greenhouseJim
Active Member
Ok guys (and gals), I need your advice. I'm about to start building a grow box with the help of a friend of mine and we have a design but there are questions that I need to answer before we finalize anything.
First the overall design:
* roughly 24" wide, 16" deep, and 32" tall (will be constructed to look just like a commercial end table/cabinet)
* on the inside walls there will be a series of holes on the left and right walls. These will be for small metal dowells
* near the bottom there will be a false floor (essentially a shelf sitting on the lowest dowell) with holes in it (think wooden screen)
* there will also be a false top which the lights will attach to (3 CFL's). The false top, again, is just a shelf that can be moved to different dowells to adjust the height of the lamps
* under the false floor (on the actual floor) there will be a fan located on the back left and front right sides. one for intake, one for exhaust (the bottom is several inches off the floor of the house with decorative molding to allow air to flow)
* the false top will have a section cut out in the back left for the intake pipe (which will have a custom built scrubber attached, see question 1)
* the grow box itself (DWC setup) will sit on top of the false floor
* about 8" above the grow box there will be a shelf with a screen (for SCRoG)
* one goal is to have the inside very neat. we'd like to keep everything, minus the actual plants, containers, and lights, either below the false floor or above the false top.
Ok, that kind of sums it up and hopefully I made it clear enough. May be able to do a sketch later if people are having a hard time picturing it. Now for the questions:
1. What determines a good scrubber? Is it the amount of charcoal to air or the amount of air to charcoal? In other words, do you need just a small amount of air running through a large amount of charcoal to have the best effect or do you just need a little charcoal with the most air coming through for the best effect?
2. is it better to push or pull the air through the filter and why? or is it best to have one on each end?
3. does the scrubber need to be any certain shape to be at it's most effective? Since we're going to build our own we'd like to be flexable in the design if possible.
4. what size fans would be the best to ventilate this small area? and how much noise do you think they would generate? ( I was thinking 4" pc fans)
5. does the exhaust need to pull from the top of the box or will pulling from the bottom work as well (I'm assuming the top is best but I'm more concerned with making it work at the bottom). The fans will both be on bottom but we can run a pipe for the exhaust up the inside wall to draw in air from the upper area.
6. would it be better to have all 3 plants (btw, planning on only 3 plants at a time) in one large tub or have them in their own little 'buckets'?
I'm sure there will be more questions as we go along (we're planning on building several prototypes to get the perfect fit), but this should get us started just right. Any answers you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
First the overall design:
* roughly 24" wide, 16" deep, and 32" tall (will be constructed to look just like a commercial end table/cabinet)
* on the inside walls there will be a series of holes on the left and right walls. These will be for small metal dowells
* near the bottom there will be a false floor (essentially a shelf sitting on the lowest dowell) with holes in it (think wooden screen)
* there will also be a false top which the lights will attach to (3 CFL's). The false top, again, is just a shelf that can be moved to different dowells to adjust the height of the lamps
* under the false floor (on the actual floor) there will be a fan located on the back left and front right sides. one for intake, one for exhaust (the bottom is several inches off the floor of the house with decorative molding to allow air to flow)
* the false top will have a section cut out in the back left for the intake pipe (which will have a custom built scrubber attached, see question 1)
* the grow box itself (DWC setup) will sit on top of the false floor
* about 8" above the grow box there will be a shelf with a screen (for SCRoG)
* one goal is to have the inside very neat. we'd like to keep everything, minus the actual plants, containers, and lights, either below the false floor or above the false top.
Ok, that kind of sums it up and hopefully I made it clear enough. May be able to do a sketch later if people are having a hard time picturing it. Now for the questions:
1. What determines a good scrubber? Is it the amount of charcoal to air or the amount of air to charcoal? In other words, do you need just a small amount of air running through a large amount of charcoal to have the best effect or do you just need a little charcoal with the most air coming through for the best effect?
2. is it better to push or pull the air through the filter and why? or is it best to have one on each end?
3. does the scrubber need to be any certain shape to be at it's most effective? Since we're going to build our own we'd like to be flexable in the design if possible.
4. what size fans would be the best to ventilate this small area? and how much noise do you think they would generate? ( I was thinking 4" pc fans)
5. does the exhaust need to pull from the top of the box or will pulling from the bottom work as well (I'm assuming the top is best but I'm more concerned with making it work at the bottom). The fans will both be on bottom but we can run a pipe for the exhaust up the inside wall to draw in air from the upper area.
6. would it be better to have all 3 plants (btw, planning on only 3 plants at a time) in one large tub or have them in their own little 'buckets'?
I'm sure there will be more questions as we go along (we're planning on building several prototypes to get the perfect fit), but this should get us started just right. Any answers you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.