someguyhere

New Member
Hello everyone. I am building a grow box with 3 x 50w chinese full spectrum LED's, they are on their way right now. I'm planning to grow a single plant with LST at a time. I need to make it stealth and also cheap as possible :) So i decided to make a pc grow box for vegetative growing, hoping that i can save a month when i start growing regularly. I've finished making pc box and here are specs:

36 x 42 x 16 cm total area
3 x 6000 K 23w CFL
2 x 2700 K 23w CFL
4 x 80mm pc fans running @ 12volts a.k.a normal speed. (They are able to work safely up to 15volts which can further reduce temparature) 2 exhaust, 2 intake.

24,3 centigrade celcius 10 cm below lamps with 21 C's room temparature.

Question is, am i overdoing it? Pics i've found online of pc cases usually use 2 23w or 5 15w cfl's. Fans are really loud and i want to take 2 of them out. But then i would need to remove 2 or 3 cfl's to keep temp low. So should i do it? Or having lots and lots of light would benefit me in terms of growth time and yield making it worth having noise? Also i said i'm making pc case for veg but in the future i may fully grow some small plants in it. So what do you think?

Non native english speaker here so, sorry for mistakes :)
 
Instead of getting into numbers and lumens, and a myriad other numbers, start with a base light coverage of 50 watts per square foot (approx 30 sq. cm?)

1) Use CFL's of both daylight and soft white varieties. Or use LED panels. One Mars 300 led panel replaces 6 23 Watt CFLs.
2) Use as many fans as you need in the tent to circulate air GENTLY around the plants. One good desk fan hung from the top, pointed correctly, will do the trick. Try different configurations.
3) Use a floor fan to bring frsh air into the grow room
4) Use a window fan to exhaust warm air outside or to another space.
5) if you chose stinky/dank strains, build a DIY (really cheap) odor sink.

See these two pics from my gallery. The front grille of the fan is removed and the fan is cemented into the lid with silicone seal. Solid rounds of room deodorize are placed in the bottom.

DIY_Odor_Control_open.JPG


DIT_Odor_Control_assembled.JPG


This is how I started out. You'll add refinements as you can afford them. :thumb:
 
I can tell you from experience and having a Apogee MQ 500. Those 50w chinese cobs put out very little photons. You wont be over lighting at all. I put 90 degree lenses on them and at exactly 50w from the wall the par fell below 500 at 12" from the lense! I couldnt believe it. Any less than 500 and you may as well use a cigarette lighter for light. Neither will do much. Keep them within 12" man. I can do a par test video if you want to see it for yourself. At 50w a cree cob or citizen would be over 1000 par at 12".

Sent from my android from outer space!
 
Use the LED bulbs instead of the CFLs. I just finished this 12 lamp 24x24 light box.

420-magazine-mobile1231285203.jpg


I'm building a 12 bulb 24x12" for a closet grow right now. I use the 100w equivalent (12w actual) Philips 5000k and 2700k LED bulbs from Home Depot. I cut the domes off for better light.
420-magazine-mobile425446342.jpg


Here's the LUX test with the 24w CFLs you're using.
420-magazine-mobile1091312135.jpg


Here's the LUX test with the Philips 12w 5000k LED.
420-magazine-mobile1134002426.jpg


Twice the power. Half the wattage.

Note. I use these lights for Veg. They're used primarily for first phase (seedling -> Pre SCRG) these lights are not intended for 2nd phase veg or Bloom.
I use these for veg/bloom after the seedling phase.
420-magazine-mobile1012786478.jpg


Bridgelux bxrc-40e10k0-l-23
10000 lumens per COB
3 COBs per rail driven by a single Meanwell hlg-240h-c2100 dimmable.

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I am a new grower and this was extremely helpful. On my first grow using 15x 5k - 10x 2700- 2x 100watt large spiral and 1x 150watt tub. All cfls in an 2x2x4 box. I was trying to determine if that was overkill. You can easily wear an welding helmet when working in the box.


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Everything has maintained a temp between 70-85. No burn yet luckily. Airflow is working great. Sounds to me like I might as well remove some light if anything to save some money. I was not sure if there can be too much light.


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GreeDH-that sounds really bright!!


Sent from inside the tent.

It's blinding. I have made it a habit to keep one eye closed when working in the box so I can open my other eye when I'm done and be able to see.


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The light is important but controlling the CO2 is more important and if you want a seal environment and a very awsome co2 level controller and cheap with bluetooth capabilities if your computer geek, data logging to see if your plant is consuming the correct amount of co2. this baby is doing the job: Bluetooth CO2 / VOC Data Logger / Air Quality Monitor / Controller for Greenhouses with Relay, Temperature & Relative Humidity with SD Card Function and Free Software
I bought it in Amazon and works awesome and it doesn't generate light.

41wpTAZdeSL.jpg
 
Everything has maintained a temp between 70-85. No burn yet luckily. Airflow is working great. Sounds to me like I might as well remove some light if anything to save some money. I was not sure if there can be too much light.


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Yes, there can be. Well it gets pretty useless after 1200ppfd without co2 but you nowhere near there.

Sent from my android from outer space!
 
The light is important but controlling the CO2 is more important and if you want a seal environment and a very awsome co2 level controller and cheap with bluetooth capabilities if your computer geek, data logging to see if your plant is consuming the correct amount of co2. this baby is doing the job: Bluetooth CO2 / VOC Data Logger / Air Quality Monitor / Controller for Greenhouses with Relay, Temperature & Relative Humidity with SD Card Function and Free Software
I bought it in Amazon and works awesome and it doesn't generate light.

41wpTAZdeSL.jpg

Does it work with Arduino?
I'm looking at the new Meanwell LED drivers for my Vero 29 setup and the hlg-240h-c2100C driver has a 3 in 1 dimmer that supports the Arduino BT controllers. You could theoretically control climate and light from your iPhone.
Just waiting for the BT moisture/PH meters


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I wasn't clear enough, sorry. I'm making 2 boxes. One big box with chineese full spectrum cobs and one small pc case with cfls for veg.

For vegetative CFL box;
It is working right now. I'm reading 8k lux on center and 3k lux on edges of case at dirt level. I downed number of cfl's to 3 and added fan speed controller so noise is pretty much solved. And my test seedlings look good so far. I might add 1 more 23w or 2 smaller 15 or less wattage cfl in the future. Or i may switch to philips 12w led bulbs altogether. Time will show.

What i understand is flowering under cfl is not recommended, but if you're gonna do it anyway, you should use lower kelvin lights and know there will be a decrease in quality and quantity compared to leds.

For flowering LED box;
So after 12 inches chineese cobs are useless. I have about 22 inches of height for plant to grow. So my choices are:

- I can buy more chineese cobs. More cobs = more light. Right? Or it wouldn't effect light levels below 12 inch anyway so this could be a waste of money, just like first cobs i bought. I don't know.

- I can buy 12w led bulbs to use with my chineese cobs. maybe 6 or 8?

- I can buy 3 or more of this 60w Edison white cob to use with/without my chineese cobs. Which is the only "branded" high power cob i can find locally.
www.edison-opto.com.tw/files/doc/2014042110452828.pdf

What do you think about it?
Also, is it possible to use (lots of) 12w philips led bulbs for flowering? Or would it be same as using cfls as in decreased quality and yield? If the only diffrence between Bridgelux'es above and philips 12w is light power then theoretically lots of 12w bulbs should do the same job. Am i right?

Thanks.
 
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