Apache At600 Heat Issues

[Minitiger]

Basically, I can't keep my tent cool enough, which is frustrating since I got an Apache AT600 thinking that heat would be the last thing I'd have to worry about. But I'm assuming anybody who uses LED's may have run into the same issue, since they aren't hooded and easily, uh, "ventable."

Using a Greenqube 150x150x220 (only bought it since it's one of the few tents that can support the 65 pound light I'm trying to use). I gotta say, the tent itself is fucking FULL of light leaks, pretty disappointing since it cost $550 to get one shipped from England to SoCal. But whatever. I can deal with light leaks. What I can't deal with is the heat. I have a Vortex 6" inline fan on the outside of the tent, venting out an open window. 6" carbon filter on the inside of the tent with about two feet of ducting between the filter and the Vortex. At first I was using a dust shroom on the outside of the tent for passive intake, attached to some ducting that vented into the bottom corner, opposite the outtake filter/fan combo. Temps were still too high inside the tent (ambient temps outside the tent were between 75 and 78 degrees), but the temps were still too high so I got another 6" fan and attached it to the intake. The intake fan is rated at 425 Cfm, the outtake is rated at 475 Cfm, so I'm still getting negative pressure or whatever. The tent's still being sucked inward is what I'm saying. In addition to all that, I have an oscillating fan at ground level inside the tent and a clip-on fan above the light pointed directly at the outtake fan. Thirty minutes before the light comes on, temps are between 74 and 77 degrees. An hour after the light comes on, temps are around ninety-fucking-degrees.

Any idea what I can do? Anybody? It's finally cooling off enough here in SoCal that I could probably just open a window around midnight and turn off the AC, but that would still mean running my ghetto central AC from like 6pm to midnight every day. My power bill is already $250 a month and that's with running the AC for like three hours at the most every day (sometimes I don't turn it on at all) and not running the lights, fans and everything else. I can only imagine what my power bill will be once all that starts happening.

It's getting to the point where switching to an HID with a hood almost makes more sense, but I really don't wanna do that, for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that I dropped 2500 fucking dollars on the Apache.

Basically, this is just a long-winded way of me asking LED users how they deal with the heat generated by their lights.

Thanks.

Love,

Minitiger

 

[Minitiger]

Come on, man!!!! Haha! Twenty views and not a single suggestion...? Someone's gotta have an idea!

 

[str8smokn]

@Minitiger your going to need to drop the temp outside of the tent.If outside room temp is 75-78 then your just pumping hot air into the tent. The fresh air coming in needs to be down to 68* at least I would think to be able to counter the heat from light.
what time of day are lights on and off?
Can you just leave tent open during lights on?
Get you a portable AC and put in room right by intake opening.
That's my 2 cents.
STR8

 

[eastcoastjoe]

I know the feeling bro, I don't have an Apache I bought the mars2 panels. I had the same issues and at this point switched back to HID and T5 for veg. Still trying to get my panels replaced because I think there defective but that's another subject all together. It's been a complete waste of time and money for me. I know this doesn't help but I just wanted to tell you your not alone with this issue.

My theory is , if I'm gonna be dealing with heat issues I may as well be using a real light. On a brighter note, I'm sure Apache offers better customer service compared to Mars hydro, these fools outsource there warranty to work to a guy who does work as a side job LOL. they had my panels a week now and have not even looked at them, it's a complete joke. Buy American is all I'm saying, at least they value the statement , the customer is always right.

 

[Minitiger]

@Minitiger your going to need to drop the temp outside of the tent.If outside room temp is 75-78 then your just pumping hot air into the tent. The fresh air coming in needs to be down to 68* at least I would think to be able to counter the heat from light.
what time of day are lights on and off?
Can you just leave tent open during lights on?
Get you a portable AC and put in room right by intake opening.
That's my 2 cents.
STR8

Light goes on at 7pm, off at 11am (for now). Obviously, once I start flowering they won't be on as long. I'd prefer not to leave the tent open, for a variety of reasons, the main reason being pests etc, the second being my next door neighbors would be able to see this massive amount of light emitting from the window that isn't sealed (I have a window box covering the window I'm venting out of, but the other window is only covered with panda film and some blinds, but I want to open the window around 11pm in order to turn my central heat and air off). I'm totally legal and allowed to grow up to 99 plants, so I'm not worried about the law. It's more a matter of privacy. The fewer people who know what you're doing, the better. Anyway, It's getting into the sixties at night now, so I figure I'll run the AC from like 6:30 to 11pm and then just open the window.

I can't use a portable AC because the room I intend to grow in and half of the "television room" (two separate rooms) are both being powered by a single 20 amp circuit, so..... I actually had a pretty good portable AC unit, but it was using 10.5 amps. That, coupled with the Apache (6.5 amps) would've overloaded the circuit, not to mention the various fans and shit I have running, so any kind of portable AC unit isn't a viable option. Or an option at all. I was thinking of maybe running some ducting directly from the AC vent into my tent, which is what I'll probably end up doing.

