Hi peeps

Here is my newly completed stealthy grow cupboard.

My primary concern for this project was stealth. It all fits in a lockable metal cabinet in my garage.

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As you can see the whole lot comes apart and fits in the bottom of the cabinet when not in use. The lamps are stored in another locked drawer.

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The fan I used is a vent axia solo which has a constant trickle mode and a boost mode and uses a centrifugal fan so suitable for the carbon filter. In trickle mode it is inaudible and in boost which I've hooked up to a thermostat it is still quieter than the freezer which it sits next to. At both fan speeds I am getting a good flow of air through the exhaust. In order to fit the whole thing in such a small space I had to custom design/build the carbon filter. It is a carbon filled rectangle the full width of the unit and about 6" high with about 50mm thick carbon bed. It has 3 1/2kg of carbon pellets in it and a surface area similar to the 100mm filter in the shop. The airflow at the boost speed of the fan is way way under what the shop filter can handle so I think it should de-smelly the exhaust ok. We will see soon!

The 1st pic above shows all the components layed out. Everything has plugs and sockets to make dismantling easy. It takes about 15-20mins to put together or take apart. All of the electrics are self contained on the main unit and it runs from one 13amp socket. It actually only pulls around 2amps with lights, heater and fan running with the magority of that for the lighting.

The 2nd pic above shows the back and underside of the main fan/filter control unit. The 3 grilles seen on the back are the exit vents from the carbon filter. You can also see the sockets for the lighting power, heater power and fan control thermostat. The heater is also thermostatically controlled.

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This last pic shows the whole lot assembled with the lights switched on. The lighting is a 125w Growking 6400k and eight 25w 2700k CFLs.

In all it's cost me around £250 so my first grow should pay for itself (compared to buying at £140/oz) and I hope that whatever I grow will be far superior to anything I've bought in the uk.
It's also been built with secrecy rivaling the lockheed skunkworks (excuse the pun). I am the only person that knows it exists (apart from you lot!)(shhh!!) It's also taken a total of around 6 days (done a few hours at a time) to construct. I hope the results will be worth al the effort and risk.

Now all I have to do is get some beans and get growing! Anyone got any good suggestions? They need to be suitable for LST/scrog and give a good return as I can only fit about 3 or 4 plants in there. If I can get 3oz total per cycle then I'll be very happy.

A

That's an awesome bit of engineering you have there.

What are the actual dimensions of the growing area ?

Thanks for the compliment.

It's internal dimensions are 36" wide x 18" deep x 36" tall

A

Looks very professional, you obviously have a good working knowledge with electrics. Well done.

Welcome,

mmm real pretty work there.

Can we see a pic when you have it in the locked cupboard? I love a bit of stealth, especially when the family visit

I have recently moved my flower room into my shed, its a bit of a strain on the heater. What Watt tube heater do you have lurking in there?

All the best of luck, Not that your going to need it

Hi

I've used a 120w tube heater from screwfix (£15.99). It's maintaining 16c with lights out and 6c outside. If it gets too cold I can always add another if neccessary.

I'm not a professional builder/carpenter/spark etc. Just good at DIY. Mrs A makes sure I have lots of practice! My dad was an electrician though and I learnt all my electrical skills from him. I was good at woodwork at school too.

I'd prefer not to show a pic of the outside as I can't afford anyone to recognise it. It's not anything to look at really anyway. Just a normal cream/beige office cabinet. I still have a slight amount of light leakage around the lock but some gaffer tape will soon sort that out.

A

Very, Very Nice...mate......well done.
Is that a flexi silencer I can see in one of your pics ??

Thanks

No silencers on this build. The fan is so quiet there's no real need although there is a very slight whooshing. The ticking of a kitchen clock I have on the wall is louder.

The aluminium tube you can see is semi-rigid ducting which carries air from the fan into the filter housing box. It is corrugated aluminium which you can bend by hand and it stays in whatever shape you form it to. I got it from the well known two letter DIY store for about a fiver.

A

I do like this cupboard.. would like to see how things go in it, see how it compares to the 70-200w HID grows.

