Building grow cab

Starting to build a cabinet with two chambers, one for vegging with t5's and the top for blooming. Right now my demensions are 35inx24in with the bottom chamber being 24in high and the top 48in high.
Right now I plan on having 6 t5 lights in the bottom and looking at an 600 hps light for the top. My question is, is this going to be too hot? Any suggestions?

if you have a good venting system then you dont have to worry about the heat or just use 400 hps lamp
keep up the good work

You are going to have a heat problem with that 600 watt hps unless you plan ahead and get some good ventilation going. If you haven't purchased your light yet you may want to look into an air cooled light. It will make a huge difference in your temps.

So far the plan is to have a small fan something like 65cfm to 95cfm on each side of the intake and exhaust system. the intake will be on the back high right corner and the exhaust will be on the side as well as a carbon filter with a vent out of the box. maybe I should add more powerfull fans?

I would make sure that your intake fan is near the bottom and the exhuast fan is near the top.

you also need to consider the height of the lights and your growing medium. When I built my first cabinet it was 48 in. and I was using it from seed to harvest. The problem was that after I added my reservoir and the space that my light needed I only had 24 in. for my plant.

I know that I will probably get slaughtered on this but have you considered using LED's? I use them and have had pretty good success, expensive though.

To use a 600w hps in that small a space it will definately need cooling imo. I have one in a 5'x5'x5' room and it takes a fair bit of cooling, before I built my cooltube I had temps as high as 105f! It takes a 240cfm fan just to cool the bulb! At the mo it's also exhausting air from the room as my intake temps are a few degrees above freezing, but when it gets warmer I'll be switching to seperate systems.
I would suggest something like a 100-150cfm fan just to cool the bulb, and a similar one to extract air from your room. You might get away with less if your ducting is short, and doesn't have any bends or restrictions like a carbon filter, but it's better to have too powerful a fan than not powerful enough, you can get controllers to turn it down but if it isn't big enough you can only get a better fan. Better ventilation than is necessary won't do any harm, but inadequate ventilation leading to high temps won't do your plants any favours.
Sorry if that was a bit long winded, I'm wrecked and can't figure out how to say what I'm thinking!

hey there jash...a 600watt whould be sick...it can work i got 2 400watters in a 2x2x4 cab, temps 75....but u need a cool tube with its own fan.. not sucking air from inside the box.. but rather from out side the box cooling the light then out...the box will need it's own ex fan..good luck and peace

I am looking at getting for sure a 600 watt light but am unsure of the differences between having a cool tube or having a sealed reflector ....does that make sense? Which one works better I have room for both right now.

yeah i see what ur saying ...i whould say cooltube because of the small space: it will fit better,the air goes in then out less heat,imo....good luck and peace

thanks alot man, i'll have to post pics up when im done

yeah let us know how it goes...good luck

This is how the cab looks so far. (No top or doors yet..)

the rest should be done by this weekend

well got didnt get as much done as I wanted but here are some more pictures.
I built a box to enclose one of the fans to reduce noise. So far it is working very well!. I wrapped the fan in a large towel put it in the box I built and then mounted it to the floor. Right now the temps are between 70-76 with doors open. Once I put the doors on it will get warmer and right now I only have an intake in the bottom chamber....maybe i need an exhaust.

any thoughts?

Jash1297 said:

any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Do you seriously not realize that you DO need an exhaust? A good exhaust with just passive intakes would be 10 times better than the way you have it now.

justatoker said:

Do you seriously not realize that you DO need an exhaust? A good exhaust with just passive intakes would be 10 times better than the way you have it now.

Click to expand...

I guess I should have updated.....

ahh.. got to have that exhaust man.. otherwise even low ambient heat will build up in a matter of a few hours and cause a cab to become too hot.