Ok im gonna convert the cupboard in my office type desk into a microgrow room for as little £££ as possible. Any thoughts as this is my first grow. Noobie's eh!

After a week or so of digesting as much info as poss on this wonderfull site these are my plans.

Dimensions of growing room w37cm x d53cm x h63cm volume 1.2 m3
First im gonna take the cupboard door and the drawer above it out. The drawer will be dismantled leaving the front part with the knob on. These will then be attatched together with ply or similar creating a single door with a (fake) drawer. Remove hindges etc and build an internal frame in the cupboard for the door to attatch via magnetic door catches. Gasket made of wetsuit materiel? or similar glued to the frame to hopefully create a light/air tight door. Kitchen sealent around the frame and all joints in the cupboard. As I dont want to fuck up this desk too much i will be sawing the intake/extraction holes in the ply at the rear of the desk. All internal cupboard surfaces covered with mylar or similar. For ventelation i intend to use pc fans (i know theyr'e not ment to be any good but will i get away with them is such small space?) I was thinking 1 for intake at bottom and 2 for extraction at the top sucking through a homemade scaled down RAZ type carbon filter. Will 2 fans heve enough suck for efficient ventelation and filtering? For lighting im gonna use 1 200w Blue Enviro for veg and another 200w Red Enviro for fowering with a homemade reflector. There will also be a small household fan inside the cupboard for circulating air. I will be growing in dirt/compost and will be growing from clone (from well kept indoor garden) either Jack Here or Cheese. What method of growing would be best in this limited space? 4 small plants flowered early or 1 larger plant? what about training for best use of space? Does the general desigh of the grow room seem ok? What sort of yeild? could i reasonably expect 1/2oz + from this setup? obviously allowing for noobie fuck ups! Thanks for your help. Shit I didnt realise how boring I was. I think you should have a joint. Thats what im gonna do!

Hi mate, sounds good.

You could try weather strip door seal, its like a foam strip you get it a b+q that will light proof your false door, i use it and quite a few other 'drobers' swear by it. At least your wets suit won,t have holes in it!!!

Have a wee look at some of the pc case micro grows they should have some good ventilation ideas.

Good luck wi yer grow anyway mate

You could try weather strip door seal, its like a foam strip you get it a b+q that will light proof your false door, i use it and quite a few other 'drobers' swear by it. At least your wets suit won,t have holes in it!!!


Thanks aitchy, I didnt think of that, wicked idea. Next pay day im hopefully gonna be getting all the stuff together, so i'll be sure to post a few pics. Cheers for the advice mate.

If any one can give a bit of advice on my proposed methods of venting, growing methods and expected yeilds it would be very much appreciated. Cheers!

look forward to seeing some pics mate

Hello again.

I tried building a mother and clone box in an old cabinet I have.
I used a bank of 4 4inch PC fans, and I followed a scaled down version of Razs' method, and I found they didn't pull very well, and I had remove the filter to keep the temp down. I had a slightly bigger space and was using a 250 enviro.
I've read somewhere that 'stacking' PC fans on top of each other increases pulling power, but they are noisy like this.
It could work is my conclusion, but be careful, as heat could be a problem with the lights you are using.

Wait for some more feedback from other members with more experience.

Good luck dude
Sparky

Thanks sparky. To be honest the ventelation is the thing I am least sure of, and i really wanna make sure I get it right and dont burn down my house as well If any one can help me with this?I know ur all gonna say buy a an rvk but is there nothing cheeper that will do a similar job in such a small space? How much is a suitable rvk for my setup? cheers to all for helping!

Try the 420 shop.

You should be able to use a RVK100 or TD100 to do the job and have a passive intake.

I doubt he'll fit and rvk 100mm in the small space he has

Yes I guessed that one

He could try and track down some 250mm Pc fans and run them at full voltage but even then I do not think they will cool down a 200w Enviro when summer comes.............

Bugger! what am i ment to do. Someone plz help. Cheers for all advice guys! Without you dudes id have no chance. I really want to be able to create a stable environment for my plant/plants so i can be a self sufficient smoker, all year round. No more dodgy dealers hopefully Just want to grow enough for a personal stash and maby a friend or two.