Very nice tidy looking box, great job man

Hi

Just thought I'd let you see how my cabinet it going.

This pic is at about 4 1/2 weeks from seed.

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A

eta: My inlaws popped round a couple of days ago and did a load of work in the garden whilst I was at work. They were in and out of the garage all afternoon and nothing was noticed. Phew! I hope the filter works as well when they start getting really stinky.

Very nice.. Some creative thinking for sure, like the cabinet idea, low watt lights,ill be watching..

total genius anon. top notch

can you raise the 20w cfl's?

Hi

Thanks for the compliments guys. I only hope it lives up to my expectations. I'll hopefully know in 12 or so weeks time.

Tsk, the 8 domestic cfl's are 25w already. what did you mean by "can you raise the cfl's"? The whole light bar is movable up and down if that's what you meant?

I think I'm going to need some new carbon though as I think I may have been sold aquarium grade stuff. The plants aren't that smelly yet as they are still in veg but there is a definate planty type smell in the garage when you open the garage door.

Has anyone here ordered from the Graphite trading company or it's new sister Activated Carbon Trading? Any problems?

Thanks

A

edited for spelling

sweet as a nut A, excellence



e2a - no experience with ordering carbon online, but was under the impression that aquarium grade stuff was good enough for small grows

more in?

The carbon filter chamber is packed as tight as I can get it with carbon pellets so I can't add more and I don't think the fan would blow though another filter if I added a second one externally. That would also defeat the object of the entire cabinet being self-contained and stealthy.

Noone who has been in the garage recently (including a fellow smoker (who has no idea I'm growing)) have made any comments at all so maybe it's just me being para?

I'm still searching, without success, as to what the actual difference is between air grade carbon and water grade carbon. Plenty of people on here purchase from aquarium suppliers but then lots of other people say that you must have the correct stuff. Can anyone shine a light in my ears and clear this matter up?..... Does aquarium carbon properly remove 'smells' from air? Does a proper shop bought filter remove absolutely 100% of the smell or can you still detect a 'presence' in the room?

Thanks

A

the thing i heard from growers over here, though ive not come across it on these boards, is that 4mm Active Carbon is for water and 16mm AC is for air.

this makes a sort of sense (in my head) as 16mm would provide more surface area per piece but also leave more room for the air to get around. 4mm i imagine would compact a lot more, making it more difficult for air to get through...

do you think maybe you got too much carbon in, if its totally packed? or, if its just a planty smell, could it be yer lawnmower or such like?

e2a - my shop bought CF dont let out any canna smells, but there is definately "a scent" of something, though not canna. come to think of it, this has changed substantially since i got rid of the homebox and the hall no longer has this other "scent"...

Im currently using a drobe in the loft and in the process of building a new one in the garage. Stray smells are a major concern. I was planning to leave a drum of creosote open just inside the door so anyone coming in the garage wouldn't noice any hint of green. Leaving a lawnmover in the garage with grass in is a better idea. All I now about the carbon is it should be activated.
R.K.

Well, I managed to obtain some proper air filtration carbon by pestering the guy at a local grow shop into ordering me some from the company that he uses to get customers filters refilled. Cost £12/kg but worth it as it only took 2 days for it to arrive. He didn't want to do it as he was doing his best to convince me my idea wouldn't work and that I needed to buy one of his brand new 'proper' filters instead. After drawing him a picture and explaining the situation with my custom filter he relented.

I stripped my cabinet down in order to change the carbon and discovered a few of the joints in the MDF filter housing had come unstuck so I sealed all of them with silicone. I also added a couple of extra baffles in the carbon chamber that protrude into the carbon bed to prevent air 'bypassing' the carbon. I then refilled the filter housing using a broom handle to gently tamp down the carbon as I added it. I definately got a much tighter pack this time.

I've just been back out to check the garage after several hours of the new filter running and I'm very pleased to say that the 'planty' smell has completely gone. Whoohoo!

