New Cabinet Grow - 9'x4'x18" - Complete Build Journal - Lot's of Pics

try getting a air conditioner and another thing i know you are gonna have a problem with is space you should of just made it 1 shelf and just of made a 3 different separate cabs thats unless if you are gonna use bush master b4 you are gonna flower nice DIY tho keep it up just remember dont let failure bring you down perfection takes practice. oh and for the venting you should try venting the hot air thru your houses ac vents

jsgamber said:

Yes as well as sheathed in OSB with 5/8 drywall over that. The mum cab used to climb up to 90* and now it goes no higher than 80 (and that's probably when the garage door is open for awhile) but mostly stays around 78*. Garage ambient temps are currently around 73*. Bottom line, it was a significant difference for the afternoon temps. I only used 3/4 foam at a cost of $8 per 4x8 sheet.

By all means keep the questions and comments coming!!!! If I get no comments I don't get motivated and if I don't get motivated I do no work and I have no pics and if I have no pics I start to feel guilty which reminds me I need to keep growing weed....wow what a nut case I am!!

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the more the venting curves the less efficent its gonna be unless you get a 400 cfm or higer cfm fan and remember the cool intake air should be coming from the bottom of the cab and the hot exhaust air going up. then after you fix that problem get a small oscillating fan to keep the air stirring around

jsgamber said:

Oh I already have them for the cool tubes. But I bought the 100cfm for cab exhaust. I may need an upgrade and I may need one that takes me out of PC case fans

But I still have some testing to do. I'll know better once the ambient temps are good and I get that flower cab set up. Those flower cabs need to stay at most 85* but I'd prefer 80*. At least I won't have to worry about keeping humidity down.

I've been doing quite a bit of research on ventilation with fans, static pressure, Equivalent Duct length, etc. Here's a pretty good guide http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/rewilliams/ventilationfanguide.html. I've also been trying to nail down how much cooling I will need based on HID lamp output and ran across this article as well http://www.aquaculture-hydroponics.co.uk/admin/web-inf/uploads/documents/cooling-bound.pdf.

As my research is nailed down I'll fill you all in!

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dam thats a nice set up great job

SnOoPXIV said:

try getting a air conditioner and another thing i know you are gonna have a problem with is space you should of just made it 1 shelf and just of made a 3 different separate cabs thats unless if you are gonna use bush master b4 you are gonna flower nice DIY tho keep it up just remember dont let failure bring you down perfection takes practice. oh and for the venting you should try venting the hot air thru your houses ac vents

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Hey SnOoP! I'm positive AC is in my future and I'll be going into that shortly. As far as space I'm hoping it's a matter of timing. Since I'll be growing ScrOG, the only thing growing upward will be buds. The main stem will grow "coiled" up underneith the screen while I train the branches to come up through each hole in my screen. Also as soon as the clones establish their roots, I'm going straight to flower with no veg time so hopefully the main stem will stop growing at about the same time I fill my screen with bud sites and the plant then concentrates on fattening up flowers rather than growing longer. It's all an experiment and a learning experience. Hopefully you'll stay around and help keep me on course through my trials and tribulations.

SnOoPXIV said:

the more the venting curves the less efficent its gonna be unless you get a 400 cfm or higer cfm fan and remember the cool intake air should be coming from the bottom of the cab and the hot exhaust air going up. then after you fix that problem get a small oscillating fan to keep the air stirring around

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That's been covered in past posts in this thread. Hence 4" PVC with smooth walls to reduce drag, 3 hole passive intake on the bottom of the cab with 2 exhaust ports in the top each running 130cfm fans and a cool tube with independant inflow and outflow. Minimal turns, etc. etc.

I'm not trying to be a jerk but have you read the entire thread and looked at all the pics? We also covered the oscillating fan.

jfa916 said:

dam thats a nice set up great job

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Thanks jfa. Don't forget to check out my grow to see the cabinet in action!!

I can't wait to see how your first grow turns out!

cindysid said:

I can't wait to see how your first grow turns out!

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Well head on over! It's the second link in my sig! The more the merrier!

