1554

hello! I am writing to get some experienced info on a cab build for indoor hydroponics.
if anyone would be kind enough to read through and put in their two cents (which, experience wise, is worth more than my whole @^%&#! dollar), I would be eternally grateful. I will be as brief as possible -i have a bad habit of being too descriptive sometimes
anyhow, a touch of background. I am about a month into the planning and building of a cabinet for a grow. tomatoes, obviously :lol
this is a basic rundown of the cabinet build

General -
im looking at about 60" in height, 30" width, and 18" depth.

two 5 gal bubblebuckets.

Lighting and ventilation-
this is a combined system, listed in the order of the system as installed in cabinet, intake to exhaust-
6" professional carbon scrubber(8 lbs carbon)

vortex 180 cfm fan tuned down to ~130cfm for noise

180 degree turn with insulated 4" ducting

4" x 8" custom built cooltube with 400w hps, external ballast outside cab

9" square exhaust box built into cab with 9" activated carbon filter/vent, venting through backside of cabinet.

from the top this whole system looks like a U turned sideways in the cabinet, and takes up roughly 9" in height at the top of my cab.
room from top of bucket to bottom of light is 32"-plant grow "room". \

this design doesnt allow the light to be lowered/raised

cabinet plan has a raised bottom shelf, with (5) 1" holes for air. back of cabinet has no trim on the bottom, allowing air to enter from the back near the floor, through the (5) holes, up, then through the filter/lighttube system.

ok, I hope that wasnt too long. my general concerns are stealth( I rent, and I dont want to let ANYONE know what im doing), heat issues (400w HPS/venting) and the ability of the system to perform. temps inside house are consistantly ~68 degrees.

any and all advice would be like a golden nugget to me as I have only done my research, and no experience. and from experience, I know that isnt enough. if youve read this far, THANK YOU!! I have only some materials and the plans so far. im doing more research before I continue. thanks again for any/all advice you could offer

1554

old_greg

130 CFM won't get it. I have a cab 1/3 this size with a 150W cool tube and I run over 400 CFM

vortex 180 cfm fan tuned down to ~130cfm for noise

(5) 1" holes for air.

Not near enough to cool the 400W Cooltube.

Everything else sounds OK, But you are going to need to definatrely scale your Ventilation up. Consider a Stanley Blower (Closer to 1200 CFM) and very Quite. Check out Chief Lakanukie's Thread (search for "Downsizing") You can pick up a lot of goodies from it..

Good luck!!

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ltsystems

i would cool lite with its own fan, this air dose not mix with the grow air. this fan dosent need pressure jest air flow. now the cab blower needs pressure to forse air through carbon scruber no need for large air volume for this

1554

so what type of design would i be looking for if i didnt want to sacrafice much space? or will I just have to bite the bullet and build a large box to use the blower with?

retired?

Hey 1554

Is this (6" professional carbon scrubber(8 lbs carbon)) part of this (9" square exhaust box built into cab with 9" activated carbon filter/vent, venting through backside of cabinet.)?

I can't get to my blower at the moment but I think it is about 12" heigh. Your cabnet is 18" deep. If you can resize the exaust box to fit the blower you will not need to build an external housing for the blower and still keep it hidden in the cabinet. The 6" scrubber can be attached directly to the blower or via the insulated ducting to minimize vibration.

Your box sounds like a standard wall cabinet. Another option is to get a second cabinet and place it on top with the blower and filter system inside it. It will still look like a cabinet and give you more space to grow in height wise.

What is the max flow rate of your 6" carbon scrubber?

A pic would be great for referance.

Retired?

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1554

ok a few updates to the plan... first- Buzzzd, LTsystems and Retired- thanks much for looking into this thread- I know your knowledge here will be invaluable-

LTsystems- ive tried to incorporate the ventilation system with the cooling system of the light to minimize complexity and gain as much space as possible. i may go with a seperate route for cooling of the light if this doesnt work out. any suggestions on what fans to use to cool the light, and a fan to ventilate the system without much noise?

