Stealth cab design - opinions needed!

[cruzer101]

I didn't notice, have you installed inline dampeners?
If you do before construction you can have them all in the right side of the cab and control your airflow lines individually.
Maybe you want to have a few potted plants in there for the test too.

Good luck.

 

[bohicular]

The only thing I see that maybe a problem is smell. Your going on the assumption they don't stink in veg. And we all do. But some strains are fragrant throughout the grow. So you may want to consider a design which places the filter in the bottom after the last 90 degree turn and filter all your exhaust. This will also give you a touch more flower space, and may help dampen the overall exhausting air noise, as someone else pointed out will be loud. Still a great plan.

Ok, cool. I was planning on putting some ONA gel in the foam-lined chamber where all of the exhaust is going. I need to control the smell, but it doesn't need to be 100% perfect. (in all likelyhood, i'm sure i'll have to do some modifications later) I'm moving into a 1 br apartment this weekend, although its in a concrete slab building with no hvac. (its old). It sucks that I have to move my 2 plants (I know, breaking a huge rule here - but I live above a garage right now and the wife of the house wants me out - nothing personal, just wants to play house, hah)

Take your weed out of the cab to dry it, don't dry it in there, even if you have a seperate chamber within the cab, the temps are too high, but your fan is massive, not sure if you've been using it already, but its gonna be one loud muther fucker, they're usually meant to cool several 1000 watters at once, I'd suggest investing in a control switch to regulate the speed of the fan.

I definitely hear you on that. I talked to the manuf. and they said they can only be speed controlled down to 50% (I think he was referring to voltage-alternating controllers), but I just met this guy who builds custom motor controllers, and he said he can make me something that can give it 100% control without burning the motor. Going to pick it up tomorrow.

I didn't notice, have you installed inline dampeners?
If you do before construction you can have them all in the right side of the cab and control your airflow lines individually.
Maybe you want to have a few potted plants in there for the test too.
Good luck.

Well, I'm not using fancy controllable dampers, that would be awesome. I'm going to just add filters as "dampers" to try and balance the airflow. Also, the sheer length going to the veg room should slow that down a bit. I just bought the pvc today, check this bad boy out:



Thanks again for all the input!!

 

[gumball]

Looks good bohicular.

 

[bohicular]

well, the cab just went under some pretty heavy redesign. There is a cool little nook in my new apt that I want to fit it in, so it had to get a lot skinnier. Luckily, the nook has some depth, so basically the grow rooms were rotated 90˚ to be deep and skinny, instead of wider and shallower. They did lose a bit of space, but is still larger than my current grow room, which works well. This introduced a number of issues, like reorienting the cool tube and intake / outtakes. I moved the intakes to the floor and ceiling of the box (except for cool tube), which should help get more fresh air. I will still have a gap of about 3.5-4 inches to the back wall. There are also less turns in the cool tube supply. The exhaust fan is sitting on the air box for sound insulation and ONA treatment.

I bought all the hardware today (hinges, locks, handles, even casters to roll around on) - - it should look pretty nice. I'm going to use 3/4" plywood with an oil/laquer mix applied on top. Also picked up the custom made fan controller - that guy who made it is a character, he has this cluttered as hell "office" with all kinds of electronic doodads in this dilapidated as shit building in a ghetto part of the city, but apparently he's the guy to go to.

 

[bohicular]

The project was started on saturday, and is still continuing. The box is fully together, still working on light control (had to put the plants in large black plastic bags for their 12 hrs of sleep the last 2 days, but that is over now - i put a remote in there, and it got up to 91% humidity. The fan controller didn't work so well, so my guy is making another one - that thing sounds like a freaking jet engine when i turn it on. As of now, I've modified the cabinet to run on the computer fans that I already have, which actually holds the 150w hps temps under 80˚ pretty easy (no air filters tho - but the plants still don't smell!).
Full construction is delayed until next week, because I gotta go to the girlfriend's parents house for the weekend, and I want to leave it running with a simple system that I know isnt going to go haywire or anything. I had a buddy that was a 1st timer who had a complex hydro setup, he left for a weekend, and it flooded his and the apartment underneath (he had the plants on the ground, below the reservoir)

