PC-case stealth microgrow experiment with lowrider

moved from:http://boards.cannabis.com/closet-ca...-lowrider.html

Hello everyone!

Basically this experiment began with a debate with my friend about possibilities of pc-case stealth grow. My friend said it's a waste of time, I disagreed. So now I kind of have to show him otherwise.

Aim is to grow 1 lowrider and yield at least 20g. Dont know if thats possible, but we'll see. I'm going to build a bubbler into 5l container and use 4-5 20W cfl's at 2700K for lighting. Lowriders take about 8-9 weeks from seed to harvest, so if this works I can basically cover my ~10g/month smoking habit.

Today I went to buy the largest second hand pc-case I could find and came up with this bad boy (picture). Dimensions: W24cm H67cm D53cm. I teared all the computer stuff out of it, and put some mylar in. Now I have a nice empty case.

A lot of stuff still to figure out, for example I have no idea at this point how I'm going to set up the ventilation. Theres going to be a lot of learning with this grow. I have no earlier experience with lowriders so it's going to be interesting.

Hope you all tune in!

4-5 cfl's no ventilation?

PC fans!!!! There's your answer!

:thumbsup:

i may need to make one of these soon so i am interested in how it works for ya
~MG

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MonkeyBone

PC fans!!!! There's your answer!

:thumbsup:

---

ROFLMAO! :S2:

I'm thinking, I've seen computer case grow boxes for sale, and ventilation is a cinch. :D

So Johnny, find a few computer case fans. re-install those back in the case. On the fan's hub should be a sticker with all the info you'll need to buy a transformer. You'll need the voltage and amperage and wattage. Take those to Radio shack and tell them you want to run the number of fans you have on one transformer. Then wire them up yourself. Those little suckers can move a LOT of air too!

I use them for many things, Light cooling on my aquarium, Smoke removal on my solder station, cooling my computer.;)

Good luck, and looks great so far.

Gl johnny! ill be following this thread :! if you can pull it off i might just give it a shot to :jointsmile:

First of all, it's nice to see that this thread is getting some interest :) I've been browsing some other pc-case grow logs and found only few systems that really worked. It seems to be quite a difficult task.

My first thought for the ventilation was pc fans, but it would have needed at least three of them and then the carbon filter would have been almost impossible to build. So now I mounted this 14W fan that's built for bathroom ventilation and it moves air 99m3/h, so thats plenty enough. The pc case of course is made of metal, not wood as my earlier grow closets and it makes the modifying bit difficult in home circumstances.

what are you gonna line the inside with? and how are you gonna hide the filter??
just lil questions..
and how stealth is this gonna be?

~MG a.k.a. le Maine développé

Hey Johnny, where did you get that fan from?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mainegrown

what are you gonna line the inside with? and how are you gonna hide the filter??
just lil questions..
and how stealth is this gonna be?

~MG a.k.a. le Maine développé

---

Well, it's obvious now it's not gonna be 100% stealth, but the case is going to be in a place where you cant see the back of the case unless you crawl under the table to take a look. The filter is going to be under the fan, connected with ventilation hose.

Quote:

---

Hey Johnny, where did you get that fan from?

---

Biltema :thumbsup:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JohnnyRico

Biltema :thumbsup:

---

Aaahh, should have guessed :jointsmile:

Time for a build update. The lamp sockets took two weeks to get here. but finally I got them and they work lime a charm. I also bought the light bulbs, eight total, so now I have up to 160W of lighting power in my case. I mounted the lights and began to make it light proof with mylar and ducktape. For the dwc system I bought this 10l container that is a perfect fit for the case. I should get the air pump and other parts later this week, so the case is almost ready for the grow.

Looking good. Now ditch the foil and paint it flat white in there for some real reflection/diffusion.

very nice man.... i am curiuos how it is going to work out too....

you should put a battery in there hooked up to an LED to make it look like the computer is on ;-)

This actually can scale really well if you think about it... easy to trasport... stackable to save space... each one has it's own vent system....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jakester

Looking good. Now ditch the foil and paint it flat white in there for some real reflection/diffusion.

---

^^^ has a good point, the metal from the pc box is going to hold in alot of heat plus you have added mylar/foil i would suggest the same thing and paint the inside flat white.

Im in for this grow as i have a few PC cases laying around and a few 100w cfls that i can use to make this happen.

:jointsmile:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by uncleweed

you should put a battery in there hooked up to an LED to make it look like the computer is on ;-)

---

Thats my plan :thumbsup: I'm going to hook the hdd and power leds to a battery. Already tried this small flat battery but it didnt work. Don't really know what voltage the leds need. Maybe I could also put there some kind of relay to make the other led blink. :detective1:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jakester View Post
Looking good. Now ditch the foil and paint it flat white in there for some real reflection/diffusion.

^^^ has a good point, the metal from the pc box is going to hold in alot of heat plus you have added mylar/foil i would suggest the same thing and paint the inside flat white.

Im in for this grow as i have a few PC cases laying around and a few 100w cfls that i can use to make this happen.

---

I used to mylar for one big reason, laziness.:) The mylar blogged the trillions of little holes all over the case and made it lightproof without a tons of work. I have to monitor the temperetares and make some changes if needed, but for now I think I'm sticking with it.

As long as you have good airflow I am sure it's fine. I like paint because of the reflective properties. It's much more diffused than silvery stuff and the spectrum from flat white is awesome. It REALLY brightens things up.

I would love to build a little PC grow case just to give it a whirl. It looks like fun.

Just think, if weed gets legalized ever these little grow boxes will be antiques with historic value. I almost want build one with a terrarium in it. It's just so freaking cool to have life contained in a little cell of an environment. Something about it geeks me out.

The pc(personal cultivation)case is getting close to finish. I've build the bubbler and finished with the electrics. I still have to build some kind of water level monitor to the container and a filling hole.

I've been doing some temperature testing also and the temp stayed in steady 25°C. The intake air was 22°C so it's seems to work really fine.

The fan is pretty noisy, manufacturer says the desibel level is 33dB. I don't have a dB meter, so I have to take their word for it. I think I have to build some sound proofing around the fan to make it a bit more quiet.

Hey things are coming together nicely! The geek in me wants one of those as Jakester mentioned as well. Good luck and I await the grow! Cheers

Time for some updates. I finally got the seeds I ordered ~two weeks ago. I bought one set of Joint Doctor's feminized Easy Ryder seeds and one set of feminized Shorth Stuff's Snowryder seeds. Short Stuff was totally new for me, but it looked pretty interesting so decided to try them out. I got momently greedy and curious at the same time, so I'm gonna try to grow two plants in the case, hope they fit :jointsmile:


And for the end maybe a stupid question, but do I feed lowryders as I feed regular plants? How do I know when to change into flowering nutrients? Will I just feed them veg nutrients until I see pistils and then change? Cause there's no change of light cycle to force them into flower, they just start to flower as soon as they are ready...

Hello everyone!

The plants are finally doing their god given job, growing. The seeds took ages to germinate and grew enough root to be planted. I think everything is going to happen lot slower with the lowryders. These plants are going to grow about the same amount in two months as regular cannabis grows in three weeks, so it's kind of slow motion growing :detective1: not good for a person with no patience :S5:

Here's some pics. The seeds got mixed during germination so don't know which strain is which.

All right! :thumbsup:

looking good! i'm very interested and want to try this, it's hydro right?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chillbrah

looking good! i'm very interested and want to try this, it's hydro right?

---

Thanks! Yes it's a hydro system, bubbler to be more specific. So far this project has been tons of fun.

Wow lookin great! :thumbsup:

Question.. what kinda grow system (besides pc) is this called? Just bubbler? Or is this DWC? I'm guessing its just nute solution in the bottom resv. with a airstone?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by aquanaut

Wow lookin great! :thumbsup:

Question.. what kinda grow system (besides pc) is this called? Just bubbler? Or is this DWC? I'm guessing its just nute solution in the bottom resv. with a airstone?

---

Thanks aquanaut. You have quessed right, it is nute solution in reservoir with a air curtain. First I thought I'd just use plain soil, but I'm more experienced with hydro growing. Also it's always a bit messy when using soil, the ph-monitoring is harder and the container might have been too small for root grow.

Cant wait to see how this turns out!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jakester

Looking good. Now ditch the foil and paint it flat white in there for some real reflection/diffusion.

---

This is wrong. Leave the foil in. If white was really such a good reflector, you'd see that in EVERY high-bay HID or T5 reflector.

Metal reflects better no matter what. If you properly applied it, you'll have no heat worries. Also, you don't want diffusion, that reduces photon flux density and thus reduces the effectiveness of the light source. You want pure hard simple reflection.

See my PC case for a proper example. Link in my sig.

^^^^ but in this case it's not the diamond patterned metal that high quality reflectors have, and flat white paint have proven to reflect a good amount of light back.

If it were me I would put poly or flat white paint before putting in foil, but now that I think of it, I don't think he needs any kind of reflectivity because of using CFL's and they work close to the ladies not far away.

Other than that this log I'd looking nice keep up the good work. It inspires me to make a mini grow.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by superskunk1

^^^^ but in this case it's not the diamond patterned metal that high quality reflectors have, and flat white paint have proven to reflect a good amount of light back.

If it were me I would put poly or flat white paint before putting in foil, but now that I think of it, I don't think he needs any kind of reflectivity because of using CFL's and they work close to the ladies not far away.

Other than that this log I'd looking nice keep up the good work. It inspires me to make a mini grow.

---

High quality reflectors don't use any pattern, they're flat for the purest redirection of light without losing photon flux. All those bumps and dimples other reflectors have actually reduce performance - get yourself an incident meter and test the same bulb+ballast in multiple fixtures - you'll find the flat reflectors to always be superior.