DIY Stealth Grow Box
12. Mar, 2010 
22 Comments
Browsing the forums over at Cannabis Culture, I came across an old how-to for a DIY Stealth Grow Box. I can recall reading about the setup on another site a few years back and even went out and bought the required materials for assembling one of my own. Unfortunately, I never finished putting the thing together. The need for growing my own has come and gone. Anyhow, the guide is excellent and the pictures do a wonderful job of illustrating the assembly.
Here’s what you’ll need (around $90):
- Two 21.5 gallon tubs
- A roll of tin foil tape
- Two 3-socket 18″ light fixtures from Lowes
- Two 26 watt 3-packs of GE CFL bulbs
- Extension cord
- 12 volt AC adapter
- Computer fan
Begin by grabbing your two 21.5 gallon Rubbermaid tubs and mask the inside walls and lid with tin foil tape.
Next, remove the ground screws and white shells from your two light fixtures. Removing the white portion of the assembly allows you to bend and shape the remaining portion if you have trouble fitting it into the container. Images displaying how you can achieve this (if necessary) are included for this step as well. Ignore this step if your tubs don’t require these additional modifications to the light fixtures.
The next step is installing the fixtures to the inside of the tub. Mark the 3 holes you’ll need to drill (2 for screws and 1 for the wires) on each side of the tub. Grab some screws.
Mount the fixtures and fasten them securely.
You should now have 3 wires (positive, negative and ground) protruding outside of the box on both sides.
Next, grab the orange extension cord and cut a 3 foot section out of it.
With scissors, remove two inches of the orange plastic from both ends to expose the inner wires.
With a pair of wire cutters, remove the insulation from the positive, negative and ground wires on both ends or your extension cord segment.
Repeat the same process for the fixtures’ wires (the ground wires will already be bare) and then match them to one end of the extension cord segment.
Twist the matching wires together, securing them with wire nuts and electric tape. Make sure no wires are left exposed.
Now for the other side…
Take a nice long section of the “plug-in” portion of the remaining cord and once again strip it, exposing the positive, negative and ground wires.
Now thread all of your remaining loose ends together, matching them by color as before.
Cap the connections with wire nuts and wrap them carefully with electric tape.
Very carefully…
Twist your lights in and give it a test.
Now for some ventilation. You’ll need a 120mm computer fan, soldering iron or sharp knife, and a CD.
Use the CD to trace a spot for your fan and then remove the portion by using the soldering iron. The knife is for you unlucky folks without soldering irons. It may be worth the investment to just pick up a cheap one.
Mount the fan so that it will blow air out.
Now all you need to complete the ventilation is a passive intake. Make a hole near the bottom of the tub and insert a PVC pipe and caulk.
Now for wiring the computer fan.
Strip the wires of for the fan and your 12 volt AC adYou need to strip the wires of the 12 volt AC adapter so that you can connect them as you’ve done with the other wires in this tutorial. Be careful though, not all AC adapters have the wires labeled, as you can see in the images below. Both were white.
To ensure that the lid doesn’t fall off when the two pieces are assembled, add a few pins to secure everything together more effectively.
And here is the final product with some pics from the assemblers first grow.
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Cool and clever, but not exactly what I’d call stealthy. Stealth implies blending in; that box looks nothing like what I’d expect to find in the back of a closet or storage room. In fact, my first impression was that of a litter-box for some giant, mutated kitty-cat.
Try stacking two containers properly, bolt the lid of the lower one to the bottom of the top container then cut a hole in the middle. I’d also try to hide the ventilation and cabling better. Maybe add some coasters to raise it up off the floor so everything can come out the bottom. Drilling passive vent holes all around the lip of the lids to keep them hidden and adding a secondary fan suspended next to the lamps should work.
I know I’m over-thinking this, and nothing is going to help if the pigs get a search warrant. But if you’ve got a lot of people in and out of your place. You’re gonna want as much stealth as you can get.
You could easily make the box more discreet. If you get two boxes that, when stacked on top of each other, are as tall as the Stealth Box, then you can hollow them out and stack them over it. After that you can just pop the lid on it and all you have are two stacked boxes that can cover the wires and can leave room for the fan. If you feel it doesn’t get enough air you can leave the lid off until there’s a problem
and couldnt you make it run on solar and lea it in the woods disguised as a tree/bush?
You mean aluminum tape unless you spell aluminum TIN. There is no tin foil tape
You should line the inside with mylar preferably with a diamond pattern.
Foil creates hot spots on your plants which causes the ends of the leaves to singe.