Dr. Funkenstein

Hello everyone, This is something I put together, compiled from a thread I found which was slightly off, and my many hours of homework. I found a number of the incoming n00b threads posted on this forum, consisted of questions that could pretty much be answered here, in one shot. This should help you the n00b, begin to form your decisions. This is also for those who just need a quick scientific reference, accompanied by reason. This is not everything, as I'm sure many people will spot flaws, which I think is a good thing. This is just something to help all the n00bs who have yet to obsess, to kind of force them along their chosen rabbit hole.

Let's start with the ultimate meta-question-

What is your goal for this project?

(I'm specifically not going to talk about grows of over 1200 watts in a single space- I think that's a reasonable cut-off between personal use and small-commercial gardens. Most folks who are burning more than two 600's in flower are producing enough over headstash to be producing a small income stream, and the crazed Maoist in me wants to let them figure it out for themselves. You have to learn to walk before you run. For folks who are leaning that way- be advised that ventilation, in particular, does not always scale up linearly. Since this is specifically aimed at n00bs, we will focus on 1200 watt single spaced grows and below.)


How serious do you think you're going to get?

Are you the kind of person who gets caught up in hobbies, or do you pick things up and put them down as the mood strikes? If you are- move up one light size. (ie, from 250 to 400, or from 1K to two 600's).

What's your budget?

( Throughout this I'm going to point toward what I feel is best practical practice, though I'll try to sketch out both minimal and best possible as I go along. I'm sure a LOT of folks are going to disagree with me about best practical approach- feel free to comment. Do me a favor, though- quote the part that you're disagreeing with, so we don't have to be scrolling up and down as much in the inevitable pie-fights.)

Anyway, if you're thinking about setting up, you should have a space in mind. Picking a space is a very important decision- I'd plan it out through harvest and drying before I so much as cracked a seed.

Really, the ideal space for a personal grow is a 4x4 to6x8 basement closet with a solid, lockable door and a window, with an exterior wall that's far away from any trafficked areas. Life, unfortuneatly, is rarely ideal. There are quite a few factors that make for a good growing space- so as you think about a spot, I'm going to ask you to answer a few questions, we'll assign scores to different answers, and try to come up with a formula for choosing a “room” to grow in.

The best way that I can think of to do this is a 1-5 scale, with 1 being the low or minimal end, and 5 being the best you can think of. We'll end up assigning each question a multiplier value so that we can rate the relative importance of each factor. In example, the conveniance of not having to carry water too far is important, but NOWHERE NEAR as important as discretion/security. I'd much rather carry water than handcuffs. I'm also going to define some of the questions as we go.

A.) Is the space the right size?( 1-5)
I'd say the minimum size for a 250 is 2x2, for a 400 3x4, for a 600 4x4, and for a K 5x5.
I'd also say that the maximums are 3x3, 4x5, 6x6, and 8x8 repectively. 4-6X8 is a nice configuration for two 600's. (I'm sure that we'll get a bunch of opinions about this.) If it's too big, will you be able to cut it up?

B.) Will you be able to provide enough fresh air? (1-5)
How accessible is ventilation? Is there a window? Attic hatch? If you're thinking small box, will one side be against a wall, allowing you to cut ventilation holes?

C.) Is the space private? (1-5)
Is there any reason for anybody else to need to access the space with no or little notification? Do you rent? Do you have tenants? Are there circuit breakers or plumbing shutoffs in the space? Water heaters? Does the space have a “wet wall”?

D.) Is the space discreet? (1-5)
Is it close to your front door? Have windows facing the street? Would the mailman/ oil delivery guy/ pizza guy ever notice anything?

E.) Is there adequate power? (1-5)
Will you be able to run your choice of lamp, plus another 50% to cover fans, pumps,etc?
You can't run more than a K safely on a 15 amp circuit- Well, yeah, two 600's, but you won't have room for as much as a clock-radio by the time you're done.

F.)How far do you have to carry water?
( in-room water would be a 5, up two flights of stairs a 1)

G.) Is the space stable in terms of temperature? (1-5)
Are you going to bake in the summer, or freeze in the winter? Attic temps bounce around a lot, from way-too-hot to freakin freezing, depending on insulation. Basements tend to run nice and cool year-round. Living spaces are usually in the 65-75 range, and are OK- but I don't run central air, so my second floor bedrooms would probabley be too hot in the summer. Yours might or might not.

H.) Is the space available? (1-5)
Are you thinking about taking over the space where your wife keeps her knitting? Her ski's? Her chainsaw? Is this where your roommate keeps his comic book collection? Action figures? ( Growing in a group house is an exercise in politics that would make Kissinger sweat)

Now let's talk multipliers...

I'm going to assign some “ importance” multipliers, and I'll try to explain my reasoning. Feel free to offer your opinions/solutions- but again, please quote the passage that your critiquing, so my scrolling finger doesn't cramp.