A

Nice one Anon buddy

such a nice lil built box u got there glad to hear uve sorted ur smell out !

i was thinkin of gettin some carbon from the aquarium shop ! i used to use it for my fish tank wen i had one years ago ; and i remember wen usin it etc it always said 'activated carbon' on the box ! about 5 mm stick pellets they were

wen u gave it a rinse with cold water to put it in the water filter it gave off a bit of heat and fizzed ! i just use to rinse the dust off for 5 mins !

just thinkin about that above i wudda thought if u used the aqua carbon for a refil of the growin carbon filter ; it wud surely have some smell killin effect ;; if u packed it down like u say with a piece of wood as such !

take it easy buddy

good news anon glad you talked the keeper out of the hard sell

what size was the carbon then?

Thanks Jon and tsk

The carbon I had in there before was also in 4mm pellets so it could be that the original carbon was ok and it was just my original packing to blame for the smell. I used the new carbon anyway just to be on the safe side. It's about 1 1/2 hours to dismantle the cabinet, change the carbon and reassemble and if I'd reused the original carbon and still had the problem I'd have been a bit pee'd off!. I've kept the old stuff 'cos it looks identical to the new supply and I may try usuing it again when this new lot is used up.

tsk I bought 4kg of 4mm pellets as my chamber holds 3 1/2 kg.

nice one anon, cheers for that. suppose Aquarium carbon should be alright for small extraction (drying boxes) then, if it 4mm and activated. good to know.

thanks dude, let us know how it goes

Well, here's the latest pic from my cabinet. In case you're wondering, this piccie was also used in my potbound dilema thread in the problem section here.
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This was taken a day after the boys got brutally hacked to pieces and the girls (only one confirmed) got potted up into their final pots for the last week or two vegging. I'll be pretty dissapointed if I end up with only one girl out of 6 plants. If that happens, what is my best option to maximise my yield?

a ) Keep vegging and have one monster plant
b ) Flower it as it is then re-veg and clone from that mother
c ) Clone now and spend another month or so vegging

Although I'm after a decent amount, my main priority is time to first harvest. I'm getting very short on gear and I'd like to avoid having to pay for weed again. (I have a decent enough supply of good green but as they say up north 'you don't get owt for nowt!'). After the first harvest I should have enough time to mess about properly.
For now I'll just keep going and make a descision just before 12/12 based on whether the other two plants have waved their girly bits in front of me by then.

The new carbon is performing very well and I can now actually smell the difference in the garage. When I first go in there is no smell at all. If I then open the cabinet to do gardening etc, close it all up and then leave the garage for 5 mins I can now smell the residual smell when I go back in. Before the new carbon there was no difference, it smelled 'planty' all the time. I've got a second bathroom extractor in the garage venting though a hole in the wall. It's there for two reasons; one is to mask the noise of the extractor in the cabinet and secondly to shift stale air out of the garage. I'm worried now though about stray odours being sucked out when the cabinet door is opened for gardening during flowering. I've got to come up with a small carbon granule cartridge I can fit into the vent hole to clean the extract smells up a bit. It won't be perfect odour removal but it will be better than nothing and I never leave the cabinet doors open longer than they absolutely have to be. Also minimising the risk is the fact that I do most of my plant care late at night / early hours so there's noone in the neighbours garden to smell any slight whiffs that may escape. My 12/12 light times will probably be 6pm - 6am so the cabinet will never be open during the day.

I'm nearly halfway through my first grow now and although it could all still go tits up I'd like to say a big thanks to all who have helped me along the way either directly or by passing on their words of wisdom in diaries etc. Most of all I'd like to thank Blab for 'operation bonsai' which was the true inspiration for this project.

Thats all for now. More pics to come when I install the scrog mesh in a weeks or so's time.

A

Whoohoo! Another girly has waved her sexy little pistils at me. One more still hasn't shown yet. It's 11 weeks now. Is it normal for a plant to hold off this long?

Well, whatever happens they're going 12/12 in less than a week. Just a few more days for the roots to fill the new pots (roots already visible through holes in bottom of pot) then I'm going to release the LST ties. A couple of days for the plants to 'sit up' a bit and then the scrog mesh goes on.

