24 hour lighting question

What's up RIU peeps. I recently built my first stealth pc grow box to attempt my first grow. The problem I have is that it is not stealthy enough. Because of three pc fans that I installed in the pc, it is very loud when the lights and fans are on. I tried modifying it to cut down on the noise, but its still too loud.
I think the only solution to my problem is putting the pc in the attic, the only place in my house that my wife won't go.
With that, a new problem arises. It's fuckin freezing here and the attic is very cold. I was thinking that if I put it in the attic, the only way to keep the internal temps of the pc warm enough would be to keep the lights on 24/7.
Would this work?

jameslone said:

What's up RIU peeps. I recently built my first stealth pc grow box to attempt my first grow. The problem I have is that it is not stealthy enough. Because of three pc fans that I installed in the pc, it is very loud when the lights and fans are on. I tried modifying it to cut down on the noise, but its still too loud.
I think the only solution to my problem is putting the pc in the attic, the only place in my house that my wife won't go.
With that, a new problem arises. It's fuckin freezing here and the attic is very cold. I was thinking that if I put it in the attic, the only way to keep the internal temps of the pc warm enough would be to keep the lights on 24/7.
Would this work?

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depends how cold it is up there man..i did a cfl grow in my attic once(mines also freezing) and the lights kept it at a decent temperature..but when it was time for them to get some sleep the temps dropped...my box had quite a few lights though and from my experience, you cant fit many lights in a PC box unless its big... your basically saying you want to leave the lights on 24/7 just to keep them warm..but they need sleep too man.. alot of people leave lights on 24 hours for the first few days of vegetation but other then that, your plant needs rest.. what kind of fans did you hook up to your box? pictures would help alot

I used 3 small pc fans. They're not super loud, but loud enough to hear. We've never had a pc in the house, so my wife will definitely know something is when she hears and sees a pc running, but not hooked up to anything.
When I say cold, I mean 30's during the day, 20's at night. And its only going to get colder.
From reading this forum, I can tell that most of the people on here are like mad scientists. What would you mad scientists do?
BTW, the pc grow box only has 2 light sockets, which I will be using cfl's in.
Pics to be added tonight.

jameslone said:

I used 3 small pc fans. They're not super loud, but loud enough to hear. We've never had a pc in the house, so my wife will definitely know something is when she hears and sees a pc running, but not hooked up to anything.
When I say cold, I mean 30's during the day, 20's at night. And its only going to get colder.
From reading this forum, I can tell that most of the people on here are like mad scientists. What would you mad scientists do?
BTW, the pc grow box only has 2 light sockets, which I will be using cfl's in.
Pics to be added tonight.

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what did you use to connect pc fans wires to outlet?? alot of people on here use old cell phone chargers and they work awesome.. all chargers and plug in's to outlets have different voltage compacity labeled right on the back of the plug in.. the higher the voltage=fans getting more power wich leads to that annoying unstealth sound which your wife might catch onto.. BUT if you find an old charger that is oh say 5 volts instead of 12, then the fans will run a bit slower-resulting in much quiter fans..my last pc box, i used a 5v charger and it was pretty quiet, although i could still hear a little tiny buzz from them ( because i was listening for it )

somwhere inside the yellow circle wll say how many volts it is

I originally had 4 pc fans totalling over 1 amp, so I bought a 12 volt, 1.5 amp adapter to wire the fans.
I removed one fan because it was super loud and now have just the three. The smallest is the intake, the medium fan is blowing air within the pc, and the largest is for exhaust.

Here ya go dude, have a good read, tells you all you need to know .

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-39970.html

Happy reading

in veg for sure. IMO along with many experts including the people at my local hydro shop, its better to do full 24 rather than 18/6. less stretching. each leaf is like a solar panel. you want the best vegged plants possible for flowering. you dont really save money on 18/6 cause you will have to veg longer compared to full 24. you could say you save money each day, but it will take more days to get the same results. many plants do in fact need a rest period. however marijuana does NOT require rest in veg. i've vegged plants for about 2 months with no rest whatsoever since sprouting and no negative effects. they got huge and surpassed my expectations!

remember in flower, you have to have 12/12 no matter what or you may run into problems. in not sure about CFLs but with HPS it takes about 10 days to notice flowering after switching the light cycle.

also to reduce noise in your pc fans you can take them apart and clean them, then add a drop or 2 of sewing machine oil. its very easy. just take the sticker off the back and break that plastic circular piece off that goes around the metal rod. its not needed cause the fans stay in place anyway because they're magnetic. i have a lot of exp with this from fixing computers. it makes the fans run close to new. fans are very simple and i guarantee you will be able to figure it out by just looking at it.

also you want temps kept from 65-85F. personally i try and push for 80ish.

hope this helps bro!

put a heating pad around the pc box , and after you find a happy medium with the temp . tape the light on the heating pad cord , so you don't see the light .

-Here's what I might try first, if you have your PC fans running off of a PC power supply you could get a 4 fan controller from newegg.com and adjust the fans to dim the noise: LINK

-Get a decent digital temp./humidity gauge that keeps track of high/low for 24 hours to see if it is indeed getting too cold up there. (If you don't have one already of course.)

-You could maybe try putting a heating pad/germination heat mat in the bottom of the PC case on low.

-If you must put it in the attic where it's freezing ass cold you could try having the lights on 24/7 for veg. People do it all the time, I prefer 18/6 but 24 hours does work.

Hope it works out for you...on a side note couldn't you maybe share this hobby with your wife? Maybe if you get her on board you could go bigger. I'd never be able to hide a grow from mine, she'd sniff it out lol. Peace. =)

I'm Using 6 26w cfl's for my set up and it started to flower in 6 day's from the light switch! You should just get some the silent fan's.. walmart carries them.

brownbearclan said:

Hope it works out for you...on a side note couldn't you maybe share this hobby with your wife? Maybe if you get her on board you could go bigger. I'd never be able to hide a grow from mine, she'd sniff it out lol. Peace. =)

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ROFL! The main reason why I'm going stealth is because of my wife. She's definitely not cool or understanding.
I figured out that I'm over powering my fans. The 3 fans I'm using total less than a half an amp. I'm going to replace the 12 volt 1.5 amp adapter I'm using now with an old cell phone charger that is 5 volt 0.5 amp. This should reduce the noise the fans are making. It just sucks that I have to take apart the whole box to redo the electric. Oh well, I guess its all part of the learning experience. I will appreciate all the hard work that went into the pc grow box when it comes time to smoke my own home grown goods.