Metal grow cabinet build for 1st grow

https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/grow-room-design-setup/402284d1241113488-400w-club-show-off-your-img00094.jpg.

https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/grow-room-design-setup/402285d1241113488-400w-club-show-off-your-img00095.jpg

https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/grow-room-design-setup/402291d1241113522-400w-club-show-off-your-img00101.jpg

this is the one i built ... 400w hps i yeilded 492 grams dry

The vent hole I need is larger than I planned roughly 8 inches so I can't use the carbon filters I plan to use to screen the passive intake for this vent hole. What would be my best option to screen/cover this opening? Air will be coming from my foothills carbon odor scrubber which pushes 300cfm if I remember correctly.

I plan to direct the airflow down and place a bucket of ona gel there to kill any remaining smell. Or would it be better to have gel further from intake so I don't taint fresh air to plants?

So i cleaned out my cabinet this weekend, it was still full ofdust, crap, and tons of metal shavings from cutting. i used a cleaning spray that had clorox bleach in it to kill any germs or bacteria, and i picked up some insulated ducting to vent out my scrubber, got the right size this time 8" not 6" hoping it will help muffle noise

Was the clorox a good or bad idea?? wanted the cab germ free but don't want to damage plants with it, but i've got some time before i get them growing in there so i should be good right?

i am planning to get the insulation board with reflective backing suggested in this forum what should i wipe it down with? lysol wipes? clorox again?

Yeah, bleach will be no problem, esp since you won't have plants in it for a while. Personally, I don't think your cab needs to be "germ-free," just clean. I usually use rubbing alcohol to clean between grows, and never had any problems with mold or mildew.

I used Ona right behind my exhaust fans to kill my skunky mj odor, but the cab was located in a closed garage, so basically there was always some concentration of Ona was in the air in the garage, and that air was flowing through the cab for most of the flowering period. I haven't noticed any effect on flavor or potency of the buds I got when using Ona compared to when using nothing at all to control odors, so my conclusion thus far is that Ona is perfectly fine even in the grow room in reasonable concentrations. However, it's hard to say what kind of concentrations you'll get with a bucket near you intake vent, I would think near exhaust or at least away from the intake until you can try it out and see how potent the Ona smell is. I believe that Ona is comprised of a bunch of different natural aromatic oils (and probably some other stuff as well), so too much of this "oily" vapor in the air could certainly end up affecting your buds, but as I said, if it's just enough to mask the mj odor then your plants should be fine with it. It still would probly be best to locate it not too close to the intake, but I wouldn't worry too much about that right now if there's no other choice, since it seems to be pretty neutral in the end.

When smell becomes an issue, I'll use dryer duct to tie to existing attic vent.

been away for a while but finally got back to work on my lil project


i cut out all the shelves with a lil dremmel tool i bought and man was that a pain! created a lot of metal filings too. i obviously left the top shelf and cut a hole in it to use the shelf as a base for all the power strips and etc...
i lined the inside of the cab with foam insulation with reflective backing, i hung my filter and used an insulated 8" duct i got from home depot to vent it out the hole i cut in the upper left corner of my cab. the air being vented out is not only going thru my carbon air scrubber but this little odor control furnace filter i picked up and cut to fit over my vent hole. the picks of the lights i posted are of both the Blackstar led and my grow spot and then just the all red grow spot in the cab. i will also add cfl's to those metal reflectors seen in some of the pics in the bottom of the cab to add under light to the plants. i have a small clip on fan to circulate air around the cab also which should help the plant stems beef up.

My carbon scrubber seems to push the air just fine thru my filter out the back of the cabinet and i can even feel the suction thru the passive intake. which is pulling thru another carbon filter made to go into one of those odor filters that plug into a bathroom. or by litter box etc... I was worried before i got this all set up that my passive intake wouldn't be enough or that the fan wouldn't pull air thru a carbon filter over that intake, but now i'm not worried. plus this keep light leak out of my intake and prevents bugs, or whatever from gettin into my grow area.

oh forgot to mention i sealed all the seems in the cabinet with duct tape before i put in the insulation too just to prevent leakage

right now i'm lining the inside of the doors with my mylar since my insulation was too thick to put on the doors and have them close.

also i might warn anyone using my kind of cabinet to do this with, if you remove the shelves as i did don't get too cut happy like me and remove the shelf that the cabinet lock secures itself with. i had to cut the front of the shelf off and a remount it in my cabinet so my locking cab would lock again. Rookie mistake but sure it won't be my first...