Get a wardrobe

I hope 420 don't mind http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.100-7946/btnRe...Sort.y%3d7.aspx

No can do man. Wish I could but desk is all I can use at the mo. There must be some way of venting my cupboard? Dont really mind forking out for 100mm rvk at £65 if it does the job. Can always use it if/when I upgrade to different grow space. RVK's noisy? Can i fit it in ducting and external mount it?

Thanks for the help oni m8, but i'v really got to work with the space that iv got at the minute, also thanks to s monkey, by the way the crystall ship looks awsome

If you don't mind mounting the RVK outside the area then you do not have a problem!

But I would not call it a stealth setup!

An rvk is fairly big to attach on the outside, and it does make some noise

I've just got a 125w enviro and its creating more heat than i expected i'm in a quite tight space as well.

I've got my door on a hinge and i'm blowing in fresh air with an oscilating fan, not only is it circulating the air its stimulating the plants and producing thicker stems.

I know its not stealthly but its certainly doing the job.

Have a gander at my threads

could i not mount the carbon filter and rvk on the outside and build a silencer for it? how loud are they? Could these be placed in something the size of a shoe box? Im fucking baked, Man thats good cheese....

the rvk fan is about the size of a football

You could attach to the outside along with carbon filter and silencer, but if your doing that its not very stealthy (does it need to be??) the amount of room you would take up, you could have everything in a 3/4 size wardrobe/ kids wardrobe.

Cheers aitchy, I can see im going to have to put a lot more thought in to this.

Just been reading around and it seams that a lot of peeps are using pc fans in similar spaces to mine. Some even use them in wardrobes! So would i not get away with using them with a small homemade carbon filter? Also what combo of envirolite? I am now starting to think 1x125 blue for veg and 1x200 red + 125 blue flower. or would i be better to get 2 125 reds and 1 blue? which size of enviros would work best in this space?

please someone help me im well and truely stuck!

Mind you don't bake them

Hi Ibanez. That really is a very tight space, something like 1 foot 2 by, what, 18-20 inches or thereabouts? And oh crap, you've only got about 2 feet of height as well. (I still have to convert metric to imperial to be able to visualise it). There are people growing in teeny tiny spaces like that I believe, but it's a whole different ball game to normal drobe growing.

You're going to have to chuck your design away and start again I'm afraid, at least the lighting and ventilation parts. The envirolites are pretty bulky, even a 125 Watter would half fill the cupboard on its own, and I'm told the 200s are bigger. But you've hardly got room for a plant in there even without that. You're going to have to research microgrows, there is a subforum that covers it, underneath the lighting forum I think. You need to find a lighting system that hardly takes up any space at all, and I'm afraid envirolites aren't it. Even then I don't know whether it's actually possible to flower a plant that small - mind you, I'm not an expert, and I've heard of people growing in PC cases, so it must be possible I suppose. But normally you need at least 5 or 6 feet of height.

Same goes for RVK fans and the shop's carbon filters - no way they are going to fit. I'd say you're going to have to use PC fans, there isn't room for anything else. And I guess you're going to have to build a miniature carbon filter, and probably mount it externally.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but this strikes me as a really difficult project. All the "standard" equipment for a drobe grow is just too big for your space.

Thanks squirrel, I know its a really tight space but if I LST and scrog then I really hope its possible to grow some half descent bud in here. I'v seen it done on this site in equally tight spaces and im confident (I don't really know why!) that I can as well. Cheers all for the help. Any micro growers help would be appreciated or if any one knows of any threads that might be of use please send them my way!

Hi mate - I reckon 1 x 125W Blue and 1 x 125W Red - veg with just blue and flower with both. TD-160 extracting through carbon panel filter with a 120mm PC fan or two for active intake.

Bobs' your sister - easy pull a couple oz with a good bit of LST

B

Cheers for the vote of confidence blab Thats the sort of thing I needed to hear. Got new confidence for this grow now. Cheers to everyone that helped! Any more tips and advice gladly accepted Cant wait to start, will have a grow diry up when I do.

