An oscillating fan question
- Thread starter TedeBoy
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Diabolical666
Well-Known Member
yes
TedeBoy
Well-Known Member
Thanks. Do you have link or a brand/type I can search?
Holmes HACP10W-U Oscillating Clip Fan, White
With this you would use a couple u-bolts through a 18" long 1x4 piece of wood, hang it on the wood, u-bolts clamp to your tent leg. Put a piece of rubber hose around the leg to protect it:
Air King 9012 Commercial Grade Oscillating Wall Mount Fan, 12-Inch
Personally, I think oscillation is overrated. I don't want fans blowing on my plants. I think all that's necessary is some turbulance. I use a couple non-oscilatting clip ons to blow on the floor of the tent, stir things up. Or, across the tops of the containers when the plants are larger.
BTW: Add a drop of Zoom-Spout oil to the shaft. They last forever if you do that every 6 months or so. It's the oscillating load which I think wears out the motor.
With this you would use a couple u-bolts through a 18" long 1x4 piece of wood, hang it on the wood, u-bolts clamp to your tent leg. Put a piece of rubber hose around the leg to protect it:
Air King 9012 Commercial Grade Oscillating Wall Mount Fan, 12-Inch
Personally, I think oscillation is overrated. I don't want fans blowing on my plants. I think all that's necessary is some turbulance. I use a couple non-oscilatting clip ons to blow on the floor of the tent, stir things up. Or, across the tops of the containers when the plants are larger.
BTW: Add a drop of Zoom-Spout oil to the shaft. They last forever if you do that every 6 months or so. It's the oscillating load which I think wears out the motor.
TedeBoy
Well-Known Member
Good points thanks.
Skunk Baxter
Well-Known Member
Oh, that's a nice looking little fan. Do you use it? I'm wondering how much area it would cover, because it just seems a little small. But I like the option of being able to clip it in so many different places in the grow area. Looks like it give you a lot of latitude.
I agree about the oscillation, for the most part. I use the Holmes Little Blizzard oscillator for young plants, but I don't like to aim it right at the plants. That sucker would probably power a small airplane; if I have it blowing directly at the plants, it tends to dry the rockwool cubes closest to the fan much more quickly, and makes it harder to keep a uniform moisture gradient from one side of the tray to the other.
So what I do instead is mount it on a sloping platform, leave it in oscillator mode, and/or aim it toward a corner of the grow room or tent, so that it creates a steady, swirling breeze in the grow area that is constantly changing directions. As you say, constant turbulence. I call it "the trade winds," because it reminds me of Hawaii and how the wind always seems to be gusting from a different direction every few minutes. It just pushes the plants gently back and forth, promoting stem strength, without drying the leaves or the growing medium. Sometimes I'll take a non-oscillating fan, tilt it back 45 degrees, and aim it right at the glass on the bottom of the light fixture. That deflects the air down onto the tops of the plants in a random pattern, which causes it to swirl around the babies and agitate them back and forth, but doesn't hit hard enough to dry out the medium.
And, then of course when the little girls turn into big girls. I'll go back to letting the fan blow across the tops of the containers, and this is the only time I use oscillation directly on the plants.
I have a few of them. I made a platform for them to sit on. It attaches to the tent leg like the 1x4 piece of wood I described above (to hang a larger wall-mount fan inside a tent). This is a 1x4 which is 4" tall u-bolted to the leg, but with a 1x4 4" long shelf attached to the bottom. (I should take a picture, this probably sounds confusing). The wood is held together with an "L" bracket on each side.
If you look at those clip ons, you can remove the clip. The oscillation base connects to the clip with a bolt. So, I just drill a hole through the bottom of my "L" shelf and bolt the fan to that.
Lasko makes a small "personal tower" Air-Stik 4000 fan. It sits on my tent-leg shelf nicely. The problem with these tower fans is that they have electronic switches. If there is a power outage, they are "off" by default. This one can be wired to control the motor and oscillator with mechanical switches. I like to use this one with seedlings. It's gentler than the rotary clip-on fans. With seedlings I like oscillation like you describe. But, for mature plants, I think turbulance is fine, just so fresh air is passing over their leaves, they aren't sitting in their own exhale. (I'm in a dry environment. Too much airflow/turbulence stresses the leaves.).
Skunk Baxter
Well-Known Member
That's a great point, and that's particularly important this time of year for a lot of people in northern climates. The air is drier in the winter, and it's already harder to keep the humidity levels up as it is. That's why I don't want fans hammering directly on the leaves or the grow medium - especially now, when I have several dozen in seedling stage, and their root systems haven't all developed enough to keep 'em properly hydrated.