54 gallon rubbermaid cfl box

hey all, just went out and purchased the first step of the supplies for my first grow.

when designing this grow, my first considerations were initial cost, ease of preparation, and stealth

as such, cfls were the obvious choice for initial cost and stealth. i browsed here for a couple days absorbing hundreds of pages of information and several different successful grows, and decided on putting together a stealth rubbermaid box

i purchased two Roughneck XL 54 gallon rubbermaid containers, with dimensions 42.5x21.5x18.6in .
http://www.rubbermaid.com/rubbermaid/product/product.jhtml?prodId=HPProd2949118
i realize the height will be an issue later down the line; i plan on buying another and cutting it up to make a spacer.

as far as lights, i'm going to use two of these 5 head floor lights on opposite sides of the top, with 2 way splitters to make a total of 20 lights.
the lights will be inverted and easily raised to stay about 2 inches above nodes at all times

5-Head Floor Lamp - Pink : Target

my question to riu is, how can i maximize yield with this set up?
as it is, i think i will grow three plants side by side in 12 inch, 3 gallon pots. these would be trained/topped to stay short and hopefully dense.
since the plants are going to be short (probably a little more than 2 feet or so), could i get away with 4 smaller pots and squeeze in another plant?

let me know, i'll add pictures as soon as i get the entire thing arranged and set up.

some more info..

so i will have the option for 20 lights in this 6.35 sq ft area (10 light heads with y splitters)
my original plan was to use all 20; 12x23 and 8x42.
a little lumen calculation...
12x23w @ 1600 = 22,400
8x42 @ 2600 = 20,800
total = 43200
6803 lumens/sq ft

or alternatively
20x23 @ 1600 = 32000
5039 lumens/sq ft

each of which would be ample for the space, but at this point i'm going for density and yield. would the extra lumens be unnecessary?
given the lumen count that i am working with, is the max amount of plants 3?

Seems to be a bit of over kill 54 gallons is alot!! Didn't know you plan on make a stealth grow out of it good luck

i want to see it assembled =D

don't the 5 head deco lamps use the smaller style bulb like tea lights?

no, regular size lightbulbs. also, it was only $20.

Before you start really getting into it, here's what I learned when I built my first Rubbermade stealth box: It's very difficult to know how the lights are positioned around the plants if you can't position them EXACTLY where you want them before you put the top bin back on. That's why most growboxes have doors, they swing out and there is your shit! You also have no way to look into the box (not very well at multiple angles anyway) so there is a sense of guessing about how the light is getting to the plants. There are ways around this for sure. Design the light setup to be compact but able to stand freely somehow, so that you can pull the lid off and not disrupt the position of the lights.

It's going to get frackin HOT in that motherfracker! (shout Battlestar Gallactica!) I had 6 cfl's and with a 150 cfm pc fan pulling air out DIRECTLY across the lights (they were in two rows at the top of the box, fixed to the inside and the fan was right at the end of them) that box could get into the 80's. with 20 lights you are going to be competing with temps like that of the suns core. People don't tell you that CFL's get hot. They do, and they create more heat per watt than HID. I love CFL's but heat is as much or more of a concern for anyone growing with them who plans to provide sufficient light for a couple of plants.

Painting the outside black worked to block most light, but the paint started chipping off after pulling the top off for the millionth time. Use black undercoat spraypaint instead. It'll stick better and shouldn't peel away. You can find it in the automotive section.

Good luck , building grow boxes is fun for the whole family!

i actually hadn't thought of the light positioning problem. damn, if i had thought of that i probably would have built a box with doors haha.

regardless, 15-20 lights will most definitely get hot. i'm going to be introducing them at least somewhat gradually, so i can't even really test heat right now during this design phase. probably a bad idea and will be detrimental to the plants, but hopefully there will be ways arournd it.

i guess i can use a pyrex plate to act as a heat shield and fix it to the top box after most of the lights are in. run a 150 cfm or just a straight fan across the top and out. we'll have to wait and see though

Yeah man, set it up, and put as many lights as you have in and run it for a few hours to check temps. Don't wait on this. I found those clamp lights you cab get for 5 bucks at Home Depot helpful. They clamp onto the pot edges and point right down at the plant. That works great for the first little while. Also, line your insides with panda film or mylar (i prefer panda film, more efficient light reflection with less heat reflection) Or paint them flat white. Dont use anything reflective ove the cfls like soda cans cut in half or reflectors, those reflect more heat than usable lumens! Keep steady soft airflow moving over your bulbs and around you box at all times. Here's a pic of my new box, and how the doors open! I ended up building this one when the rubbermaid started pissing me off. That's panda film inside

we're going to paint the inside flat white and the outside flat black as soon as we get the paint. thanks for the recommendation on the black paint

as far as the heat/ventilation issue, how does this sound:
two 133.60 CFM 120mm pc fans, one running directly across the lights and another connected directly to the exhaust
link: Newegg.com - Scythe DFS123812-3000 "ULTRA KAZE" 120 x 38 mm Case Fan - Case Fans

the room it's in will be very cool, so i can probably add a 50-60 cfm intake fan. i can also add a rubbermaid freezer cooler thing to bring the temp down another 3-4 degrees. i really hope all of that will be sufficient to keep temps down, i guess worst case scenario i use less lights than i wanted

I'd hook both 130 cfm fans up side by side for exhaust and run a passive intake. I tried having an 88 cfm pc fan running across my lights in addition to my 150 cfm exhaust fan and the problem was that it blew the heat from the lights around my box! Yup, when I took the 88cfm fan out my temps dropped about 2 degrees and stayed there! Ther heat will stay high in the box, the trick is pulling it all out quick, and have a gentler fan blowing softly around the room to gently mix the air and shake the plants. If the room where the box will live is cool, passive intake is all you'll need!

sounds good, i'll set all of that up today.
i really appreciate the help, and especially the clarity of your writing. haha so much of this board is nearly incomprehensible because of their writing style/skills

but anyways, do you think i should stick with 3 plants, or could i squeeze out 4?

i think i'm going to return these tubs and pick up a cabinet on craigslist for the same price. it'll give me like 4 extra feet of vertical height with the same foot print. it'll be a lot easier for me to work with for sure, especially regarding the door thing you mentioned.

thanks for all of the help

Nice. You'll be glad you did. Keep posting as you build!