Anybody have experience with dimmable lights?

[malachii]

Hi all,

I'm using a 400w HPS with good success for my closet grow. The issue I have is when vegging (24h) I don't want to hear the loud(ish) fan I have cooling my light. So now I swap 100 watts of florecents, and it's OK, but a pain in my constricting setup.

I'm toying with the idea of getting a dimmable ballast, and dimming from 400w to 200w (50%) during flowering, and slowing down my fan to reduce the wooshing.

If I didn't have a cooltube, and instead had a small air cooled hood, maybe I could even remove the glass and stop using the light fan (and just use my exhaust fan).

Anyhow - my question is - does dimming 50% really reduce heat significantly?

Thanks!

Mal.

 

[darkmatter]

dimmable ballest are great to have, if you can swing it, swing it. your current set up is ok if you use the 4oo 12 hours and let the small lights cover the other twelve hours.maybe try to get the small lights pumpin maybe add some to the corners vertical.as long as its bright as shit when the 400 is off, i think your veggin. you can supercrop some, so the plants cant reach so much when the 400 is off.if you can use a tent get one, over the closet unless you can cut holes in the walls and all. whatever you do the temp. will tell you if you actually can.cant wait till inline fans are really silent, you ever seen the dyson fan, that me think its possible.some of the plastic squirrel cage fans are powerfull and not to loud.i got some stanley squirel cage fans i dont use them for inline they are not ment for inline, but i would still aim one at a 400 if i needed to.there are some designed for inline maybe you just need to see if you can get a quieter fan. some on this site have said/shown about wraping towels around the fan and building boxes around them to quiet them down.

 

[malachii]

dimmable ballest are great to have, if you can swing it, swing it. your current set up is ok if you use the 4oo 12 hours and let the small lights cover the other twelve hours.maybe try to get the small lights pumpin maybe add some to the corners vertical.as long as its bright as shit when the 400 is off, i think your veggin. you can supercrop some, so the plants cant reach so much when the 400 is off.if you can use a tent get one, over the closet unless you can cut holes in the walls and all. whatever you do the temp. will tell you if you actually can.cant wait till inline fans are really silent, you ever seen the dyson fan, that me think its possible.some of the plastic squirrel cage fans are powerfull and not to loud.i got some stanley squirel cage fans i dont use them for inline they are not ment for inline, but i would still aim one at a 400 if i needed to.there are some designed for inline maybe you just need to see if you can get a quieter fan. some on this site have said/shown about wraping towels around the fan and building boxes around them to quiet them down.

I have a 6" canfan cooling my cooltube, and a 4" canfan exhaust. The woosh of the 6" canfan into my living room is a bit... shall we say... odd sounding to people, who ask me what that noise is. That's why I don't mind it in the middle of the night, but not during the day. There's also our stupid higher electrical rates during the day to consider... Hence wanting to lower my power use during the day as well (dimmed 400).

 

[GirlCarny]

Can you just slow down the fan during the day and still keep the heat under control? It would be cheaper than buying a new ballast. Google "fan speed controller" or "speedster."

 

[JohnGalt]

I'm not trying to hijack your thread but with my Lumatek ballasts their is a dim knob and it goes to 110%. Does anyone use this feature? Is this going to hurt the ballast/bulb by going that high?

 

[malachii]

Can you just slow down the fan during the day and still keep the heat under control? It would be cheaper than buying a new ballast. Google "fan speed controller" or "speedster."

Not likely. I can live with the expense of the ballast, if it will do what I want and really reduce heat when I go from 400 to 200 watts. If I want to get really fancy I wonder if there's some kind of device (speedster) that would go max during the night, and slow during the day... Likely not. Honestly, I could live with vegging at 200 all the time during the veg cycle. That's still more juice than I give them now with fluro's, and less work for me.