I kind of just decided to say,"Fuck it," and sow my seeds, literally like an hour ago, temperatures be damned. I'm fucking over waiting, nothing's ever gonna be perfect, I'll deal with it as I go along. But I was just wondering how people deal with lights that can't be vented independently of the room itself. I reeeeeallllllllyyyyy don't want to run my AC at 69 degrees because it's an old unit and not energy efficient at all. But if I have to, I have to.

So yeah, I dunno, obviously. But thanks for chiming in. Keep your eyes peeled for a grow thread by me where I say,"My plants are all spindly and stretching too much, anybody have any ideas how to fix it????" hahaha!!!!

Just kidding, I'm sure it'll work out.

 

[Minitiger]

I know the feeling bro, I don't have an Apache I bought the mars2 panels. I had the same issues and at this point switched back to HID and T5 for veg. Still trying to get my panels replaced because I think there defective but that's another subject all together. It's been a complete waste of time and money for me. I know this doesn't help but I just wanted to tell you your not alone with this issue.

My theory is , if I'm gonna be dealing with heat issues I may as well be using a real light. On a brighter note, I'm sure Apache offers better customer service compared to Mars hydro, these fools outsource there warranty to work to a guy who does work as a side job LOL. they had my panels a week now and have not even looked at them, it's a complete joke. Buy American is all I'm saying, at least they value the statement , the customer is always right.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's an issue with the light. Apache states that the AT600 doesn't exceed 90 degrees and that's pretty much exactly where my temps have been at their highest (actually 94, but whatever). I was mostly kind of wondering how the fuck to get the temps in my tent down to an acceptable level without running my central AC for twelve of fourteen hours a day.

As far as using a "real light," I researched the shit out of LEDs and Apaches are about as real as it gets. If you haven't seen any of tags420's grow reports, you should check them out. Apaches are legit. I'm just a little irritated that I spent $2500 on a light that I thought would eliminate (or at least decrease) heat issues. It's running around 90 degrees right now, which is significantly cooler than a 1000 watt HID would run. The issue or my question or whatever was just, like, how the fuck do you deal with heat from a light that can't be vented independently from the grow space itself, without cranking my AC sixteen hours a day? I mean, in my mind at least, the whole point of LEDs is to decrease the amount of energy one uses for their grow, but if I'm still running my AC constantly and still running both an intake and an outtake fan, where exactly am I saving money? More importantly, how am I saving any power? I ain't a hippy or anything, but I do try to conserve energy as much as I can. I suppose the fact that the AT600 is equivalent to a 1000 watt HID while using about 400 fewer watts means I'm using a little less power, but still....

Anyway, like I said above, fuck it hahaha!!!! I'm planting 6 Prayer Towers, 6 Apollo 11 f4's and 4 Goji's TOMORROW. Fuck the temperature, I'll deal with it as I go along.

 

[eastcoastjoe]

I said the same thing you said over in the Mars thread and people still look at me side eyed LOL. if you still have to run an AC and all this other shit to keep temps down, what is the point in running LED ? It supposed to be about energy efficiency like you said, where is the efficiency ? It seems like a simple concept to grasp but people still think I'm crazy when I say that.

I looked up the Apache and it is badass no doubt. I didn't mean you don't have a real light LOL. You have probably the best panel on the market. my thinking is this , I haven't seen a LED yet that outperforms HID yet in yield except maybe realstyles panels, maybe ? So why sacrifice yield and everything else just to save a few watts. If it was a significant savings I could see it. But what you save in energy you loose in yield and pay a shit ton of money on the panel so it doesn't seem worth it to me

 

[Minitiger]

I said the same thing you said over in the Mars thread and people still look at me side eyed LOL. if you still have to run an AC and all this other shit to keep temps down, what is the point in running LED ? It supposed to be about energy efficiency like you said, where is the efficiency ? It seems like a simple concept to grasp but people still think I'm crazy when I say that.

I looked up the Apache and it is badass no doubt. I didn't mean you don't have a real light LOL. You have probably the best panel on the market. my thinking is this , I haven't seen a LED yet that outperforms HID yet in yield except maybe realstyles panels, maybe ? So why sacrifice yield and everything else just to save a few watts. If it was a significant savings I could see it. But what you save in energy you loose in yield and pay a shit ton of money on the panel so it doesn't seem worth it to me

Well, my thinking was (and I believe most people think this) is that with a really well-made LED, you save money in the long run because you don't have to get new bulbs every year, don't have to get new ballasts every three years etc etc. I also must admit that the room I'm using is the hottest room in my house during the summer, coldest during the winter. No idea why, because it only gets direct sunlight for the last few hours a day, but it's like fifteen degrees hotter than the rest of the house when it's hot and fifteen degrees colder when it's cold.

