Dual PC Stealth Grow -- Aurora Indica & Mazar x Afgan

[Xander]

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

Good day everyone. I hope that everyone's week was better than mine, let that hint to which way this update will be going.

Lets jump right into it because, facing the facts, I am honestly at a loss at what to do or which way to go. Thus, like usual, all advise and help will be greatly appreciated.

First off, the good news. My pc cases arrived early this mourning and I have the day off to dedicate to getting all the 'extras' that I need and working on the overall project.

And that is about it for the good news, so please frolic with me on the bad news street. When I took out my PC cases they seemed a bit smaller than what I had expected. After measuring them, they only come out to 7x18x17H rather than 9x20x20 which was posted on their site. On top of that I ordered 6x80mm fans and only received 2. I called their customer support line and the lady said she didn't deal with the 'pc case orders' and gave me an email to refer to. I then proceeded to send an email stating all the information.

As I write this post the sales assoc. has yet to email me back. I am honestly at a complete loss of direction. My expected plant date is literally 4 days way. Also, if this is the largest size they have and I keep it, this will deeply cut into and alter my cycles, expected yield, and limits me in updating/altering conditions (larger bulbs, hydro kits, etc.).

Any thoughts on this? I will post again tonight because there were a lot of good posts above this one, this is just a more important issue right now.

Thanks again guys,
-X

 

[v12xjs]

Tough call. Is the start date more important than the kit you end up with?
I Feel for you.
I grow in the box you want and I'd like more space, but doesn't everyone?
I vote you ram their kit up their wotsit and shop elsewhere.

 

[LimitedTimer]

it sounds like you have no reason to actually do a PC grow to me....i'd just look into geting your money back from the cunt website... and build a bigger better box.stealth can be done in more then one way also..

When life give you small ass PC box's make lemonade

 

[dontcopnone]

Yeah you might want to consider other forms of stealth. Stacked Rubbermaids, a modified dresser, or cabinet. All of the above available at a store near you where you can measure that shit before you buy it. Online shopping has its benefits...and its problems, as I'm sure you know. If I were in your shoes and dead set on the server case idea, I would start looking at the local "mom & pop" computer stores - the ones that have custom built rigs and can get you bare parts like server cases locally. If your work has an IT department it probably wouldn't hurt to ask them if they have any unused server cases they can toss your way for little or no money.

If you want to meet that deadline you're going to have to get creative.

Also, you need to get someone on the phone at that poor excuse for a business that sold you the cases & fans. I would settle for no less than 100% refund. If you are not good at yelling and getting pissed off on the phone, find someone who is. They fucked you, dude.

 

[LimitedTimer]

totally fucked imo , fuckin 7'' wide...wtf you gonna do with that if your power supply for a computer is 9'' wide like you ordered it....(if you were using it for legit reasons..)


fuckin sad excuse for a company...i'd like to know who you ordered from

rubbermaid's have great success from the forums around this site so thats a great idea

 

[Xander]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all the feedback. I greatly appreciate it. This, unforeseeable news, has greatly depressed and stressed me. I will never order from this company again. The company was supernotebook.com and/or atxpowersupplies.com . They are from Louisiana and have a really out-dated shopping cart. I will say that I got a real 'mom and pop' vibe from their website, but now I know it was just bad business.

I have thought quite literally all day about what I will do. One part of me feels like that is not what I paid for and I should get my money back. The other part of me is stating the fact that it is to late to 'keep searching' and that the money is already invested; deal with it.

There have been a few pros to pop into my mind as I elaborated all the scenerio's today. *please don't make fun of me if some of these are ludicrous, I am just trying to deal with a shady end of a stick* I will be able to do a 10 day Perpetual Grow if I use both units as perpetual grows. The smaller mid-sized towers are a bit more modest and fit well under my desk. I can ebay these towers as a PC grow box and get more than what I paid for them. I can use these cheap towers to learn, experiment, and well to be blunt grow weed :') . Which can account for more than what I have now and I will finally achieve that feeling of success and fulfillment.

I need not go over what I lost, I think everyone here has a good idea of what I am compromising by settling with this mid-tower. Like I previously said, I will never order from this site again and I just, honestly, hope to god that I get my damn fans that I paid for. With that said, I must now settle for a Dual Perpetual PC Grow. If I have planned correctly (v12, please check my date math on this one bud), every 10 days I should be able to plant and harvest a plant. The set ups in each unit will be two 1 litre pots in front follow by 2 red cups in the back. With only 17in W I am unable to get 3 full 1 litre pots in it now. I am going to start with one plant in unit 1 then start the second plant in unit 2 and follow that pattern till each unit held 4 plants. On the 9th plant plant date the 1 plant planted would be at day 80 (overall; 24 Days to enter flowering and 56 day to flower). Give or take a few days this is the cycle I am thinking about perusing. I am thinking about doing this until the end of the year then upgrading to larger towers from a more credible business with maybe some self made hydro and more lighting. Please wish me better luck!

v12, yes the start date is very important because I think if I can get this done before or 'for' my birthday that that will be the best gift of all. I think it will also give me a sense of fulfillment along with some very useful skills. You have no idea how bad I wish I could cuss them out and let them know how I feel. I am hopeful that I will see good results and have some great experiments with these cases, but I just hope I am not wrongfully hoping. I welcome you to sub and help me along the journey. Looks like it's going to be a lot of perpetuating.

LT and DCN, well actually the only kind of grow I can do is a PC grow. I live in a big city apartment and quite literally have no room for a cabinet or two stacked tub-a-wares. Plus, with the family close and often over it has to be top notch stealth. I can talk my way out of a few computers, but I am less confident about a cabinet with a lock on it. I do have a local computer store that I have not looked into yet. I will be going there tomorrow, thanks for mentioning it. I know the guy some-what personally so he might try a little harder on hunting one down. I am going to play that card by ear tomorrow, lets hope for the best. I am going to try and get creative and deal with it because I really need the stable smoking environment *starting to hit my ck book again*. I know they fucked me, but this is the closest I have been to having a stable (not optimal by no means) growing environment. Plus, I know it will work and there is a great group of growers that have been helping me through-out this project. And I can always ebay these and upgrade once they have paid for themselves. It'll be good I hope and "nothing happens without some form of resistance...". I just pray that this is all the resistance I meet for the rest of the grow

Thanks again for all the feedback. I really appreciate that a lot of you have continued to come back to help and support me. To be quite frank I really just want my shit to be up and growing right now. I think that I will feel less stressed and hopefully feel less frauded by that business when the units are actually making money. Only time will tell. Wish for me some smooth sailing after the rough waters.

Thanks again guys,
-X

 

[v12xjs]

Hey Xander
We all need things to aim for. If it's a harvest for your birthday then shoot for it.
You may be able to use the mistake to wangle some freebies out of the suppliers too, so give that a try.
The adjustment to the plan sounds workable to me. Nice coincidence that it uses 4 plants 20 days apart in each case, so it's truly a 420 setup
I'm scribed too.

 

[dontcopnone]

Glad to see you making lemonade out of the lemons you were given.

I've no idea what you paid for the towers, but it sounds to me like you deserve a partial refund - barebones midtowers are usually cheaper than server towers. If you paid with a card and they're not doing right by you by getting you the fans and partial refund on the cases, I would threaten to reverse the charges.

 

[LimitedTimer]

I see how you need the stealth towers for sure now.

and i hope this company doesnt screw you outta your fans...this frustrates me and im not even effected ...

Wish you best of luck bro, once its up and going you'll be to happy to care...

P.s. is 7 inch's wide big enough to fit bulbs? i know i couldn't fit 26 watt bulbs in my 8 inch case with a power strip.....

anyways i'm sub'd till the end , all this planning should pay off in the long run.

 

[Xander]

How we doing everyone,

So I have picked up a few more items for my grow. Today I was able to get 2x timers and 4x power cords for $25 at a local hardware store. This store has really saved me a lot of money and has been a blessing in disguise. However, I might have to try some different power cords because on the ones I purchased I can only fit 3 bulbs on it, and I really need to fit 4 on it. I'll post more updates soon.

V12, I really believe that the smoke date is the most important beause it will show that I can do it and well it'll be one hell of a birthday too I don't know about the freebies because I have not been able to make contact with the business yet =\ Thanks for looking over my plan v4.20 lol I think this will give me enough bud and experience to last the year.

DCN, thanks for suggeting the reversal. I might have to pull that card on these people. I truly hope not, but it seems to be going the other way =\

LT, I, too, hope that this company doesn't fuck me outta those fans, but at this point they are not getting in my way of my goal. I have spent to much money and time for thier bad business to effect my 'business'. Thanks for the luck, looks like i'll be needing it As for the bulbs fitting. They do. I was worried too, but before work I plugged them in and matched it up inside the tower. They fit, but not by much.

Thanks for all the feedback guy. When I get home, I am going to gut both of the tower and see if I can't get any pictures up. Also, does anyone know the best way to get all that shit removed from inside the tower. I have read that it requires a special tool, but I don't see how anything could remove these. They are very small and in the middle of the head there is only a small circle (no special shape like a cresent or traditional shape *flat/philips*).

 

[LimitedTimer]

i went to a hardware store bought a 10 dollar hacksaw, smoked a bowl and went at it...

mine was basically rivetted though..not screwed in...

