THIS POST IS PROPERTY OF ANONYMOUSGROWER, NOT mrnelsen!
I would like to apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this post and the poor quality of the guide (its my first one)
Alright guys, here it is, the PC Grow Case
1.Selecting a case
2.Cleaning up the inside of the case (removing rivets, making space, etc…
3.Furnishing the inside of the case (mylar, insulation, etc…
4.Lighting (getting your CFLs rigged in the case)
5.Ventilation (setting up case fans with dc adapters and such)
6.Odor control
7.Some extra tips
8.Pictures of a finished case
Well, I believe that’s it… let’s get started!
guide from hell… I may not cover everything in this post, but I am hoping that I will be able to get through just about as much as anyone will ever need. To start off, here is a list of things that this guide is going to be going over: Ok, this is probably the most crucial part when making your PC Grow Case because it will determine not only how many plants you can have at one time, but how large your plants will be able to get.
To start off, you are going to want a case with a decent amount of ventilation (in other words, at least 2 places you can put fans for either exhaust or intake). The more ventilation the better! Your plants are going to need lots of air exchange and also a good deal of cooling when you have the lights on! Secondly, you will want large dimensions (size). The primary dimensions you will want to be looking at are height and length (more height than length). A good grow case will have height and width dimensions of about 19+ inches (for example, 20 x 20 is a great size). As for the width of the case, there isn’t really much deviation between specific cases so you don’t have to worry about it a whole lot; but for the sake of this being a guide, typically a good width runs anywhere between 8-9 inches (remember, bigger is always better!) Alright, well that just about covers selecting a case, BUT ALSO TAKE NOTE *** although this may seem self explanatory, DON’T get a case with any see through panels, this will compromise almost ALL stealth and it will also disrupt night cycles for your plants! ***
*When you are finding cases you will want to be looking Full Towers
This is by far the most annoying step you will have to go through. Basically you are going to have to take EVERYTHING inside of the case out. Now you may realize that there are these little silver bolt things that don’t even have screw notches on them, these are called rivets. DON’T WORRY, you CAN get rid of these little fuckers. To remove rivets, you will need a drill and an 1/8” drill bit. Simply drill into the the rivet with your 1/8” drill bit. You should be drilling into the side that looks like this…
And shazam, rivet removed. There will also be screws that you will have to deal with, I’m sure you can figure most of this part out, but anyways, get all the shit out of your case. It should look something like this when you are done… (picture by nathan76296)
Also make sure you get rid of all the cords that aren’t fan cords. You can just clip them with a wire cutters.
Alright, it’s time to start renovating this bitch. Materials you will need are hot glue, duct tape, * cement glue – optional *, cardboard (the best place to get the cardboard is the box from the case you ordered), reflective surfacing (mylar essentially), and a scissors. Any standard department store, namely walmart, will have everything you need, EXCEPT the reflective surfacing. To get some nice reflective surfacing, go to any autozone and pick up one or two of those car windshield sun reflectors, they work like a charm and are generally pretty cheap. If you don’t want to use the sun reflector, you can pick up mylar sheeting at any hydroponics store. Now, that you have everything it’s time to get to work.
Step 1: Cover the inside of the two side panels, the ceiling, and the floor with whatever reflective material you got.
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FOR LEGITIMATE MYLAR ONLY – Cut out a piece of cardboard that fits the inside of your side panels (if need be you can cut out multiple cardboard squares if you don’t have a big enough piece of whole cardboard). When you do this make sure that you cut them right so you don’t obstruct anything that will prevent the side panel from being placed back on the case. Next, hot glue or cement glue the mylar to the cardboard. Cement glue is preferred because it will stick better and last longer. Now just hot glue the entire mylared carboard to the inside of the side panels and presto, you got some nice reflective side panels. Do the same to the ceiling and floor of the case.
__________________________________
FOR WINDSHIELD SUN REFLECTOR ONLY – Since this typically has a nice foamy material on the back, there will be no need for cardboard. Simply cut out a piece of reflector to fit the inside of your side panel and hot glue it down. The hot glue is perfect for this because it sticks like no other to the foam side. When you do this make sure that you cut them right so you don’t obstruct anything that will prevent the side panel from being placed back on the case. Do the same to the ceiling and floor of the case.
Step 2: Cover the rest of the case with whatever reflective material you got.
