6 cabs in built in wardrobe, 500w LED, perpetual, coco DTW

Good idea, I’ll catch you Discord! I’m intrigued by what ideas you’ve come up with. The best one I could think of was getting a 570mm x 450mm sheet of perspex (the same size as cab’s footprint) and mounting it an inch or so below the lights, then cutting a hole in the side of the cab (40mm x 440mm) and chucking a small PC fan in there to circulate air. All my other ideas involved encasing the LEDs in a perspex case, ugh… can’t wait to hear your idea, @Mr.Sparkle.

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I actually haven’t found that to be a problem, although there is some heat coming up from the light below. Now that my cabs all have their own intake they’re all mostly staying the same temperature.

Geez, that’d be 140-150w in my cabs… I’m starting to run into heat problems with 80w (29w/sqft)… @Palindrome… What are the dimensions of your cabs?

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Good idea. I may go with something like that.

@HappyHemper : Thanks man, I’ll check it out.

Is this the stuff?

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Thermasheath-Rmax-Thermasheath-3-1-in-x-4-ft-x-8-ft-R-6-Polyisocyanurate-Rigid-Foam-Insulation-Board-787264/100549260

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That’s the stuff @DrDank!

Didn’t know they had an equivalent at the home depot…

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Each cab will be aprox 125 x 60 x 75 cm (WxDxH) It’s a bit over 6 sq ft in imperial.
I made a Veg closet with two veg “cabinets” in this dimentions, spacing it differently I can fit 3 layers for flower.

So far heat haven’t been a problem, but I run these no name china strips on a very low mA current.
Still exploring different options, either just up the number of strips and cheap drivers.
Or buy quality Mean Well drivers, and run them on a higher mA current.

Im playing around, and won’t build anything until I have done some more testing.
Heat is not an issue at all, but only got around 144 Watt in each cabinet atm.
Even during the hottest summer this yeah, the cabinet was mannagabe with a good airflow.

I got a thread about my LED test, there is also a few more details about the closet.
Im well into a spectrum test around 25W/sqft, but not happy with the bud size compared to my 50-55W/sqft HPS buds.

More test grows will be done, this LED stuff is fun and it will be a blast if I can make it work for me.

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@Palindrome : That looks awesome, man… checking out your thread now.

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2 x Unknown GPS



They’re my healthiest plants right now… I gave them a big defol 5 days ago and they’ve just bounced back strong. Gonna flip them by the end of the week.

2 x Doc Holiday



Here’s the two Eagle Scout.





They’d just had a trim before the photo. Here’s the bottom one outside the cab…

I think I’ll be flipping these once they bounce back from the defol, so that will be all 4 flower cabs flipped at once, not exactly perpetual, I’ll have to work that in later.

Seedlings are all looking great!


The plant on the bottom right is actually the reveg that has finally recovered and flourishing now. Not sure what to do with her, maybe throw her in with one of the Eagle Scout. Dynamite Diesel showed male preflowers and has been terminated, all the others I still haven’t figure out except Blizzard Bush which is confirmed female.

Hoping to get the cab finished this week! :grin:

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For standoffs I always use nuts and threaded rod. They make em in nylon too to protect the pcbs!!

@Stusatwork : Good idea, I might do something like that, thanks. I have an idea in the works at the moment, need to get it done before flowering… soon.

My new Hyperfan arrived today… 6", 315cfm, speed controller, claims to use around 40w.

Chucked it in a box.


Threw some insulation in.

Gonna replace the 4" S&P 160cfm fan in the roof space tomorrow. Looking to pick up some insulated ducting. This new fan moves serious air compared to the one that’s up there now :grin:

Decided to extend the pots on the two GPS Unknowns and the two Doc Holiday to make watering easier. Before, I had to pour in very slowly so as not to overfill the pot, now I water from the top with a funnel and just dump the whole cup in… I still have to pour in carefully, but it is faster and much less likely to spill over the edge of the pot. Still have an irrigation system planned, but have to finish off the ventilation first.


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Good investment with that 6" Hyperfan. That’s one of the most efficient (DC motor) fans on the market at the moment. It should blow away that 4" S&P :wind_blowing_face:

Got the filter in a box. Got the insulated ducting.

