Watt Electronic Ballast Grow Light
Constructing a grow box
Which is cheaper, buying a hydroponics grow box or constructing your own hydroponics grow box?
If you have spent any time on forums lately, you will notice that quite a few people recommend that beginners should build their own hydroponics grow box machine for their first grow. However what does the beginner or amateur really know about building a hydroponics grow box? When you are about to take on an endeavor of building your own grow box, there are many safety concerns that you really have to think about. Really think about how much you really know about electricity and how to wire it properly. You will be dealing with a very high wattages and a dangerous amount of electricity in close proximity to water. Do you safely know how to work with electricity and high voltages around water? Do you have experience wiring for hydroponics applications. Do you know the difference between live wires and ground wires? Essentially at some point you will actually need a certified electrician to oversee your work in order to make sure that it is safe to run. Not doing so can lead to disastrous consequences that has happened for many poor growers.
Besides being a qualified electrician you really do have to know your stuff about ventilation in keeping your hydroponic grow box running super cool. You will be using very powerful lighting systems to light your hydroponics grow box machine. You can be using 600 Watts or even 1000 W lamps in order to light up your grow box machine. These types of lamps are known to generate an immense amount of heat. Many people talking on the forums will recommend building your hydroponics grow box out of some sort of particleboard or cheap painted wood. This is a really bad idea! Danger! Danger!
I have seen a lot of posts where users will recommend to beginners that they build their hydroponics grow box out of inexpensive cabinets made for clothes and built out of wood furniture found at hardware shops like at Home Depot for instance. Can you imagine how dangerous it is to put high-powered 1000 W lamps inside of a wood closet that I was meant for clothes and is nothing more than particleboard. Not a good material to build a grow box out of. Unless you really know what you're doing. Wood is about the worst possible materials to use when building your own hydroponics grow box. I would really recommend using metal. However metal is much harder to work with. Another reason for buying it from the professionals. A good grow box should be built out of metal for safety and durability. Metal is very difficult to work on and hard to do on your own.
There is no way you can get into bigger trouble than by having your hydroponics grow box catch on fire, can be a problem when built from a wood cabinet from hardware store. Fire is a common amateur mistake which happens more often than you know when you talk about mixing high amounts of electricity and water together in a very small space or enclosed space such as in a wood cabinet. Often to try to save money beginners and those on a budget will not use adequate fans to keep their grow box system running cool. Very powerful fans are in order to keep your grow box running cool because heat will damage your plants. Those fans also have to be set up in a very specific configuration in order for them to work correctly. In order to get a very successful yield you really have to know quite a bit about the ventilation to get the very best plant growth is a grow box and avoid starting a fire in one that you build on your own.
Often members of the forum that suggests building your own hydroponics grow box forgets to mention a lot of stuff that is needed to build a successful grow box machine from scratch. Sometimes you will see post from users on a forum claiming that you can build a grow box for much cheaper than what commercial grow box manufacturers sell their products for. Is that really true? Do we believe everything we read on a forum? How do we know the qualifications of those posting the messages? People like to talk the talk but can hardly walk the walk on forums. Obviously some do know what they they're talking about, but you have to be an expert yourself to know the difference between those qualified and those not qualified to give suggestions on how to build your own grow box. There is a lot of incorrect and misleading information floating around on his forums like wildfire.
These types of comments about building your own hydroponics grow box at such cheap prices is completely ridiculous when a hydroponics manufacturer is purchasing parts for their inventory or purchasing directly from the manufacturers, in most cases in case quantity and getting wholesale lowest-prices which you're not getting! When you're buying one off parts from a hardware store you are paying full markup a very high rate. You are not getting any breaks whatsoever on any of the equipment you buy when you purchase from a hardware store one at a time in small amounts. You are paying a tremendous markup for everything you buy plus you are also paying tax and wasting gas.
