes yet. For intake I ordered a pair of the 8" Adorama darkroom vents. I was going to put either both on the side or one on the side and one on the door. I wasn't planning on air-cooling the hood, taking a cue from Sumo's cab. Also, it's my understanding it's best to have your light perpendicular instead of parallel to the cab? Or does that really matter in one of these cabs? I used google's sketchup to kind of come up with what I'm thinking about doing. However, I'm not sure if the pictures will show up on here. ANY input would be very welcome. Let me know if I'm on the sort of right track.



(I keep getting the error "Your Post contains one or more URLs, please remove them before submitting your message again" every time I try adding a picture to the post. Hopefully they can still be seen in my gallery?)

 

[simon]

Simon.....nice to see ya bra! Welcome back. I always love to read your 411 and truth you brought to the forums.....I hope you get comfortable soon Bra! K+

Hi, M177! How is it growing? I'm still having a difficult time with what happened on OG and I've been trying to stay away from forums ever since.

I spent the last year struggling with a new (big) room, running into one problem after the next. By the time I figured out what was wrong, a year flew by. It was mostly due to a bad batch of fertilizer, but I redesigned and rebuilt the room over the Summer in hopes of taking care of all details and I'm just in the process of pulling the first decent harvest. It's been rough to say the least.

The boxes are running well, though. I replaced the Can50s with Can66s about 6 months ago. The Can50s lasted almost 3 years. I could have probably waited to dump them, but thought that it was foolish to take a chance.

EDIT: I seem to have some PMs, but as it turns out I don't have enough posts to access them. If anyone shot me a note, please be patient with me.


Simon