Drobe build

[growinggold]

It's been a pleasure to follow this mate and will offer future small space growers a wealth of info. That great news regard the fan controller I'm yet to actually plug mine into the fan, bloody insulation delivery keeps being put back grr so I cant mod my space yet. 

 

 

[Openairbud]

Yea good build this one mate, I've been lurking too . I will keep an eye out for your diary when you start it, I too have picked up some animal biscuits, had to be done seeing as I've missed out a couple of times before with vic's stuff. 

 

All the best dude!

[green_machine]

@growinggold

Thanks for all your help bud it is appreciated!

 

@Openairbud

Thanks for the compliments, I am terrible with Diy'ing stuff, so I am very happy with the way things turned out here.

 

I got my subby seeds in some compost tonight!

 

Early days, but I have started a diary to keep track of what I am doing, here is the link for anyone who wants to come check it out

 

 

atb

greenie

[green_machine]

I got my filter, ducting and other bits and bob from One tree yesterday. I went ahead and installed the filter and ducting yesterday and everything went in pretty much perfectly.

 

 

There is ducting conntected onto the other end of the fan as well, I tried to get it as close as possible to where my vent is, hopefully this should be enough to make sure that any air is taken outside instead of hanging about the drobe.

 

The drobe is now functional and ready for use; I am having a bit of aproblems with light leaks from the flower section, the external doors do have a visibly yellow glow when the light is on, but I have some draft excluder tape and I will go in and fix this over the next couple of days.

 

I did some testing on temps yesterday and lights on temp is pretty much perfect at around 25-26oC. The lights off temp came in at 17oC which is colder than I want, but this might have to do with me not re-setting the min/max setting on the temp/humidity sensor, so I re-set this morning and will leave it all running again and check what happens tomorrow.

 

My next update should be my last on this build and I will post it once I have sorted out the little problems that are left.

 

atb

greenie

[green_machine]

It took me longer then expected but I have finally finished with all of the work on the drobe, so I just wanted to put up some final picks before I can finish this.

 

First up the completed veg section, temp in here have been pretty decent, between 21-24oC, light are running on a 20/4 schedule coming on at 10pm and then running until 6pm the next day. Lighting is from a 14w aquarium LED at 7500K 4 passive intakes drilled in the back panel and 2 12v PC fans connected to the main by a plug are extracting into the main flower cabinet.

 

 

Next up the flower section. Intake are set into the roof and are being run at low at the moment (mostly to help keep humidity up in the veg cabinet). Light is a PAR+150 from diyleduk, extraction is a 4" systemair RVK and filtration is a 4" carboair carbon filter. I am using acoustic ducting to extract air out of the drobe and into the wall cavity through the bottom external panel. I have placed the final pots in here to give you an idea of scale, these are 4.5l pots and I can fit 6 in here perfectly. The original trays I had planned to use for these pots turned out to be a little too big so I will grab replacements before the plants are going into their final pots.

 

 

The electrics for the drobe are all contained behind the middle external panel. this gives convenient access while still keeping everything away from the drobe.

 

 

Lastly, taking care of the light leaks turned out to be a much bigger job than I expected. I ended up using 2 rolls of draught excluder tape and a fair amount of silver foil tape as well. It is not perfect, however it is as good as I can make it. When the lights in the room are on you can see anythign at all, when the lights in the room are off, you can see nearly nothing, if you stand directly in front of the cabinet in the dark there is a very small amount of light coming out, but you have to be standing in the exact right spot to see this, in most other cases there is nothing visible.

 

 

I am going to let this grow get over and then decide if there is anything else I need to do, but sofar it has been running pretty perfectly and I have no complaints.

 

Thanks for taggin a long as I finished this, if you want to see how the new plants are doing, come check out my diary in the LED section.

 

atb

greenie

[Ajimango]

Great build you got there, nice job. You really gonna squeeze them plants in.

