The Mill's Pride Club

[dmitexxi]

Ray,

Would this configuration work?

http://www.ecogrow.com/index.cfm?product=1915&special=new

the 400W 120V witht he 400W hurtlux400W HPS bulb and the premium cool tuve upgrade?

Im also drawing my scematics for you guys to check out.

 

[raygun]

Yeah that is basically what I am using now but I am about to go back to my magnetic ballest so that I can run the CMH bulb which you should research as you may decide it is a better fit for your grow.
If $ is not an issue get the prefab cool tube. If you are a more do it yourself type there are ways to make that same thing for around $50 just search for DIY cooltubes.

Hope that helps!

 

[pinecone]

dmitexxi,

I would strongly recommend venting the box with 8" square dark room louvers - as apposed to 2" holes with PVC light traps. I also think it makes sense to see if you can find an air cooled hood or prefabbed cooltube to fit in the box.

Something like this

http://www.hidhut.com/catalog/glass-tube-reflector-p-401.html

would be a good option.

Pine

 

[dmitexxi]

Ray/Pine,

Thanks for the feed back so far, I have come up with a design for my cab for you guys to check out and give me any feedback so far. I decided to go with digital ballast and compromising less production but its more of a safety issue with my wife around you know.

Please let me know what you guys think of the cab design.

 

[sumo]

Your ballast does not get included in ducting. And unless that carbon filter is hanging on the back of the cab in that pic it can't go there. You either suck through the filter which would put it in front of cool tube or you blow into it which would put it outside the cab. But great design for someone I had little confidence in, in the beginning. You are getting sharper and more on top of your game.

sumo

 

[sumo]

My last grow was small because of clogged carbon filter and heat wave but I wish I would have taken pics of them because those pics contrasted with these out of control bitches would be something. I have been growing Nirvana indoor mix the last three grows but I will have to go back to picking strains because I let these veg too long worried about another small grow. A few of these sativa dominant hazy like things are 4 1/2 feet tall. These are the most sativaish plants I have had yet. Besides a couple of these plants probably taking longer to finish I think it will be fine. These are at 4 1/2 weeks flower.

 

[dmitexxi]

Thanks Sumo,

I made the change. If this look OK then ill start looking to aquire the materials.

On a side note, how long did you veg those plants there?

 

[sumo]

They were vegged about 5 weeks and were a little over 12" tall when I switched them to 12/12. I am not a vented hood expert having never had one but you still need to move things around a little. The cool tube is designed to be vented. The order of ducted things could be I believe-------carbonfilter--ducting--cool tube--ducting--fan ducted out cab. This will have fan noise though. You could also blow into filter which would muffle fan noise and filter would be outside of cab. the order of this would be ----cool tube--ducting--fan--ducted to outside of cab into filter.

sumo

 

[raygun]

In that last design you need to ventilate the cool tube. You can take another small canfan/inline fan or make your own out of high powered muffin/pc fan and 6"-4" reducers wich is what I use and just vent the air directly to the filter so that it is sucked out. I literally just poked the wire from the vent tubing in to the side of my DIY carbon filter so that it forces the air in the side of the filter and the heat is sucked out with the larger fan. Its not perfect but works for me.

 

[dmitexxi]

Just when i fell i had it figured out You thouw me a curveball but thats what im hear to learn from you guys.. and im truly thankful four your patience.

Sumo,

Thanks for the feedback i was wondering how to muffle the sound from the fan.

Ray,

I need an exhaust for the cooltube? What should the CFM be for a 400W light/or should it leverage the 6" 449CFM fan illustrated? and just to be clear it should be TUBE>449CFM_FAN>CAN_33_CARBON_FILTER>6" to 4" CONVERTER>EXHAUST_DARKROOM_VENT?