By the way any one who can point me in the way of good lst techniques and the configuration of my grow room please do help

Hey Iban

Good to meet you. BBB is right, 400W is overkill in that cab, temps wil be brutal. I would go with 2 x 125w enviro's in that space. Veg under the blue one and back it up with the red for flowering. For extraction I would go for 2 120mm pc fans or if you can afford it get yourself a TDK. If you go for PC fans get ones at least about 75CFM each and mount them side by side, not stacked. You will have more airflow and less noise this way. How important is stealth for you? Also have you considered which strain you will be growing? To get the most out of your cab I reckon scrog would be the way to go. I am now on my second grow and I'm scrogging from seed this time round. I got two fems so I actually built myself another smaller are to keep a couple of bonzai mum's and clones to make my life easier in future grows. If you can I would recommend getting yourself something similar if you really want to make it possible to be a self sufficient grower. The most important thing at this planning stage is to read a bunch of peoples diaries to get ideas and research all you can. Google ICMAG and check out the microwgrow section in the forums there. It's full of refugees from Overgrow.com and has an excellent microgrow secton. Also if you feel for it check out my grow HERE. If you have any questons just fire away and I'll do my best to help.

MG

Cheers microgardener! im gonna hopefully be growing jack here from clones. I need this box to be quite stealthy, I think iv got the light proofing sorted, but i need help with venting and smell. How good was the filter you made for your box? Also is there any fire hazard from the pc fans? Cheers for all your help mate.

If your growing Jack Herer from clones I would definately SCROG as these plants grow 1.5/2m tall. As for the ventilation yes my filter worked but the Sadhu's I am growing are not too pongy. Also I made some changes to the filter to deal with lightproofing too. I don't know how much of my diary you read but HERE is the page with the improved filter. If you looked into my new diary in the link I gave last post you will see my latest filter experiment. I don't know if it will work but one thing is certain the plants are about two weeks into flowering and when I open the box I smell them. The room the box is kept in however just smells like any other room in my house. Peak flowering is several weeks away at the moment but I suspect just a bag of carbon is enough to keep a tiny grow odour free. It's certainly working so far. My box has been a little warm lately with just the one 93cfm fan exhausting the 262W of light I have. So I have been keeping the flowering box door open 2 or 3" to keep temps at 26/27c at the canopy and still there is no smell in the room the box is in. The only time I smell the plants is when I open the door wide and get my head close. I'm going to add another 79cfm fan to the box tonight when the lights go back on so I'll report the differences in temps then.

Oh I forgot, you asked about the fire safety of the pc fans. Provided that you don't overdraw you power adapter you should be fine as the fans only use 12v dc. The fans are rated in amps i.e. 1.5A so to drive two at 1.5A each your adapter would need to be at least 3A. You can just twist the wires together and seal them with electrical tape or if you wanna be double sure about safety just get a couple of those electrical connector thingies for joining wires together. I use an adapter that has multiple voltage levels so I can turn the fans down to 6v when the lights are out to hep with climate control. If you are in any doubt please ask an electrician. I wouldn't like to be responsible for any bad advice so please remember I am just a newbie grower who is sharing my experiences with you to hopefully help you have a successful and safe first grow.

Cheers microgrower! I think im gonna make a carbon filter similar to yours. What times do you have your fans on, or are they constant? What sort of yeild do you think is possible in this space?

My fan is on constant. I added a second one but it made little difference so I removed it. I've found the best way to keep temps sweet is to have 2 small passive intakes about 4" diameter in the sides of the box close to the door. 1 on each side these need to be baffled or covered with a darkroom louvre if you can afford it, also I've read that PVC piping is gret for making lightproof intakes actually I'm gonna get some next time I'm at my local DIY shope so I can do away with my bulky and not at all stealthy homemade baffles. I keep temps 2-3c above room temperature with this method using a "Thermaltake" 120mm 21Dba fan. It's 78CFM so quite powerful and only 6 quid, it comes with LED lights but these are just in a strip round the fan that can be easly removed. I left you a PM.
As for yield I only got about 1.5oz first time round but it was my first grow. I reckon 3-4 oz or probably more is possible with 250W in this space. Even if you could achieve half of the holy grail of 1 g per watt thats over 4 oz. I hope to achieve this maybe by the time I get my 3rd grow under my belt. As with all growers your yields should improve with experience.

