PC Grow Box Blue Mystic

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

Hey hey hey everyone!

Nice to meet you, fairly new grower here. After a few weeks of reserching micro grows, I have decided to build my first, very own PC grow box.
Now I know that the yield (if there will be any for me) will be mediocre compared to proper indoor/outdoor growing, but the whole point of going through hours of preparing and building the case is:
-to boost my low self esteem by actually doing something right,
-to finally learn a bit about electronics. I must say that I am the biggest noob when it comes to electricity, the only things I know are the very basic eg. don't stick your tounge/fork etc. into a socket unless you want to become a walking christmas tree and make sure you don't spill water on any live cabels etc.
-I must admit that growing cannabis has become a huge hobby of mine, I'm practically hooked when it comes to reading on different methods such as ScrOG, LST, supercropping ect. + I love the fact that you can actually nuture something from start to finish, watch it grow and finally be impressed with the results,
- and let's face it, I'll be very bloody happy if I get to smoke some natural home grown herb at the end of the journey .

Now I have grown once, a year ago to be exact. Of course I wasn't/still aren't a horticultural genius so the yield was about 20g, but considering the whole grow was done behind a swimming pool with only 4h of direct sunlight every day (and no topping, FIM'ing, LST'ing ect.), I'm fairly happy with the results.

So to begin with, I bought one autoflower feminized Mystic Blue seed and I just popped it in between some wet paper towels for it to germinate. I'll move it to a small peat pot filled with soil and perlite (3:1) after the taproot gets about 5mm long. The soil I will be using has a pH range of 6,5-7,5 and when I've been mucking around and probing it from time to time, it usually reads 6,8 which is a good start.

PC grow case stats:
-42x45x18,6 (that's height x length x width)
-two PC 12V fans which I have somehow managed to attach to one ACDC 12V adapter (AND THEY WORK!). I soldered the cables together and taped them with electrical tape for better insurance. I'll post some pictures of the components soon,
-I'll buy a material that reflects sunlight off of car windows and just stick it too the inner walls of the PC, so I won't be losing any lumens,
-I'm using three 25W CFL's that give off 1520 lumens each, so that's 4560 in total. I understand that this is a good amount of lumens for such a micro grow. 6500k for veg and then I'll swap em' for three 2700k for flower.

Now the smell isn't really much of a problem, but I am thinking of making/buying a carbon filter just to be sure. Better to be safe than sorry. But then I would have to upgrade one of my fans as I have read, that such filters really decrease the efficiency of a fan.

Aaaaaaaaand that's about it, if you have any questions/doubts/criticism please do not hesitate to tell me. I may be doing some things wrong, and I'll be more than happy to adjust them.

I'll post some pictures of the whole building process in a jiffy.

Thanks guys, wish me luck.

Peace out.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

The gutting. Got me feeling like a butcher.

 

[phil k]

huh... a PC grow box... thats a first for me.. more power to you but i can see you growing out of that space fast!

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

My workplace. Apologize for the mess guys.

 

[phil k]

i guess i don't see why your not just doing what u wanna do in a closet.. what exactly is the point to such a small build?

 

[phil k]

just curious...

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

Well from what I've read, using a smaller pot and the help of LST'ing should be able to keep the plant in check. And I have seen some people managing to squish in two plants, but I'll see my luck with one plant.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

I don't know really.. I think it's out of curiousity rather than producing lots of bud. I really wanted to build something from scratch, plus, when the weather gets warmer, I'm going to start an outdoor growth.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

So by doing a bit of math and research, both of these fans produce (I don't know if this is the correct word to use) around 0,37 A or 370 mA in total. So the sum of these two fans should be lower than the maximum amount of amps the adapter can sustain... and the one I bought has a max of 1,2 A or 1200mA, so I should be fine.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

The soldering. I don't know if this is necessary, but I think I heard somewhere that it reduces the chance of electrical fires. Plus it locks the cables together. If anyone could check if I did this correctly I'll be much obliged.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

The lights. I swear to God, I thought that since Poland is in the middle of bloody Europe, it should have a wide range of items to buy. I had to sweep every corner of the Polish internet (and the actual shops for that matter) to find these socket E27 adapters, but in the end I got them (I was really worried that I would have to wire each light together in order for them to work). I'm going to stick the extension cord onto the top part of the box, so that the lights will be situated horiztontally, to get the max amount of light they can give.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

The intake fan placed at the bottem. I use twisty ties to get them in shape, just in case I'll need to rearrange them in the future. This picture was done after I realized that I wired it the wrong way, so that it was blowing the air out. <you are dumb Private Pyle, but do you expect me to believe you don't know out from in?> <--- I hope someone gets that reference.

 

[kimoolos]

Subbed in on this. Good luck on the build/grow!

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

Cheers man.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

Day 0 of the Blue Mystic. Placed in between wet paper towels (my fav germination method). I'll put another small dish on top to make sure no light gets in and to keep the moisture up as long as possible.

Keeping it in a temperature of 23C / 73F.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

I've been searching through the internet and generally people use either mylar or emergancy blankets. I understand that tin foil is a no go, because it creates hot spots that are dangerous to you MJ. Don't want her burning up. So what do you guys think, what's better mylar or emergancy blankets? I would prefer to use emergancy blankets, because of the fact, that I can get them from my local pharmacie and when it comes to mylar... like I said, I live in Poland and my only option is to order online.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

So after doing some reading... I won't be doing any ScrOG/Top/FIM etc. Reason is... this is an autoflower and generally they don't respond well to LST because of their short vegetative period. Oh well, next time I'll try my luck with a regular strain. The only type of LST I'm going to do is just tie down the branches to get more bud growth and keep the whole grow under control. This is an AF in a small PC case so I don't want it to get too crowded.

 

[kimoolos]

There are a lot of peeps that do LST and Scrog their auto flowers. I think as long as you're careful you can do it. It would really help you in a PC grow. There's a dedicate website to auto flowering cannabis but I can't remember the address right now, but they talk all about techniques to train the autos. If I find it I'll let you know.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

I think I came across that site once, had the word autoflower in the name. But I'll definitely check it out, thanks man.

 

[Gregor Eisenhorn]

So the case is coming along really nicely, a lot of hard work with all the measuring and gluing but it's nearly done. I'm having a huge problem gluing the extension cord to the top of the box, super glue/glue gun doesn't seem to do the job... I might have to attach it to a piece of wood and then drill some holes from the top.. I'll see what I can do.