building A cab for micro SOG

tdtreefer

Member
so i want to build a cab. i have the fallowing dimensions as limits. 33w x 30h x 18d i have 1g pots that i can fit 6 in that space, layed it out on the concrete floor. im going to do led lighting, of course building my own, made one or two before. not sure on how many of what spectrum and wattage yet, i havent found any good heatsinks, so if you know of anywhere i can pick up one big one for a good deal or a few smaller ones as well. can go many ways with that so its not set and stone yet. its in a closet so i think i can get away with a inline fan with a passive exhaust. big with a light trap and screen. i may end up running only like two plants at a time in bigger containers as well. but i am going to get some material this week to start on the box, see how i like it. ill be posting pictures of the whole build, nerver really documented anything before so here we go.
 

IIGHOSTII

Well-Known Member
If I was u I would think about doing a scrog. It would help with your height restraints. There really easy to do an a good way to maximize your yield. Do 1-2 plants in a 3-5g pot an u will be surprised how much u can get. Good luck.
 

Boatguy

Well-Known Member
I have a cabinet the same height and had to ditch the soil for hydro. The pots just take away too much grow space. With a simple hydro dwc setup you can really maximize root space without sacrificing as much vertical grow space. The only downside is that you will have to water often, upside is the nutes are being replaced daily so you can do without checking and adjusting ph, just mix and water.
I have roughly half your size cabinet with the same height and one plant completely packs my space.
My dwc setup is just a painted tupperware container with an aquarium pump and a single airstone.
 

heckler73

Well-Known Member
I like the sound of this so far. Micro-DWC with LEDs ?
That's the perennial design I'm constantly working with, so I'd love to see how yours turns out.
 

tdtreefer

Member
I have a cabinet the same height and had to ditch the soil for hydro. The pots just take away too much grow space. With a simple hydro dwc setup you can really maximize root space without sacrificing as much vertical grow space. The only downside is that you will have to water often, upside is the nutes are being replaced daily so you can do without checking and adjusting ph, just mix and water.
I have roughly half your size cabinet with the same height and one plant completely packs my space.
My dwc setup is just a painted tupperware container with an aquarium pump and a single airstone.
do you have any pics of how you have your dwc setup in s smaller space, i was thinking an awfully lot about the dwc, but looked around and couldnt find any good containers, if i go this route i may end up doing the cap a little differernt. just the base tho, keep same lights and exhaust. i need to do some more reading before i build, i want to have this set up by aug, i have a mother and would like to throw her first set of clones in here. ive been doing a little looking around at led, and i think im only going to run this only for flower, ill build another clone box and turn it into a little veg room, another thread another day. ill upload some links to the lights i want to put together, still havent found any good heatsinks for a decent price, but i dont think ill find the quality im looking to get as heat dissipation goes. with fans i dont want the sink too be over 80F just to keep temps low in this cab
 

Carolina Dream'n

Well-Known Member
Stick with your one gallon pots, fill with promix and use a line of nutrients to your choice. Veg for 1 week max. Flip to flower. Harvest 6 one cola plants.
 

tdtreefer

Member
so i got a little creative on heatsinkusa, found a 7.280" with good fin hight, dont remember off top of my head, but will be using four of these at 6" long, comes out to a little over 50 after shipping so i ordered them. good quality at a good price. now im going to be getting some fans. ill probably run dc just because they are much cheaper.


as for the lights i found some WW 50 multichips and some drivers in a package deal on ebay, each set comes out $9.49 each with free shipping so figure $40,here is a pic of the light and driver.
$_12.JPG $_14.JPG $_14.JPG
 

tdtreefer

Member
edit, sorry its just really small image. its 140mm by 25mm. should fit nicely on top of the heatsinks, but it comes out to 40 for 4 also, so im at 130 total for light system. not sure about reflectors yet. the led come with 120degree standard, but i know that throws a lot of light everywhere and not deep. i may run two 90 degree reflectors on two of them to get some depth, not sure yet, never done this in a cab.
 

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tdtreefer

Member
Stick with your one gallon pots, fill with promix and use a line of nutrients to your choice. Veg for 1 week max. Flip to flower. Harvest 6 one cola plants.
couldnt i just do 12/12 from rooted clone so i could have a cycle? set of clones every so often, not sure yet but a thought for sure.and ive never done hydro so i think soil is going to be my best bet. i would love to try but i want a bigger area, i get a little to :weed: happy and forget to check redundancy and failsafes.
 

tdtreefer

Member

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
so i got a little creative on heatsinkusa, found a 7.280" with good fin hight, dont remember off top of my head, but will be using four of these at 6" long, comes out to a little over 50 after shipping so i ordered them. good quality at a good price. now im going to be getting some fans. ill probably run dc just because they are much cheaper.


as for the lights i found some WW 50 multichips and some drivers in a package deal on ebay, each set comes out $9.49 each with free shipping so figure $40,here is a pic of the light and driver.
View attachment 3457670 View attachment 3457675 View attachment 3457675
Don't.....you pay for what you get.....
 

tdtreefer

Member
Don't.....you pay for what you get.....