 

[raygun]

yeah you need to have air flow through the cool tube. If you wish to use a y connector you can hook one end up to your filter and the other to your cool tube but you MUST make the cool tube a "closed circut". Meaning the Air you suck in to the cool tube MUST COME DIRECTLY FROM OUTSIDE THE BOX other wise you risk pulling all that stinky air out of the box via the cool tube and not the filter.

The way that you listed: tube to fan and pushing through the filter will work but is not best fo the filter and then you must place your filter outside the box unless you can some how vent all that air being pushed out from all around that filter. The Can filter does not exhaust from the opposite end of it but rather through the filter material wrapped around it.

If you get a secondary small inline fan rated atleast 100CFM and hook that direct to the cool tube and exhaust that directly on to the side of the filter (it will not be conected to the filter just placed with the hot air from the cool tube exhaust blowing on to it) so that the 449CMF fan can suck out the heat through the filter. I have used a CPU fan that i cut the square plastic around it and fit it inside the 6" side of a 4"-6" reducer and then poped another "6-4" reducer so it looks like this -<|>- the | is where the fan is. I hope that i explained that well enough.

hope this helps.

 

[dmitexxi]

Ray do you mean something like this? i feel like this should work with a stealth look.

 

[icough2getoff]

dmitexxi, you're gonna have to understand a few things here so you can improve your design.

1. Why is your ballast always attached to your ducting? Most people either leave no ducting on the intake side of the cooltube and run ducting from the other side to a carbon filter, or run that ducting to a hole going outside the cab so it sucks air from outside, then past the bulb, and then directly back outside, never mixing with the air inside the grow.

2. By not running your ducting from your cooltube to directly outside the cab, you're kind of defeating it's purpose. The cooltube is to keep the hot air from the bulb from ever entering inside the cab, so you want to get it out of there without giving it the chance to mix with the air inside the cab again.

3. Same theory as above should apply to your carbon filter. You don't want any air from your cab to escape the cab without going through the filter first, and then don't let it mix with the air inside your cab again. Look at your 8" intakes. That air is going to pass right through your plants and most of it is going to completely bypass the carbon scrubber.

Another concern is you mentioned you didn't want to see much of a spike in your electricity. With my 400W my electricity bill more than doubled. I live alone and don't waist a whole lot, but if your landlord is paying your electric bill and you're fairly conservative on the electricity, you might consider a 250.

 

[raygun]

yeah Icough has valid points.
1. "or run that ducting to a hole going outside the cab so it sucks air from outside, then past the bulb, and then directly back outside, never mixing with the air inside the grow." this is a "closed circut"

2. Yeah agreed the point is to keep the hot air from entering the cab but if you can not run the "closed circut" you kinda have to vent in to the cab to keep the stinky air in the cab. That is why I run my ducting from my cooltube direct to the side of my carbon filter. It is kinda like forced air injection into the filter so that the stinky air is scrubbed. This will also give you air circulation from the middle of your cab as you are pulling air from the open end of the cool tube.

3. Icough I don't see that happening. Please expand on your thinking? The vents are at the bottom the scrubber is at the top and as long as there is a neg pressure in the cab no stinky air should be escaping from any where. The heat should also creat an upflow of air as hot air rises helping to pull that air from the bottom to the top.

As far as the power issue yeah a 400w with all acompanying electrical items will about double a single persons electical bill I guess. Like i said mine was about an $80 increase per month. My last place the landlord wanted to include the elect in the rent and I told them from the get go that I use a lot of electricity, fish tanks, multiple computers, music equiptment, kegerator, wine fridge the list of electrical items went on and on. LOL The bill was consistanly atleast double of the $ amount they allowed of $80 which was the average they said for them over the last year at the home.

I had them stop buy for some repairs a few months in to renting, saw a few of the items I told them about and I had no issues.

You don't need 2 fans pulling air from the cool tube so you can go with either or but definatly do not need both.

Safe growing

 

[icough2getoff]

3. Icough I don't see that happening. Please expand on your thinking? The vents are at the bottom the scrubber is at the top and as long as there is a neg pressure in the cab no stinky air should be escaping from any where. The heat should also creat an upflow of air as hot air rises helping to pull that air from the bottom to the top.

