Chopshop697
Well-Known Member
Not going to give you the full build out and grow journal, since I did this 2 years ago and was just getting started, but my goal was to have a stealth grow in my basement workshop so that my wife and 4 kids would NEVER know. It worked, and I'm just getting through the last jar and ramping up for another grow. Note, I'm a controls engineer and gadget geek, which will become evident shortly. So, here's the specs:
1. Growspace - blue industrial cabinet supporting a workbench 15"W x 24"L x 34"H.
2. Grow medium - Coco Coir, perlite in fabric buckets. Drain to waste.
3. Feeding - PLC controlled the bucket fill solenoid and high/low level switches, along with an overflow kill switch. I also had 3 small paristaltic pumps feeding different fertilizer concentrates into the bucket during the fill cycle. To get this mix to the plants, I had 3 solenoids in the grow space and relied on siphon from the tank to get to the plants. The feeding time and duration was, of course, PLC controlled, and programmed to match the full grow cycle. For the concentrates, I used mainly Dyna-Gro and Mega Crop)
4. Drainage - Used a plastic storage container as a drain pan, with the fabric buckets supported on a wire shelf. To get the water out, I started with a 12V water transfer pump, but it clogged constantly. Ended up punching a small hole in the basement floor, hollowing out a cavity in the sand under the slab, and draining right into the sand. Worked a treat!
5. Lighting - used an old heat sink from a drive at work and mounted 3 Vero29 COB LEDs and controllers to it. Can't remember exactly, but they were a mix of 3k and 4k, and could all be controlled independently, which worked well from seedling stage up to harvest (even though I had to fight like hell to keep the buds from growing into the lights)
6. Airflow - drilled a couple big holes in the back and covered with carbon filters and dark cloth. Vented through another 4" hard-piped vent into the crawlspace, then dryer hose across the crawlspace to the fan and carbon filter. Wrapped the whole fan in insulation and put it on some foam to make it as silent as possible. Also oriented the fan directly under my kitchen fridge so any noise could be explained away.
7. Stealth - my wife and kids also occasionally used the same workshop for random stuff, so the key was a hidden motion detector. If anybody walked in, I'd kill any water solenoids that were active, kill any drain pump that might have been running, kill the circulation fans, throttle back the lights if needed (box was temperature and humidity monitored via the PLC, of course) and cut the vent fan speed in half. Box was completely light-sealed and locked (because that's where I kept the fireworks... yeah, right...)
Lessons learned:
1. For the space 4 plants is way too many. 2 plants was too much. 1 properly trained (I'll mainline next time) plant would have been perfect.
2. Keep it Simple with the nutes. Fried a couple of my plants with Cal-Mag lockout, but managed to get them to recover. Too much stuff, too hard, and without a plan wasn't great.
3. Humidity, humidity, humidity! Very hard to control in the box. Had to dehumidify the space and crank up the vent fan to keep it down. Still ended up with a little bud rot, but that had a lot to do with the crowding as well.
4. Ya still gotta harvest it, and no matter how stealthy the grow was, it's gonna smell when you get it out and start chopping. I dried and did most of the cure in the grow box, but still, that almost blew the whole operation.
Some pics in next post...
1. Growspace - blue industrial cabinet supporting a workbench 15"W x 24"L x 34"H.
2. Grow medium - Coco Coir, perlite in fabric buckets. Drain to waste.
3. Feeding - PLC controlled the bucket fill solenoid and high/low level switches, along with an overflow kill switch. I also had 3 small paristaltic pumps feeding different fertilizer concentrates into the bucket during the fill cycle. To get this mix to the plants, I had 3 solenoids in the grow space and relied on siphon from the tank to get to the plants. The feeding time and duration was, of course, PLC controlled, and programmed to match the full grow cycle. For the concentrates, I used mainly Dyna-Gro and Mega Crop)
4. Drainage - Used a plastic storage container as a drain pan, with the fabric buckets supported on a wire shelf. To get the water out, I started with a 12V water transfer pump, but it clogged constantly. Ended up punching a small hole in the basement floor, hollowing out a cavity in the sand under the slab, and draining right into the sand. Worked a treat!
5. Lighting - used an old heat sink from a drive at work and mounted 3 Vero29 COB LEDs and controllers to it. Can't remember exactly, but they were a mix of 3k and 4k, and could all be controlled independently, which worked well from seedling stage up to harvest (even though I had to fight like hell to keep the buds from growing into the lights)
6. Airflow - drilled a couple big holes in the back and covered with carbon filters and dark cloth. Vented through another 4" hard-piped vent into the crawlspace, then dryer hose across the crawlspace to the fan and carbon filter. Wrapped the whole fan in insulation and put it on some foam to make it as silent as possible. Also oriented the fan directly under my kitchen fridge so any noise could be explained away.
7. Stealth - my wife and kids also occasionally used the same workshop for random stuff, so the key was a hidden motion detector. If anybody walked in, I'd kill any water solenoids that were active, kill any drain pump that might have been running, kill the circulation fans, throttle back the lights if needed (box was temperature and humidity monitored via the PLC, of course) and cut the vent fan speed in half. Box was completely light-sealed and locked (because that's where I kept the fireworks... yeah, right...)
Lessons learned:
1. For the space 4 plants is way too many. 2 plants was too much. 1 properly trained (I'll mainline next time) plant would have been perfect.
2. Keep it Simple with the nutes. Fried a couple of my plants with Cal-Mag lockout, but managed to get them to recover. Too much stuff, too hard, and without a plan wasn't great.
3. Humidity, humidity, humidity! Very hard to control in the box. Had to dehumidify the space and crank up the vent fan to keep it down. Still ended up with a little bud rot, but that had a lot to do with the crowding as well.
4. Ya still gotta harvest it, and no matter how stealthy the grow was, it's gonna smell when you get it out and start chopping. I dried and did most of the cure in the grow box, but still, that almost blew the whole operation.
Some pics in next post...