dont what? yeah i understand you get what you pay for but there was 7 things that you just quoted. personally they put out 5000lm each so i think 20klum is more than enough to produce some nice nugs. do you run led? or have you ever built a multichip? or ARE we just apeaking out of our asses? i ask with respect not smart ass because im curious why you say this? i have some of these that have been running over my fish tank for over a year now, if i can get a year of light for $10 then its worth it, as long as i know its putting out the correct color spectrum, which im growiing corals, ( far more sensitive to spectrum than weed). but im listening.
 

tdtreefer

Member
im just trying to show that there are more than one way to build lights, you dont havve to spend $400 on cobs and drivers, my total system with fans and mounting brackets has come to 140, all aluminum fans, 4 heatsinks 4 driver and led. maybe down the road prices will come down but i cant spend $45 per cob then the meanwell drivers get pricey to whwen you get up into the 1 amp. otherwise i would own cree and meanwell setup
 

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
There are plenty of options of quality besides Cree and Meanwell...

Lumens are for humans and not for plants...They can be skewed and are not a true representation of the light actually delivered to a plant.....

Get educated about light and photons and output and how its delivered, Then you can make your arguments....$4 Vero 10's with cheapie drivers from Ebay, will blow those OUT OF THE WATER.....if you want the explanation of how that works...I can take the time to explain it...

Read thru my threads and you can see I went thru the same shit........
 

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
dont what? yeah i understand you get what you pay for but there was 7 things that you just quoted. personally they put out 5000lm each so i think 20klum is more than enough to produce some nice nugs. do you run led? or have you ever built a multichip? or ARE we just apeaking out of our asses? i ask with respect not smart ass because im curious why you say this? i have some of these that have been running over my fish tank for over a year now, if i can get a year of light for $10 then its worth it, as long as i know its putting out the correct color spectrum, which im growiing corals, ( far more sensitive to spectrum than weed). but im listening.
:)
http://rollitup.org/t/ppf-to-ppfd.871315/
http://rollitup.org/t/vero-10-5000k-veg-light-diy-step-by-step-build.861762/
http://rollitup.org/t/small-spaces-led-organics.849178/
http://rollitup.org/t/another-round-mini-fridge-and-led-light-bulbs-and-post-whoring.767305/
http://rollitup.org/t/my-cabs-led-cfl-organic.748079/
 

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
dont what? yeah i understand you get what you pay for but there was 7 things that you just quoted. personally they put out 5000lm each so i think 20klum is more than enough to produce some nice nugs. do you run led? or have you ever built a multichip? or ARE we just apeaking out of our asses? i ask with respect not smart ass because im curious why you say this? i have some of these that have been running over my fish tank for over a year now, if i can get a year of light for $10 then its worth it, as long as i know its putting out the correct color spectrum, which im growiing corals, ( far more sensitive to spectrum than weed). but im listening.
You are on the right track, output trump spectrum IMO......my last incarnation went from 115 watts @ 25ish% efficiency in 3.5 sq. ft and a mix of 5k and 2.7k......The Replacement is running 115 watts @ 44% efficiency in the same place, doubling my PAR output and and a resut basically doubling my PPF and PPFD. all this from 3K....

Never buy a diode without a datasheet...Thats my rule.....

Drivers too, should be vetted from a more reliable source too[imho]...Those won't last a year and if they do yo are the .01% outlier from Ebay.....

My last ten drivers from Ebay.....1-2 still work [one well below rated VF] and the rest either blew up rapidly or stopped working...literally. And I have paid around $200-300 for about $5 to work past a year....

In comparison, yes, Meanwell are expensive...My $50 Ebay bought Meanwell HLG 120, has gone almost 9 months everyday without a hiccup.....

So how spending comparison can be greatly exaggerated? Are you really spending less or continuing to just simply practice bad LED building advice? Its out there in droves :leaf:
 

tdtreefer

Member
can you show me a link as to where to get those vero LED for as cheap as you mention? i would most deff go that route if i knew they were that cheap. the only ones im finding are 62w and way out of my pricerange to even run two. if the 10s are 10W then i found those to but still pricey for as many as i would need. and those bridgelux do they run pretty cool? what heatsinks did you use? sorry i cant see any of the pictures in the links you posted
 

tdtreefer

Member
ll be building my cab in the next few days, need to find some time to get to the hardware store. ill keep pictures coming
 

Abiqua

Well-Known Member
All the Vero 10's are $4.28 a pop....
http://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/vero-10-array-series/43471

The Vero 18's are $12 and some change [damn!]....at 1 amp, they are worth 25-27 watts.....vF is somewhere in that range
http://www.digikey.com/catalog/en/partgroup/vero-18-array-series/43474

Kingbrite has CXA 3070 AB's for $25 a pop.....I would also suggest looking at the new versions of Meanwell's LPC driver....about half the cost of the HLG's which have been the holy grail for top end builds.....
http://kingbriteled.en.alibaba.com/

The LPC now has 200v + voltage forward models and would be a really nice cost effective way to run multiple high powered cobs in a series AND for cheap too, with a reliable name and warranty....
 
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