The first thing you will want to do is cut out small pieces of cardboard that will fit over specific areas of your case. For example take a look at this picture, you should cut out a separate piece for every area boxed in red…
The blue square is also a piece of cardboard but for this one just make sure you cut a nice little corner off so you can stick your cords through the back of the case. Notice the fan hole doesn’t have cardboard over it! That’s because you don’t want to cover up ventilation areas. After you get the pieces of cardboard cut out glue your reflective material to them so that one side is reflective and the other isn’t. Now all you have to do is glue them to your case like pieces of a puzzle and boom your done. Make sure you do this to the front part of the inside too, not just the back.
Here is a picture of what your case should like like when you are done. (ignore the fans and lighting)
Lighting is pretty simple, all you need is a power strip, wall socket to light converters, heavy Velcro stick on pads, a light timer, and four 26W CFLs (or whatever wattage you wanna use, I wouldn’t go under 26W). You can pick up all this shit at walmart as usual, but incase you havn’t got a clue what some of it is here are some pictures… (in order – power strip, socket adapter, and velcro stick ons, and cfls)
After you get everything, it is a pretty easy step by step process. Firstly, measure out a rectangular hole on the panel that you aren’t ever going to remove from the case (the right panel if looking at the case from the front). Best way to do this is to hold the power strip up to the spot and sharpy the shape into the reflective material on the panel. Next cut out the area you marked on the panel and cover it with half of your Velcro stick ons. Next cover your power strip with the rest of your Velcro stick ons and apply the power strip to the side panel. After your done with that take the power strip cord and stick out the hole you were supposed to make in the cardboard near the top of the case. Pretty simple huh? The lights are a no brainer to get on the power strip, just don’t put them in for now so the rest of the case can be constructed easier (the fourth CFL usually doesn’t fit in very well, just jam it in as best as you can. If you are afraid of it falling you can just exclude it from your setup).
Here is some pictures of a fully functional light setup.
Ventilation is essential for a good grow box, so you need to get this right. Firstly figure out what fans you need. Your case will need AT LEAST 2 fans, one for exhaust and one for intake. Typically, the fans that come with any case are usually very poor quality and offer minimal airflow, so I advise that you replace these fans, although this is not necessary if you don’t want to spend the extra cash, this will GREATLY improve temperature control and air replacement. The only thing you’re really looking for when you’re selecting your fans is the CFM rating (Cubic feet per minute). The higher the CFM rating the better. A good CFM rating would be anything 90+. Another thing you want to make sure you look at is the size of the fan, you have to be sure that the size of your fan correctly matches the size of the fan holes in the case you selected. For example, if your case has 2 120mm fan holes, you want to buy 2 120mm fans, however, if your case has 1 90mm fan hole and 1 120mm fan hole you will need to buy 1 90mm fan and 1 120mm fan. It is as simple as following instructions really, just make sure you get it right so you don’t have to return your fans and make a big hassle out of it. One thing I have learned when buying fans however is that you don’t want an extremely high CFM intake fan because the wind can possibly damage your plants.
After you get your fans, we need to buy DC adapters that have the correct voltage and amperage for your fans. Your fans are ALWAYS going to be running at 12v, but fans often differ in the amps they use. Generally fans will run at 12v and 300ma (300 milliamps = .3A) but they can get up to 600ma or higher even. Don’t be afraid to buy a DC Adapter with a higher amperage than what your fan runs at, just don’t go over 1A, and more importantly don’t buy an adapter with less amperage than what your fan runs at because it probably isn’t even going to power the fan. You can buy DC adapters at any radio shack, but amazon.com easily has the best prices and choices, I highly recommend ordering from amazon and using radio shack only as a last resort.
If you don’t have the time or money to buy special DC adapters, any old phone charger will usually work.
Now that you got your fans and adapters picked out you need to get them wired up and running. First and foremost, you need to cut the fan wires so you have some nice clean ends to work with. Here is a picture of before and after the wire cut…
Now that you got the ends cut, we are going to be worrying ONLY about the red and black wires. Strip the ends of the two wires so that the metal wires are exposed. At this point you should secure your fans into your case which I am sure I don’t need to tell you how to do. (but if you really don’t know just screw the fan into the screw holes on the case, your fan should have come with some screws) After your fan is secured, run the end of the DC adapter through the back of the case where your cut cardboard is so that the adapter box (part that you plug into the wall) is outside of the case and the adapter end is inside of the case. Now it’s time to connect your fans to the DC adapters. All you need to do is place the red wire into the hole part of the adapter end and wrap the black wire around the outside of the adapter end. Here is a picture explaining what I mean…
Now just secure the wires with a bit of electrical tape and you are ready to go. Heres you’re your finished product should roughly look like.