Hey Gumball, Just so you know you had the idea I was looking for! I just had to open my eyes!

TEC is the ticket! Most worries are about getting rid of the heat but I'll take that worry if I can generate a reasonable amount of cooling. Here are some good links that I'll be using as reference. The first one is how to build a water chiller using a Peltier device. This would be much better than throwing in ice bottles every day!! The second link is a variation of what I'll be looking at building.

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89199
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1986696/diy_peltier_portable_refrigerator/

Based on that here is my rough design on paper:



In Orange County we have Orvac Electronics which should carry all of this stuff. I'm gonna head down there hopefully today to pick up some materials!


I'm so excited...I get to build my own AC! DIY ROCKS!

Here's a quick shot to show my temp cycles. This was taken at 6:30pm, just past the hottest time of day for the garage. This is a wireless thermometer with the sensor inside the cabinet. This was the result of insulating the garage door.

jsgamber said:

Hey Gumball, Just so you know you had the idea I was looking for! I just had to open my eyes!

Based on that here is my rough design on paper:

View attachment 1009890

In Orange County we have Orvac Electronics which should carry all of this stuff. I'm gonna head down there hopefully today to pick up some materials!

I'm so excited...I get to build my own AC! DIY ROCKS!

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Sweet, I'm waiting to see his, so you do one too and I'll have something else to try to copy and mod. I will incorporate it somewhere. Heat is always my Enemy.
Daniels

Okay this idea has got me buzzing! I was trolling over at Gumball's journal and this picture hit me in the head!!!









Do you see any place in the following pic where this wouldn't work like the shitz?


My thinking is having a two chamber unit like Gumball's I just imbed the heat side into one of my existing exhaust ducts. I could even build a seperate unit for each chamber each seperately controlled! WooHoo.

So now for some questions. I'm thinking I should get a Peltier with a pretty high delta-T that runs about 80watts? Does this sound right?

Since this is a straight voltage device I'm wondering if you can use a regular PC fan controller to increase/decrease the voltage to increase/decrease the cooling I would need (eventually put things on a thermostat).

Any other considerations?

Haha ingenius my friend , i've gotta say i loved that heatsink idea aswell and almost forgot to give gumball +rep for it You seem to have your design tweaked almost to perfection, so as i said on your other thread , cant wait to see the shit you're gna have growing out of that beast of a cab

SensiStan said:

Haha ingenius my friend , i've gotta say i loved that heatsink idea aswell and almost forgot to give gumball +rep for it You seem to have your design tweaked almost to perfection, so as i said on your other thread , cant wait to see the shit you're gna have growing out of that beast of a cab

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Well pull up a seat 'cause I'ma gonna builda onea.

Pics from a bit of play time. There is a good amount of heat from the hot side and a good amount of chilling from the cool. At this point it's hard to tell how effective the cooling will be until I can insulate the two sides from each other.

Fortunately I had a supply of passive (non-fan) heat sinks available to me. I hope these work well since I will be cooling them by running duct air through them.

First point of business is to get the two heat sinks attached to the Peltier module. Time for the Dremmel!




Wish me luck!

First stage assembly complete. A bit of dremel work to cut out some of the fins to put in the tightening nut. I was able to use the original screws. Second pic shows the module in the sandwich. I did a quick plug in to verify hot and cold and labled. Now to build the enclosure.

JSGamber,
I see you've many friends here and I too have followed this from time to time. In my humble opinion someone (including me) should have given you this below advice.
Please do your self a favor. Stop the heat issues and also use a MUCH better light. One with more wattage or the same and so cool cool COOL you can touch it with your hands after it's up and running. Ceramic Metal Halide. Please take the time to check it out. It's gonna save many head aches. Especially check the color charts. The range is far Superior to any on the market.
I'm using 2 X 400 watts and kicking the butt of my old 1000 MH............
Did I say they arre very cool running??

