So I just dropped over 150$ in a new cool tube 6 inch inline fan plus the ducting... It is 86 degrees inside my grow tent...it was 90 before.. I got a house fan blowing air inside my tent...the ducting is connected to one side of the tube... Do I cut the ducting in half and attach it to the other side of the tube to blow the air out?
New inline fan plus cool tube...still 2 hot
- Thread starter Dustgxf
- Start date
genuity
Well-Known Member
yep,hook your fan up so it is blowing air over your bulb,by connecting your ducting,to the tube,and put ducting on the other end,leading out of the room.fan>>>duct>>cooltube>>>duct>>out of room.
Maybe instead of an inline duct fan invest in a http://www.ebay.com/itm/CASE-4-pcs-6-INLINE-H-O-FANS-exhaust-cooling-duct-vent-BLOWER-six-inch-air-cfm-/160711056684?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item256b201d2c and a variable speed control device?
brownie689
Member
You always want your inline fan SUCKING air not blowing. You want ducting coming from outside the tent (put it as low to the ground as possible because coldest air is on the floor) then duct it to the cool tube. Duct the other side of the cool tube out of the tent and attach it to your inline fan so that it is SUCKING air off the bulb and BLOWING it out a window or away from the tent.
Always have your fan on the back side of the cool tube. Think about it this way, you want the air in the cool tube at as low as a temp as possible. If you have your fan pushing the air you are raising the temp of the air by going through the fan first. That nice cool air from outside will go thru the fan, cooling the fan and loosing it low temps by being absorbed by the fan body, then you have all the friction from the fan blades in contact with the air raising the temp more. Fan should always be last.
Just a FYI, that price is high for that fan. I have 2 of them and I found them used for $90, I need one more and the price the grow store gave me was around $150 new. Shop around for this, you can find it a lot cheaper, at least in Michigan
AimAim
Well-Known Member
I think the amount of heat put off by the fan is negligible, and there would be next to zero heat from "air friction". Turn a house fan on high then feel the blades, are they hot? No.
And you don't necessarily need to duct air in from outside. In my instance my 5X5X8 room has 3 hard walls and a blackout curtain for the "door". I simply have a 5' piece of ducting on the uptake side of the bulb which lays (uptakes) off the floor. It sucks fresh air into the room from underneath the bottom of the curtains. So my setup is I have 5' intake ducting, cool tube, 5' ducting to outside of room, then fan sucking air.
I was going to have it vacuuming air from near the ceiling to remove heat but found since I'm growing in a 60 degree basement that was not necessary. Running my fan about 30% speed keeps my room a perfect 76 degrees during lights on.
South Texas
Well-Known Member
What He said. You have to have an in flow & exhaust, hopefully crisscross, & and taking advantage of the natural direction of the outdoor breeze...IE; don't push exhaust against the wind. Also, river pepbles on the floor will help balance the temps. They will cool at night & add coolness for hours during the day,...spraying the stones with water from a hose.. ave. 57° will make your world Rock. If in sorry ass black pots, whitewash (paint) them. Plant bean pole beans on the outside. or cucumbers. rule of thumb, a house with grass & shade drops the house temp by 20%.
mr2shim
Well-Known Member
This...
Also, your tent will never be cooler than the room it's in. If the room your tent is in has an ambient temp of 80 well then your tent will never be cooler than 80. Only way to fix that is with an air conditioner.
ProdigalSun
Well-Known Member
Just remember, "fans suck". Always. If your fan blows, then it sucks, but if you want to move some air, fans suck.
Thegreatgatsby4
Member
Well I have my fan blowing on my 3x3x6 and its never above 81 anymore. But it exhausts that air out to the window which the outside air is 45-65 in my area. Plus I have my intake of fresh air at the bottom and it blows air inside with a small 6inch honeywell. From what I understand, the best way is to have a fan blowing and sucking for HID lights. For exhausting the tents air out, I was told having tubing/ducting at the top of the tent that has a carbon filter with a fan hooked up outside it to suck out was best.
MYOB
Well-Known Member
You can have regular oscillating fans in the tent/room. I like to have one at the top and one at the bottom circulating the air.
This is air circulation, it is different from air exchange where you need to have fresh air from outside the air coming in and hot/stale air from inside the area blowing out.