Light leakage, so who knows the best way to light proof door seems of a metal cabinet?

Adhesive weatherstripping would probably fix hat right up! Nice build by the way, I'll definitely be stickin' around to see it in action!

i picked up some supplies today while running work errands which i hope will fix this...
pic quality sucks i know, but i'm surprised i've got so much leak between the two doors when i covered the doors with mylar i left about a 1" flap to overlap the gap

i got weather stripping to go aound the outside of the doors but i'm not sure what to do between them. Any Suggestions?

should the mylar be super smooth? mine has some ripples but i'm not too worried since my whole cab is reflective and i'm only planning to do two or three plants at once

will the mylar create hot spots if its too mirror like? too smooth? or too bumpy? i'm not sure which is better because i think the nature of mylar is supposed to prevent hotspots

Why has no one ever said how evil clear packing is?! This stuff carries light better than fiber optic cable! I used it to attach mylar to my cabinet doors and every bit is going to have to be removed! I'm going for total light seal I don't want any leak. But that tape carries light around the corners and past my weather stripping. I've got thin little glowing plastic edges everywhere. Which I'll admit from a strictly scientific view is kinda cool and fascinating, but for my cab a shitty discovery

let the cabinet run for about three hours with both led lights running and my two cfl's on in the lower corners with 100w equivalent 6500k bulbs and the temp only got to 72 degrees F. my humidity seems a little low (37%) but i don't have plants and moist soil in there yet either.

Planning to start germinating seeds tonight! my first time... I'm both excited and freaked out

both seeds soaked in distilled water over night, still floating in the morning, but when touched they sank so i think these should be good ones. they are now planted in jiffy peat pellets sitting on a heating mat in a dark area. fingers crossed they pop so my build can really become a grow cabinet and not just a shiny box i made. should be soon...

Use some of that mylar and tape it so that when the cabinet doors are open the whole inside is covered by mylar with the black side facing out of course. And make a split in the middle that is held together by either a zipper or velcro. Something like that.



Hope that helps

BTG, thanks for the thoughts. +Rep. i was originally thinking of ways to put mylar up like that but they all seemed to be a serious hassle, but velcro strips holding up a full sheet i could flip up out of the way might be my answer

my two seeds Easy Ryder from lowryder, and my auto white russian from g-13 labs were both soaked in distilled water (one in a shot glass, one in my dark glass storage jar) they were kept warm and dark over night (about 7 hours) and were still floating in the morning but sank as soon as they were touched and looked a lil swollen.

I used the warm distilled water to expand two of the jiffy peat pellets (1/5 cup for each pellet) and after they had absorbed all the water i removed the little excess and prepared a small hole in each (just deep enough so the seed would have its own depth worth of soil above it. I stored the other jiffy pellets for future use if this works well.

i made labels and covered them with tape so they wouldn't fall apart and i don't get the stains mixed up.

i put the cover back on over the peat pellets and placed them in a dark area sitting on a heat mat until... fingers crossed both seeds pop up and i can put my cabinet to use and get them growing

Just checked temp with heat mat off it's 72 degrees and 88% humidity in my germ dome... 36 hours since planted and nothing yet. Getting impatient...

One seed popped! And really stretched out there. The g-13 labs auto white Russian is now more than a seed! Can't say the same for my easy ryder. Lil worried cuz the seedling shot up so far that it's top is hanging down. Put that in some of my peat and perlite organic mix from my local shop and stuck it under my lights. Wanted to drop it straight into my 5gal smart pot but my FFOF mix is too hot. About 5.5 to 6 so I need lime.
Pics to come soon