As medicinal and recreational use of cannabis becomes more widely accepted, many cannabis users are choosing to grow their own. For those who can grow outside this is easy enough, but if your only option is to grow indoor, setting up a grow room can seem a complicated and expensive undertaking. I am going to show you how to build your own mini grow room for under $100. This grow cabinet can be assembled in minutes from common items you can discreetly purchase online and at your local walmart. This $100 grow cabinet is perfect for those who want to grow for personal use and have limited space or a limited budget. You won’t be growing monster plants or harvesting tons of marijuana, but if used correctly, you can harvest enough for personal use and have fresh high quality herb every few months. At Marijuana Growers Headquarters you usually see us going big. I’m not going to say don’t try that at home, but here are some real advantages to keeping it small. I designed this small cabinet grow room for making feminized seeds from my favorite mothers but the design worked so well I had to share it.

For those wanting a simple, affordable and effective mini indoor grow room I can’t think up an easier solution. I wanted a grow cabinet that could be easily moved, easily cleaned and because I’m hard on things, durable. I found a plastic Sterilite 2 Shelf Storage Cabinet at Walmart for $44 that fit all of my needs. It was inexpensive, light weight, strong, and easy to assemble. The plastic was soft enough that I could use a pocket knife to cut holes where needed. I wouldn’t have to worry about water damaging the cabinet if I over watered or got a little out of control while foliar feeding the plants. Plastic is also less likely to grow mold and can be easily sterilized with a little bleach and water in a spray bottle. The cabinet I chose measures 35-¾” tall, 19” deep and 25-¾” wide. It just snaps together and requires no tools to assemble. I used one of the shelves to mount my light and still have space to store some tools at nutrients. The seconds shelf was not needed so it went in the garage with my other treasures.

I have seen growers use multiple household compact fluorescent lights in grow cabinets but combining multiple outlets and all those tangled cords seemed like a nuisance. I have been eyeballing those big CFL’s at the growshops for some time and this was my excuse to try one. friedrich hvac unitsI purchased my 125 watt CFL from a nearby grow shop but you can buy them on amazon just as easily. jeep yj ac blowerThese lights require a Mogul Socket and won’t fit in a normal lamp. 1998 honda civic ac compressor beltMost mogul sockets are made to hook up to a ballast but I was able to  find them online already wired with a 120 volt plug. I cut a hole in the top shelf just big enough for the socket of the light to fit through. I then set the shelf at the highest possible position so the plants would have as much room as possible to grow.

I cut a hole in the side of the cabinet above the self to run the cord through. If I was a bit smarter I could have done this before wiring the plug and made a much smaller hole. I plugged the cord into a inexpensive but reliable timer and this little grow cabinet had light. Even though CLF’s run pretty cool they do produce enough heat that a small space can get warm pretty quick. In addition to controlling heat, a little airflow is always required to replenish depleted CO2 levels. I wanted my airflow to be quiet, reliable and affordable . This 120mm computer fan I found on amazon delivers on all counts. With a pocket knife I cut a hole in the wall of the cabinet a little smaller than the fan. I drilled some small holes with a cordless drill and bolted the fan to the inside of the cabinet. Because the computer fan is 12 volt, I had to find  AC to DC adapter that would work with the fan plug. Once complete, I plugged it in and my little grow room had ventilation. I live in an area where it is usually on the warm side so I leave the fan on 24/7.

So there we have it, a grow room with light and ventilation in about an hour of assembly time. Lets add it all up and see where we stand. 125 Watt CLF $24.99 By the skin of my teeth as usual, but a perfectly functional grow cabinet for under $100. If I can build it, so can you. Go get some clones or seeds and get to growing. Remember to switch your plants to a flowering light cycle before they get too big. If you let them get any taller than about 8 to 10 inches before switching I suspect you will have height problems before they are done flowering. Sticking to indica dominant hybrids will help since they don’t usually grow as much vertically once they begin to flower. Going with a shallower but wider pot will help give you a few extra inches of headroom as well. I hope this design is simple enough to get you off your duff and growing your own cannabis. It can be a fun and rewarding project, and who knows, maybe you’ll find you have a green thumb after all. If you need assistance, please feel free to ask any questions in our forum.