Besides there are hundreds of little parts that simply slipped your mind that you will actually need to build their own grow box like junction boxes, lighting systems and reflectors, ballasts and pumps, just to name a few. You will pay top dollar for all of these necessary part. But the expenses really don't stop there. On top of that I'm sure there's a lot of tools they really need to use to build your own hydroponics grow box which you probably don't already own. You will need a variety of types of drills, saws, cutters, and all types of lighting and an electronics like timers to be able to build the proper hydroponics grow box from parts from the hardware store.
Oh and not to mention, besides the tools you'll need all the attachments that go along with these tools which can be very expensive when purchasing from Home Depot or Lowes. Maybe if you're lucky you'll own a few of these tools but certainly not all of them, and certainly not the proper attachments in the proper sizes. So now instead of just buying little parts you're buying all the tools to all the accessories at full retail prices. Will you have a use for all these tools you used on building your hydroponics grow box at a later date? I certainly hope so because they cost you enough money!
Now you've got a whole garage full of parts and you will need to figure out how to put them together from scratch based on sketchy plans found online. Also consider how much is your time worth? This type of project can take quite a while to construct. Sometimes it can take days for simple design two weeks or months or more complicated. Do you really know that your design works? Have you built one of these grow boxes before? How qualified are the people on the forums that are recommending certain configurations of boxes they build. Why is there area of expertise? How many grow boxes have they built and what makes them qualified to give advice on building a grow box? I do not following the guidance of someone with limited or questionable experience who has posted anonymously on a forum? It's really hard to know what the actual qualifications are of someone when you actually know nothing about them. That is why you have to take what you read on the forums with a grain of salt.
Now let's consider purchasing your own hydroponics grow box from a reputable manufacturer that has been building grow box machines for many years and has a lot of experience. Keep in mind that this is a business for the business who is involved in making hydroponics grow boxes every day. Everything they do all day long revolves about around building the best grow boxes they can.
They have done a whole lot in research and development to come up with the current designs they utilize in their products. If you're a professional grow box manufacturers you get a lot of feedback from customers that purchased the machines and the they can make suggestions for improvements on future grow boxes designs. Not to mention professional grow box manufacturers have been manufacturing a product for a while and know their products inside and out. You can naturally see how much a grow box can be improved when you have feedback from hundreds of users of a particular manufactured product. So naturally when you are purchasing from a reputable hydroponics grow box manufacturer you are getting a well-built product from an expert in their industry.
When you take the time to build your own hydroponics grow box there is no guarantee that you're going to get it right the first time. But when you purchase from a reputable hydroponics grow box manufacturer chances are the grow box that you're going will work fairly well just based on the company it came from. You know that it will be safe to handle the amount of light that is used in the grow box because the manufacturers know what types of fans to use to keep the grow box machines running cool and safe.
You know the wiring in that professionally built grow box is going to run safely because the electrical wiring had been done by qualified electrician. When you purchase a grow box versus building your own grow box there'll be no mess. Typical grow box manufacturers will send out their units completely assembled and ready to grow the day you get them. So when you purchase a professionally built hydroponics grow box chances are that it will actually be quite a bit cheaper than building your own when you consider all the money you save on those little tools and all the little parts plus the time all combined together a grow box purchase will cost a lot less money than building your own, and will be guaranteed to work.
It's my opinion that there's little to no advantage to building your own hydroponics grow box unless you are an expert with electrical, metal working, working with wood, and know the science of hydroponics inside and out. Those types of individuals that already use tools and have types of qualification could probably build a really nice grow box on their own. For the rest of us that have little to no experience in the various fields required I was definitely recommend you play it safe and go with the pre-build hydroponics grow box is sure to work and be safe to use.
However if you still want to attempt building one of your own I would suggest taking a look at the video on this hydroponics website. They have some of the best grow boxes that I've ever seen, and their design look rock solid. If you want to attempt to make one on your own make it like these guys have. They really know their stuff. Or better yet think about purchasing one and saving your money. But it's really entirely up to you when you want to do. I just thought I'd throw out some of the common mistakes that newcomers have posted on forums about in the grow boxes gone wrong in the past. Happy growing…
About the Author
James Lindsay Freelance Hydroponics Reporter http://www.homegrown-hydroponics.com
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