Diy sterilite grow cab

The grow box is a 4 shelf sterilite cabinet from Target. Im using 6 26w 6500k CFLs plugged into 2 power strips. The power strips are zip tied to the bottom of one of the 40lb capacity shelves. The inside of the box is covered in mylar using spray glue. I still have to mylar the doors, and use some metalic tape to cover some of the smaller spots. Im using 3 120mm cpu fans to exhaust, and recently added 2 80mm cpu fans for intake. I plan on adding more 120mm cpu intakes closer to the bottom. For circulation Im using a small 3 speed fan.
The temps in the box get up to 90F-92F, but the temps in my apt are around 80F. My AC went out, and I got a guy coming out to fix it on Monday. Hopefully by cooling the temps in the apt will help with the temps in the box.
I ran my cords for the light strips, and 3 speed fan through an elbow PVC in the back of the box. All my fans, and wires are in the back of the box to give the inside more space. The PVC, and fans were hot glued to the back. The hot glue worked great, and theyre on there pretty good.
I still have to do some cable management in the back, looks like a fire hazard!

Any comments would be appreciated, Thanks.

hell yeah dude, that should do pretty nicely for you. seems like temps are a slight problem, but I bet that can be taken care of with a larger fan. you may want to consider a bathroom exhaust fan. fairly cheap and you could still mount it on the back of the box. i have mine on top, but it still works fine. all tho it is kinda loud. i want to upgrade to a 4" fan/filter combo deal.

unohu69 said:

hell yeah dude, that should do pretty nicely for you. seems like temps are a slight problem, but I bet that can be taken care of with a larger fan. you may want to consider a bathroom exhaust fan. fairly cheap and you could still mount it on the back of the box. i have mine on top, but it still works fine. all tho it is kinda loud. i want to upgrade to a 4" fan/filter combo deal.

Click to expand...

I was thinkin about the bathroom fan, the pc fans dont do very much. Hopefully all the wrinkles in the mylar dont affect the plants. Kinda worried about that now.

some say the wrinkles are a good thing because it disperses the light or whatever. either way, iv never heard anyone say the stuff has to be perfect.

nearly every setup ive seen with mylar has some creases in it.. wouldnt worry about it man.. shit looks tight though....only suggestion ill make is to connect all wires to the same power source.. all fans can be hooked up to a single 12v phone charger.. will slow down the speed of the fans a bit, but it will leave you with alot less wires all over the place...dont know if your on a tight budget- but lowes/ home depot has some pretty nice light fixtures for fairly cheap ( 10-30 bucks, depending on the type of fixture ).. get a couple of those bad boys and wire them up to a single lamp chord..works good and will look alot cleaner...other than that everything looks good bro

unohu69 said:

some say the wrinkles are a good thing because it disperses the light or whatever. either way, iv never heard anyone say the stuff has to be perfect.

Click to expand...

Guess you're right. Thanks man, I was really worried bout that. The mylar was a pain to work with since its really thin. It kept rollin up on me, dont know if I'll use it again.

ive never used mylar.. i love the reflective window material.. cheap- works awesome- and its easy as hell to work with

lee harvey said:

nearly every setup ive seen with mylar has some creases in it.. wouldnt worry about it man.. shit looks tight though....only suggestion ill make it connecting all wires to the same power source.. all fans can be hooked up to a single 12v phone charger.. will slow down the speed of the fans a bit, but it will leave you with alot less wires all over the place..other than that everything looks good bro

Click to expand...

I just put in 2 80mm fans that I connected to 1 charger. I didnt think I could get away with connecting them all to 1 charger, I think I might do that. Maybe get some wire caps too, instead of the electricl tape. 1 of my fans wouldnt turn on today cause the wires were loose.

you can go with the wire caps if you want but eletrical tape works the balls and you can just duct tape all the wiring to the wall after its all properly connected.. what i do is wire everything up.. make sure it runs nice and strong..tape it all up nice and tight with electrical tape- and use a lighter to tighten/shrink the tape and then press it firmly all the way around with your fingers.. using a lighter really tightens that shit up nice ,just dont let the flame sit on the tape for too long..then when everything is all eletrical taped up- duct tape all wiring to the wall so its extra secure..just make sure u do it right the first time because it wont be too easy to un-do lol but that will work in your favor if you do it correctly..just sharing how I like to wire my shit up.. its all personal preference though man.

I wanna get some carbon filters for the fans too. Alot of light is escaping, and I think that might help. I checked Walmarts fish aisles, but they didnt have em. Some guy was asking me about a filter for his fish tank, like I know shit about fish..

lee harvey said:

you can go with the wire caps if you want but eletrical tape works the balls and you can just duct tape all the wiring to the wall after its all properly connected.. what i do is wire everything up.. make sure it runs nice and strong..tape it all up nice and tight with electrical tape- and use a lighter to tighten/shrink the tape and then press it firmly all the way around with your fingers.. using a lighter really tightens that shit up nice ,just dont let the flame sit on the tape for too long..then when everything is all eletrical taped up- duct tape all wiring to the wall so its extra secure..just make sure u do it right the first time because it wont be too easy to un-do lol but that will work in your favor if you do it correctly..just sharing how I like to wire my shit up.. its all personal preference though man.

Click to expand...

That lighter trick is legit. Alot of the pics of grow boxes I see all have the caps, so I figured thats the best way to do it. Im gonna stick with the tape though. Melt it down.

wow, frikn lighter on duct tape? never thought of it, great idea.

I can fit 4 bulbs in a power strip, jus to let you know. strips will vary tho. it was a two pack at wallyworld, the cheapest two pack they had.
also the socket adapters were $1 at wallyworld, $2 at homedepot.

I have found the white Housewrap Tyvek is an awesome reflective material. I have been blinded by the sun putting the shit on houses, its durable as all hell, the back side is usually all white, no letters. just put some earplugs in, it makes a lot of noise when your fukn with it.

badass!!! ive been wanting to do something just like this. i swear ive drew it out a 1000 times and now i have seen it. mad props man!!!

Nice set up

txhydro said:

badass!!! ive been wanting to do something just like this. i swear ive drew it out a 1000 times and now i have seen it. mad props man!!!

Click to expand...

I took a bunch of different ideas from this site, and did my own thing. I really like how it turned out. Im on day 2 of my first grow, and everything seems to be workin fine. Sometimes the wires on one of my fans stops workin when I move the cab, and I gotta mess with the electrical tape to get it goin again. Other than that, everythings good. Thanks for the compliment!

xican22 said:

Nice set up

Click to expand...

Thanks, not bad for a newbie huh?

The plants are on day 3. So far, so good. I started a journal to keep up with their progress. Not sure of the strain, it was bag seed. Dude said it was Popcorn (Pop or Corn). Seems like the same weed has different names around here though. One day its Pop, the next its Rainbow Smurf, or some shit.. This was some good smoke though. Big striped seeds.

Does the Mylar help with the "Glowing"... everyone who uses these say that it glows like a lanturn. How did you solve this problem?

I have seen them painted black then white, it does not show thru...I imagine it would depend on the paint as well as the amount of light. I can still see thru mine with Mylar inside. I had wondered the same thing. As far as contributing an idea, I used a 3 fan laptop cooler for inside my box, it moves all 3 fans and used usb, so it can run to a pc or a plug..does a phenominal job...I also have one in mind for my next box, and the ones I'm using now glows blue...