MG

Hey again,

you mentioned links about LST right? I was just having a look through some threads when I found this. Maybe it's useful to you? LST

MG

hi
Dont know if you sorted fan out but i found this litle manrose 100ml inline!

wisp

Cheers microgardener, If that fan works for you then I'd be inclined to go for that as your microgrow seems to have very similar dimensions to my plans, also for cost and stealth. Cheers for all the info and general help as well as the lst link. By the way was that 1.5 oz dry yeild? To be honest that sounds great, especially for <£100 investment. Also thanks to wispa for the link to that fan, seems very similar to rvk, is there any reason why its 1/2 the price of an rvk? Do you use one wispa? if its good I would be very tempted with that, decisions decisions......... Anyone else got any thoughts on either of those fans? Take it easy peeps

The fan wisp linked to seems pretty good. I dunno how quiet though You could hook that up to some 100mm ducting to keep your extract lightproof and attach a small carbon filter to it. Its rated at about 60CFM which would suit your space.

Yeah it was about 1.5oz dry fom two plants. I about broke even compared to street price for the first grow and I got some Primo weed This next grow is my profit, I am aiming for at least 2oz this time with scrog. Next time I scrog I will veg the plants from clones in the screen till it's about 80% full in an attempt to pull 4oz or more.

MG

Cheers microgardener, well done 1.5 oz dry yeild seems very good, hope I can pull something like that 1st time. Goodluck on your quest for 4 oz, im sure you'll do it

Quick question for you microgardener. You mention having plants as opposed to a plant, do you not think one larger plant scrogged will give as good a yeild as two or more plants? as well as being easier to grow? As long as the canopy is full the yeild should be the same...no? Have you seen GETAROUNDTOIT 's micro scrog with one plant? its like a bushy bonzai plant, totally fills up the screen and has more of a trunk than a stem! Thats what I intend to do, unless anyone else thinks there is a better way? Also do I need a contactor for enviros? Will fan controlers keep my grow at a constant temperature, while allowing for sufficient airflow? Thanks for helping guys

You can do it that way or you can use more plants/clones to fill the screen with less veg time. Like you said as long as the canopy fills the screen after the initial 12/12 stretch you will maximise yield. No you don't need a contactor for enviros. Being able to contol the speed of the fans is an advantage, you shouldnt hve any problems with airflow. I don't and my fan is speed adjustable.

MG

Ahh now i see the benefit of having more than one plant in such a small space = reduced veging time. Does flowering an immature plant affect its yeild? What would be the optimum number of plants for my grow space? im thinking maby 2 or 4 real diddy ones! Cheers micro gardener mate you have been most helpfull!

If you flower a clone thats been under a veg light routine for a few days to gets it's roots established then it will just stretch then flower. Depending on the strain it can stretch a little or a lot. The recommendations if you are going to scrog then start by forcing flowering early (or using less clones to get the screen maybe 20% full for a Sativa dominant strain or 50% full for an Indica dominant) This way you can fill the screen partially without overgrowing it and will have a beter idea of how much of it to fill next time before flipping to 12/12. I didnt top my plants before they went into the screen and did'nt get enough branches, I would reccomend topping your plants to promote branching. I only got about 50% of my screen filled and the stretch is about done so I won't get much yield. You can also go the opposite way and overgrow the screen which lowers yied too, thats why its recommended to start by forcing early.

Good luck

MG

A bit quiet here Migrow, I wonder what happened.

hi bit of a newbee on computers.
you can get 6" clip fans 2 speed and nice and quite from b&q £6.
godd luck with your grow
splat

I picked up a 4in ballbearing fan for £14 at my local hardware shop.
If you go along the lines of bathroom fans make sure there long life ballbearing fan, you dont want to come back to brown and crispy plants because your fans have died.
Computer fans are good because they are designed to run for long periods of time. I ran 3 banks of 3 in my grow room for 14 months with no problems until my power supply died.

Hey guys, sorry iv not posted for ages. Still as keen as ever to get grow underway, personal probs (cough, cough, the missus!) and cash flow have put this project on the back burner for the minute. New job starts in 2 weeks tho, so when im sorted im coming back. Cheers all.

haha oops posted this on the wrong thread, was over on blabs s+m box n got lost in the wrong window