A) appropriate size- On a 1-10 scale of importance, I'd say this is a 7- not critical, but important. It's important that you can make it size well- a 4x4 area of an 8x10 bedroom will work great for a 400, if you can partition it off so that you're not wasting light.
So a perfect size (5)would get you 35 points (5x7)

*B.) Ventilation- I'm going to say another 7. You can get around vent issues by upsizing fans, building lung rooms, etc- but thinking thru your ventilation is key! Great access would give you a 5, so you'd get 35 points ( 5x7).

*C.) Privacy- big ol' 10. (Do I have to explain why?)

D.)discretion- not as important as privacy- you can hide things in plain sight. Still, if I have a vent sticking thru the wall, I don't want it to be right by the front door. Let's call it an 8.

E.) Adequate power- HID lights suck a good bit of juice, and overloaded wiring can cause fires- which will get you clipped at best, or kill someone at worst. However, inadequate wiring isn't that bad to remedy. Try to avoid extension cords, and if you have to use them- buy, brand new, the heaviest extension you can find, in the correct length for your application. Extensions are expensive, but much less so then lawyers. ( No cords on the floor!). As this is fairly manageable, I'm going to give it a 5.

F.) Distance to water- is really a conveniance thing. Lugging H20's a drag, but not a deal- breaker. Call it a 3.

G.) Temp Stability- can make or break a grow. Again, it can be managed, but can be a real PITA- and even worse to try to retrofit a running room. Let's call it a 6.

H.) Availability- you really don't want to step on anybody's toes. No matter what, the grow will eventually cause friction with anybody else who lives in the space. On the other hand, if nobody's an asshole, you should be able to make it work- but if push comes to shove, you'll get shoved. Try not to push. Let's give it a 4. (This applys if you're growing with others, or have room mates.)

Ok, so take your “score” for each question and multiply by the appropriate “ importance” factor to get the weighted value of your answer. Then sum up the weighted values to get your spaces grade as a potential grow space.


The perfect space would score a 250.
The worst space on earth would score a 50.

I'd give a score of:
210 to 250 an “A”
170 to 209 a “B”
130 to 169 a “C”.


I would'nt even think about working in a space that didn't score at least a “C”- that's just asking for trouble. But with the right amount of "MacGanja Ingenuity"(80s GadgetGuy show reference), anything is possible. Use at your own risk.


Room Prep- First things first. Go in there and shut the door. Turn any lights off. Wait five minutes... Can you see anything? At all? Any light anywhere?

If you're going to line the room in Panda, it'll take care of a lot of light leaks. If you're using mylar or white paint, you're going to want to fix the light leaks before you paint/hang- mylar in particular will let a lot of light thru.

Pros&Cons

Mylar:
Pros- highly reflective, easy to hang, does not wear well
Cons- makes noise in fans, electrically conductive



Panda Plastic:
Pros- very reflective, 10' wide, durable and cheap
Cons- may be hard to source, 10'wide, hard to hang alone



Flat White Paint:
Pro- cheap, easy to apply, easy to repaint
Con- messy to apply, must dry before plants go in, hard to clean

An easy way to light proof a door is to hang a length of panda over the door opening, with a self-adhesive zipper to close it up. Windows can be covered w/ panda or luan- You can hang a mini-blind between the glass and the covering as camoflage. If you're going to vent thru this window, remember to leave it open a few inches before you cover it!

Next chapter: Sizing your exhaust and intakes

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

M3di-Ca.ted

Nice! This should help out a lot of people. I like that this is going to be a series.

Dr. Funkenstein

The ventilation system is one of the most critical aspects of growroom design. I'm going to shy away from discussion of AC use for now- most personal gardens can get by without, and those that can't will generally be served by the climate control system of the dwelling. For now, we'll assume that that primary cooling/ dehumidification is going to be through exhaust.

The ventilation system, at it's simplest, consists of three elements- the intake, the exhaust, and the blower/fan. Choices here are about equivalently important. Let's start with fan sizing, which is tied to room size (in cubic feet) and choice of lamp.

For now, I'm going to assume that people are using a single main exhaust blower and a passive ( unpowered) intake. (Active intakes can be very effective, but great care must be taken to insure that intake CFM does not exceed exhaust CFM. In this case, you'll achieve a positive pressure condition in the growroom. This excess pressure WILL disperse in an uncontrollable manner, bringing with it delectable but dangerous aromas.( See above primary principles.) I would advise always trying to run at as close to nominal pressure as possible, with any variation from nominal being negative.)

Calculating cubic footage is simple- length x width x height = cubic volume. You want a main exhaust fan which can exchange the air in your room in no more than five minutes. I try to budget for three minutes. Let's comprimise at four minutes. Therefore, a 5x5 room with 8' ceilings would require a fan capable of [ 5(l) x 5(w) x 8(h)] = 200 cf. 200 cf / 4 (minutes)= 50 CFM for your fan. Doesn't sound like much, huh?

