Thedude4552s' Perpetual multi-chamber Grow Cab Build

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Well i'm sure excited. After many hours, drafts and edits, I am finally going to start building my:

Stealth Perpetual Harvest Multi-Chamber Grow Cab

If you are not familiar with this I have been thinking of a way to clone, veg, and flower on a perpetual cycle so that 6 plants are harvested every month, but I wanted something clean, organized and localized into one particular space.
I started looking into storage boxes, cupboards and pantry's but neither offered a partition that could separate plants on 24/0 and 18/6 with those on 12/12 nor have enough space to store the plants along with lights, timers, fans, etc.

Then I found the Rubbermaid wardrobe from Canadian tire.




The wardrobe took me a long and drawn out four hours. Instead of building it to their specifications, I modified the shelves and drilled everything together for solid reinforcement. There were a couple of minor aesthetic foibles on my part: for example,



As you can see the doors do not align. However they still cover the entire grow space so I'll keep it for wabi-sabi.

This one isn't my fault :)



Apart from the chipping on the door (thank you Canadian Tire!) as you can see the doors are not flush to the wardrobe. I will need to rectify this with some weatherstripping later on.

Also they gave me a cardboard backing for the wardrobe which is no good. I will have to buy some plywood and reinforce it.

Now on to the inside:



When I was planning out the dimensions in my blueprints, I estimated based on the actual wardrobe dimensions, 72x48x12. Now that it is built I have measured and displayed the actual dimensions of each chamber. Turns out to be more than I estimated, which is good. However this required me to turn my original design upside down to accommodate it. Instead of the clone/mother chamber going top shelf, they now go bottom shelf. And instead of the flowering room exhaust venting up to the filter in the filter chamber, it now needs to vent through the supply chamber (most likely via PVC)



I purchased some flat white wood spray paint to paint the entire inside of the wardrobe flat white. I figure flat white is simple and economical. Plus I plan on having adequate lighting for all chambers.

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I will update this thread regularly as I purchase materials and will be sure to take plenty of pictures for you.

I encourage suggestions. I have blueprints, but I am always looking for some good advice on how to improve this cabinet. I hope to use this cab for years to come so I really want to get it right.

Till next time.

 

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mistaphuck

Well-Known Member
dude youre gonna run out of space so fast
our grow box was 60 inches long 40 inches high and 30 inches deep it was split into two parts for veg and flower (btw i see alot of ppl who make speacial clone rooms separate from vegging i wonder why they can be kept together perfectly fine)but it worked till a few weeks after flowering when to could no longer raise the lights any higher and my plants are heavy indica.
 

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Well my plants will only be vegging for 1 week after the clones root.Its perpetual so it will most likely be several smaller plants. It will be a process of trial and error im sure, but I'll start them 12/12 from clone or seed if that's what it takes! Plus I'm keeping a mother for cuttings and the clone propagator in the same chamber and the vegging plants in another larger chamber. I felt that was the best route as I wanted to give the plants room to veg without a DWC cloner getting in the way
 

mistaphuck

Well-Known Member
you dont get much out of 12/12 from the get go i know im in the middle of one not all of them but my one little clone expirament has just got little weak popcorn buds
 

Bongman

Well-Known Member
Good idea but also: don't store your supplies above anything important like your flowering ladies.
 

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
unfortunately that was the only place I could put the supplies. Unless I get a seperate cabinet for supplies and use that space for a miniature dry-box venting to the carbon filter. Well see, I guess.
 

420weedman

Well-Known Member
nice idea dude, what kind of light are u runing for flowering ?
may want to make that a little higher ...
and just use that compartment above it for bud drying
 

peaceb2usall

Well-Known Member
My friend Pedro has been thinking about doing something like this. He has available space of 2ft wide by 6ft high by 6ft long(or about that). He was thinking of doing the same sort of thing.

Interesting how this turns out and following.


