Experiment in LED lighting. Stealth grow chamber

Hey wonderful people. Long time lurker/learner first time posting. Thank you for the abundance of information on this site. I had an idea to use led strip lighting as an LED source. I purchased a 10 meter 24v 72 watt LED strip light from ebay. I believe it is 6000k super bright white.

The chamber is from a stainless steel shop vac that bit the dust. (pun intended) The inside diameter is 13.75 inches so almost exactly 1 square foot. It was a little tedious to wrap it on the inside as I had to unwrap the whole strip and re-wrap it around the spool so I didn't end up with a tangled mess as I adhered it to the inside. The sides get a little warm (maybe 120F) and dissipates most of the heat. There is an intake hole at the bottom and I'm using a pizza pan for a lid. Many improvements to be made but I think the idea is sound.



I purchased a small 24v muffin fan to aid in cooling. So far the temps stay at a constant 78F. Its a little noisy so I think I'll find something else in the future. I germinated a couple seeds and so far so good.

The power supply is an industrial 5 amp unit that I had laying around. It creates a little heat so removing it from the chamber should drop the temp a little if needed.



Plants have been topped and will be lst'd to try and keep the height down.

cannimatos said:

Hey wonderful people. Long time lurker/learner first time posting. Thank you for the abundance of information on this site. I had an idea to use led strip lighting as an LED source. I purchased a 10 meter 24v 72 watt LED strip light from ebay. I believe it is 6000k super bright white.
View attachment 3783010
The chamber is from a stainless steel shop vac that bit the dust. (pun intended) The inside diameter is 13.75 inches so almost exactly 1 square foot. It was a little tedious to wrap it on the inside as I had to unwrap the whole strip and re-wrap it around the spool so I didn't end up with a tangled mess as I adhered it to the inside. The sides get a little warm (maybe 120F) and dissipates most of the heat. There is an intake hole at the bottom and I'm using a pizza pan for a lid. Many improvements to be made but I think the idea is sound.

View attachment 3783007

I purchased a small 24v muffin fan to aid in cooling. So far the temps stay at a constant 78F. Its a little noisy so I think I'll find something else in the future. I germinated a couple seeds and so far so good.
View attachment 3783009
The power supply is an industrial 5 amp unit that I had laying around. It creates a little heat so removing it from the chamber should drop the temp a little if needed.
View attachment 3783012


Plants have been topped and will be lst'd to try and keep the height down.
View attachment 3783018

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Neat idea, but you better get training them down low asap because they're going to outgrow that space real quick. And if you do plan on flowering, 6000K isn't really you're ideal CCT. More like 2500-3500... so you might wanna buy another one in that color temperature to switch over to using the same driver when you flower.

Cool creative idea @cannimatos.

Uniformity in action.

Aaaand some experiments are exercises in futility. Balls, lots of tiny balls. Both plants are males. Unfortunately acquiring good seeds is not that easy for me. These seeds came from an outdoor grow I had last year and those seeds came from bag seed. Maybe crossed with wild hemp? Who knows. They were already getting quite stinky.



Anyway. Now they are both in the belly of a goat. Time to find some better genetics.

I should have mentioned that I had these on 12/12 from the get go.

Happens. Goat benefited though. Good for roughage.

I popped a couple more seeds.


I also got a case of these expired respirator canisters. They are unused but past the use by use by date. They are packed full of activated carbon.





I think I might make a manifold and join a couple of these together.

cannimatos said:

I popped a couple more seeds.
View attachment 3793332

I also got a case of these expired respirator canisters. They are unused but past the use by use by date. They are packed full of activated carbon.

View attachment 3793339


View attachment 3793337
I think I might make a manifold and join a couple of these together.

Click to expand...

Thats is pretty neat. I wonder what you are getting for PAR measurements in there.

PhotonFUD said:

Thats is pretty neat. I wonder what you are getting for PAR measurements in there.

Click to expand...

I'm curious as well. Wish I had a PAR meter.