Now let's get into efficiency factor multipliers. ( This is where it all goes to hell).



Take your unloaded CFM requirement, and add 10 % for each foot of flexible ductwork that you are exhausting thru.( ie- you need to clear a 4x4x6 room thru 10' of ductwork. That's {96 CF /4 (minutes)}= 24 CFM + {(10'x10%)=100%} 24 CFM+100% (of 24 CFM)= 48 CFM. ( Exhaust loaded CFM)

Now take your (E.L.)CFM and multiply it by 1.5 for each 90 degree bend in your exhaust ductwork, cumulitively. ( Ie- you have a loaded CFM of 48 cfm that makes two 90' bends in it's ten foot length. That would be (48 x 1.5)x1.5- or 108 cfm loaded w/ bend factor.)

OK- CFM requirements are adding up pretty quick, and we haven't even talked about odor control. I personally think that carbon filters are the best method of odor control- but I figure that we'll get a healthy debate about this too. I like to put my carbon filter inside the room, near the ceiling. I like to set up the filter before the fan, so that air is sucked from the space, through the filter, through the fan, and then out of the space. This way, all air being pressurized by the fan has already been de-odorized. You can blow through the filter if you mount it after the fan, but be aware that between the fan and the filter there will be a zone of pressurized, stinky air- any leaks in your ductwork moving air from fan to filter will create potential smell issues. ( See primary principles above.)

Take your EL CFM ( including bend factor) and multiply by 1.3 to allow for intake restriction of the carbon filter. Don't forget to allow for ductwork between filter and fan!

So, if we're running a filter that's 3' away from the fan- our total duct length ( in the above example) is now 13'. Let's adjust our math.

We have a 4x4x6 room. Our total duct length is 13'. We're using a filter. Our math now looks like-

4x4x6 room= 96 CF. Divided by 4 minutes is 24 CFM required.
24 CFM + 130% ( 10%x13')= 55.2 CFM ( I'm gonna round to whole CFM, to try to minimize decimal over-runs)

(55CFMx1.5)x1.5= 124 CFM – to allow for our two 90 degree bends.

124 CFMx1.3 ( to allow for air velocity lost to the filter) = 161 CFM.

So we're looking at a 161 CFM fan.

But wait- we haven't even thought about how our light's going to effect this. We could go off into a discussion of determining system effeciency by measuring intake and exhaust temperatures so that we could calc differential temperatures, but I don't know how to make the little “ delta” symbol on my laptop keyboard, so I'm gonna skip that and assign yet another load factor...

For a 250HPS- multiply by .75
For a 400- multiply by 1
For a 600, multiply by 1.3
For a K, multiply by 1.6.


So to put a 600 in that room, we'll take our base adjusted CFM and multiply by 1.3 .
161 CFM x 1.3 (lamp factor)= 209 CFM fan/blower to power the ventilation system.

I'm not going to blow out the math to establish what room intake sizes should be to prevent drag on the system- that get's WAY crazy... Instead, I'm going to propose that we use a rule of thumb stating that “ Intake area should be fan CFM x .5 square inches”

Applying this rule, our 209 CFM fan would require an intake area of about 100 sq. inches- or 10” x10”. This does'nt have to be monolithic- two 50 sq” intakes will work as well as one 100 sq “ intake. You can check your intake sizing by just cracking open the door to the room and firing the fan- if the door moves at all, you need more intake.

When shopping for fans, round up- if you need a 209, and your choices are 180 or 240, grab the 240.

Next Chapter: More Ventilation- But much less math.

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

Dr. Funkenstein

OK- back to it...

Couple more ventilation notes, and then on to room construction prep.

I heartily recommend using thru-wall flanges anywhere that you need to run ductwork thru a partition. For instance- You're using a window to exhaust... First, Mount a mini-blind in the window.(Camoflage from outside). Leave the window cracked open a few iches top and bottom,so that air can flow easily around the sash. Now cut a piece of luan (good) or cardboard (cheap) that fits inside the interior casing, flush against the stop. ( The stop is the piece of molding that holds the sash in the window opening, preventing it from falling into the room.) This should block the entire window. If you're dealing with a newer (vinyl) window, you won't have a stop- instead, the body of the window unit will but right up against the casing. You'll mount your blackout panel against this instead.