Plug in the fan and make sure that it works. If it doesn’t you may need to adjust the wire connections from the fan to the adapter to make sure they are well connected. If your fan still doesn’t work you may have placed wires into the wrong spots, make sure the red is INSIDE and that the BLACK is on the outside.
We are just about done here, but the last thing you need to make sure you have is something to control the odor of your plants. What you will need for this is an ONA odor block.
You can place it anywhere inside of the case that it fits. For example, mine is right here in the middle like this…
It doesn’t last forever so only start using it once your plant starts to smell. Also to make it last longer you can make holes in the top instead of taking off the entire top. Something like this will do just fine…
Not much to say here, just a few tips.
1.Sometimes people will want to get their lights as close to their plants as possible, an easy way to do this is to just raise your plants with some simple books like these...
2.A good way to keep tabs on your temperatures is to grab a simple thermometer, or even better a digital thermometer so you don’t have to go opening your case all the time.
3.If your case is getting a little hot, something I have done is place a jar full of ice (and a little water) by one of the fans. It really does work believe it or not.
I would like to apologize in advance for the lengthiness of this post and the poor quality of the guide (its my first one)
Alright guys, here it is, the PC Grow Case
1.Selecting a case
2.Cleaning up the inside of the case (removing rivets, making space, etc…
3.Furnishing the inside of the case (mylar, insulation, etc…
4.Lighting (getting your CFLs rigged in the case)
5.Ventilation (setting up case fans with dc adapters and such)
6.Odor control
7.Some extra tips
8.Pictures of a finished case
Well, I believe that’s it… let’s get started!
guide from hell… I may not cover everything in this post, but I am hoping that I will be able to get through just about as much as anyone will ever need. To start off, here is a list of things that this guide is going to be going over:
SELECTING YOUR CASE
To start off, you are going to want a case with a decent amount of ventilation (in other words, at least 2 places you can put fans for either exhaust or intake). The more ventilation the better! Your plants are going to need lots of air exchange and also a good deal of cooling when you have the lights on! Secondly, you will want large dimensions (size). The primary dimensions you will want to be looking at are height and length (more height than length). A good grow case will have height and width dimensions of about 19+ inches (for example, 20 x 20 is a great size). As for the width of the case, there isn’t really much deviation between specific cases so you don’t have to worry about it a whole lot; but for the sake of this being a guide, typically a good width runs anywhere between 8-9 inches (remember, bigger is always better!) Alright, well that just about covers selecting a case, BUT ALSO TAKE NOTE *** although this may seem self explanatory, DON’T get a case with any see through panels, this will compromise almost ALL stealth and it will also disrupt night cycles for your plants! ***
*When you are finding cases you will want to be looking Full Towers
CLEANING UP YOUR CASE
And shazam, rivet removed. There will also be screws that you will have to deal with, I’m sure you can figure most of this part out, but anyways, get all the shit out of your case. It should look something like this when you are done… (picture by nathan76296)
Also make sure you get rid of all the cords that aren’t fan cords. You can just clip them with a wire cutters.
FURNISHING YOUR CASE
Step 1: Cover the inside of the two side panels, the ceiling, and the floor with whatever reflective material you got.
_______________________________
FOR LEGITIMATE MYLAR ONLY – Cut out a piece of cardboard that fits the inside of your side panels (if need be you can cut out multiple cardboard squares if you don’t have a big enough piece of whole cardboard). When you do this make sure that you cut them right so you don’t obstruct anything that will prevent the side panel from being placed back on the case. Next, hot glue or cement glue the mylar to the cardboard. Cement glue is preferred because it will stick better and last longer. Now just hot glue the entire mylared carboard to the inside of the side panels and presto, you got some nice reflective side panels. Do the same to the ceiling and floor of the case.
__________________________________
FOR WINDSHIELD SUN REFLECTOR ONLY – Since this typically has a nice foamy material on the back, there will be no need for cardboard. Simply cut out a piece of reflector to fit the inside of your side panel and hot glue it down. The hot glue is perfect for this because it sticks like no other to the foam side. When you do this make sure that you cut them right so you don’t obstruct anything that will prevent the side panel from being placed back on the case. Do the same to the ceiling and floor of the case.