 

[stelthy]

Hi dude, The computer illustrations look good, complicated but good, I too like to go mental putting everything into my cab, Its cool to find another fellow grower out there that's as dedicated to their 'project' as I am, I look forward to seeing this being built etc, REP for a good start I wish you good luck in this venture I'll be checking in from time to time Here's a link to my 'Project' feel free to check it out there's a hell load of info there, some of it 'could' help you :- https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/320402-stelthys-600w-hps-project-new.html - STELTHY

 

[bohicular]

Hi dude, The computer illustrations look good, complicated but good, I too like to go mental putting everything into my cab, Its cool to find another fellow grower out there that's as dedicated to their 'project' as I am, I look forward to seeing this being built etc, REP for a good start I wish you good luck in this venture I'll be checking in from time to time Here's a link to my 'Project' feel free to check it out there's a hell load of info there, some of it 'could' help you :- https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/320402-stelthys-600w-hps-project-new.html - STELTHY

Hey stelthy, thanks for stopping in. Actually, I read through your entire thread when I started designing, in part of the research I was doing. I learned a lot from the different ways you tried exhaust systems (if I'm remembering the right thread) and how you dealt with length, vibration dampening, etc. I def appreciate your intensity as well, and I'm hoping that my 3-way exhaust system works out and charts some new territory in the stealth world.

Here are a couple of pics of the system as of now, where I'm using a temporary exhaust. I just picked up a new fan speed controller today, but have yet to test it. If it works well, I'll hopefully have the super-ventilation system installed within a week. I have 2 plants flowering, one is about 2 weeks away from harvest, i think, & the other, about a month and a half.
I'm using a fixed cool tube (to eliminate flex for better sound / airflow), although it has chains for support as of now. I installed an adjustable shelf system on each side wall, and it should be able to hold 2 small plants no problem.
The veg room above is holding the electronics, and the 'utility' room to the right is pretty much non-existent as of now.
Working with PVC is more difficult than I expected - - in the sense that aligning to 2 different planes can be difficult, and required some adjusting. For example, the pvc below the flower room (intake) was simple, because both ends are in the same plane, but the intake for the veg room, which is a 90˚ angle going to the top (not shown in the pic) was a bitch, and I had to do some modifying of my dividing wall. (see the 3d model)
Also, I put casters on the bottom, which are saving my life! I can take it in and out of its nook very easy to work on it. Like I said in a previous post, I modified all the dimensions and rotated the layout to fit in this nook in my apt. The 1st pic is with lights on, although at night, there is still a bit of a leak.

 

[stelthy]

Hi dude, looks like your doing a great job, are you planning on sticking with Soil/Coco or do you think its possible you may venture into the world of Hydro? I am glad parts of my Project helped you etc Have you got a filter etc on you 'air-in' duct? How do you plan to block the light leaks? Yeah casters can really help, Mine have embedded them selves into the floorboards though due to the immense weight of my unit lol, I am glad I dont need to get behind it any more, phew! I look forward to your next update - STELTHY

 

[reggaerican]

nice disign bro you def. gotta get some rep for all the work on that...

 

[bohicular]

Hi dude, looks like your doing a great job, are you planning on sticking with Soil/Coco or do you think its possible you may venture into the world of Hydro? I am glad parts of my Project helped you etc Have you got a filter etc on you 'air-in' duct? How do you plan to block the light leaks? Yeah casters can really help, Mine have embedded them selves into the floorboards though due to the immense weight of my unit lol, I am glad I dont need to get behind it any more, phew! I look forward to your next update - STELTHY

I'm going to buy one of those filter pads from the pet store and wrap it around the intake tube, when i get the high power exhaust system set up.

