The Fiery Bong - CFL/Hempy/Custom Indoor Cabinet

Comments are welcomed!

Welcome! Join me as I construct a custom air-and-light-tight no-smell and full-lifecycle grow cabinet and methodology from zero with minimal tools and minimal budget.

This is version 2.0 of this CFL grow using the lessons learned in that (my first attempt): /grow-journals/69259-my-hempy-top-44-cfl.html
This time I'll be doing it in a box instead of a closet and paying attention to things like ventilation and smell that I was largely able to skip or did in a much more difficult way than the right way!

Grow:
80" x 22.5" x 24" grow space - 4 deep 10" wide pots
Maximum of 250w of CFL lighting
Perlite/Vermiculite medium (going full-on hempy buckets this time)
Starting from seed
I have decided I'm going to SCROG this one!

Cabinet:
Must have no discernible smell whatsoever when shut
Must provide adequate ventilation
Must have only a single detachable power cable in the rear
Must be secure (and look only like a cabinet, or even like something else entirely)
Will have internal hinges and a solid shut and seal on the front door (any ideas?)
Must be silent
Must not shed light in any way
Must be sturdy

List of supplies acquired for this project;
Two Cabinets for constructing the box - 16 ea (in the scrap pile)
Two laminate pieces for constructing the doors - 3 ea (scrap pile)
Screw set for cabinetry - 8
3x Recessed auto-closing hinges sets (pairs) - 2 (got extremely lucky!)
Caulk Gun - 3
Bag of chromium screwdrivers - 3 (good deal)
Caulk - Acrylic latex caulk plus silocone (for sealing the box) - 4
Liquid Nails - 4
2 bags of L-Brackets (for securing the cabinets together) - 3 ea
Wood for backs and tops of cabinets - 15
1-1/4” speedbore spade bit (for drilling holes for recessed hinges) - 6
2 sets of 2 casters 3 ea
poly rope (non-conductive) for light hanging etc... 1
wire staples - 1
3 Garage door weather stripping to seal the front - 15 ea (ouch!)
Rotary saw - 30 (needed one)
particle board Screws - 6

The Cabinet
"Marijuana does not lead to other drugs, it leads to carpentry."
Day one was 6/1/13. Since then I have been gathering materials and thinking things out.

-6/6/13-
Here's the general idea. This has changed a lot already but it gives an idea of the proportions. It is 80" tall inside.
This is intended to be a 'full cycle' cabinet so I'm splitting the top and bottom into two cabinets. The whole thing will also be easily portable.
I'm going to build trays for the pots and a frame for the scrog and another for the lighting (we'll get to that someday) so that any part of the assembly can be easily slid out.


I added a back and a top to the first of the two tonight.
When adding these I put down a bead of silicone caulk and liquid nails and then screwed the top and back down to create an air-tight seal.
I specifically used particle board screws for this. I highly recommend doing so! Using plenty of them makes the otherwise somewhat shaky particle board structure quite sound and secure.



Areas that weren't screwed on by me got a bead of caulk on the inside.


To seal the front of the box, I cut corners out of a strip of garage door weather stripping and lined the front of the box with it. It is attached with silicone caulk and liquid nails.
This is actually somewhat expensive as I'll need a total of 3 strips at around 15 each to complete it but it works REALLY REALLY WELL.
Even with only 3 of the sides on the front when I test it I can feel the force of the air wooshing out... it is sealed TIGHT.
(What do a walrus and a plumber have in common? They're both looking for a tight seal!)



This works very well with the recessed hinges that I'm going to use. They self-close and should pull the seal tight.


Here are a couple views of how the weather stripping is attached with plenty of overhang to cause a nice tight seal when the recessed door closes.

This also allows for more novice construction skills because the door just has to be hung and attach to the stripping, it doesn't have to be perfect.



I'm going to fill the insides where the corners meet with epoxy that I'll 'paint' in to create a complete seal all around.

-End 6/6/13-

-6/7/2013-
First cabinet is nearly structurally complete and just needs the top strip.

An installed hinge;

The closed door;



Venting the Box
Thoughts on ventilation
I know from construction of computer cases that there are negative and positive pressure environments. This definitely needs to be a negative pressure environment.
This means that the exhaust fan needs to be more powerful than the sum of the intake fans. This means that no air will escape from the project areas without being filtered by the exhaust fan.

The Grow Reserved

COMMENTS ARE WELCOME THANK YOU!

Hope! for all the none at all of those waiting on the edge of their seats for updates... this is not dead by a long shot. I am going down to one cabinet and throwing bag seeds in it for now to 'calibrate' things. Pics soon - heavy construction and planning underway.

Ducting Fan: 25
Ducting: 10
Duct Tape: 4
Electrical Tape: 3
Wire Nuts: 1
NOALOX: 3 (for merging copper and aluminum wires together - basically I wired the ducting fan into a wall-plug so that it can be on the same strip with the lights)
Growing container: 5
Dryer duct vents: 2x4
Power Strip: 10
Hooded Clamp Lights: 3x 8
4x 23/100 blue CFL's (5000 kel): 13
2x 23/100 red CFL's (2700 kel): 4 (these two packs should be twice what I need for now)