How effective is carbon filter on smell removal? (Got some crazy ideas)

Hello,
How effective is fresh carbon filter on taking the smell?

Like if you have weed smell in a completely sealed container and you draw it through a filter. Would there be lot of weed smell on the other side?

Im playing with this idea of building completely sealed cabinet from metal , glass and such , and drawing the air through filter. Im thinking of building some kinda cabinet system and having people be on the same room without them realising. I know that if this was to ever work it would really have to be super sealed and made out of premium materials and the filter would have to kill the smell. For me to get something like this to work would be revolution so im thinking all the possibilities.

I also had this idea of a little sealed air pocket on the cabinet , with second filter and perhaps ozone machine or something else on it. It would be like doubling the smell removing effect.


Note : I have had couple of grows with carbon filters and such. Negative pressure has been the key on keeping the smell on the grow room. I still havent had the chance to be on the other side of the carbon filter outlet to smell it myself how the air smells after it.


Any ideas and experience well appreciated

As long as the filter is not an old, over used one and that it is the appropriate size for the space as well as being attached to an appropriately powerful fan-- I find them very effective. Be careful with ozone generators near your plants and also note that ozone kinda has a funny smell as is. You can never be too careful, but you are right about negative pressure being the key.

Hmm i suppose i could test it somehow , put the fan and filter on dragging air from other side of wall where weed is being smoked. If the smell would come clean to other side i would be on the money

my carbon filter works great i have a phat filter 550 cfm on a 435 inline. works great keeps my heat down and i pump it right at the neighbors driveway with NO smell coming out. just a bit of noise sounds like a drier from outside.

If properly hooked up, good quality carbon filters work exactly as described. One note, they become totally ineffective with air temps much above 80F. That can be an issue with a cabinet grow, since vertical space is a premium in small ops like that, your plants tend to be closer to the light than if its in an open room.

Thanks for replies , yes controlling heat is a factor lot of people underestimate (like me). When heat went up , the smell went too and its really drastic imo.

Now i have all kinds of plans but if i have time and money , iam convinced enough to try this :

Wooden cabinet with glass walls sealed with aquarium sealer. Made tight like aquarium. On top and bottom theres going to be holes for the ventilation. Bottom : Passive intake (would need to be right size, small enough) Top :Filter and fan. If i could make it tight enough , in my theory no smell would escape the cabinet. Think it like a glass jar full of weed. You dont get any smell. In this grow good ventilation would be key because humidity could easily become problem. Im thinking either vertical or horizontal but anyways the point is to put this thing in plain site , in a room where people would be. If theres slight smell , maybe put ona or something. Noise doesnt matter , this would be experiment on the smell. Im thinking i could always hide this sort of cabinet and if the smell would finally be a no problem , hell i would put these things everywhere Iam bit sceptical about the filter and its power though so i started this thread to find out some opinions and thank you for them!

Punk said:

One note, they become totally ineffective with air temps much above 80F. That can be an issue with a cabinet grow, since vertical space is a premium in small ops like that, your plants tend to be closer to the light than if its in an open room.

Click to expand...

I am newbie but i have never heard that before. my temps in the peak of summer were around 83 degrees with now problems with smell

Me neither really. All i have heard is that carbon filter does not work well or at all if it gets wet. More heat = more humidity though but imo its not necessarily so. If you move lot of air out , then things dont get too humid , even if the temperature is high.

Im not actually sure now if it is the heat or humidity that makes the grow room smell (propably both). Because the way i remember i had my fan at too low setting , the heat went up to 86-89 and for some reason the humidity was really off the chart too that day and i never had the grow room smell so much. I had high temperatures some other days but without the humidity. The smell was not there. Cant blame filter for that because i always expect inside the grow place to smell , i never ever smelled weed outside the filter outlet though , not that day or any other.

DanGerousKush said:

my carbon filter works great i have a phat filter 550 cfm on a 435 inline. works great keeps my heat down and i pump it right at the neighbors driveway with NO smell coming out. just a bit of noise sounds like a drier from outside.

Click to expand...

If noise from your exhaust fans is an issue, add a duct muffler to the equation. Although they don't stop all sound coming from a fan, if properly installed (immediately after the fan in the direction of air travel), they can reduce overall noise by about 30-50%.

Plant smell more when the temps are higher. The fan would have to be remote. as in not near the people that you may not want knowing about it, otherwise I would think the noise is an issue.

im not spending 200 0r 500 on a carbon filter set up not happening. just suck the air out of the grow room when the lights are on so the cool tube sucks air from the grow room dumps it out a window, keeps the air moveing . yes if you go out side you will smell it with in a 20 foot radious. but other there night time , its sealed up. this seams to be working for me, lot of other people don't know how to vent it out, and ill tell you fuck you can smell there grow 10 houses down the street, also thinking you could have a few moth balls laying around, they will kill a lot of smell or at least hide it,