Grow Box Heat/Smell management questions

Hi,
I saw a really nice grow w/ lights doing 20on/4off, with the auto-flowering plants.

I was planning on making a grow box
just big enough to hold 3 plants
and scrog them so the canopy is even..and so they wont overgrow the box with width.

I am trying to use as little heat as possible and was wondering if that would mean HID or fluoro?

I can do 16,000 lumens with 3 4ft 2light T8 fixtures with 6 bulbs, that's 216 watts. I can do 16,000 lumens with 1x150w HPS..

I was wondering if it would be better to use the HPS or the fluoros... I have read on here that watts = heat no matter what. That 200 watt heater in 1 room, 200 watt AC in another, 200 watts in fluoros in another, and 200 watt HPS in another, will all produce the same ammount of heat.
Is this true? Also with the HPS I can put the ballast outside of the box..
But I'm also concerned that this might heat up my room a lot as well. (2nd floor, 2br condo, box in closet)

Second question: (Smells)

Do carbon filters work really good? If I make the box almost airtight with just a small inlet to handle the negative pressure of pumping out through a carbon filter, will it still reek like mad when they are flowering?

Any help, ideas, etc appreciated, even if it's speculation.

I'm planning on doing a pyrex tube vent if I do HID, like the pic below:
(Now that I think of it more, HID might be best)



If anyone has any input whatsoever I definitely appreciate it. So far I plan making the box out of plywood and covering the inside completely with mylar..(or white paint if mylar makes a heat problem)

Thanks,
-CreQ

fluoresent put out much less heat than hps, all things considered though i'd still recommend you get a 250w hps, but the 150w will work if beed be(but if u plan on cooltubing it why not get a 400w or a 600w even?)

Is it really true they put out less heat though? From what I've been reading watts = heat regardless.
That a 300w ac, 300w heater, 300w computer, 300w HPS, and 300w fluoro will all put out the same ammount of heat.

The only thing that differs is where the heat is (remember, this is from what I've READ, not personal experience).
In a 300watt fluoro setup there's less heat at the bulbs and more in the ballast, and at a 300w hps setup there'd be more in the bulb.

AKA a box will stay cooler with 300w fluoros if the ballasts are outside and only the bulbs inside, than if you put a HPS ballast outside/HPS light inside, however the heat in the bedroom its in will get to the same level either way because I'm using 300 watts, so it doesn't matter how...

Is this correct?

a 400 watt HPS bulb is rly hot, you can barely hold your hand near it, with 400 watt of cfls you can touch each and every bulb with low enough wattage spread out.

rosm187 said:

a 400 watt HPS bulb is rly hot, you can barely hold your hand near it, with 400 watt of cfls you can touch each and every bulb with low enough wattage spread out.

Click to expand...

lol, i agree sorta, but my 26w cfls still get pretty hot to the touch, and the 42ws will burn you if you grab em w/o thinking, lol.

and we are actually talking of fluoro tubes btw, lol, not cfls. i can touch my flouro tubes without a problem, they put out almost no heat. they can have the plants touching em w/o burning the plant to death. flouro tubes are alot cooler running than cfls and cfls are alot cooler running than hps. original poster, trust me, the fluoro tubes really are cool running, have a fixture in your garage or basement or somewhere? go touch it, its not very hot, is it? now go find a 400w hps, now put your hand 4-6 inches away, feel the heat? now find a cfl bulb, put your hand an inch or two away, feel the heat? thats the best way to tell for sure if your skeptical of the heat being so different between em.lol

I think you guys don't get what I'm saying. Here's an excerpt from:
https://www.rollitup.org/2336314-post1.html

If you have a series of closed rooms the same size and put a high pressure sodium lighting system with 1000 watts power input in one room, 1000 watts input of LEDs in the next room, a 1000 watt input air conditioning unit with no output exhaust in the next room and a 1000 watt electric heater in the last room, all of the rooms will be at the same temperature.

Click to expand...

I'm saying that the 360w of fluorro it's gonna take to make up for 250w of HID is going to cause more overall heat in MY ROOM. MY GROW BOX might have less heat from the fluoros inside of it, because either lighting I go I'm putting the ballasts on the OUTSIDE, and HID has more heat at the bulb than fluoros.

You guys aren't considering that the heat can spread all the way over a fluoro a lot better so it doesn't 'FEEL' hot, but 360watts generates a certain ammount of heat no matter what.

If you don't believe me, argue with that person I quoted. He knows what he's talking about.

BTW my main original question is:

Will 32000 lumens from an HPS be equal to 32000 lumens from fluoros, or will the HID lighting still be better?
(Keeping in mind 1 HID will have to be further from the plants, while the fluoro's the plants can grow onto/around with protective coverings) Since from what I've read lumens are based on 1ft of distance and for every 1ft the light loses half its
energy, I was thinking that the fluoros (if they have the same total lumens) might get you better lighting because the plants can grow right up onto the bulbs, and the fluoro's will be form all diff angles so the plant will get coverage all the way around.

Also doing a box in such way would allow you to now have to worry about overgrowing the box, as the light would still be getting to the plants even if they grew to the roof.

Please, please please please, any thoughts appreciated on that. I'm trying to put a box up but I have to make this ultimately hard decision on which way I want the lighting to go before I can continue hehe =/

Honestly if your are going to be aircooling the lights then i would just go with a 250 whps mostly beacuse u put it in a cooltube with a good inline fan your plants will not have any issues getting close to the light. I have a 400whps aircooled but not in cooltube in 2'x4'x7' tent and i can keep my light about 8 to 10 inches away from my girls which when you consider the output of the light will usually cook anything that close to it including your skin. Now that being said you can probably keep your plants about 2 to 4 inches from the flouros and about 5 to 6 inches from a properly cooled 250whps. so in that case your hps would be much more efficient than the flouros at that point. Allowing much much more lumens to the plants. 6 lamp flouros= 16000 lumens at 216 watts, 250whps= 28500 lumens at 250 watts. hope this helps.

creq2 said:

I think you guys don't get what I'm saying. Here's an excerpt from:
https://www.rollitup.org/2336314-post1.html



I'm saying that the 360w of fluorro it's gonna take to make up for 250w of HID is going to cause more overall heat in MY ROOM. MY GROW BOX might have less heat from the fluoros inside of it, because either lighting I go I'm putting the ballasts on the OUTSIDE, and HID has more heat at the bulb than fluoros.

You guys aren't considering that the heat can spread all the way over a fluoro a lot better so it doesn't 'FEEL' hot, but 360watts generates a certain ammount of heat no matter what.

If you don't believe me, argue with that person I quoted. He knows what he's talking about.

Click to expand...

alright, let me put it this way for you,you know why flouros and hps and leds put out different levels of heat? because they use different methods to make the light. some put out more heat than others........

their are threads that discuss this in alot more detail, i suggest you look at them, they can explain how hps and flouros and all that work alot better than i can.