Step 2: Cover the rest of the case with whatever reflective material you got.
The first thing you will want to do is cut out small pieces of cardboard that will fit over specific areas of your case. For example take a look at this picture, you should cut out a separate piece for every area boxed in red…
The blue square is also a piece of cardboard but for this one just make sure you cut a nice little corner off so you can stick your cords through the back of the case. Notice the fan hole doesn’t have cardboard over it! That’s because you don’t want to cover up ventilation areas. After you get the pieces of cardboard cut out glue your reflective material to them so that one side is reflective and the other isn’t. Now all you have to do is glue them to your case like pieces of a puzzle and boom your done. Make sure you do this to the front part of the inside too, not just the back.
Here is a picture of what your case should like like when you are done. (ignore the fans and lighting)
LIGHTING
After you get everything, it is a pretty easy step by step process. Firstly, measure out a rectangular hole on the panel that you aren’t ever going to remove from the case (the right panel if looking at the case from the front). Best way to do this is to hold the power strip up to the spot and sharpy the shape into the reflective material on the panel. Next cut out the area you marked on the panel and cover it with half of your Velcro stick ons. Next cover your power strip with the rest of your Velcro stick ons and apply the power strip to the side panel. After your done with that take the power strip cord and stick out the hole you were supposed to make in the cardboard near the top of the case. Pretty simple huh? The lights are a no brainer to get on the power strip, just don’t put them in for now so the rest of the case can be constructed easier (the fourth CFL usually doesn’t fit in very well, just jam it in as best as you can. If you are afraid of it falling you can just exclude it from your setup).
Here is some pictures of a fully functional light setup.
VENTELATION
After you get your fans, we need to buy DC adapters that have the correct voltage and amperage for your fans. Your fans are ALWAYS going to be running at 12v, but fans often differ in the amps they use. Generally fans will run at 12v and 300ma (300 milliamps = .3A) but they can get up to 600ma or higher even. Don’t be afraid to buy a DC Adapter with a higher amperage than what your fan runs at, just don’t go over 1A, and more importantly don’t buy an adapter with less amperage than what your fan runs at because it probably isn’t even going to power the fan. You can buy DC adapters at any radio shack, but amazon.com easily has the best prices and choices, I highly recommend ordering from amazon and using radio shack only as a last resort.
If you don’t have the time or money to buy special DC adapters, any old phone charger will usually work.
Now that you got your fans and adapters picked out you need to get them wired up and running. First and foremost, you need to cut the fan wires so you have some nice clean ends to work with. Here is a picture of before and after the wire cut…
Now that you got the ends cut, we are going to be worrying ONLY about the red and black wires. Strip the ends of the two wires so that the metal wires are exposed. At this point you should secure your fans into your case which I am sure I don’t need to tell you how to do. (but if you really don’t know just screw the fan into the screw holes on the case, your fan should have come with some screws) After your fan is secured, run the end of the DC adapter through the back of the case where your cut cardboard is so that the adapter box (part that you plug into the wall) is outside of the case and the adapter end is inside of the case. Now it’s time to connect your fans to the DC adapters. All you need to do is place the red wire into the hole part of the adapter end and wrap the black wire around the outside of the adapter end. Here is a picture explaining what I mean…
Now just secure the wires with a bit of electrical tape and you are ready to go. Heres you’re your finished product should roughly look like.
Plug in the fan and make sure that it works. If it doesn’t you may need to adjust the wire connections from the fan to the adapter to make sure they are well connected. If your fan still doesn’t work you may have placed wires into the wrong spots, make sure the red is INSIDE and that the BLACK is on the outside.
ODOR CONTROL
You can place it anywhere inside of the case that it fits. For example, mine is right here in the middle like this…
It doesn’t last forever so only start using it once your plant starts to smell. Also to make it last longer you can make holes in the top instead of taking off the entire top. Something like this will do just fine…
SOME QUICK TIPS
1.Sometimes people will want to get their lights as close to their plants as possible, an easy way to do this is to just raise your plants with some simple books like these...
2.A good way to keep tabs on your temperatures is to grab a simple thermometer, or even better a digital thermometer so you don’t have to go opening your case all the time.
3.If your case is getting a little hot, something I have done is place a jar full of ice (and a little water) by one of the fans. It really does work believe it or not.
PICTURES OF A FINISHED CASE
