New Grower DIY carbon scrubber

[iampepe]

I made my own years ago because I like to make things better and cheaper than what you can purchase them for. This one works great, I used to use it in a 12 5 gal bucket 3k hid grow for years and nobody ever grew wise of my grow space. Time to use it again so I took it apart to put new charcoal in it, thought I'd share how to make it while it was apart.


5 gallon bucket
Lid
Activated Charcoal - Granules
Batting/Stuffing
Duck Tape
Hardware Cloth/Wire Mesh 1/4"
3 6" hose clamps
1 4" pipe cap
1 4" coupler
1 6" starter collar for duct work - Optional, if you're using 4" ducting and fan you don't need this
1 leg of your ladies panty hose

Screw driver
Drill
3/4" paddle bit
Razor knife
Scissors
tape measure
Bowl full of your favorite herb

Drill 3/4" holes all around the bucket

Making the center tube
Precut the hardware cloth to go around the pipe cap and coupler. Outside diameter of cap is 4.5 inches so multiply by pie 3.14 = 14.13 inches. Cut the height to 14" and length to 15" so there is a small overlap when wrapping cap and coupler.
Using the 4" Pipe cap, 4" coupler, 6" hose clamps, panty hose and hardware cloth. Wrap the hardware cloth around cap and coupler, secure with hose clamps. Put one clamp in the middle to hold it tight. Next slightly loosen the hose clamp on the coupler and pull out the coupler leaving the hose clamp in place. Slip the panty hose over the cylinder. It keeps any loose charcoal from getting sucked thru your system.

Using the duct tap, a bunch of 8-10" pieces to tape the cylinder to the bottom center of the bucket. I taped this 5-6 years ago and it's still holding just fine.

Next cut and wrap the batting around the cylinder, I made it two layers.

Wrap the Inside of the bucket, cut batting 15" x 42". Make sure it all way to the bottom, covering any holes you drilled and overlapping.

Fill it with Charcoal, I bought this 5 gallon bucket of charcoal on ebay.

Maxed up the number of pictures I can upload. Finishing with a reply....

 

[iampepe]

Place a couple layers of batting on top and cut an X in the center.

Cut a 4.5" hole in the center of the lid. I used the coupler and traced it with a sharpie. Drilled a couple holes in it and then cut it it with a razor knife.

I'm using a 6" inline fan and ducting so I added the 6" starter collar to step up from the 4" pipe coupler. Secured it using duct tape.

Snap the lid on the bucket and slide in the 4" coupler, it should be tight.

There you have it, a great DIY Carbon Scrubber for cheaper than a new one and reusable.

Grow on...

 

[BigSm0]

This is badass man. What did the charcoal cost on eBay? I looked a little and saw a mess of choices. Food grade, for teeth whitening.

 

[iampepe]

Not the food grade or teeth stuff, they are powder. Make sure you search for activated charcoal, you want granules. I've bought the same stuff at an aquatic/pet store before for tank filters.

 

[Oldbie]

Good one Pepe,
this is Just the sort of thing I love to do myself.
As you have an input only I am guessing you just duct your extracted air (from a tent presumably) into the DIY scrubber purely for de-odorising?
I have never used a tent or a filter (just enjoyed the glorious aroma, but its a security issue for sure) so excuse my asking the obvious.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

You may find this useful:

Carbon Filters

What is activated carbon? Activated carbon is charcoal that's been treated with oxygen to open up millions of pores between the carbon atoms. This process occurs at a very high temperature (around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit of steamed heat.)

Carbon filtering is a method of filtering that uses a bed of activated carbon (charcoal) to remove contaminants and impurities using chemical adsorption. Activated carbon is very effective at removing the VOC's (Volatile Organic Compounds) produced by your plants. For intents and purposes, this guide will focus on air filtering.

Basically, each particle or granule of activated carbon provides a surface area full of pores for impurities to be exposed to. As the impurities passes through the carbon, they get adsorbed (trapped) in the porous holes through chemical attraction. The more surface areas exposed, the better chance of filtration (which is why you want your carbon to be crushed to expose more surface area) because the larger surface area exposes more bonding sites. Particle sizes that can be removed by carbon filters range from .5 to 50 micrometers. As time goes on; the bonding sites on the carbon begin to fill up and the effectiveness of the odor reduction decreases. Once all the bonding sites on the activated carbon are full; the filtration ceases to be effective (and the carbon needs to be replaced.)

Here's a fun factoid; 1 pound of activated carbon contains the surface area of over 100 acres!

The efficiency of a carbon filter depends on several things:Airflow CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute.) The fan attached to your carbon filter must be of the appropriate CFM value to be as effective as possible.

• Molecule size of organic impurities (larger molecules are absorbed better than smaller molecules.)
• The pore size and distribution of the activated carbon (varies by method and manufacturer.)
• Temperature (lower ambient temperatures tend to absorb smells better than higher ones.) The reason for this is at higher temperatures, the VOC molecules start breaking down into smaller molecules. Activated carbon absorbs larger molecules easier than smaller, so we want to keep them in the largest state we can.

 

[iampepe]

Good one Pepe,
this is Just the sort of thing I love to do myself.
As you have an input only I am guessing you just duct your extracted air (from a tent presumably) into the DIY scrubber purely for de-odorising?
I have never used a tent or a filter (just enjoyed the glorious aroma, but its a security issue for sure) so excuse my asking the obvious.

Yup to remove the odor. Even thou its legal in many places now, I personally don't like to advertise.

 

[Oldbie]

You may find this useful:

Thanks for that SoH, yes I am a bit more informed now.
I understand its the activated charcoal that is needed for this.
must check out pet supplies as mentioned by Pepe.
the DIY-er in me wants to make his own as usual.
as if I haven't already got 3 million jobs to do around the place.

 

[snaffles1]

Place a couple layers of batting on top and cut an X in the center.
View attachment 576937

Cut a 4.5" hole in the center of the lid. I used the coupler and traced it with a sharpie. Drilled a couple holes in it and then cut it it with a razor knife.
View attachment 576947
I'm using a 6" inline fan and ducting so I added the 6" starter collar to step up from the 4" pipe coupler. Secured it using duct tape.
View attachment 576941
View attachment 576942
View attachment 576943

Snap the lid on the bucket and slide in the 4" coupler, it should be tight.
View attachment 576938
View attachment 576939

There you have it, a great DIY Carbon Scrubber for cheaper than a new one and reusable.

View attachment 576940

Grow on...

Sweet, that's very clever man!


Sent from my Vodafone Smart ultra 6 using Tapatalk

 

[iampepe]

I just hung it up using rope thru a couple holes in the bucket. I wired in a dimmer switch for a speed control on the 6" Can fan, much cheaper than buying said speed controller.