My pimped out, fully automated 4,800K watt set-up

ok so I jsut went and finally cleaned the basement up and refinishing my rooms so I thought what the hell, I'll post up some pics. Also, there was another guy looking for advice on a "real" grow room set up. So here is what around $7,000 in grow gear and ALOT of time and effort look like. Like a fuck load of effort.

OK folks.. here is the no frills DIY veg tent. Pretty basic, I have two 600 watt batt wings or whatever the hell the super expensive non AC cooled reflectors are. They DO throw alllot of light in a VERY wide pattern though. The heat is a real bitch though. I have a single 6" fan pulling heat off the bulbs. The buckets you see are 18 4 gallon DWC buckets. and my mini veg post clone veg DWC tub.





pretty basic stuff. I start with around 26 plants in the tote, then take the best 18, then cull down to 12 after about 3 weeks.

Now here is where all the effort goes in.. the flower power room.

The central rez is on the ground outside the room (tote on floor) the tote on top is a auto top off system controlled by a float valve. When I fill both up I can pretty much leave it the fuck alone for about 10 days.

The cooler and frankenstein looking thing are my water DIt dehu chiller. I can express how fucking awesome this thing works. yeah, you buy your $400 eco-piece of shit. This thing cost me $110. The water in the cooler is continuously being pumped through a stainless steel coil in the rez. Twice a night the dehu turns on for 30 minutes. It chills the water in the cooler to around 55. The rez gets down to around 65 in about an hour.



Total of 5 ballasts on 220 circuit powering 6 AC hood. In order to save about $60 in timers (and sync them all, and use a shit load of outlets--the timer only has one outlet). I wired a 220 plug and ran that wire to my outlets where the ballasts plug in. All the ballasts use standard plugs so I made sure to write 220 all over them to avoid frying something...or more to the point..my wife frying something.



Now into the room... YES, it is cramped. But this thing isn't about comfort its about growing weed, and allot of it (allot at least for a guy with a full time job and two kids). We have two rows of 3 super sun II hoods over the top of two rows of SCROG screen. Each screen is 3.3' x 10'. I have two 6" Tjurlund inline fans with direct routing to the outside.



Each screen rests above a total of 6 plants in 4 gallon DWC. The water in each bucket is maintained by a an ebb/flow bucket. it automaticcaly tops off all the buckets when the get low. in addition, and this is probably the coolest thing,three times a day it empties all the buckets into the rez (timed to happen after the chiller has run its course) and all the "old" nutes are mixed with the "fresh" nutes in the rez and then 15 min later they all get filled again. PRICELESS.

Its a DIY bucket from...ummm, those guys that sell them.. Aquahub! It, like all my buckets, are wrapped in panda film.



Here is a picture of one fully trimmed up and getting ready for the flip in about a week. These are vegged for around 4 weeks I think. maybe 5?



And on the business of keeping everything running correctly...and auto-fucking matically.. we have a CAP XGC-1 controlller that I basically have running the inline fans, a back up emergency cooling fan (outside air), and my co2 generator. Keeping things at a nice 83 degrees during veg and early flower to 75 in later flower is my 18,000 btu mini spit. (thing is such the bomb!). Two circulating fans (one fixed up high) and one oscillating on the plants keep shit moving on that end, I have another oscillator on the other end of the room.



(the emergency temp controller is just a 6" inline fan connected to the outside. In case for some reason the AC breaks down or something gets completely fucking sideways, the CAP will turn the fan on at 87 and stop co2 production until temps get down to 84.

green fan in top right..

And lastly..we have the co2 burner. Which is little more than a tankless water heater off of e-bay. Cost me $160. When Co2 is low, the CAP unit turns on a pump sitting in a 50 gallon barrel full of water outside. The water flows, the burner turns on expelling 99.6% co2, and the heat of the burner (about 70% anyways) is carried by the water out of the room and into another 50 gallon barrel ( they are connected).


Oh yeah, probably the best personal grow room purchase ever.. a $20 stool on rollers from harbor freight. Just low enough that I can sit and scoot around and trim and tend to the plants.



So that is what $7,000 of grow shit looks like. I pull around 5-6lbs out of that room per 8 weeks depending on veg times and preventing and calamity from striking like mold or spider mites.

I was just wondering if I build a hard plastic grid to pump air thru or bury and pump air thru boost it on the way out and still save money on power... I hope I can build one that is efficient enough to be worth the time .