It looks to me like the 100cfm fan is attached from the cooltube ducting directly to the carbon scrubber. If that's the case, it's only scrubbing the air that's going through the cooltube. Now with that 449cfm fan on with no scrubber attached, there's no way all 449cfm that it's exhausting will have already gone through the scrubber.. So you have at least 349cfm exhausting through the 449cfm fan that did not go through any scrubber. Air flows the path of least resistance. For most air coming in through the darkroom louvers, the path of least resistance is straight up to the 449CFM fan without going through any carbon first.

 

[dmitexxi]

Icough,

Thanks for the feedback, i actually feel real embarrased at with my mistakes but the good thing is im learning

I have made another modification hope i got it right this time or ill kill myself

 

[icough2getoff]

That design looks much more realistic dmitexxi. I probably go through 5-10 blueprints before I decide on my final cab so don't kill yourself quite yet, you have some sticky buds to grow. Designing a cab takes time, but the rewards are well worth it.

My only main concern now is the placement of your carbon scrubber. The air in a scrubber exits out the sides, so attaching ducting to both ends wont make sense. It usually goes either in the beginning or the end of your ducting. Keep in mind, with the scrubber on your exhaust you wont need a darkroom vent because the scrubber will block any light. If you can fit it inside your cab without sacrificing head room, that would work well. Otherwise you could put the scrubber on top of your cab and just put it inside a cardboard box with no top so it's hidden and the air can still escape.

I don't want to tell you how to build your cab because it's your cab, just want you to understand the basics so you can build it yourself, but I've become a fan of the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method. It seems from my experience that more ducting means more noise of air movement, so I think as little ducting as possible is good. The closed circuit method ray and I have talked about would work, but I think people usually use that if they're going to use CO2, so they don't have to vent the air in the cab as often. If it were my cab, and I wanted to air cool the light, I would just buy a 6" cooltube or a hood that would fit, and just have that as part of the main ducting. I don't mean to confuse or frustrate you more, just trying to point some things out you should understand. Though for the most part, your last design would work fine except for the scrubber placement.

 

[dmitexxi]

Im not taking it personal in telling me how to to build my cab, Im here to bounce my ideas that ive been reading past you guys with experience so everyones input so far is appreciated so much. I hope to one day be able to return the favor and help in return.

So i understand what you said about the placement of my scrubber so it should be scrubber->fan->exhaust correct?

Also how big are the can33's? Im asking because the height of my room is 82" and the cabinet is 72" leaving me 10 inches on top. Im trying to keep it stealth looking by keeping it inside the cabinet. With that being said will a 56" growth space in height be sufficient?

I also forgot to mention that i own where i live so the electric is not a consern from nosy landlord but rather from the eliectric company seeing a spike in usage and notifing the authorities.

i feel like im getting close to finalizing it.. im so excited.

 

[raygun]

Yo D looks good and Icough has pointed out a good point about the scrubber and looks like you got the point. The cool tube intake you should put at the back of the cab if you want the most stealth and if possible run the exhaust out the top? Just posiblities as you re-think your design a few more times.

And in regards to post #1056 I see what you are saying with the 100 connected direct to the scrubber. Well he has it partly right, what I have done is
cooltube->ducting->100cfm->ducting -> side of carbon scrubber. and the -> is the air flow direction as well Its not perfect but gets the hot air up and away and as close to the exit as possible. This summer my cab ran max 90deg peak heat at the top of the canopy during the hottest months of the summer with no AC in the garage. The top 12"-16" of my cab was like 100+deg and below the canopy it was in the 80 most of the time so a huge temp varience. But my gals did well and produced just fine like always!

 

[dmitexxi]

Thanks i modded the drawing. One question haviong my intake in the back of the cab, will i be able to draw enough air from the outside if the cabinet will be against the wall.