Grow Cabinet revamp

Thought I'd make a thread to show you all my latest project.

I was recently gifted my friends old grow cabs.
He'd been using these cabinets stacked on top of each other for about 8 years with good success.
They've evolved many times from cfl lights, then to ufo lights, a Mars reflector 96 and finally it had the Mars converted to run 6x cree cxb2530's.
He always ran square DWC systens with metal scrog screens attached to the lid.

Here they are in the form that I got them, lights and DWC buckets left behind as I'm a soil grower. I'll also be installing Quantum boards I happened to have on hand.
I'll show the process of the build.
The photo of the top cab is of where I'd already started stripping it out.

There was foil glued to the walls, a shelf for storage and a slide out shelf for a DWC Res.
Cree cobs still mounted in the roof, the mess on the bottom was caused by a leaky PH down bottle as all his nutrients and meters were stored in the same cab.

I got to work and stripped them both out for repainting painting

Top cab was the first to get some fresh white walls, the other cab followed shortly after but I forgot to take a snap

Then I set out to mount the QB's to some rails, reinstalled the filter and extraction fan and mounted and wired some power sockets

Decided to use angled aluminium on the sides of cab to slide the quantum boards in place instead of hanging them. Figured I won't need to lower them in this short space.



They'll be on the Mean Well driver that came with the kit. HLG-240-2100a.

The top cabs lighting solution is up in the air.
I have 6x citizen 1212 5700k cobs and a 700ma driver to suit that I could mount in the roof on pin fin sinks.
Or another two QB's but they would probably be best put to use in another flowering space.
Also tempted to try a few Eb strip's as they are cheap and easy. Who knows which way I'll go.
The tops only going to house mother plants and clones, possibly some vegging plants. Doesn't need much light in there.

Got the fixture wired up after the test fitting


Set it up in the cabinet



Really happy with how it's coming along, the only remaining task for this space is to rig up some fans. Have here three coolermaster 120m fans to go in, a few to blow over the canopy for circulation and one for intake

Looking really good superfreak!! I'm in the middle of re-doing my veg and flower areas as well. Keep the pics coming!!

Tis the season... also in a revamp mode before next run.
Start your plants indoors NOW if you want cured Xmas bud...

You don't give dimensions... but EB for easy veg running soft.

Thanks for the replies everyone!

And you're right @HalfBee I should have put up the dimensions.
Top cabinet LxWxH = 860mm x 550mm x 600mm
Bottom cabinet = 860mm x 550mm x 1000mm

Thinking four or five 560mm eb strips on a small driver would be heaps. I'll order some this week to finish the top cabinet

Please try to keep it on topic guys, let's take the nickname queries up in private. I see the reasons for it but would prefer my thread to keep being about cabinets.

More updates soon, parts are in the post to continue the build

Dude, excellent job on the rebuild. First to last pic is a huge difference! Should see some nice results out of that setup.
I've been considering running some EB strips as side lighting in the cab. My canopy has been so dense, the lower buds look like they could use a little extra juice.
Good luck! I'll be following!

@xX_BHMC_Xx Thanks, I'm really stoked with how its coming along. I had a peep at your thread looks like a really similar sized spaces we're working with, really like the light you built! Hope I achieve good results like you have, nice thick canopy

superfreak86 said:

@xX_BHMC_Xx Thanks, I'm really stoked with how its coming along. I had a peep at your thread looks like a really similar sized spaces we're working with, really like the light you built! Hope I achieve good results like you have, nice thick canopy

Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm sure you will!
It's actually too thick. Lots of great tops, but I would have liked the lower stuff to develop a bit more. Gonna make some great hash though

So I took a break from the garden for a little over six months and this project kinda got left for that entire time.
But I'm back at it and have put together the LED fixture for the top cabinet

Scored a cheap second hand Meanwell HLG-120-54A driver from ebay grabbed some of the TCI strips I think they're 3000k temperature but I ordered them so long back I'm not sure, they look like it when lit.

Built the frame from angled aluminium, mounted the driver on it and used some double sided thermal tape to fix the strips to the frame.
Wired up the strips in parallel, attached a plug to the power cable and gave it a test.
Happy to find we are well lit, tidied up the wiring and mounted it in the top cabinet

Unfortunately made the power cable a little short but will fix that soon, this fixture dims from 40w - 120w. This space is a small veg area so I'm planning to only run 60w or so most of the time

Plan to mount some 120mm 12v fans in the middle of the fixture facing down for some airflow and this space is pretty much finished

Hey man, I had same thing happen. Was building out my cab for a while and life got in the way. Basically held it off for 6 months as well but now I'm on day 27 of my grow. Glad to see you back at it. It's time, money and work but once you're finished, that's when the real challenge begins.

Build looks good and clean. Nice work on the light frame. Looking forward to seeing it finished.