Put the blackout panel in place and make sure it fits well. Determine where on the panel you're going to run your exhaust- cut a hole ( holesaw), sized to match your fan's output dimension. Home Depot and the like, in the HVAC section, will have “starter flanges”- they're used to mount branch ductwork off of sheet metal mains. They look like a little top-hat that somebody has punched through. (Again, sized to your fan's output dimension- if you're using a 6” fan, you'l be using 6” flanges and 6” duct) Mount this with a couple of short screws over the hole in your blackout panel, so you have a nice clean, light-tight place to mount your ductwork. This will essentially eliminate issues with ductwork coming loose ( and beaming a veritable bat-signal out your window), which is not uncommon when you start pressurizing flexiduct. If you wish to use this window as an intake as well, put your exhaust port high, and use multiple intake ports at the bottom. To light proof the intakes, merely attach ductwork to the starter flanges that you put over your intake holes and allow to bend down 90 degrees. I'd also advise ( strongly) putting insect screening over the intake holes from the outside- you can just glue it in place with caulking.

On a wooden window, I'll usually affix this with some wire nails ( very wee)- On a vinyl window, I use cheap acrylic non-siliconized caulking, as this can be cleaned off pretty easily if and when you need to make the room go away. Don't use the siliconized here, as it'll be tough to clean up perfectly.

If you're ducting thru walls or ceilings, you can usually use “ duct coupler” units- tube of sheetmetal, sized to fit inside your ductwork, that are designed to join two lengths of duct. Cut your holes ( with the appropriate hole-saw) and slip the coupler in place. If your walls are too thick for the coupler unit to go all the way through, you'll need to use “hard duct”- the sheetmetal stuff. Also home depot. Measure the length you need to have and cut to fit. Most easily cut if you open it up, lay it flat, trace your measurement several times with a utility knife, and then bend the sheet metal back and forth until it pops apart. Beware of razor sharp edges!

OK- so we know what our ventilation looks like, we have all of our flanges mounted- couple more details before we treat the walls.

Find your ceiling studs- a studfinder will cost about $15 , also at Casa de Pot. If you have a studfinder, you can skip the next paragraph..

You can often find studs by tapping on the surface and listening to the sound it produces- an open wall cavity will sound boomy, while tapping over the stud will produce a deader sound. This will get you within a few inches- now you need to poke thru the wall surface and look for wood. If you have plaster and lathe ceilings, make sure you are hitting frame and not lathe- if you hang a heavy light fixture by the lathe, you'll probabley be allright- but maybe 1 time in 10, the lathe will eventually pull free, dropping your light and 50-100 lbs of ceiling onto your garden. (Same thing with drywall anchors) Establish the pattern of your ceiling studs ( really joists, but whatever) and trace till they meet the walls. Mark the wall where the stud hits, extending the mark down maybe 3-4 “s. Hang your panda/mylar/paint on the ceiling. Now, before you cover the marks on the walls, snap a line from mark to mark corresponding with the joist run. These show you where you can hang things from the ceiling, SAFELY.

So go buy a studfinder- or borrow your dad's ( He'll be so proud).

OK- you're ready to paint, or to hang your reflective film.

Mylar comes in 48 and 54 inch widths, and 1 and 2 mil thicknesses. I really recommend using the 2 mil if your going to use mylar- 1 mil tears like tissue paper. If using mylar, be aware that it's not perfectly opaque- you need to black out any windows that you haven't already.
Start in one corner on the ceiling. Unroll about 6” from the roll and tuck into the corner where the ceiling meets the wall, and put a few staples in. Now unroll across the ceiling, keeping the edge of the mylar paralell and butted against the paralell wall. Put staples in to tack it up every couple of feet. Keep things tight and neat- Neatness counts a whole lot. Roll right over any ventilation flanges you have previously mounted. Repeat until the ceiling is covered. Rooms are never perfectly square- overlap your mylar by a few inches so that you can adjust.

Once it's all up, tack it in place thoroughly. Staples will pull thru mylar very easily- anywhere that you need to staple, put a little square of duct tape up first and staple through that, to re-inforce the mylar. (Duct tape, by the way, uses an adhesive that gets soft when warm- don't rely on it as a growroom fastener. Here, it's just a buttress) Use a Sharply to translate your joist marks up onto the ceiling covering.

If you're hanging mylar alone, it's usually easier to run the wall covering in vertical strips, as gravity will help keep it straight. If you have a partner, run it horizontally ( One holds in place while the other staples.) Again, roll right over blacked out windows, vent flanges.
( Don't cover the door.)

Cut out the mylar to expose any electrical outlets, vent flanges, etc. I like to poke a hole in the center of flanges and make asterisk (*) shaped cuts out to the edge- gives ya a nice clean fit. Of course, be careful using a knife around an electrical outlet. Mylar is electrically conductive, so avoid the temptation to tuck the mylar under the cover plate, no matter how much better it looks.

Panda's similar, but 10' wide off the roll. You'll want to measure the length of your walls, and cut panda a few inches longer. Panda's folded do that you can pull one edge out- align w/ ceiling edge, letting a few inches run down onto the wall. Staple heartily. Now unfold panda across ceiling, stapling as you go. Panda's a lot tougher than mylar, you won't need as many staples. Same deal, same cautions regarding vent flanges, electrical outlets.

