I purchased an Smscom all in one (environmental control) about 2 months ago. Set it up exactly how the very minimal instructions stated and within days had issues. Unit was pushing the intake fan faster than the out take causing possitive pressure in my tent causing my room to stink. Tried multiple differnt fan combination with the same results. Brought it back to the store where i was told it was sent off for testing. Got it back and same thing was happening so i just turned up the unit to full power so the fan speed controllers wasnt reducing anything. Seemed to fix it even though i lost the main feature of the unit. About a month later winter started kicking in so needed to now reduce the fan speeds to keep tempreture in check, within a week of reducing them on the unit i came home to find out my Can-fan 150 was buzzing and had stopped spinning. Opened my tent to see the fan components were actually melting inside. The smsom had no sort of safty cut off. It was still recieving power but not dispersing any heat. If i never got home when i did probably would have caused a fire. I had the fan about 19 months so just took it as a loss and couldnt point the finger. Like an idiot i put another fan on the unit thinking it might have been a coincident and what do you know. Same thing happened within a few days. I was furious as i had lost over 500 dollars of fan in less than a week. Contacted the company and was told there is nothing they can do. Then out of no where they started bringing up all this new information about things not to do like "not turning the minimum fan speed below 40percent, or not to use with centrifugal fans or hyperfans, making sure your house has the correct amps in the fuse box etc. Seriously why is none of this in the manual. Why have a speed on your unit that can damage the customers goods. Nothing like this is stated in the manual. Just want to know if anyone else has had a bad experience with these guys. I have seen a few other negative comments about the fan contollers but nothing on the all in one. Thanks guys. Sorry for the long message.
Beware of SMSCom products.
- Thread starter MrMedz
- Start date
Resinman1921
Member
Sounds like they sold you a shitter mate. Im feeling you my grow friend
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
All sorts of junk being foisted on people and not just pot growers. If the store you bought it from won't refund your money or at least give you store credit I'd find another place to spend my money.
Why have an intake fan at all? I've always just had passive intakes with filters on them and it's worked well.
I feel your pain.
Why have an intake fan at all? I've always just had passive intakes with filters on them and it's worked well.
I feel your pain.
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
I agree with no intake and have never understood why it's needed at all. They should limit the lowest speed to 40%, when I install a fan controller for HVAC I set it using volt/amp meter as most have adjustment pot.
sonson176
Well-Known Member
Air flows from high pressure to low pressure. If you have a specific route you need the air to flow, and/or you're having higher than desired intake pressures(negative) created that are hurting your fan and making it operate outside of its curve (air scrubbers, filters, or duct restrictions/head loss can add up quick), a powered intake fan would be the way to go. A recycling duct with a damper is the best way to control the intake fan. It seems like the SMSCOM is just trying to emulate a properly designed and balanced air handling system, by modulating fan speeds. Several feet of duct, a magnehelic gauge, 2 dampers and some take offs/tee's and you would be well on your way to setting up and properly balancing your system, most likely for a good bit less money than the controller.
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
Or if the walls of the tent suck in too much he could allow more air in, using a damper of course lol. Most try pushing way to much air through typically 6"!pipe and using a 450-650 cfm fan then complain it's noisey lol. Ya well 2000+ fpm gets loud lol.
sonson176
Well-Known Member
Exactly. Fans will only perform as good as their operating environment allows them to.
For example, take a can 8" max fan. It'll put out 667 cfm, that's assuming absolutely no static pressure. Add on a perfectly straight 30' run of 8" flex duct, just on one side of the fan, let's say the exhaust side, and it's now up against .34" of pressure(for comparison purposes, replacing the 8" duct with a 12" would result in around .038" of static pressure, a significant reduction), still well within its curve and flowing around 615cfm but at an insane velocity of almost 2000 feet per minute. Add 2 45 degree bends and a 90 in the run and that pressure almost doubles to .62" and your flow is at the low side of the curve near 540cfm. Now add a 30' run of 8" intake duct with 1 90 and 2 45's, no filters or anything yet, (a can 100 scrubber alone creates close to .62" at 675cfm), and your fan has now fell off the curve trying to fight against 1.24" of pressure and is flowing around 150cfm. At that point it won't be long before it overheats and fails.
Another thing to consider is that most air filters aren't designed with those sort of velocities in mind. The larger the duct, the lower the static pressure the fan must overcome, which in turn drops velocities as well.
For example, take a can 8" max fan. It'll put out 667 cfm, that's assuming absolutely no static pressure. Add on a perfectly straight 30' run of 8" flex duct, just on one side of the fan, let's say the exhaust side, and it's now up against .34" of pressure(for comparison purposes, replacing the 8" duct with a 12" would result in around .038" of static pressure, a significant reduction), still well within its curve and flowing around 615cfm but at an insane velocity of almost 2000 feet per minute. Add 2 45 degree bends and a 90 in the run and that pressure almost doubles to .62" and your flow is at the low side of the curve near 540cfm. Now add a 30' run of 8" intake duct with 1 90 and 2 45's, no filters or anything yet, (a can 100 scrubber alone creates close to .62" at 675cfm), and your fan has now fell off the curve trying to fight against 1.24" of pressure and is flowing around 150cfm. At that point it won't be long before it overheats and fails.
Another thing to consider is that most air filters aren't designed with those sort of velocities in mind. The larger the duct, the lower the static pressure the fan must overcome, which in turn drops velocities as well.
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Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
I'm running a 180 cfm whole house hepa in an 8x8x7.5, haven't done a dep. test but it would be cool to do for snickers. I have never had any issues but it's a high static squirrel cage type wheel. The amount of air people try to move is insane but then again so is the heat. I shut my setup down in the summer now but in the fall I may hook up a water fan coil to my chiller.
I find having an intake fan gives me better control over my temps. But one of my tents(smaller one) is passive. Think my outake might be to strong on that one as the tent looks like its about to implode.