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I'm going to make a basic square cabinet.
- 600w HPS hanging from the top.
- temperature activated fan to cool
- Black & White poly on all the surfaces.
- 6" square pots (each 1 gallon) with soil
- standard grow nutrient, but no co2.
How big should the cabinet be?
thanks.
I'd say you'd need a MIGHTY BIG CABINET, more like a large closet or small room, otherwise you probably don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of keeping your plants within acceptable temperatures. Think more room and also get yourself some bigger pots for later.
I've seen suggestions between 3x3' -> 4x4' for a 600w HPS. So I will probably make it 3x4' (so i can actually reach in far enough)
For height, 6' tall... 8" for the pots, 32" for the plants, 12" for the lamp, and 20" headroom.
The smaller the cabinet, the more difficult it becomes to vent heat out.
I would highly recommend an air cooled reflector or cool tube for your light. You will need it in a small cab, in addition to the regular vent fan.
For a smaller cab, I would also suggest going with a scrog or sog method of growing. Otherwise, the lower parts of your plants will see very little of the light because of lack of penetration. You will have small airy buds on the bottom, where as with scrog or sog, you can get great harvests with no waste on airy buds.
i have a closet 2m x 1m with a 600w hps
i got 1 fan at the bottom of the cabbinet blowing air in --> 100ø m
and i got 1 fan blowing air out thru the filter --> 125ø m
it worked and works pretty well actully, i did 6x blueberry in with the 600w hps.. at really hot days i had some problems ye.. got up to 30-32C but it didnt really hurt the plants much.. but again, that was only on rly hot summer days ya ;)
thanks for the feedback guys, i'm going to scale it back and run 2'x2' w/ 250w HPS. This will make heat control a lot simpler, although i have plenty of space outside the cabinet to set up fans etc.
Also i intend to grow 9 inside, in a 3x3 grid. Using 6"x6" pots this will give me about 3" of space around the perimeter.