Piccies to follow soon

A

Here is the latest from the stealth cabinet.

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The two ladies are middle and right and the one on the left still hasn't decided.

A

Sorry if this is turning into a bit of diary. At the time I started the grow I couldn't be arsed with a proper diary.

Time for a technical update on the cabinet's environmental control.

Temperature over last two weeks has been between 17.8c and 30.8c above soil / under leaf canopy. The humidity was between 41% and 79%. Garage ambient temp between 9.5c and 32.8c

I don't think that's too bad considering it's only a bathroom extractor pulling the air out of the cabinet and through the carbon filter.

Talking of filters that now appears to be working well after it's refill. It will be tested to the limit in a few weeks time when the girls start getting really stinky. I have my fingers and everything else crossed.

The 3 remaining plants are now released from their bonds and threaded through the scrog meshes. Each plant/tub has a seperate mesh so they can be lifted out one at a time.

They are now on day 3 of 12/12. I can't believe I'm only halfway to harvest time (both are indicas 10-12 weeks flowering). I'm looking at 4 months time until it's partly cured. Just in time for bonfire night! That seems a really long way off to me at the moment.

Oh well, apart from the overly long sexing period and consequential rootboundness / N def due to the extended stay in cramped quarters it all seems to be going ok for now. I think that was probably due to... Plants need bigger pots to grow more and show sex but they can't be potted up until sex is shown.

Another pic next time I go outside.

A

PS If the mods see fit to move this thread to the diaries section then please feel free to do so. If it stays here I won't update it with any more 'non picture' posts

Picture time.

The second female turned out to be male so just one female left now

Here she is at 1 and a half weeks of flowering.

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cont'd

and a closeup of one of the many budsites

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A

looking good m8 your nearly there cant w8 for it myself 1st time for me too well gl and hope you got rid of your unwanted smells just a thought my m8 was on about you can get the carbon granules off the net maybe you could improvise a small flat filter to go over the hole looking at your cabinet you look like you can handle a screw gun anyway good job keep up the good work.

Cheers and good luck with your grow too netherworm.

The smells are all confined to the cabinet at the moment. It's just starting to get a bit smelly in there now. There's 3 1/2 kg of carbon granules packed in there filtering the nice niffs. Mrs a went out to the freezer in the garage earlier and never noticed anything

A

nice stuff anon great space!

A couple of pics from week 4 of 12/12

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There are 12 main flowers, most of which start level with the mesh and are a little taller than a disposable lighter. There is also quite a lot of airbud below the mesh. Not as much as I was hoping for but better than a kick in the pods. Still, not too bad for the space and conditions it's growing in, not to mention my many noobie mistakes!

Chrystal is a 8-10 weeker so nearly halfway. Despite the big hit in yield I must say that it's all been so much easier since I went down to one plant. I can; get out to the garage, access the cabinet, water etc, lock up and be back indoors in about 7 minutes which doesn't arouse any suspicion at all.

Next pic in next post....

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A closeup canopy shot.

More pics next week or so.

A

looking gd mate.

That's impressive, puts my old PC case/grow box to shame

Cheers guys.

This was very nearly a PC case grow until a cabinet appeared up for grabs from work. Then it all escalated to what I have now. It took 4 weeks to design and source the major parts and another 2 -3 months to put together (taking odd days off work now and then as it all had to be built in complete secret ).

Only 4-5 weeks left now, then we'll see how well I've really done! I only hope it's worth all the money/time/effort and risk I've invested. Next grow should be easier, starting with clones of this girly.

A

very nice work!

Thanks Jordas

It was all going very well until a week and a half ago when I made the classic noob error of overferting and now I've nute burned the plant to a crisp at 5 1/2 weeks into flower!