, 3.8 out of 5 based on 126 ratings Sunforce AC/DC Converter allows you to use your 12Volt products at the home, office or on the roadConverts 110 Volt AC Wall Outlet into a 12Volt DC PlugOutput: 12V DC-5.8A continuous loadInput: 100-120VACUse with coolers, air compressors, spotlights, fans, cell phones The title pretty much sums it up... Hyperbole aside, how much actual power is consumed by a typical wall wart when the device it's attached to isn't powered on? And are there designs for wall warts that minimize or eliminate this sort of parasitic load? About 1 billion percent. No useful work is being done except to heat your house, and energy is being dissipated which would not be dissipated if the wall wart was not plugged in. The actual quantity is small, so I wouldn't worry about it too much if you're concerned about your electricity bill - A few cell phone chargers left in the wall 24-7 won't make a dent. For some math, if a device is just barely CEC certified (0.5W no-load dissipation) and left in the wall unused all month, you have 730 hours (in one month) * 0.5W * 0.001 W/kW = 0.365kWh [kilowatt hours] and electricity costs of, say, $0.20/kWh, and you have a cost of $0.07 Find a dime, pay the bill.

Compare that to, say, your 73W fridge, which will be around $10/month. If, however, you have a lot of wall warts, or the small losses are significant to you, look at switch-mode power supplies. They're more expensive, but more efficient both at no-load conditions and during use, and switch-mode supplies will actually regulate, as opposed to transformer-based designs which require further regulation circuitry. You can tell what kind a converter is just by the weight - A switch-mode supply will have just a lightweight circuit board with some electronics inside, while a traditional wall wart has a big, heavy transformer. I've used CUI switch-mode PSUs before, they're a good company with a nice line-up: See this page for some of their AC-DC converter products. See their Compliance page for more information on efficiency ratings. Note: Some people use the term "wall-wart" for the transformer-based devices only, while others use it for both switch-mode and transformer-based wall plug-in AC-DC converters.

How much gas is wasted by a car? It depends on the manufacturer and particular model. Old AC/DC converters just had a large transformer, some diodes, and a capacitor, but nowadays many are switching converters that offer better regulation, improved efficiency, and smaller size. From the couple transformers I've looked at on Digi-Key, all the Energy Star level IV and V transformers have a maximum of 0.5 W usage at no-load. Energy Star has a whole report on this, and fancy graph (on page 5): The best ones will waste < 0.5 W when no load is connected, but the no-load-losses can be as high as > 10 W, depending on the design, and even for switch-mode wall warts. My guess is that most typical wall warts used today consume about 1...3 W when no load is connected. Not enough to worry about. If a bad one wastes 10 W (according to zebonaut), that will be a total energy waste of 7 kWh per month. This actual test of real wall warts measured 2 W max (1.5 kWh/month)

A single hour of running an electric oven uses 2 kWh A single load of laundry in a hot clothes washer uses 4.5 kWh A single load in an electric dryer uses 3.2 kWh If the wall wart is warm to the touch when unloaded, it's wasting energy and you could try to unplug it when not in use. If it's cool to the touch, then don't worry about it. SMPS supplies and AC supplies shouldn't draw too much (an unloaded transformer is just an inductor, and only the residual resistance is wasting energy). DC supplies with linear regulators inside would be the worst. In general, don't worry about it. It's straining out gnats while swallowing camels. And in winter, definitely don't worry about it. The "wasted" energy is heating your home and making your heater work less. All household appliances magically become 100% efficient in the winter. Depends on the wall wart. For example some cheaper ones may use higher leakage capacitors which might waste a tiny bit of current.