Ventilation questions

A friend gave me a 400 watt mh/hps cool tube and I plan on using a cabinet. Being a complete noob, and the arrival date of getting some delicious vegetables a little down the road I wanted to get some cut answers from the experts.

Since I have a 400 watt cool tube and they get pretty warm, how should I cool my cabinet? The ambient room temperature is about 73 and I assume it will be at least in the mid to high 80s with the light on. Do I need to have fans on both sides of the light, one for intake one for exhaust? Or will it simply work to have the cabinet with holes in both sides for the duct work?

I plan on getting an exhaust fan and using a passive intake system (as reccomended both others around here. The cabinet will be no larger than 87 cubic feet. Will a four inch exhaust fan handle that? And should I have 12 or so square inches of passive intake space for a 4 inch fan?

I haven't been able to find out exactly what I need so I figured I'd ask myself. Please help, guys! And many thanks ahead of time!

peace.

any suggestions?

View attachment 1031737

Al strongly stressed the importance of having your cooltubes getting their air from outside of your room and exhausting outside as well, without letting any air from the cooltube be interacting with your grow room's ambient air. If you don't want to buy 3 fans just use a passive intake instead of an active one like Al had in the picture above. Hope this helps.
-kick

kickflipdipstik said:

View attachment 1031737

Al strongly stressed the importance of having your cooltubes getting their air from outside of your room and exhausting outside as well, without letting any air from the cooltube be interacting with your grow room's ambient air. If you don't want to buy 3 fans just use a passive intake instead of an active one like Al had in the picture above. Hope this helps.
-kick

Click to expand...

it does, thanks a lot. on the other side of the tube do i leave it covered with a vent, i suppose? is it kosher to cool the tube and exhaust to the same room (provided it is outside of the grow room? thanks for the help.

I'm not sure what you are getting at, but you cooltube system should not touch the ambient air of you grow room. It should get air from out side the room and vent all the way through to your light/s and out again. If you use a passive intake system for your GROW room, not your cooltubes, make sure you put a screen or a filter up of some sort to help prevent pests. Do what you can to prevent them, as I've heard, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. Good luck, and I'll try to answer and other questions you may have.
-kick

thanks, man. i'll try to explain myself more clearly here. i'm going to draw air from the adjacent room for to cool my light. i plan on getting an exhaust fan to suck air across it. so, say on the left side of the fixture i have hose that will connect to the adjacent room where i will be drawing the air from. on the right side of the fixture i will have the fan, sucking air across the light from the adjacent room. do i need anything else on the right side other than hose connecting to the fan? does the right side of the fixture need to be vented outside of the grow box, too?

Yes, you'll want to exhaust your light OUT of the tent, preferably outside of the ambient room as well. Otherwise, the heat from the light's exhaust will be pulled right back into the tent... If ya dig.

RDC's got it right brother. Need any other help just ask away.

kickflipdipstik said:

View attachment 1031737

Al strongly stressed the importance of having your cooltubes getting their air from outside of your room and exhausting outside as well, without letting any air from the cooltube be interacting with your grow room's ambient air. If you don't want to buy 3 fans just use a passive intake instead of an active one like Al had in the picture above. Hope this helps.
-kick

Click to expand...

Hey is that in a tent? If so how big is the tent? and how many watts are the lights?

short sweet simple and to the point, totally groovy man + props , wish could thank you enough