Small groom setup

[3potheads]

Evening,

 

Trying to help a friend who is looking to build a little setup under his workbench in his garage. He has an idea but the implementation of it doesn't seem too easy. I've come up with an idea but not sure how easy it will be to implement and think that someone else may have created a similar setup but easier to implement.

 

What he wants to do is build a space about 1m x 50cm x 90cm split into two and have two flowering rooms and then use the heat from one room to heat the other while the lights are off. In practice this sounds great but in actual reality it seems hard to achieve without doubling up on fans etc.

 

The plan I've come up with is below and involves using a butterfly valves on the single extraction fan and on the passive intakes for each room. The butterfly valves would be controlled by a Pi/ardunio to open/close at certain times of the day. This would then suck the warm air from the room that is currently 'on' into the room that is currently 'off'... something like this

 

 

Has anyone done something similar to this setup and is there an easier way of achieving it? I did say could he not do autos and leave light on 24/7 but he didn't seem to keen on this idea as he thinks this will work better if he can dial it in.

 

Setup above will have extraction blowing through CF.

 

Any thoughts/suggestions?

 

3ph

[JJJ]

I can see a few issues with this.  Firstly, the RH space will be drawing stale Co2 depleted air from the LH space.  Secondly, if the diagram is accurate, the RH space is drawing air from the bottom and sucking it straight up the side of the grow space. Better to have it located on the opposite side of the grow area so it draws air through the plant.  Next, the passive intake would be better situated at the bottom of the LH space where the air is cooler but that's no biggy.

Can you make the whole thing a little taller?  Once you've got pots and lights in there, there's not much space to grow.

I don't mean to be negative but I'm sure there's a solution to these issues. Good luck.

[tokenroll]

Have a look in my diary im running with 1 meter tall spaces but to levels easy to adapt to one 

 

[3potheads]

53 minutes ago, JJJ said:

I can see a few issues with this.  Firstly, the RH space will be drawing stale Co2 depleted air from the LH space.  Secondly, if the diagram is accurate, the RH space is drawing air from the bottom and sucking it straight up the side of the grow space. Better to have it located on the opposite side of the grow area so it draws air through the plant.  Next, the passive intake would be better situated at the bottom of the LH space where the air is cooler but that's no biggy.

Can you make the whole thing a little taller?  Once you've got pots and lights in there, there's not much space to grow.

I don't mean to be negative but I'm sure there's a solution to these issues. Good luck.

 

Thanks for replying. 

 

I agree that the air will be less Co2 enriched than it could be but alas there isn't much we can do about that using the design he has in mind that allows the heat to be used from the other room. The air movement using a 5" RVK at 40% should be around 140 minus CF and ducting of around 30% should leave him with around 98. The total air needed to be moved for both cabs should be around 27 so he is getting around 4 times as much air extracted as is required so hopefully the air won't be too stale.

 

Agree on the intakes between the rooms and have amended the design. I think moving the passive intakes between rooms about 2/3rds along with an oscillating fan should give OK air/heat spread. I've left the passive intakes to each room at the tops so that the air is sucked down over the light to bring the heat into the other section that will have the lights off.

 

He says that this is the max height he can achieve and while I agree more height would be much better he's limited to what he can use.

 

 

[3potheads]

I had planned to use a Raspberry Pi and control servos to open/shut dampers but I've since found a 125mm damper with servo included that runs on 240v so he's going to get one of these and to test.

 

Any other thoughts/suggestions are always welcome  

 

 

Thanks for the link token, I'll show him when he is over but he has grown in similar situations before with OKish results. This one he wants to try and dial in better and doesn't want to have to pay for heating if he can use the heat from one room that is on to heat the other room that is off.

 

3ph

[JJJ]

Good design revision.  The extra length of ducting between the two rooms should reduce the chance of light pollution between them.  With this set up the humidity is always going to be slightly higher in the second room.  You could incorporate some dehumidifier crystals within the adjoining ducting to help with this.  I do think your friend will be limited to the strains he can grow, perhaps short indica types with extreme LST.