well, I keep on adding black silicone to the edges to stop the light leaks, which is working well. As of now, the light leaks are very minimal, just a dim glow in a few spots, but i'm a perfectionist, so i'm thinking about redoing the black silicone all together.
As for hydro, I'm not sure if I'll ever do it, but I imagined the lower intake space as something that could be used for a res. I may get into it someday, but i'm keeping it simple for now.
The trip to my girlfriends parents house got pushed back a week, so I'll wait to implement the high powered fan until after nov. 8th. I'm going to start some testing with it today or tonight with the new speed controller. As of now, the cpu-fan system is working fine (no filtration). There is very minimal smell with this strain (even after 70 days in flower!) so its not a problem right now. It has a super spicy, almost diesel-y smell right now, unrecognizable by a weed layman.
My younger plant should harvest in mid december, then I'll start a new crop after jan 1st. I'm going to order some new seeds, and I want something with a lot of bag-appeal... bright colors, lots of trichs, odd smell, etc. - - any suggestions??

 

[bohicular]

nice disign bro you def. gotta get some rep for all the work on that...

Thanks man. I hope everything works out as planned! I'm getting everything together so I can have the high speed fan going in about a week.

EDIT: The fan controller is working great, so the super-exhaust is near. Just gotta line the exhaust box with some acoustic foam I bought and finish the utility side.

 

[bohicular]

The monster exhaust system is finally in, although needs a lot of detailing. I am really happy with how well it fit in the cab.

The setup works great, with the first test of the [530cfm] fan turned down to about 40%, I'm running at +4˚to +5˚F, which is much much better than the 4 computer fans I replaced (+7˚ to +11&#730. The exhaust box under the fan is lined with acoustic foam (pics to come after stapled in correctly), and does a great job of killing air noise. Right now, the only noise I'm getting really is vibration, which should be easy to mitigate. (the fan/reducer and pvc only make contact by metal tape - to avoid transferring vibration. The pvc actually hangs from a small portion of tube that I screwed into the separating wall - see sketch)


I decided that I'm going to try a filter-free setup. Since all the exhaust air is going to a single chamber (with passive exhaust), I'm going to put a bowl of ONA gel in there, and see if that can take care of the outgoing air. If it doesn't work, I'll install filters, but it would be really cool if its possible, and get even more efficiency with the fan.

- check out the metal 6" to 4" reducer on top of the fan (had a ducting guy make it for pretty cheap, and length-specified to what it needed to be)

Left to do:
- foam under the fan to dampen vibration noise
- black silicone around the pvc tubes (@ wall entry) to seal (rather than the temporary metal tape)
- add the 3rd arm to the veg room.
- add 2 more pvc tubes for veg intake and veg cool tube exhaust (you can see the veg cool tube intake going to the ceiling)
- move electric components to the small boxes above the fan and install pc fan to exhuast

 

[Danielsgb]

Cool. Well thought out. Hope to see sticky colas coming out soon.
Daniels

 

[gumball]

looks real nice. how you doing with light getting out?

 

[bohicular]

I am doing alright with the light, but i need to add some black legging material to help with that, and filter the air too. At some point i should spray the insides of the pvc black.

Daniels- i got some buds in there now, that should be ready to cut in a couple weeks- i'll update my journal sometime soon. I cant wait to cut em, i have only smoked (really bad weed) a couple of times in the last few months.

Actually, by having buds in there, they really get in the way of construction (but obviously worth it!)

Updates on the way...

 

[bohicular]

Update: I have learned that maximizing my design for air flow has worked against me, as I am trying to find ways to keep humidity in there (I think I've figured out something that works). A lot of seedlings have died in the veg chamber.
Im learning that everything is a balance - increased air flow lowers temps but kills humidity. You can see the yellowing of the leaves in the above photos, that's what happens to seedlings as well. I think the airflow is sucking the moisture out of the plant and exposing it to heat stress

 

[gumball]

only a year and a hald between updates, not bad!