Paint's pretty straight forward- just don't lose your joist marks! Caulk the edges of any flanges going through a window blackout, to ensure that you won't have tell-tale glow from outside.

Might as well mylar, paint, or panda the inside of the door while you have all this stuff out. Make sure that the door will close properly! If you have a louvered door, or a door that really doesn't fit well, hang panda over the inside casing and install a self-adhesive zipper to allow you to open and close it. Wherever you got the panda will have the zippers, or you can get them for tarps at a lot of lumberyards. You're looking for a “ tarp zipper”.

OK- so now you should have a highly reflective room. Grab a grease pencil or sharpy. Go inside and close the door. Block off your duct flanges. Turn off your worklights and hang out for at least 5 minutes to allow your eye to adjust. The ONLY light leaks that you should see should be incompletely blocked ventilation flanges. Anything else- circle it in greasepencil or sharpy, so that you will be able to find it again with the lights back on. Doors can be a drag- do the panda&zipper thing, or use v-seal weatherstripping if you have a problem. A door sweep is also a really good idea- go look at your storm doors to see what I mean.

This is very important- it's much easier to fix stuff now, while the room is empty.!

Once you have plants in there, you will not see the room in the dark- most folks discover their light leaks when they start seeing hermies. Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance!


Next Chapter: More PrepWork!

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

Dr. Funkenstein

Prep work's a drag, huh? Don't worry, it's all very worthwhile.

So why do you need to know where your studs are?

"If any thing that electrical if it falls , thats where the problem starts.
Hot tube , cold tube, cpf, anything thats powered by electricity that falls has a possibility of caussing a fire.
Always use gfi in the grow room, always hang with a good chain, always think safetyfirst, ALWAYS HAVE A FIRE ALARMS , SAFETY FIRST, GROWING SECOND, YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. enough shouting do not kill you self and others." - Wise Old Grower

You're going to hang an HID lamp from the ceiling. There are three ways that a fire can start in a growroom. One of them is to overload a circuit or powerstrip. Another is a flammable material too close to the lamp. The third is for your lamp to have fallen.

There's a new thread on forums everywhere daily, where somebodies dropped their light onto their plants- and that's really a best case scenario. Worst case is that your light falls and ruptures the bulb, IGNITING A FIRE!! Somewhere in the middle is your light falling while you are working under it, causing painful burns. ( Painful, painful burns...)

Remember, the only constant in life is entropy- shit falls apart...

I don't regard an HID lamp as any more dangerous than a microwave oven. (That being said, I have rarely suspended my microwave over my head.)

The reason that you need to know where your studs are is that you are going to hang your HID lamp, from these joists.
Would you hang a microwave oven from string tied to a little wire hook in your ceiling drywall? If you would, would you take a bath underneath it?

Me, I'd use chain, hooks rated at least three times the load that I was going to hang on them, and I'd have those hooks very firmly mounted onto ceiling joists. But if I hung it, then yeah, I'd take a bath under it.

I'm sure that this sounds like hyperbole, and it sort of is- but the point is safety, so I don't feel bad about it.

By now, you should have a very specific plan of how your going to lay out your plants- if you don't, set up your containers, trays, what have you , and do a layout plan- figure out how you're going to water things, where things should go so that you can reach them easily- Frequently, it doesn't make sense to hang the light in the center of the room. It's a whole lot easier to re-arrange empty pots until you have something that works for you, than it is to move pots around to water. Make sure that there's room for you in there too, and that you'll be able to reach the pots with a full, heavy container of water- or if you're going to do hydro, that you'll be able to maneuver five gallon buckets of water in there, get nute samples easily, that kinda thing.

Anyway, do your layout, and get a look at where your plants are going to end up when they finish flowering. This is going to determine where you end up putting your light. Assuming that your walls are fairly level, you can take measurements on the floor and transcribe them to the ceiling- Just make marks on the floor and use a plumb bob. ( Borrow your grand-dads- it'll thrill him)

A quick tip- the great majority of the light from an HID lamp is emitted from the sides of the arc tube. I always try to align the arc tube so that it's parallel to the shorter walls of the room- this gives you the most efficient distribution pattern.

Personally, I like to have the light suspended from more than one joist, although I suppose that if you actually have a complete failure of a joist, the lamp will be the least of your problems.( I used to do swing stage work in an urban area- I'm really into redundant back-ups.) If I'm at ninety degrees to the joists, then a couple of hooks and we're done- if I'm parallel, I usually strap a plate across two joists and sink the hook in that. This also adds a lot of flexibility in placing the light, as I'm not stuck with the joist layout- if I want to be six inches further over, I have the option.