http://www.growlightexpress.com/ceramic-metal-halide-bulbs-9/mastercolor-ceramic-metal-halide-250-watt-87.html

genius +rep

OK, I had a random idea thinking of the Peltier, and water temps. Could 2 heat sinks, with a fan pulling, and it's cool side's cooling each side of a res. work? I haven't done Hydro, and it was a coffee and idea. Hope it gives you an idea.
Daniels

Danielsgb said:

OK, I had a random idea thinking of the Peltier, and water temps. Could 2 heat sinks, with a fan pulling, and it's cool side's cooling each side of a res. work? I haven't done Hydro, and it was a coffee and idea. Hope it gives you an idea.
Daniels

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Yes. In my Google search quest, I ran across this post to use the peltier and an acrylic water block and tubing to create a water chiller:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=89199

This was for an aquarium use and the guy was able to keep water temps at 65* while ambient room temps were at 79*. Just what I'm looking for.

It's funny you should mention this. I did finish my peltier AC unit up and it's way cool!! But it's way under powered!!

I tried again last night lighting up my flower chamber with 430W of light. Chamber hit 90* and when I turned on the peltier it did briefly go down to 89* but then went back up to 90*.

I've got all the pics on my camera and I'll try and get them updated.

So yes I may convert my peltier into a water chiller and buying a real AC unit. Throwing in bottles of ice is getting tiresome. Also I'm not all that timely either so my water stays on average around 72* (65* if I put an ice bottle in).

So now I need to run some calc on light/heat output per bulb and convert to BTU using those chart links I posted earlier. I don't want to spend a fortune and all I need is to get my flower cab temps down to 85* max (even at the worst ambient temps I can expect during the night). Right now I'm guessing around 6,000 - 10,000 BTU of cooling for all 3 chambers. But it also has to be small and somewhat quiet and hopefully not too expensive.

By the way, that peltier pull some serious Watts!. I've been using a 250W PS to drive eight .5 amp fans and two .7 amp fans. When I plug in the peltier, the fans drop RPM's by about 1/3!!!! I guess I need to find another PS to run this bad boy off of!

Okay let's finish with assembly. Fitting the foam that seperates the heat sinks and basically seperates the cooling and heating chambers.



Building out the sides and closing it up.





Here's the finished product, the fan is for pulling air across the heat side sink. The blue pieces are scrap plastic from some of my rez lids. I was able to fit these inside so that the air was redirected into the heat sinks...kind of like a funnel. Any open slots were taped up so air would only flow throw the heat sinks.




Here's the chiller "installed" for my flower chamber heat test run. First pic is the heat exhaust (fan) and inflow for cooling side. Second pic shows the hook up to the passive input register box. Yeah I notice that 180* bend and I don't like it. But it was a test. On another topic, you should notice that I replaced the "T" on the exhaust for my cool tube into a Wye. The thinking is that junctioning two airflows together at 45* is better than at 90* with the Tee (kind of the "go with the flow" approach).



As I stated just above, I'm concerned about the 90* "T" connections and if it's possible the connection is disrupting and reducing the airflow. This pic shows a test to see if airflow is better for both chambers when I take the T out and push the upper exhaust away from the lower exhaust so as not to disrupt airflow. This could be another "tuning" point for me. I've got some other considerations to work with as well.



Still need to work on "light proofing" the doors. I just bought some 1 1/2" garage door weather stripping which has a 45* edge. Hopefully this will be what I need because everything else is tighter than a drum.




Hopefully more in a few days.

peace

Nice. Looks sweet. I hope I works how you want. Glad to see the Peltier and water temps, wasn't a hair brained scheme. Top Notch as always.
Daniels

jsgamber said:

4" (5" square) landscape drain grate

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Hi ya

Can i ask whare you got that Landscape Grate ?... Do you know who makes them even ? ... any help with this would be appriciated .... Been looking for two 6" versions for a while to connect ducting to to go thru plater board rather than cutting a 6" hole and just poking the ducting thru and using tape to seal ... Diagram ..

View attachment 1037155

A supplyer name or a product name or code would be of grate ... i mean Great Help

Thank you


EDIT : BTW .... this whole build is amazing ... hours of work... and it looks awesome .... Come work for me