For most tent grows, the only thing you need is an exhaust fan. Specifically a high velocity inline fan. You mount this high in the room so it sucks hot air out. It also has a secondary purpose and that is to draw air in by creating a negative pressure in the tent. If you cut a hole on either end of a box and sucked air out from one hole, air would be drawn in from the other hole to equalize the pressure. If you didnt have an intake, the cox would collapse due to the outside pressure being greater than the box pressure.
You need an intake port at the bottom of the tent at the opposite side of the exhaust. The hole should be bigger than the exhaust so that it can draw in enough air to equalize the pressure. You dont need a fan here, the air will be drawn in passively. This is called a "passive intake"
There are 2 options with air cooled hoods. You can run a dedicated intake/exhaust port and fan for just the hood. That would be drawing cool air in from outside the tent, through the hood and then exhausting that hot air outside the tent. The air in this case never touches the grow room and doesnt need to be filtered for odor. This is the best option but not always attainable.
If you only have one fresh air intake, you dont want to use it to cool the hood because then you would not have any intake ports to draw fresh air in and exchange the air in the room. In this case, you can leave the intake port as a passive intake and cool your hood with air from inside the room.
Here, the air would need to be filtered first. Otherwise you would be exhausting grow room air out of the tent. If odor control is of any concern, this wouldnt work. Also, it is a good idea to have a filter before your hood so as to not draw dust or other particles into your hood where they could accumulate on the bulb or glass. So you would have a carbon filter inside the tent with ducting running to one end of your air cooled hood. On the other end, you would have ducting running to your exhaust fan. The exhaust fan would then pull air through the filter and hood and blow it outside the tent.
If you run a filter before your hood, I would get a fan with a higher CFM than you need. The filter and ducting will add resistance and you want to be able to pull air easily through both. You can get a fan speed controller to slow it down to optimal speed and also cut down on noise. I run my 6" fan at about 75% and it significantly cuts down on the noise while still easily pulling air through both the filter and hood.
Get a fan that matches the size of your hood and filter. So if you get a 6" filter and 6" hood, dont get a 4" fan. Avoid reducers if possible. They greatly reduce efficiency and increase air noise.
This is air circulation, it is different from air exchange where you need to have fresh air from outside the air coming in and hot/stale air from inside the area blowing out.
For most tent grows, the only thing you need is an exhaust fan. Specifically a high velocity inline fan. You mount this high in the room so it sucks hot air out. It also has a secondary purpose and that is to draw air in by creating a negative pressure in the tent. If you cut a hole on either end of a box and sucked air out from one hole, air would be drawn in from the other hole to equalize the pressure. If you didnt have an intake, the cox would collapse due to the outside pressure being greater than the box pressure.
You need an intake port at the bottom of the tent at the opposite side of the exhaust. The hole should be bigger than the exhaust so that it can draw in enough air to equalize the pressure. You dont need a fan here, the air will be drawn in passively. This is called a "passive intake"
There are 2 options with air cooled hoods. You can run a dedicated intake/exhaust port and fan for just the hood. That would be drawing cool air in from outside the tent, through the hood and then exhausting that hot air outside the tent. The air in this case never touches the grow room and doesnt need to be filtered for odor. This is the best option but not always attainable.
If you only have one fresh air intake, you dont want to use it to cool the hood because then you would not have any intake ports to draw fresh air in and exchange the air in the room. In this case, you can leave the intake port as a passive intake and cool your hood with air from inside the room.
Here, the air would need to be filtered first. Otherwise you would be exhausting grow room air out of the tent. If odor control is of any concern, this wouldnt work. Also, it is a good idea to have a filter before your hood so as to not draw dust or other particles into your hood where they could accumulate on the bulb or glass. So you would have a carbon filter inside the tent with ducting running to one end of your air cooled hood. On the other end, you would have ducting running to your exhaust fan. The exhaust fan would then pull air through the filter and hood and blow it outside the tent.
If you run a filter before your hood, I would get a fan with a higher CFM than you need. The filter and ducting will add resistance and you want to be able to pull air easily through both. You can get a fan speed controller to slow it down to optimal speed and also cut down on noise. I run my 6" fan at about 75% and it significantly cuts down on the noise while still easily pulling air through both the filter and hood.
Get a fan that matches the size of your hood and filter. So if you get a 6" filter and 6" hood, dont get a 4" fan. Avoid reducers if possible. They greatly reduce efficiency and increase air noise.