 

[dontcopnone]

Yeah those are rivets that you see. Hope you have some gloves and a cutting instrument. Gloves are important so you dont get bloodied on all the sharp metal. If you have a drill the best way to defeat rivets is by drilling them out. There's always the hacksaw though

I'd have to search my internet history, but if you're bored someday you can pull apart your bulbs and wire up the ballasts remotely. You can see on the base the bulb attaches at 2 points and just at the top of the ballast portion there's a seam. You basically jam a flat-head screwdriver in there and bust out the adhesive until it seperates and you'll see 2 wires connecting the ballast to the actual bulb. If you want you can strip a power cord and hardwire the ballast and then extend the wires to the bulb. Cover any bare wires with hot glue and bam, remotely ballasted CFLs. Standby, I'm searching my internet history for where I saw it, they had pictures and everything.

 

[Xander]

Ya mine's rivetted too. God. Looks like ill be buying a hack saw too

Edit= didn't see your post DCN, Ill check that out after this blunt

 

[dontcopnone]

Ya mine's rivetted too. God. Looks like ill be buying a hack saw too

Edit= didn't see your post DCN, Ill check that out after this blunt

Right on brother, 15-20 days and I'll be smoking some of my own. Had a few tester popcorn buds a few days back. Got decently high, but he best part was knowing I grew it. Just look forward to that - getting high on your own supply. The feeling of accomplishment, pride is amazing.

 

[v12xjs]

Yeah those are rivets that you see. Hope you have some gloves and a cutting instrument. Gloves are important so you dont get bloodied on all the sharp metal. If you have a drill the best way to defeat rivets is by drilling them out. There's always the hacksaw though

I'd have to search my internet history, but if you're bored someday you can pull apart your bulbs and wire up the ballasts remotely. You can see on the base the bulb attaches at 2 points and just at the top of the ballast portion there's a seam. You basically jam a flat-head screwdriver in there and bust out the adhesive until it seperates and you'll see 2 wires connecting the ballast to the actual bulb. If you want you can strip a power cord and hardwire the ballast and then extend the wires to the bulb. Cover any bare wires with hot glue and bam, remotely ballasted CFLs. Standby, I'm searching my internet history for where I saw it, they had pictures and everything.

Brilliant info dcn. Anything else you can find would be very useful.

 

[dontcopnone]

I wasn't able to find it last night and I'm heading out the door for a 12hr shift in 15m, so maybe I'll have time tonight to look again. One thing to note, remoting a CFL ballast isn't going to do much for your heat problems. It does give you a lot more freedom with placement though - just think, if you had only the spiral you could easily jam 30% more bulbs in the same space or more easily position them inbetween plants. Of course with PC grows space is super restricted, so you could have more room for a bigger CFL, could even remote the ballasts right out of the case. Maybe if you have an old modem or router that doesn't work anymore you could put them inside that.

Back on topic. Xander: Any luck on finding a drill?
LimitedTimer: How long did it take you to clean out your case with a hacksaw? Although it would probably be cleaner, I'm thinking a drill might take longer, based on some of my cases. There are a LOT of rivets in there!.

 

[LimitedTimer]

i build my case from start to finish in under 2 hours, wiring striping and completly gutting the hardware to the computer...hacksaw actually cuts like butter through the inside metal frame, and its actually pretty clean.. no shards of metal to cutmyself on, i'd just wear gloves while your doing the actual cutting

or drilling in that matter.

 

[Xander]

Good mourning everyone!

Sorry I didn't post this update last nite. I didn't finish until 3am and had to get up at 10 this mourning. Anyways last night I was trying to gut the towers, but there were rivetts holding the useless metal inside. I said I was going to get a hack saw, but I ran to my work late last nite and they had a drill and several bits.

To make a long story short I was able to use the drill to drill though the rivetts. The first tower took me about 2.5 hours because I didn't know that you could only drill through the back/ass of the rivetts. The second tower took me roughly 15 mins to get it drilled, gutted, and put back together. So the drill method is definitly quick if you know what your doing. NOTE TO ANYONE LOOKING TO DO A PC GROW ** REMOVE ALL SIDES OF YOUR PC TO EXPOSE ALL RIVETTS/SCREWS.

DCN, I would really like to hear more on the ballast idea. I think I kind of know what your getting at, but I am really ignorant when it comes to electricity and anything relating to lol. If you can find those pics I would really like to see them. Wish such restricted size arrangments upgrading will be a bit more limited than I had expected, but I will be looking into everything I can get my hand/eyes on

I wasn't able to get gloves though and I must say if you are looking to drill or cut the 'waste' out to ware gloves! I got sliced 3-4 times and all of them feel like very harsh paper cuts. So learn from me everyone

Good news on your up coming harvest DCN. Please send some pics when you get done cutting her down. What strain did you grow? I can't wait till I have that same feeling of acomplishment inside me

Well, that pretty much updates me from last nite. I did get some pictures that I will be uploading tonight and I think I am going to start glueing things in position tonight. I'll post more updates with pictures tonight guys!