Hooks and chains are load rated. Always at least triple the load rating- ie a 20# reflector requires hooks and chains load rated at at least sixty #s. It's the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy, and the most likely to pay off. ( Speaking of which, if your homeowners underwriter ever finds out about you're doing this, they will never pay any claims for any damage- Are you going to walk into a courtroom and sue your insurer because they wouldn't pay for fire damage caused by your garden? Me neither.)

It's a really good idea to pick one hook on any given chain that you're going to use for adjustments, and crimp the others or otherwise ensure that they cannot possibly dislodge. Play out scenarios like:

You have walked into the room and tripped, falling directly onto the reflector.
Will your body weight pushing it to one side knock it off a hook?

You have been crouched over under the lamp, and misjudged it's location. When you straighten up, the back of your head touched the bulb- causing instant, searing (literally) pain. You thrash about.
Can you knock any of the hooks out by taking weight off of them or shaking them back and forth?

These things happen, and suck.

But they suck even more if they end up dropping your lamp onto your plants, onto your head, or into some water.

Ok, are you happy with where your reflectors hung, how it's hung, what it's hung with? Great- take it down. We need to strap more stuff on the ceiling- we did the light first because it's big, and position sensitive.

I usually do the carbon filter on the ceiling as well, hung from hook and chain. It's not as critical to have the filter perfectly positioned- Nice to have it nearish the light, as that's where airs often hottest, and center of spaceish- but pretty much anywhere reasonable on the ceiling's gonna do. As the filter will neither burn me or start a fire, I usually just hang it off one of the joists- sink two hooks, put chain on them, hold the filter up, wrap chains around filter and back onto same hook. Good idea to check the fit with the reflector back in place- also to make sure that it's really as easy to move the reflector around as you expected. Try to point the flange end of the filter toward the exhaust flange you installed earlier, or at least not away from it. The fan goes anywhere that's good between the two- again, heavy, joist. The fan will seem quieter from outside the room, where it matters, if there's flex ducting between it and the exhaust flange, and if you suspend it from a piece of chain or bungee, so it's vibration is not transmitted to the joist.

Now lay out your ducting, cut it to a good fit (Not so short that it wants to pull off the flanges, not so long that it's all over the place) For this, I use drywall hooks and cable ties- it doesn't weigh anything.

Ok, so we have your ventilation in place, with the cord from the fan just hanging down. Go ahead and hang the reflector back up, (no bulb just yet, and with the lamp cord unplugged from the ballast, if you can,) stand back, and admire your work. It's starting to look like a growroom in there.


Next Chapter: Routing Cables, Environmental Controls and Timers

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

Dr. Funkenstein

This is all pretty straightforward. We'll start with the cord that's going to run from your ballast to your lamp.

Remember, this wiring is on the HIGH VOLTAGE side of the ballast transformer. HID bulbs operate at a nominal 600 volts AC ( which, as trivia buffs may be aware, was proven by no less than Thomas Edison to be capable of causing a watermelon to explode, properly applied. Thomas Edison must have really loved his job.). There's a very signifigant start-up surge when the bulb fires- Peak voltage is determined by the bulb's cold resistance factor, but it will be notably higher.

(Please Please Please don't try to add length to your lamp cord by splicing in romex or an extension cord. They're not designed for this kind of voltage, and very likely to fail. You can buy the right stuff @ Home Depot, if you have to splice in. Or better yet, just buy a longer lampcord and socket set @ your local hydro shop, if you're not very very comfortable with appliance level wiring. F#$king up is a good way to start a fire or fry a ballast, though it does make for interesting fireworks).

So, from the above, we can assume that we want this cable run very neatly, with nothing pulling on it, up off the floor- so we can't step on it, and it will not get wet. It's a very good practice to make sure that you can't touch the lamp cord and any exposed metal plumbing ( pipes, radiators, etc) at the same time.

So, let's start by lowering your reflector down as low as you can ever imagine running it. Now lower it another six inches. Toss a ceiling hook in up by the existing hook that holds the chain running to the socket end of your reflector, and loosely loop the lampcord over this new hook. I generally put on a cable tie, very loosely, so that I can still slide the cord easily, but I know that it's not going to pop off.

Have you thought yet about where your ballast is going to live? Ideally, a the ballast does throw some heat, we'd like to have it out of the room entirely- but this might be overly complicated. If you've sized your ventilation properly, it'll handle the ballast heat just fine.

I've only got one hard and fast rule about ballast placement- IT MUST BE HIGHER THAN MY WAIST.

Why? Because five gallon buckets full of water are heavy, that's why.

Simple fact of the matter is that you will, at some point, be carrying a full five of something in this room. On account of being a primate and all, the easiest way to carry a full, heavy five is by the handle, which puts it down by your knees and out away from your body. If you're short on room, though, or if you need to pour from said five, you're going to rest the base of that five on your hip bone- and that's when you're going to drop it.

