McToker's 1st Grow with CFL

The new fan and filter arrived. I guess I wasn't quite prepared for the size of the filter but it is supposed to be matched to the fan. We ended up running some 4 inch flex duct out of the top of the Homebox to the fan which is connected directly to the filter. We figured we may as well make sure it would work with the fan blowing through the filter as we'll have to run it that way when we upgrade to an air cooled light just because of limited space inside the tent.

It just amazed us that a 4 inch fan can make the sides of the tent suck in. Temp dropped from 83.7 to 81.1 as soon as we turned the fan on. I'm guessing it will go still lower.

The girls are doing well. The older one is starting to show nice trichromes on the trim leaves.;)

All systems are GO!!!:D

They look beautiful, McToker. Very impressive indeed!
Grow on, my friend. :D

yah the do look very beautiful.

Thanks dooobster and hydroC. The wife and I are very happy with the progress. The anticipation gets worse every day.

Hey McToker... I've been following along silently. Doing a great job over there :thumbsup:

How are you digging the Homebox? I've been looking into the Homebox XS just for something tiny. I haven't heard anything bad about them other than they are more expensive than some other brands. I did hear that they are completely lightproof, except for the Homebox Lite. How is the quality? Zippers, frame, etc...

Keep it up :hippy:

Thanks TM1. I'm sold on the Homebox. Quality is top notch. It went together easily and all seems well made. The frame is metal poles that went together properly and heavy duty plastic corners to connect the poles. The cross bars that hook over the top of the frame will support 100 pounds. We opted to put the new filter and fan outside the tent because our Frankenstein CFL light fixture takes up so much room already. The new filter turned out to a tad bit bigger than I was expecting (12 inch diameter and 14 inches long) but it sure is doing a good job. With 16 pounds of carbon, it had better.;)

We had some light leak issues along the seams that we addressed in a separate thread. Turned out we just hadn't tucked the sewn in flaps behind the frame bars. Doh.:i feel stupid: Live and learn.;) We're going to build a stealth room (closet) in the shop and plan to get a second Homebox, probably a bigger one. We'll use one for vegging and/or a mother plant and the other (hopefully larger) for flowering.

Really wasn't that expensive, about $139 from buy-a-homebox. Since then I've seen them on a few websites in the $120's for the Homebox S, which is what we have. When not in use, it can easily be taken apart and stashed under a bed or wherever you please. Between grows we plan to just take some Clorox wipes and wipe down the inside.

I guess you could say we're quite happy with it.

You... my friend.... have just sold me on a Homebox :jointsmile:

I have a wooden cab made out of an old... well I don't actually know what it was, but it is working perfectly for practice. I'm just really low on head room. Although, I think I may be breaking a record for least amount of height for a flowering plant. The box is about 2 feet tall. The lights hang down about 8" and the pots come up about 10". This leaves me very little room, but it can actually flower 3-4 heavily LST'd plants with CFL. The thought of getting a Homebox with about 4 feet in height... is like taking a deeeep breath of fresh air. I was just wondering about the quality, but you and a few hundred other people I have read about.... LOVE IT! Thanks for the input.

Keep up the good work :hippy:

TM1 ~ We're certainly happy with ours; happy enough to consider a second one. Anbesol has the size (XS) that you are talking about and IIRC he was talking about getting a second (larger) one as well. We googled it and searched on the forum to read as many opinions as we could beforehand and found no negatives. It sounds like you've done the same. Even Miss Stinkyattic was impressed with it when she helped assemble one at her local grow shop.

And...... yes..... I have the capability to build a cabinet or 2x4 and panda tent but I kinda figure, why re-invent the wheel.

Good luck!

If you have problems keeping your humidity up I would recommend a wooden cabinet.

I built one at home that is pretty nice. As a side effect I found that the wood would absorb moisture in the air over time. Eventually it got to where it was able to bump up my humidity by close to 10%.. which was very beneficial to me as I was having a hard time to keep humidity up past 30%. Now with my plants fully watered I can get up to 50% humidity without going through tons and tons of effort.

I don't even live in a dry climate but I live in a climate that requires lots of A/c and that seems to kill humidity in the house.

The wooden cabinet was a nice fix for me and saved me the hassle of having to put a humidifier in the same room as the plants.

I have scrap materials to build a 6ftx4ft cabinet. I'll probably be doing so once I move in the next few weeks.

:hippy: