Narrowing down my prep for the new Canadian regs which allow 4 plants to be grown at home.
My current intent is for a 9-12 sq. ft. grow room. I want to go with LED lighting, and am considering 2x450 watt (~200 at the plug) Viparspectra, or alternately the 400 watt Vero 29 Timber kit. The guy I talked to at Timber seemed to think that the kit will work well for both veg and flowering. The cost of the kit will end up 1.5x that of the Viparspectras. Suggestions/experience welcome.
I plan to vent the room into the inside of the house via a 6" carbon filter. I have a Can-Fan s600 6" duct fan rated at 270CFM at 0"wg, and 111CFM at 1"wg. Is this going to work to control odor? How long do the carbon filters last?
Venting to the outside of the house and/or getting air directly from outside will not be doable during the winter temperatures I will be dealing with, so I need to keep the entire thing internal to the house, and the better half will be unhappy if the house stinks.
Everything sounds on point. I vent my tent into the house during winter also, saves electric. Go with the Vero lights. Look for a color temperature 3100k. That’s good for both vegg and flower. Those diy led lights are killing it. Way better than Amazon lights, although viparspectra are one of the best of the Amazon lighting
Paging @dbrn32 (yeah, what a shock) for info on what could be done for the same sort of price as the Vipars or Timber kit…
Personally, if you want something pre-made or in kit form then spend the extra, in the long term you’ll be thankful, but I’m sure there will be a solution that is somewhere in between regarding cost which will give you the same efficiency, especially if you can DIY.
Need to ask @dbrn32 about the lighting. 9x12 seems huge for that little lighting, and I’m sure he can help out.
As far as venting, if you can get the duct to the attic you have the option to either leave it there, or if it becomes an issue you can further ventilate the attic itself, or pipe it outside through either the eave-vents or a roof vent.
Venting TO the outside shouldn’t be a problem for temperature like sucking FROM outside would. The only issue would be from the ducting itself if the vent is off. That could be insulated if needed. Here is how I rigged mine. I added a rigid elbow to connect the hose, and used up an old tube of caulk around the hose in the attic.
A light from timber will knock 2 of those vipars right on their butt. In my opinion, you’d need to kind of decide whether you’re gonna be at 9 square feet or 12 square feet. For 9 square feet one of their 6 cob 300 watt models would be more than enough. You’d want a little more light if you go bigger though.
I use to say a handful of us have been building custom leds, but that number has grown quite a bit. It’s not really difficult to do if you have some mechanical and/or electrical inclination. You could build a light using exact components that timber uses, and make it fit whatever space you want for about 25-50% less.
I’m not as familiar with best place to get components north of the border, but I’m willing to bet @Blasting can help there if you’re interested. Otherwise shipping and import duties will eat up a lot of your savings.
Hey, thanks for tagging me. I have been doing alot of shopping DIY wise lately, and can help you out there for parts.
first off, digikey.ca has good prices on Vero chips and has them all from vero 10 to vero 29.
I ordered my first set of cobs from Future Electronics, wich had good price and low shipping cost. (Digikey offers free shipping on orders over 100$ If i remember correctly)
My tought is if you are handy just a little, try and shop a little bit (I believe you have time until october ) and make the fixture yourself, You can get Vero 18’s chips for 10 to 14$ depending on model, half the price of the Vero 29 version, they may output a little less but they sure will be better then Vipar’s.
You can tag me anytime if you need any help and will do my best to help a fellow canadian If not @dbrn32 will surely answer anything I can’t
Hi and thanks for the replies everyone. Whodat66, the grow space will be 9 to 12 square feet, not 9x12, so I think the light power is ok.
I can’t vent outside the house envelope, including the attic, because the suction developed inside the house will cause our fireplace to misbehave. And, I can’t deal with the suction issue by supplying the air from outside because it might be -25C. The suction also has the potential to cause operational or safety issues with the gas furnace, This is an issue that I discovered the hard way when I force vented my workshop when building some kayaks down there. When the fans were sucking, the fireplace smokes. My dearest was not amused,
dbrn32 and blasting, thanks for the info on lights. I figured the veros were better, but how to explain the price to my dearest? I am good with electrics and mechanics, so maybe the component route would work well. I will have a look at digikey. Where do you get this stuff in the US? I am down there twice a year and could have it sent to my sister in law’s place to pick up when I am visiting.
Sounds like you might be in the Great White North eh’ ? Sounds like your issues are not ability related, but “keeping yourself off the couch” related.
Do you have a crawl-space or basement? If you do, consider sucking from the outside but through a lengthy flex-hose or insulated duct that is run through a joist-space. A 6" “flex-duct” would help with the temp control, depending on the length of duct you could run thorough your heated house. The same for the exhaust. If you could pipe it into the attic (or beyond) the only thing that could result pressure-wise should be an over-pressure in the house that forces the fire-place smoke out through the chimney.
Another oddball idea would be to have a completely closed system. Find a neutral space that you can suck from and vent to (attic, basement, crawl space) and run your duct to and from that space. You could then have a vent (dampered) in that space to the outside air.
Great white north indeed. And I will be staying here - the skiing is great, gardening challenges be damned.
Anyway thanks very much for your ideas, they will all go into the mill. If it seems that the inside system can be made to work more or less smell free, I will try that. If it just doesn’t deal with the odor, I may have to pursue other options including your “long duct” solution. Aluminum dryer duct is cheap, so I could use quite a length of it to allow incoming air air to warm up. We shall see.
I have decided to build my own cob setup. The various bits total to ~420US for a nice 480 watt system, at about $.85/watt, vs. $1.30/watt for the 400 watt Timber unit. This is for 4 Vero 29 gen 7 COBs with all the bits, and two Mean Well 250 watt dimmable drivers. Entertaining stuff figuring out what will work - I knew not a damn thing about LED setups before now. Thanks to the crew here for putting me on to the idea. It will be entertaining to see the grow results.
I found out to my delight that one of our local garden supply places stocks the Flora series of nutrients, and they stay open all year. One less thing to ship from somewhere else. Now if I could just find coco coir and fabric pots - but no luck there, Amazon will have to do.
) and make the fixture yourself, You can get Vero 18’s chips for 10 to 14$ depending on model, half the price of the Vero 29 version, they may output a little less but they sure will be better then Vipar’s.
If not