Retired-
1. the exhaust box is part of the whole ventilation system, which includes the light. nothing has been set in stone, so please, any design ideas would be great!

the cabinet is a custom built unit of mine to fit into my closet. the only thing set in stone atm is the cabinet size, as I have already built it. materials, like the cooltube ive built, the 5 gal bubblebuckets, etc etc are all useable however i decide to configure the enclosure. exhaust boxes, ducting, etc etc are all raw material now, Im not moving any farther until I have a design that is going to work well as ive put a lot of time into quality work on this. atm it has a false front, making it look like a melamine dresser.

CHANGES TO PLANS-

first, i found a way to design the light to be lowerable. more on that in a moment

second, Im taking Buzzzd's advice on the stanley blower. Ill add more ventilation holes on the bottom for air intake. the carbon filters i was looking at are here GENERAL HYDROPONICS

what I have in mind for a rough idea is to mount the carbon filter lengthwise on the top of the cabinet, then 4" flexduct from that to the cooltube so that the light can be lowered and raised. from the other end of the cooltube up again with more 4" flextube to a blowerbox that i can mount the stanley blower in to create a vacuum to pull air through the whole system. the only downside to this system is that i know it will create some noise, from creating a load on the stanley blower and also from having it vent straight out the backside of the box. id like to move the filter around somehow so that I can use it as a filter for the fan, but as of yet i havent figured that out.

do you think this stanley blower on low speed will be able to vent the box? im trying to keep noise down to a minimum, along with smell, and light, and anything else that can screw me stealthwise. the upside is that my budget is somewhere around a grand for this project, to do it right and that I work in the construction trade as an electrician, and i have some extensive fabrication skills that ive picked up. anything and everything is variable in this build. im not quitting until i have an extremely stealthy, quiet and scent-free build that is capable of at least 4 oz's a grow. so throw out anything that comes into mind!

I will try to post a crude drawing of the basic areas im working with...i hope it works!

1554

sweet that worked.... now ill post another drawing to show my basic ideas for the ventilation system in the top of the cab.... let me know if you have any ideas. i hope that mounting the filter 18" from the top of the cab wont be a problem. again, if i had a way to mount the filter AFTER the blower, that would be great as it would cut down the sound from the fan considerably. the room houses computers atm so there is some background noise. i dont know if the fan noise will be a problem or not. i had ideas of mounting the blower outside the exhaust box and then having its exhaust directed through the light, then into the exhaust box where the filter would be. the filter would have to be in a box to direct the exhaust outside the cab, since if it was just bolted to the cab, the blower would push air through the filter and it would exit all the way around the filter, if that makes since. is this something that can be worked out? ive accepted the fact that with 2 feet or so of grow room a scrog grow will be the best alternative now, so i guess i can give up some room if 2 feet of plant grow room is more than enough for a scrog. ideas?

ltsystems

look at this thread, also "search" stanley blower




http://www.gardenscure.com/420/plant...-question.html

Spirit of Bear

Where is your “cool,,,, fresh”,,,,,, air coming from?

You don’t want to recirculate your spent hot air back into the cabinet,,, at least without exchanging it for room air………

If you don’t solve this problem,,,, you have a problem………


SOB

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retired?

Makes perfect sence. This is what I built to solve that problem. A sleave around the filter directs the air out of the box. Intake > grow area > Light > Filter > Blower > Insulated flex ducting to help exaust hot air out of growing space (a good sound damper and found on new construction sites). The HVAC guys hate keeping short pieces. Having the blower after the filter creates less back pressure on the blower minimizing the noise. Using door insulation (foam) on the feet of the blower also helps minimize vibration.

Have you concidered using a rubbermaid container instead of the 5 gal. buckets for your bubbler? This could give you more growing room.

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