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The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

The flowering light is going to be the E-conolites 150W High Pressure Sodium Vapor Tight light fixture. I am planning to disassemble the fixture, wire the light and store the ballast in a metal wire box in the power/filter chamber. For venting I am creating a DIY cooltube rigged to the exhaust. Basically air will be sucked from clone and veg chambers (via 65cfm PC Fans) through the cooltube and then pulled through an inline fan in the flowering room through the carbon filter stored in the power/filter chamber. The glass for the cooltube is a Pyrex Bake-A-Round.

dont worry Cannabolic this thread will be a newbies' DIY wet dream.
 

socom3riot

Well-Known Member
the mother plant part looks pretty small, dunno if thats gonna work for u. but goodluck with everything.
 

socom3riot

Well-Known Member
just my opinion , but what i'd do is maybe even evenly space the veg and mother chamber 50/50 hight wise. and get rid of the supplies chamber on top of ur flowering chamber. that'd give u enough space to get ur vegged plants up to about 12''to 18'', then would have more than enough space on the flowering side to get bigger since the supplies chamber would be gone.
 

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Suggestion noted. What I will do for the next update will be to remove the shelf from the left side and make that the flowering chamber. I will scrap the idea for a supply chamber and go for a small cupboard to store them to maximize flowering space (after all, I need to fit a 150w HPS fixture with cooltube, 2 4" PVC 'T's' and an inline fan. I will keep everything in place on the right side as per my design.




This is my exhaust diagram to illustrate how air intake and exhaust takes place.

As you can see, air comes in through passive intakes, is blown around via oscillating fans (not pictured).

When the air rises enough to get sucked through the exhaust the inline fan forces all the stale air through the cooltube and into a carbon filter via an intricate series of duct and PVC.

The computer fans + the inline fan will keep each chamber full of fresh air, cool the flowering chamber significantly and eliminate smell from all of the chambers.

I am confident that one 62.2cfm fan per veg chamber and one 4" inline fan (between 80-120cfm) for the venting, filtering and cooltubin' should suffice, however if anyone thinks otherwise let me know.

Tomorrow: The Clone/mother chamber build begins.
 

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The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Yes it turns out the tools I purchased for drilling my fan holes were a little too powerful for my upright wardrobe, so I need to go to home depot and purchase a 4" circular drill bit. Update on Tuesday.
 

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
I'll have them all in the updates. I didnt show how to assemble the wardrobe because it was such a bitch to put together. But all the grow-related parts will be DIY-friendly.
 

The Dude 4552

Well-Known Member
Alright. So I found the right tool for the holes: A handheld cut-out tool. Its kind of like a handheld jigsaw. I will be drilling the holes for tomorrow but for today:



I added a dry erase calender for keeping track of lighting schedules, watering schedules, nutrient concentrations and a myriad of other statistics. Right now it's just a hint as to whats inside...



I realized the stupidity of installing a chain lock on the outside of a wardrobe so I removed it and installed one of these key-latch type locks. Works like a charm.




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I've also started work on my Zen-inspired DWC cloner. Today was the trip to petsmart.

Ingredients:

Two plastic shoe-box containers w/ lids (1 for humidity dome) $5.00
One Whisper 20 Gallon air pump $18.00
One BubbleAir Bubble Tubing 36" $10.00
One 6" Air Stone $5.00
One 25' length of 3/16" vinyl tubing $2.50




Take one of your shoe box containers and make a small hole using a screwdriver or drill towards the top of the container. Make the hole wide enough to fit the air pump hose through the container like so:





Once the tube is in the container you can connect an air stone to it. An air stone is a circular disc used in aquariums to both make a aesthetically pleasing volcano of bubbles in the water, but also can give oxygen to the roots of a cloning plant by keeping the water aerated. Attach the end of the hose to the air stone.



Now I bought this air stone just in case as I wanted to experiment with a new bubbling technique.i purchased what is known as a bubble wand. It is 36" long and is a tube with miniature holes that bubble. Hooked up to a 20 gallon air pump, I imagine this would do a fantastic job. A airstone disc like this only bubbles in one area whereas this tubing, as you can see, will wrap around the entire container keeping it nice and aerated.



The other end of your tubing is attached to the air pump. Now in my case I have to attach the hose to an anti-siphon filter to regulate the amount of air coming into the bubble wand, and then into the air pump.








Join me tomorrow for more cloner construction and exhaust construction!
 

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