Talk to you all tonite,

-X

 

[LimitedTimer]

awesome glad it worked out, and yah..i cut the hell outta my hands too haha...

can't wait to see these things up and running!

keep on truckin

 

[dontcopnone]

Haha, I tried to warn you Xander! Glad my advice on the drill paid off! (well, on the second tower anyway )

I need to buy a camera soon so I can have some pics of my harvest to look back on 20yrs from now when I'm the Bill Gates of weed. LOL J/K, i WISH.

OK, I'm off to scour my fricken internet history again, firefox makes searching your history pretty easy, but the search terms I'm using aren't bringing up jack.

Edit: I give up, can't find anything. I may just have to make my own DIY for you since I can't find it. So annoyed that I can't find it!

Edit2: In the name of science, I pulled apart a busted CFL I had sitting around. It's definitely doable, I just wouldn't try it on NVISION bulbs.

I started off with my trusty leatherman's flat screwdriver tool. No dice, not thin enough to get into the seam.
Next came out the knife...still hard to get in. Slipped, poked the point into my finger. I hope you appreciate this Xander! (It's OK, only like 1-2 drops of blood ) No more f'ing around, I sliced down the side of the ballast to the metal part that screws into a socket and started prying off chunks with the pliers.
After prying off an inch or two, the ballast gives into my charms and melts like butter in my hands. Wait, no, it just comes apart. The ballast bits are all on a circular circuit board tucked right against the bulb bits. Most of the "ballast" part of the bulb is open space actually. Anyway, two wires go from the board down to the bottom of the metal screw in part, one white, one black. If I remember right, with AC power it doesn't matter which way you wire, there's no +/- in AC. Anyway, chopped them off, I'd recommend leaving as much attached to the ballast as possible to give you more to work with when you rewire.
Now I've got the glass bulb bits sticking out of the plastic cap of the "ballast" portion that's left with the "ballast" still attached & 2 "power" wires sticking out of that.
I tried to figure out how to seperate the remaining two pieces and notice that, at the 2 points where the fluorescent tube terminates, there are 2 wires per side. I effed this part up trying to just pry the circuit board out and ended up pulling one of the wires clean off from the bulb. Next time I would just cut the wires off from the circuit board which will leave you a good 1.5" of wire to reattach to. Also, where the wires attach to the ballast there like 1.5" little metal posts, which will make it very easy to reattach new wires.
From what I remember, the other guy used a soldering iron (probably a very good idea) but if you wanted to be lazy you could get away with just twisting wires together and glue gun over the bare wires to insulate.
One last thing: the fluorescent tubes ended on the underside in what I can only describe as "nipples" - they tapered down and had a short, small diameter portion that stuck thru holes in the circuit board. I busted these off accidentally. As this was a busted bulb already, I have no idea if this would break the bulb, but it sure looks like it would, so be careful when prying off the bottom plastic part.

Conclusion: I could definitely get it done no problem a second time, but I wouldn't call it easy. Once you get inside the plastic it's no big deal, but that plastic shell is a bitch. It may just be easier to use a knife to carefully poke a hole in the plastic shell near the metal screw part, widen it out enough to get a pliers in there and then pry pieces off until it's loose enough to fall apart. I'm just not satisfied with how much pressure I had to use near all the fragile glass and electronic bits. I was lucky that I didn't slice through parts of the ballast the way I was going at it. A vise might be nice to hold the bulb so you don't have to risk your fingers like I did. While you're at it, you could try using the pressure of a vice low on the plastic part near the metal part to try to crack it apart.

Some more: To get an idea how much length you'll save, look at your bulb and try to spot the "seam" on the plastic "ballast" part. Everything below that "seam" goes away - I estimate mine lost about 3 inches of length (too lazy to go get tape measure to be sure ). With my test bulb there didn't seem to be a good way to get rid of that last bit of plastic that the glass bulb is attached to. The ballast only consumes maybe 2w on a 26w CFL, so it probably doesn't pay to add tons of wire just to remove it from inside your case.

Bam, no more need for bulky sockets and more room for bulbs. If you buy the same exact brand when that one burns out, you can just chop off the wires at the bulb and rewire the old ballast to the new bulb. Maybe keep a spare ballast around in case one zonks out.

Edit...4 or 5: Sorry Xander, forgot - I'm growing 2 plants, the freebies from my Attitude order: G13 Labs White Widow and Purple Lady (both femmed). I'm beginning to think I got my labels mixed up because the one I have marked as Purple Lady smells...like ass I can't think how to describe how the other smells, I'll try tomorrow when I can take a sniff and type right away.