It happened like this; I was going to the V festival and I needed to water the plant before I went. It was watered a day earlier than it should have been and as it was showing definite signs of N def I upper the usual 1ml/l of Biobizz grow by and extra .5ml. When I came back after an excellent weekend I was horrified to see my lovely plant bright yellow and dry as a crisp on the top sunleaves. The plant has been on plain water for the last two waterings and is showing good signs of recovery. The dry leaves are starting to soften up and get a bit of colour back and the new growth is green. The lower fanleaves weren't really affected and the buds have stayed more or less the same colour. The buds are looking particularly nice and bigger than I was expecting with the lighting I have. They are incredibly resinous which smells lovely on my fingers after checking for bananas and rot.

How much of a delay in flowering period is this cockup likely to have caused? They are at 7 weeks flowering tomorrow and Nirvana Chrystal is supposed to be a 8-10 weeker. All the trychs are still very clear and only a few pistils have browned.

Many thanks for any words of wisdom.

Some pics to follow in a day or two.

A

Well, here we are at 10 and 1/2 weeks flowering and I'm getting ready to chop this week. About 80% of the trichs are cloudy with some amber.

Here is the plant as of earlier today. Nute burned and heat stressed to a crisp bud some pretty good buds all the same.
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cont'd...

and here are two buds chopped today.
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More when the rest is chopped later this week.

A

Well, those two buds (11.5 week chop) in that last pic have just been finished off along with a slightly larger amount from a late harvest (14.5 weeks). The main crop is safely dried and is now curing.

I reckon it will be somewhere around 1 1/2 - 2 oz from one plant. She managed to live all the way through to harvest despite several newbie attempts at killing her. She suffered major drought and serious wilting on 3 or so occasions when I wasn't able to water her. She also suffered serious nute burn when I decided to treat a nitrogen deficiency with a strong dose of BB grow. This coupled with a heat stress inducing environment over the several days of hot summer we had cooked all the upper fan leaves. The lower fan leaves remained a nice healthy green colour but never grew any bigger as the plant was so far into flowering (9 weeks).

Was it worth 27 weeks work and stress? I'm very disappointed about the final yield and I felt quite cheated by 1 fem out of 6 seedlings. However, the smoke is better than anything I've bought in the uk (but not by a lot). When I first smoked it one pipe put me on my arse for an hour with quite good couchlock, but I'm getting tolerant to it now after a few weeks. It still does the trick, just not as strongly. The 12.5 week crop is staying locked in it's curing jar until Christmas so I don't know what the effects an optimal harvest and cure will be yet. On a positive note, the plant did survive and give a reasonable yeild and it didn't suffer from any disease or pest attack. It's only ill's were caused by the high temperature and me. I'm sure that this strain (Nirvana Chrystal) could be quite a bit better if it were grown in more optimal conditions which is what I'm going to do next. I have more seeds left so I'm going to grow another crop of Nirvana strains. If that turns out ok I'll buy some seeds from a much stronger strain.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received. You've seen the growroom so I need something short that can be lst'd and that will grow under flouro's. I also want it to knock me on my arse.

Many thanks to all that have assisted me either directly or indirectly.

Anon

Hi Guys

Well, the final tally was 32g in total. A tad dissapointing but it still lasted me 4 months. 'tis very true what us pro-cannabis people keep on saying against the prohibitionists. It doesn't matter how strong the weed is, you stop smoking it when you are stoned enough. Stronger weed means you reach that point much quicker and hence smoke less at a time. I think the technical term is auto-titration. I don't drink whisky by the pint either!

Anyway, my planned re-veg didn't work despite giving it nearly 3 months. I think I'd stressed the plant to death and the lack of healthy fan leaves meant it couldn't regenerate itself. I popped some more beans just before christmas but out of 6 only 1 germed properly. I managed to get a couple of clones going from it but having put all three plants into 12/12 last week it seems that I've probably spent 3 months vegging boys! In the words of James May "COCK"! A real shame because this time the environment in the cabinet (after a lot of messing around with the extract and heater thermostats) has been pretty much spot on and the plant is looking lovely. In another few days the preflowers should be big enough for a positive sexing and if what I suspect are bollocks get any bigger it will be be getting an unceremonial

My next effort will definitely be some femmed seeds 'cos I can't waste that amount of time again. I'm thinking of going for some femaleseeds ICE. Any comments on them? or any other suggestions?