This is my first post here. Been lurking around a bit and everyone seems very helpful and respectful of each other so I am happy to join this forum.
I have been watching many videos and reading books and learning alot.
Reading some of the posts here lately on exausting the room have been really helpful (the concept of negative pressure...)
The questions that I would like to ask is about air cooled lights with their own self contained ducting and fan.
1) Say we are working in a small grow cabinet. We want our light to be adjustable in height (say 2 ft to 7ft above the ground). So to attach air ducting to the light will require alot of ducting to maintain the adjustable height feature of the light.
Assuming the exaust and intake openings are at the top of the room, when the light is at its lowest position the ducting would have to go all the way down from the intake at the top of the room to the light at the bottom of the room and then back up to the exaust at the top of the room on the other side.
Then when the light is at its highest position there will be a lot of drooping and sharp curves in the ducting.
My question is having all of these curves in the ducting of the air cooled light decrease the cooling effeciency of the light. Is there a good solution to this problem? Or maybe this is not even a problem?
I would think the effeciency is optimal when the ducting is completely horizontal with the light. But then you can not adjust the height of the light.
I was thinking of doing it like this and having the plants on an adjustable rack that I can lower over the plants life as they get taller.
2) Where do you locate the fan in the system and in which direction do you send the air?
Is the fan attached to the side of the light and directed to fan fresh air on the
light or to draw hot air from the light. Here is a diagram:
(vent to outside)(ducting)(light)(fan)(ducting)(vent to outside)
and what is the direction of airflow?
OR is the fan attached to the side of the grow cabinent ?
(vent to ouside)(ducting)(light)(ducting)(fan)(vent to outside)
3) Does the fan need to be running at all times when the light is on, or is the fan set to start when the temperature gets to a certain point? Or does the fan run for 5 min every 30 min or something like that.
I have been watching many videos and reading books and learning alot.
Reading some of the posts here lately on exausting the room have been really helpful (the concept of negative pressure...)
The questions that I would like to ask is about air cooled lights with their own self contained ducting and fan.
1) Say we are working in a small grow cabinet. We want our light to be adjustable in height (say 2 ft to 7ft above the ground). So to attach air ducting to the light will require alot of ducting to maintain the adjustable height feature of the light.
Assuming the exaust and intake openings are at the top of the room, when the light is at its lowest position the ducting would have to go all the way down from the intake at the top of the room to the light at the bottom of the room and then back up to the exaust at the top of the room on the other side.
Then when the light is at its highest position there will be a lot of drooping and sharp curves in the ducting.
My question is having all of these curves in the ducting of the air cooled light decrease the cooling effeciency of the light. Is there a good solution to this problem? Or maybe this is not even a problem?
I would think the effeciency is optimal when the ducting is completely horizontal with the light. But then you can not adjust the height of the light.
I was thinking of doing it like this and having the plants on an adjustable rack that I can lower over the plants life as they get taller.
2) Where do you locate the fan in the system and in which direction do you send the air?
Is the fan attached to the side of the light and directed to fan fresh air on the
light or to draw hot air from the light. Here is a diagram:
(vent to outside)(ducting)(light)(fan)(ducting)(vent to outside)
and what is the direction of airflow?
OR is the fan attached to the side of the grow cabinent ?
(vent to ouside)(ducting)(light)(ducting)(fan)(vent to outside)
3) Does the fan need to be running at all times when the light is on, or is the fan set to start when the temperature gets to a certain point? Or does the fan run for 5 min every 30 min or something like that.