CFL Grow Box: Chime in!!

Hey fellas, Well, I've been shopping around for all the major appliances and I'm about done. Gotta e40 socket to find, seems like they're impossible to find!! But I made this little thread to ask you guys what would be an inexpensive but highly effective box I should make. I figured I should buy a nice slab of wood at Lowes/Home Depot and start throwing screws on it but I thought I should consort with the knowledgeable peeps on this site first...

Name off any ideas you can think of relating to the grow 'BOX'!!

Go to the Good will and get a cabinet or something like that and drill/saw you some holes for lights and fans. I say this cause this is my project tommorrow. Right now i am working with this.....

oops pics.... Stays between 78-80, but tomorrow.... i am making something like that...

1puff2puff3puff said:

Go to the Good will and get a cabinet or something like that and drill/saw you some holes for lights and fans. I say this cause this is my project tommorrow. Right now i am working with this.....

Click to expand...

Man.....thats effin' brilliant. I have a Goodwill literally 2 seconds away from where I live. Hahaha I'm so glad I made this thread, its almost case closed for now. Hey Puff, kick ass box bro! I like!! I just gotta figure out how to mount the ventilation properly. Gotta figure out a good blueprint to map out myself!! Thats my project tomorrow, right after I hit up Goodwill. How much do their cabs range from? No more than 20?

Yea, some times cheaper, depending how big you want it, i also bought 2 vanity lights with 7 light holders, and i going to line those on top with 2 or 3 of my 105w cfls. I found some gr8 hoods at Big Lots for them, do you have one... i read you saying you need a socket for your cfls, they are at walmart also.... They can support upto 250w with a nice little aluminom hood. They are at Big Lots for $5 and not sure about walmart...

With 2-3 105w cfls I bet you can conjure a good MH/HPS setup instead? But I'm not downing CFL either

Big Lots has hoods?! i went there but didn't see any. Haha, everywhere I go I seem to be missing out on these things. I'll have to ask someone that works there next time I go. Thanks for the tip off. and ya, I'm still looking for a socket for my CFL, but all the sockets seem like standard 24w bulbs. Are you sure walmart's packin' e40s? You're abundant info on cheap tricks gives me hope for the future sir. I'll definately swing by Big Lots in the tomorrows for a hood and take a trip and look for a socket/lamp fixture for my 95w CFL grow light.

http://www.gardenscure.com/420/attachments/planting-indoors/146670d1129504689-long-winded-cfl-scrog-post-w-farmtek-125w-5500k.jpg
pretty much what my bulb looks like, only this one in the picture is 30w better than mine

lol e40s... yes they have 42w bright/white lights 65k, i found some 27k for flower, but they were only 13w those warm/multi are hard to come by except on the internet. I am trying to keep an ongoing harvest, so i will veg in my cabinet, then put them in the closet under my 600w holx... I have sooo much light i seriously have like 50-13w, 10-23w, 1-42w, 1-85w and 4 105w, and my new baby the 600 watter... Its time to get down with this growing thing....

Damn man, share the wealth...

BTW, I'm going shopping at Walmart and Big Lots tomorrow. If I don't get a light reflector or a e40 socket/extension, I'm gonna drop kick something!

These are the ones i got at big lots(old set up), holding my 105watters they were $5, but i seen them at walmart too in like the car department, or were you get the double socket and lamp makers. They got to be there, i live in the states, i dont know....

Right on man. I'll hit you up w/ a private message if I have any questions. Thanks again for the help! I'm gonna try and get to bed, its 6am...

800th post, just hit STONER!!!... It is 6am here too... Night!!

Construction underway, a bit of a snag, any ideas?

Wow.. Nice blueprint. Everything looks pretty sweet. About your filtration problem: I don't get it... Are you saying there's no room to mount your carbon filter on the outside of the box where your 4" duct comes out? Also, I missed how you would move the light fixture up/down?

Overall, this looks like a pretty dank set up. This is EXACTLY what I intend to do when I get my apartment.

Grow on!

Peace

Thanks I had a bit of time on my hands before work. I'll make sure to show you the box when its all said and done, the front part of the filing cabinet is so priceless I can't wait to show it off.

Well, in a nut shell, the light reflectant I have for my box was originally from an industrial street light at my work. It was in our trash heap so I nicked it. It fits perfectly snug on the roof of the cabinet leaving maybe 3" of room from the back of the cabinet to the actual light reflector. I didn't pay attention to the lack of space since I was too excited making the reflector from scratch and have 8 CFLs coming out of it so its a bit too late to do some trimming. Originally, I had a 4" duct tubing I got from the local hardware store and was going to hook that up from the Light fixture exhaust, directly into the homemade filter, and at the end of the filter put an additional PC fan to push the pungent air outwards and stealthly.

A mate of mine found out about the operation and its cool. He said he swears putting some laundry dryer sheets screening the PC fan will suffice. But I'm not sure...

I guess I'm trying to figure out how I could make a filter INSIDE my box. The problem would be I have 2 holes drilled on bottom for air intake and (originally) one hole up top where the light exhaust ducting would be. I figure if I try putting more than one hole up top for individual filtration of smell I might throw off the air flow thus making some of the smell come out of the light fixture exhaust that doesn't have a filter hooked up to it.


Sorry about the very late entry by the way, I was out of town constructing my box. The friends have loads of tools. heh

Edit: Oh, and the pully/base to elevate the plants idea was thrown out the window. Putting pegs in is much easier.

Long time no post..... Good to see you comming along nicely.... Hope to see some pics soon!!!

brux-good lookin plans. im workin on a similar setup...3ftlx18inwx5fth...not sure bout ur dimensions, but layout is abuot the same..are u startin out with cool white cfls for veggin.if so how many watts? im thinkn of usin 4 23w 2 22w and 2 15w to pump out bout 10-11k

in lookn @ ur plans do you really find it necesaary to exhaust your lights or is this an xtra measure just b/c. i will be using fans for in and out but never thought to hood the cfls and vent fixture...ingenious!!

Sorry I haven't been around to respond earlier six8, just been hectic. I haven't finished the box because of multiple problems. Mind you, I'll be sure to crack down with some pictures of the mechanics etc.

From the looks of it six8, I'll have 4 27w warm whites (2700k) and 4 (4100k) cool whites for vegetation. I thought I'd go ahead and try my first grow out by mixing up the spectrum a little bit. I didn't want to just throw in warms ya know so...we'll see how it turns out. If I can scrounge up some money when I'm flowering I'll probably switch out some of those cools for warm whites so I can focus more on the red spectrum.

As for the lights being exhausted, ya, its for extra measures. I'd love to try and keep the ideal temperature at the recommended dosage. The venting was brought up to be a little bit of a problem for my box. If you look at my doodle you'll see the ducting going straight back to the back of the box. Thats virtually only 2-3 inches of space so I don't have much room to work with when it comes to putting active carbon (DIY) filters together. But if worse case scenario, I'll probably throw in some car fresheners on the exhaust or some shit. Who knows.

Hope this wacky block of text helped ya get some answers answered. Feel free to ask anything thats within my knowledge bound bubble