New grow room running into problems. please help!

Ok So I was introduced to RIU a few years back and started growing a few bag seeds with cfls. I decided to go out and buy a 400w hps (hydrofarm Radiant air cooled hood), lumatek 400 watt ballast,carbon scrubber, vortex 4" inline fan and insulated ducting. My grow room is in a walk in closet. I have been running into some problems. First problem is my air cooled light is running very hot. The glass is pretty hot to the point where you cant leave your hand too long on it directly where the bulb is. My setup is carbon scrubber>>ducting>>hood>>ducting>>vortex>>ducting to outside. The source of cool air I have coming into the room is from a window ac with some ducting connected to it coming into the room through a vent I made high up close to the ceiling in the closet. Well that's the beginning of my problems. Now I wanted to test the temps in the room and let everything run for a lil. When I went in the room I noticed a melting plastic smell and could not locate where it is coming from. So I'm guessing my carbon scrubber is not working because I assume it would have removed this smell. Please guys any advice will help. I have some master kush and ak48 under cfl's that would love to be under the 400w hps. Thanks in advance. I will post some pics and exact measurements of the closet later today. Peace

first thing id be checking is the ventilation, you could have positive pressure, the ac is blowing in more air than what exhaust is coping with thus causing the build up of heat & pressure, before running your light you need to make sure both intake and exhaust are running and your exhaust is extracting a touch more than the intake is blowing in. Once you established the ventilation is running ok, then you should check your power supplies/ballasts, fixture and light. first real step is to establish the ventilation is running perfect. Just a lil hint which most are not informed about, inline fans are great when used as an intake a blower, as its taking external air and moving it through, fairly low friction, however, when used as an exhaust they struggle and end up burning out as the air passes through and over the engine, it creates alot of friction, it collects alot of dust and dirt in time also, now centrifugal fans, they move the air around the engine, and pass it through enclosed propellers thus creating a low friction stronger vacuum. hope that helps man, good luck.

some people have plastic on their bulb when they get it. Aaaaand... is your duct bent at all or is it nice and straight? how many cfm is your fan? if youre just starting out, you dont need that carbon scrubber as the smell doesnet get bad till later in the grow.

I believe my fan is 172 CFM. The ducting has some bends tried to minimize the bending as much as I could. g0dl1ke - the ac isnt on very high just trying to cool the room and get some kind of air flow in there. thanks for the replies guys.

very cool, just gotta remember even on low an ac unit moves quite a bit of air, im sure youll find the issue, theres obviously something, keep us informed .

I really hope I figure it out asap. It's been bugging me all night and morning.

You didn't say were your air intake is coming from.Having a window ac makes growing easier once you get it tuned in.If you have tube on just one side of hood.Thats good but when running ac need to pull light up abit and put fan on timer.I would run it 15 minute every 2 hrs.If you wantyed lights closer you would have to draw air for hood from other rm.And have another fan on timer for rm.I have grown this way done just fine after I figured things out.Peace Oregon024

SteveDaSavage said:

I believe my fan is 172 CFM. The ducting has some bends tried to minimize the bending as much as I could. g0dl1ke - the ac isnt on very high just trying to cool the room and get some kind of air flow in there. thanks for the replies guys.

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This is NOT enough air moving over that light man!
a 60 degree angle in the ducting will reduce the flow by 30%, two bends will reduce it by 60% ect.....

So can i put another fan on the other side?? Scrubber>>ducting>>fan>>light>>ducting>>vortex>>ducting?? Would that work and if so what type of fan would you recommend?

oregon024 said:

You didn't say were your air intake is coming from.Having a window ac makes growing easier once you get it tuned in.If you have tube on just one side of hood.Thats good but when running ac need to pull light up abit and put fan on timer.I would run it 15 minute every 2 hrs.If you wantyed lights closer you would have to draw air for hood from other rm.And have another fan on timer for rm.I have grown this way done just fine after I figured things out.Peace Oregon024

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If youre having heat probs run that bitch on low as it can go as long as you can afford it. I recommend the 400cfm vortex. THat's all i need and i have 400w. I too, have an ac unit to lower my temps. Its cooling my house unfortunatley so most of the cold is gets sucks out by the grow room, so im sacraficing a lot for my babies, so they better fuckin turn out. Lol.

Ok my grow area is 4ft x 3ft x 7ft. Please ppl any info or advice is greatly appreciated.

Took some quick pics very hard in that narrow space to get some good pics hope this gives a lil bit of an idea of my setup.

you said you smelled burnt plastic and couldnt locate where it was coming from.. make sure it wasnt wiring any where or anything, this could be a potential fire hazard. im not a super expert on electircity, but if your in an old house that has bad wiring a 400w+fans+ac unit+ other stuff sucking up electricity=burden on your circuits
maybe just smell around some more and make sure its not electricity burning stuff up, it would be horrible to have a fire i dont mean to worry you though, it could just be the light heating some plastic some where
good luck man

get a centrifigul fan...theres plenty on ebay......worth the investment.

Sorry to interrupt here I'm having a similar issue switching over from CFL to MH & HPS. What type of fan should I use for intake.(I was thinking inline 300+ CFM) Also what should I use for exhaust?

Hope you get your issues straightened out too!

It only smelled like burnt plastic in the grow room... I checked every where couldnt find anything. All wires were ok. I checked the outlets and plugs could not locate where it was coming from. yea the smell worried me too thats why I went back to the cfl's not going to have the hps running until I find out whats causing it. Hopefully can have everything running nice and smooth by this weekend.

NBKA said:

This is NOT enough air moving over that light man!

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176 CFM is plenty for a 400w HPS and carbon scrubber, something else is wrong. and burning plastic smell is not good.

SteveDaSavage said:

It only smelled like burnt plastic in the grow room... I checked every where couldnt find anything. All wires were ok. I checked the outlets and plugs could not locate where it was coming from. yea the smell worried me too thats why I went back to the cfl's not going to have the hps running until I find out whats causing it. Hopefully can have everything running nice and smooth by this weekend.

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inside on the reflective part of the hood there is sometimes a plastic coating that you have to peel off. can you isolate the smell by turning just one thing on at a time?

i grow in a 4x3x6 closet, one 400w hps, i run one fan straight on the unit, i have one blowing crosswinds, and i have one blowing air out the 6inchx 6inch sqaure i cut out of the closet door, i have none of these things you talk about, my closets stays at 80-82 and 70-75 lights off,, why dont i have a heat issue i do not even have a ventilation fan sucking anything down a duct?

Thanks Bonzi thats a good idea Im gonna turn things on one by one see if I can locate where the smell is coming from. Yea I checked nothing on the hood I took off all plastic.
Shizzle I dont know why I'm having these problems. I dont think my air cooled hood is sealed properly. My temps directly under the light get to about 85. I bought some new ducting and other things going to see what I can do later today.