Growrooms by their nature pose a high risk of accidental intersections of electricity and water. There's a reason why building codes require a UL listing for water heaters and washing machines- and these are the only things that I can think of in the average home that bring water and electricity into the same proximity as a growroom. ( OK, hot tubs and fridges w/ icemakers... I'll be over around eight, have margaritas ready...).

I've heard a story where this grower was standing next to a 1KW halide ballast that got suddenly, catastrophically wet. About 8 milliseconds later, he was sitting a good ways away- then running for a fire extinguisher.

Seriously, keep your ballast up out of the spill zone- water and high voltage transformer plates do not play well together!!

So figure out where you're going to put the ballast, and string the lamp cord over to where it's going. I just use ceiling hooks, myself. Run the cord as straight as possible across the ceiling and then down the wall to your ballast. Ballast sitting on a shelf is fine, but I like to actually hang them right on the wall. Quality ballasts will have some kind of rigging hardware built in- keyhole slots in the handle, or a bracket on the bottom of the ballast. ( You may have to pop the rubber feet out.) I usually don't bother trying to acoustically decouple the ballast from the wall, but if the buzz makes ya nuts, slip a couple of neoprene washers between the wall and the ballast when you hang it.

Anyway, ballast on a shelf is fine- if you can spare the shelf space. I'd be really surprised if you can't find anything better to do with that shelf, though. Ballast on the floor, though... not a risk that, to me, is worth the benefits. ( Hint- there are no real benefits. You're just struggling with inertia).

Same thing with extension cords and suchlike- up off the floor, and ideally mounted on the ceiling. I in fact have, more than once, had an extension ground out through a puddle and then through me. The sensation is really indescribable, and you really don't want to find out.

Plug the lamp cord into the ballast, and gather any excess at that end into manageable loops. Use a cable tie to secure these loops to your last ceiling hook. DO NOT plug the ballast into power quite yet.

Now raise the reflector up to the highest level that you will ever ever use it, and figure out what you're going to do with the excess cable at this end. I like a bicycle hook that I can throw loops over as they develop. Make it easy on yourself- make it easy to keep things neat.

Go ahead and put your bulb into the socket, remembering to wipe it down when you're done. The oils from your hands can cause hot spots on the surface of the bulb, which could cause ( rapid, spectacular) failure. I just use a clean paper towel.

Ok, take a break, blow a bowl, and get some sunglasses.

Ready? High? Feeling sassy?

Go ahead and plug that sucker in. You deserve it. ( Now you know why you wanted sunglasses.)

I don't know about anybody else, but the sound of a ballast getting powered just makes me feel like a little kid. Seriously, all warm and fuzzy inside...

OK, next thing to do is cable in the fan, but I think that we should go over environmental controllers before we do that. There may be decisions to be made about where to plug things in, and it's helpful to know why. There are also some things to know about how the controllers work, and what they need to work well.


Next Chapter: Environmental Controllers, Timers and their functions

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Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

Dr. Funkenstein

Env. Controllers, at their very simplest, can be as simple as a thermostat that turns on an exhaust fan when temperature hits a particular setpoint. Most folks find that they outgrow that sort of rig pretty quickly.

Let's think about the temperature and humidity cycle of a room over a 24 hour lighting cycle. We'll assume that you're flowering at 12/12, and that the lights come on at midnight, which just makes the math easier. We'll use 24 hour military time.

At 0:00, your light(s) kick on and the room begins to warm. (If you just have a fan running on the same timer as your light, you may find that the coldest moment of the day is actually right after the light goes on, as the fan is sucking cold outside air into a room that's not hot yet).

By 1:00, the room is hopefully pretty warm, ideally at 70-75F @ an RH of 40-60%. Lovely.
If your fan is perfectly sized, it might even be kinda stable. More likely though, a slightly oversized fan is causing the room to run cool, or a slightly undersized fan is causing the temperature to slowly rise as the “ day” goes on. The warmest point in the “day” will probabley come near the end of the “day”, around 12:00, when the light has been running for a long time and the outside temperature is going up.

Now we're in the dark part of the cycle, and temps are going down. Maybe.
Another scenario is that the fan has turned off, but the bulb and reflector are still hot. As the room's no longer being cooled, it's common to get a temperature spike before temps start going down.

As warmer air will hold more water vapor than cooler air per cubic foot, this temperature spike will cause a water uptake into the room's air- which is fine, until the room starts cooling down. As the room cools, the relative humidity goes up- and if it get's high enough, you can get dew.

The combination of high humidity and lower temperature will often cause mold problems.

So now it looks like we need to control both temperature and humidity, and we need to control them seperately from the lighting cycle.

