Portable ac?

Hi all,

I have a 3x3 tent and am approaching summertime. Does anyone know/reccomend a small portable AC or cooler that i can setup? Im trying to go the budget route and see $300 + options all over the internet.

Thanks for your help,

J

Budget route isn't the way to go on this particular item. Some things we don't want to skimp on or we may as well just not purchase at all. Lighting and air conditioning are among those.

First lets figure out how big an AC you need.

How are you setting it up? You cooling a lung room and then pulling the air in the tent or are you going to duct the AC directly into the tent?

How many watts of light and what kind of light is it?

Figure on about 3.5 BTU/hr per watt of energy used in the tent.

If you are cooling the lung room then you need to account for cooling that space as well. Does it get warm in there?

A dual hose portable is best for odor control.

Make sure the unit will "Auto restart after power outage"

I have 2 vipraspectra 600w

And i was planning to duct it in

I math out about 4100 btu/hr to cool the lighting load. The smallest ones are usually around 6000 btu/hr but 8000 is more common. As to brand recommendations, I have a few Whytner's (14,000 btu) and they have done me well just as regular AC's and one in my veg room as well.

You will probably have to run it on a temperature controller since it won't know how hot it is in the tent. Make sure about the auto restart after outage.

I've done it before in a 4 x 8 with one of these. Worked fine. I just kept it on the dehumidifier setting and it was enough to keep temps around 28c in a summer that saw temps over 40c. Most of them cool the air that's already in the room but that can be made into an advantage if you're porting the exhaust out and have fresh air coming in from somewhere else. The tent I grow in, is in a sealed room. So was exhausting out a window and cut a hole into the door to draw in outside air. Probably doesn't matter what size you get as that tent is pretty small...Unless it's one of those desktop coolers that blow moist air. If you get one that's too big it will only mean that it will be running the regular fan more often rather than cooling but you have to jerry rig a longer sensor to the thermostat. However, I think the dehumidified air was the bigger advantage of having one. All portable air conditioning units are inefficient and will cost you more money in the end. A split system or even the in-window aircons are much better for a more permanent option. However for a quick fix this works.

GC_Mospeada said:

I just kept it on the dehumidifier setting and it was enough to keep temps around 28c in a summer that saw temps over 40c.

Click to expand...

I really like this idea, especially since even a small portable is likely going to be overkill for him. This really is some good information that I will remember to share with others in a similar situation.

I just bought a whirlpool portable ac and am very happy with it and it was around 350$ I belive

This one here

It’s price is gone up tho so maybe do some searching around

My 4x4 tent was in an attic with poor insulation. I started with an LG 8,000 BTU single hose portable AC. The AC was outside of the tent trying to cool the attic plus I ducted some of the cool air into a tent port with a 4" flex hose. This worked but I upgraded to the Whynter Arc-14S dual hose and the extra cooling power made it much easier to maintain a good tent temp. I used the Inkbird temp controller and the larger, more powerful AC saved some $$ in electric since it cooled the whole space quickly.

Thank you everyone for you contributions. much appreciated

Renfro said:

I really like this idea, especially since even a small portable is likely going to be overkill for him. This really is some good information that I will remember to share with others in a similar situation.

Click to expand...

Hi brother, im trying to follow. The room that has the tent in it is about 13x 10 would a 10k unit be better utilized in the room?

What type of an exhaust fan are you using? You shouldn't have a problem maintaining 80* with a quality exhaust?

nevergoodenuf said:

What type of an exhaust fan are you using? You shouldn't have a problem maintaining 80* with a quality exhaust?

Click to expand...

AC Infinity
4.6 out of 5 stars 1,157Reviews
AC Infinity CLOUDLINE T6, Quiet 6” Inline Duct Fan with Temperature Humidity Controller - Ventilation Exhaust Fan for Heating Cooling Booster, Grow Tents, Hydroponics

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 

HarleyBlue13 said:

Hi brother, im trying to follow. The room that has the tent in it is about 13x 10 would a 10k unit be better utilized in the room?

Click to expand...

If you are exhausting into the lung room and recirculating and put the 10k in the lung room, you should be good to go.

HarleyBlue13 said:

AC Infinity
4.6 out of 5 stars 1,157Reviews
AC Infinity CLOUDLINE T6, Quiet 6” Inline Duct Fan with Temperature Humidity Controller - Ventilation Exhaust Fan for Heating Cooling Booster, Grow Tents, Hydroponics

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 

Click to expand...

That style blower doesn't fight static pressure loss well. If the ambient temperature is low enough and you have enough air flow then you really shouldn't have problems.