 

Light leaks have been a pain in the ass for me too. My drobe has double doors which i cant manage to totally light proof. The only way i can come up with is to get a single sheet of mdf and screw both doors on to the front of it to make it look nice.

 

Neat you havin the veg on top and extraction at bottom. Got me thinking i could do similar but upside down to yours.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Ajimango
typos

[growinggold]

Just grow sweet seeds autos chaps and light will never be an issue again. 24/7 speed grows 

[green_machine]

@Ajimango Thanks for checking in on my build, I have been keeping an eye on your drobe grow as well, you have a nice set up! I used to grow in a double door drobe a few years ago, and stopping the light leaks from those doors was next to impossible! I ended up just using a large piece of Black/white hanging from the inside to keep everything sealed but it wasn't the best option.

 

@growinggold I havebeen thining about auto's mate, but my first and last time growing them wwas many years ago when lowryder first came out, I had a reall bad expereicne whit these and have just stayed aaway since then. However some of the auto's avilable now seem pretty amazing and I have seen some really impressive results! Long term though, I do still think the quickest option for cropping is to grow from clone. I might try and run a single auto alongside some of the clones in the future though so will have to see what happens. I currently have the animal biscuits and will be ordering some of the pineapple skunk x wonderkush crosses as well as they london lemon haze x MAC f1 crosses so this will probably take up most of my time for the next few months at least. I then have a pretty large collection of seeds which I might try and work my way through, problem is I consolidated all the seeds into eppednorf tubes several years ago and even though they were marked at the time, the markings have been lost, and I have no idea what the seeds are anymore! They are on the back burner for when I have time to plant them out and work out if they are still worth growing.

 

greenie

[growinggold]

Sounds like you have it sorted buddy. I really do recommend sweet seeds auto the cream caramel and red poison I'm smoking atm is incredibly, love it. I got a 10pack of random autos from sweet seeds and they seriously good. I've got 8 left to do and I cant wait to see what else i get!  They was all down in 71 days! Plus the pack was like 30£ for 10. 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by growinggold

[jtoogood]

Such a cool project, well done! 

[porky]

On 26/10/2020 at 4:53 PM, green_machine said:

 

I think so, it is a matt white (actual shade is called orchid white, so it is slightly off white) emulsion, we had used this when re-decorating out bathroom recently and I had some about so I used it. Is this OK? I can grab some more paint and go over everything if necessary.

 

thanks for the help @stu914

 

greenie

Emulsion isn't ideal in a humid environment, for a tougher more durable finish take a look at zinsser perma white.

[green_machine]

Thanks for the heads up @porky

 

As you said the paint I used was really not suitable for high humidity and yeah in my second grow now there have been quite a few patches that have bubbled and peeled away. After this grow I was thinking about covering the internal surfaces with orcafilm, this is waterproof and humidity shouldn't be a problem with this.

 

Do you think the zinsser paint could stand prolonged exposure of 70-80% RH, I don't really want to re-paint after every couple of grows.

 

greenie

[porky]

Hi greenie, high humidity areas, kitchen bathrooms etc. is what it's for, once cured, after about a week it form's a tough smooth skin that has an added bonus of providing an anti-bacterial surface for several years.

 

 

[Captain Bonglington]

1 hour ago, green_machine said:

prolonged exposure of 70-80% RH,

You'll need to watch that in flower and also for the health of your carbon filter. 

Nice build dude. 

[green_machine]

Thanks, @Captain Bonglington the 70-80% RH is for the veg chamber at the top, I have a humidifier in here which is controlled by an ink bird, because of the high humidity in here the paint has taken a bit of a beating and I have been looking for a more permanent solution.

 

My flower section is kept at 55%-60% with a temp of around 28oC during lights on and 50%-55% and 24oC during lights off. This gives me a VPD of around 1.4 - 1.6 during lights on and 1.2 - 1.4 during lights off.

 

These are my first few grows trying to maintain VPD but on my last grow I did not see any mould although to my mind the RH at 60% is a bit high for flower but it seems to work and the plants really love it.

 

atb

greenie