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Tank333
Psychotic Hippie
Registered: 08/19/10
Posts: 1,241
Loc: Washington
Last seen: 5 years, 28 days
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Re: first post, first grow, building a discreet cabinet & lighting questions. (help me shop?) [Re: 40oz]
#562223 - 06/05/11 04:11 PM (13 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
40oz said: hi peeps! i just got my medical card a few days ago, so I'm celebrating properly!
the cabinet: I'm building a cabinet that's 4' foot wide (46" inside dimensions), by about 5 feet tall give or take, & 20 inches deep. the veg compartment will be on the bottom deck about 1.5 feet tall. the face of the cabinet will have mock drawers & knobs but will actually be a door. the total vertical measurement of the entire cabinet will be 7 feet tall: the remaining space above the grow compartments will have shelves to store food & pantry items to help the illusion of discreetness.
the power: unfortunately, my house is old & was wired pretty crappy. all of the main rooms & common areas were wired on the same 15amp circuit. needless to say the breaker is maxed out & the breaker trips when you plug in the vacuum or even a hair blow dryer. to alleviate some of the load, i bought an additional breaker (cost me $60 total >_<) & will attempt to add it to the breaker box to divert the power use in the garage, so the garage will be on its' own circuit. (the power use in the garage is pretty high) however, i just bought a mini-fridge & an 810w UPC backup for my pc so I'm not too sure how much power I'll have left. if all else fails, i can run an extension cord from the laundry rooms dedicated circuit but that would spoil discreetness...i would like to avoid that if i can.
why not put the cab in the laundry room and disguise it as a chemicals locker that is kept locked?
the lighting: veg deck: I'm leaning towards a 4 foot t5 flouro if the length of the fixture can squeeze the inside dimension of 46" inches.
flower deck: I'm leaning towards either a 400 or 600 watt mh/hps system, depending on what you guys say i should do given the power constraints. i do want a "cool tube" type lighting fixture, though. (also, by how many degrees would the room temperature rise in an 11'x14'?) (i can only vent into the room & use a window fan to bring in new/cool air) I'm not too sure because I have a 1000 watt, but when it was in my bedroom it was tough to keep it cool. Now its in the livingroom and still we're having a hard time keeping the temps below 80 degrees! And we have 2 window fans, the bottom one blowing in, the top one blowing out. We have the air tube from the hood taped straight to the top fan, blowing the hot air outside along with a tube taped to the intake, blowing semi-cold air into the room. We are gonna have to break down here soon and get a portable ac unit and stop relying on the outside air being cool enough to keep the temps down.
ballast: i want a quality digital ballast that is completely silent, but not overly expensive. i was looking at this: http://cgi.ebay.com/120V-240V-400W-Lumatek-Hydrofarm-Ballast-400-Watt-/120727860389?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c1bf0f4a5#ht_2955wt_1022 & this fixture: http://cgi.ebay.com/Xtrasun-6-Air-Coolable-Reflector-Hydrofarm-Cooled-NEW-/120693500648?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c19e4aae8#ht_2889wt_966
I'll betcha that if you talked to our sponsor RVF supply, he'd be able to get you a better deal on the light and ballast setup. Remember, when buying a ballast from one guy and the hood from another on ebay, you're paying for the shipping twice, whereas you could be paying it once with him. here is a hood very similar to the one you had up, I believe. I think his lumatek ballasts are slightly more expensive, but when you're only paying shipping once, I think it would even out. Especially if you ordered your can and filter through him at the same time as well
i notice that the cords on the ballast are proprietary, but I'm pretty sure i can mod the cords to allow any lighting fixture for the ballast. (anyone do this yet?) (however this might negate the warranty unless i open up the ballast & solder a new cord from the contact points & re-solder the proprietary cord back on if any problems arise)
I couldn't recommend doing this unless you've got some electrician's experience. Faulty wiring can cause fires, and fires destroy grow rooms, crops, homes and lives.
I'm not very schooled on what's good so if you guys could also give me a bulb(s?), inline blower & carbon scrubber recommendation, preferably as quiet running as possible, yet not too expensive.
RVF also has fan and filter combos that are very competitively priced!
so that's that! the build of the cab begins now from the floor up, should (hopefully) be a fun project.
any help would be great! thanks friends! =D
Also, congrats on getting your medical card!! What state are you in?
I was also curious to know as to why you wanted to keep things so discreet? Do you have kids, or a roommate situation?
-------------------- My best run so far
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