The easiest, and pretty much cheapest, way to do this is with a purpose built environmental controller, like the CAP Air-1 or the Greenair CT-DH1. These units contain a thermostat and a humidistat that are each wired to apply power to an outlet when either temperature or humidity exceed preset conditions. They're designed to run an exhaust fan.


These units are the bare basics, and it's worth looking in the $200 range for feature sets that you think you'll be able to use. For instance, if you think that you're ever going to use C02, you'll want a unit that has an out let that gets switched off when the fan outlet gets switched on. You can plug your c02 timer or ppm controller into this outlet and be assured that you aren't releasing expensive gas when your fan is running. If you're using a cycle timer to control the gas, it'll reset to beginning of cycle when the fan goes off. Neat, huh?

I really love the Sentinal stuff- look at their EVC-1 at a street price of $200- very nice unit.

Anyway, let's go through the cycle again, but this time with a basic controller in place.

At 12:00, the light kicks on. The fan is off, so the room warms quickly to operating temperature. When it gets to the top end of operational range, the fan kicks on and cools the room to the low end of operational range. ( Thermostats use a built in hysterisis, or swing- the fan will come on a few degrees above setpoint, and go off a few degrees below- like your home heating thermostat in revere.)

The room continues this slight swing until the lights go off. If the room is warmer than setpoint, the room is cooled until it hits the low end of the range- then the fan goes off. The room will continue to cool until you hit the high end of your range for humidity- then the fan kicks on and flushes the damp air from the room. No dew- less chance of mold.

When you get into fancier controllers, they'll often have a “night time on” outlet- a built in photocell controls an out let that's only powered when the lights are off. Perfect place for a heater, if you need to use one.

If you have seperate temperature and humidity control outlets, you may choose to dehumidify with a dehumidifier rather than a fan, which doesn't cool the room. This makes it very easy to control low “lights off temps”, or to keep inside humidity at appropriate levels when the outside humidity is very high. ( Think Alabama in August).

Your controller can also be used to run an AC instead of a fan- just watch out that your plants are getting enough fresh air or enough supplemental c02. Also, make sure that your AC isn't blowing unfiltered (stanky) air out into the street- most units can be set up so that they don't actually purge air, as it's more efficient not too.

An environmental controller is one of those investments where you get more from the third hundred that you spend than you do for the first two, and they scale up to larger spaces very well- think through your purchase, and buy all that you think you'll need for at least a couple of years. Going cheap and then buying better is often more expensive than just buying best to begin with.

When you mount the controller, make sure that it's exposed to good airflow- I like to actually have a fan blow over it. You want air from plant level, and blown over the canopy if possible. Mount it someplace where you can see it well and you won't jostle the knobs.

If you get a humistat wet, it's useless- either dead or so far out of calibration that it's effectively dead. Up out of the splash zone, as well as all associated power cords.


Well, there you have it. A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else. You should be ready to apply what you've learned here, and put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Now you just need to pick a suitable growing method/medium, your strain(s), and hit the books! I've layed out the essentials when it comes to the foundations of your grow space. The rest is up to you. Good luck!

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

choader

Fantastic thread Dr. F!! Love it. Let me be the first to play along at home since I'm looking at building a new box.
Base Number
My grow space is a cabinet. Rounding up, it's 3x2x4, or 24 cu ft. Divide by 4 and I have 6CFM for the base number.

Ducting
I'm estimating that including cool tube, I'll have 6' of ducting. So add 60% or 3.6CFM for 9.6CFM

Elbows
I'm going to have 3 90 deg elbows. That's 9.6x1.5x1.5x1.5=32.4CFM or EL CFM

Carbon
I'm going to use one so multiply again by 1.3. 32.4x1.3=42CFM

Light
600W=1.3 factor. 42x1.3=54.6 or 55CFM

My exhaust fan is rated about 250CFM unloaded. I have a speed controller so that's not an issue. Plan to use active intake with fan rated at 190CFM unloaded, also with speed controller.

Based on this, I should be fine. Did I miss anything?

Thanks.

Choader

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Dr. Funkenstein

Hey Choader,

Everything looks up to par. How did you come up with your active intake cfm? Eyeballing it, the exhaust to intake cfm ratio is pretty close. When applying passive intake rules, the intake would need to be atleast triple the size of the exhaust. Did you plan for this with the controllers to balance out the negative pressure?

__________________
Dr. Funkenstein

>>>Fisher Price: My First Grow Lab
>>>A Noob's Guide to FIRST Grow Room Set-Up: And a Reference for Everyone Else
>>>Ask Indiegurl: Electrical Advice from an Electrician
>>>Revised: The Complete Guide To Sick Plants, Pest & pH Troubles
>>>Burndt's Guide: How to Search GC.com Effectively

ha0be

Great thread Dr. F! I wish it was around when I started. Thanks for all the time you spent, I'm sure a lot of noobs (and not so noobs) will benefit from your efforts!