Got my 1mm galvanised steel plate with hole for quantum board, and my mounting brackets.

The two Doc Holiday, out of the cab… plants support the screen now.


The quantum board.

Mounted rail on back wall.

Ducting made from cereal box.
,


Almost finished.


Mounted the faux shelf… @Mr.Sparkle Thanks for the idea… and other advice :smile: I would have liked to have ported the shelf out the side of the cab and built a manifold to tie in to the ducting, but doing it this way I don’t have to cut a new vent hole and can leave the ducting alone. So we’ll see how this works! Anything more involved I’m gonna have to do between grows.

Done. There is a 120mm PC fan on the heatsink inside there. I turned the quantum board up to 154w and ran it for a while, checking the heatsink with my hand intermittantly… warm

The cab, however, is running on the hot side, but I haven’t got the Hyperfan running yet. And I have also turned the quantum board up to 100w. I’ve also lost 2" in cab height and only have 1 fan under the scrog right now. I also have the door off…@Mr.Sparkle Do you think I need a fan blowing across the light in this setup?

I have the Hyperfan and new carbon filter up in the roof and half connected, just need to buy another duct-connector tomorrow and enlarge the outake in the wardrobe… hoping to see marked improvements in all cab temperatures!

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how hot is hot, and how warm is the light if you can touch it or keep your hand on it for a bit, cause if not bad then leave as is.

as for the hyperfan, yeah get that hooked up.

@Mr.Sparkle Feeling the heatsink with my hand, it was warm at 100w and warmer at 154w, just above canopy level was 28 degrees with the light at 100w, but it was running lower wattage previously. S’all good, new Hyperfan will be running some time today, then we’ll see where we’re at :sunglasses:

Edit : Once I have the Hyperfan running I’ll put the doors on the cabs and figure out how much light I can run and how it effects temperature. I’ll be running the lights at night for flower, so should be able to keep the room at 20C pretty easily. I’m going to remove the strip lights from the left-middle cab and put a quantum board in there, so each flower cab will run 1 x QB. The right-bottom and right-middle cabs have been running on 130w for a few days now and are just bouncing back after a leaf strip and starting to look better for it, temps are around 26-28 in those two cabs (door off).

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@DrDank, i love your fan-in-the-box setup. Super slick, I might do that to mine too. Just went through some cooling escapades myself, and found that 20-21C during lights on the plants did not like so much. I put in a temp controller on the cooling fan (i run it separate from the extraction fan), and keep it around 23-24C now. The plants are noticeably more active after about 6 hours. Perked right up. I believe that in terms of growth rates they take heat better than cold. But then again I’m in a cold basement, so your mileage may vary.

Happy’s $0.02

Got the Hyperfan hooked up. Damn, this thing is loud on full power! Not sure I’m going to be able to keep it running on full, gonna do some tests to see how much I can turn it down before it effects temps too much.

Here’s the new duct/box that joins the two sides… 2 x 4" into the box, then 6" going up into the roof to the carbon filter.


So far it’s looking like all cabs are running a little cooler, I’ll get some numbers later today.

The two Unknown GPS got a huge leaf strip.

And the two Doc Holiday also.


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Wish I had the option of running the cabs at those temps, but I’m sitting on 28-29C right now after turning the lights up to 130w, that’s with the room at 20. Gonna do some tweaking today…

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Even with the 6" hyperfan? Yah 28-29C is on the hot side… Seems like it should be able to clear the cabs pretty quickly even at low speed - I run a 6" canfan maxfan and it does a really good job with 1200W of HID at 20C ambient, on lowest setting

Yeah, that’s where I’m at with the doors on the cabs… prior to installing the Hyperfan I was running the cabs with the doors off and sitting around 25 degrees at canopy level… I’ve made quite a few changes recently, from the doors, to the defioliation I did last night, to turning the lights up to 130w in the 3 quantum board cabs and 114w in the EB strips cab (max the driver will do), to installing the above light air duct in the bottom left cab - which has lowered the light 2", and that cab runs around the same as the other three, 27-29C. Also, I’m measuring my temps at screen level, so around 20" below the light.