Also, I've been running the room how I intended to all day today, keeping track of the temps and humidity inside the tent like every ten minutes, literally (I have the day off today, nothing better to do haha) and for whatever reason, the temps actually go down when I turn the intake fan off. Go figure. No fucking idea why, but I'm just gonna do passive intake and forget the intake fan.

As far as yields are concerned, I don't have any personal experience, but check out @tags420 threads. He did a side-by-side using the AT600 and a 1000 watt HID (can't remember the brand offhand) and yields were virtually equivalent. He also stated that the buds (Blue Dream) grown under the Apache just looked better, denser, frostier blahblahblah etc etc.

So yeah, I dunno. Like I said, fuck it, I'm sowing some seeds tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have a grow that's worthy of posting here on the farm. Probably gonna need more help haha, hope you keep an eye out for it.

 

[MrBelvedere]

Light goes on at 7pm, off at 11am (for now). Obviously, once I start flowering they won't be on as long. I'd prefer not to leave the tent open, for a variety of reasons, the main reason being pests etc, the second being my next door neighbors would be able to see this massive amount of light emitting from the window that isn't sealed (I have a window box covering the window I'm venting out of, but the other window is only covered with panda film and some blinds, but I want to open the window around 11pm in order to turn my central heat and air off). I'm totally legal and allowed to grow up to 99 plants, so I'm not worried about the law. It's more a matter of privacy. The fewer people who know what you're doing, the better. Anyway, It's getting into the sixties at night now, so I figure I'll run the AC from like 6:30 to 11pm and then just open the window.

I can't use a portable AC because the room I intend to grow in and half of the "television room" (two separate rooms) are both being powered by a single 20 amp circuit, so..... I actually had a pretty good portable AC unit, but it was using 10.5 amps. That, coupled with the Apache (6.5 amps) would've overloaded the circuit, not to mention the various fans and shit I have running, so any kind of portable AC unit isn't a viable option. Or an option at all. I was thinking of maybe running some ducting directly from the AC vent into my tent, which is what I'll probably end up doing.

I kind of just decided to say,"Fuck it," and sow my seeds, literally like an hour ago, temperatures be damned. I'm fucking over waiting, nothing's ever gonna be perfect, I'll deal with it as I go along. But I was just wondering how people deal with lights that can't be vented independently of the room itself. I reeeeeallllllllyyyyy don't want to run my AC at 69 degrees because it's an old unit and not energy efficient at all. But if I have to, I have to.

So yeah, I dunno, obviously. But thanks for chiming in. Keep your eyes peeled for a grow thread by me where I say,"My plants are all spindly and stretching too much, anybody have any ideas how to fix it????" hahaha!!!!

Just kidding, I'm sure it'll work out.

It seems like the only option is to get rid of the tent and just use the whole room. And return the tent for being defective. Any light is going to generate a lot of heat. Plus you can have more room in a full room than a tent.

 

[Minitiger]

It seems like the only option is to get rid of the tent and just use the whole room. And return the tent for being defective. Any light is going to generate a lot of heat. Plus you can have more room in a full room than a tent.

First of all, I fucking love your screen name hahaha!!!! Seen tons of your posts on this site and every time, I'm like,"Damn... Mr. Belvedere! Why didn't I think of that?" haha.

Secondly, using the whole room, or at least a portion of it, is absolutely what I'm gonna do once we move (which might not be for a year or two). Just frame out like half of a bedroom with 2x4's and some panda film and do it that way. I hate to talk shit about anything re: cannabis-related (I talk plenty of shit about everything else), but this green qube is garbage. I'm not saying it's the source of my heat issues, because it isn't, but there are light leaks every-fucking-where. Like, literally, everywhere. Every day I find new ones, there was a huge rip at the top when I initially set it up and wherever there's a zipper, there are pinholes all along the zipper. Super-annoying. Definitely gonna build my own space when we move. And maybe even before that.

Anyway, thanks for chiming in. No lie, I laugh my ass off every time I even see your avatar, even before I read your posts haha. Mr. Belvedere.... Fucking classic!

 

[MrBelvedere]

First of all, I fucking love your screen name hahaha!!!! Seen tons of your posts on this site and every time, I'm like,"Damn... Mr. Belvedere! Why didn't I think of that?" haha.

Secondly, using the whole room, or at least a portion of it, is absolutely what I'm gonna do once we move (which might not be for a year or two). Just frame out like half of a bedroom with 2x4's and some panda film and do it that way. I hate to talk shit about anything re: cannabis-related (I talk plenty of shit about everything else), but this green qube is garbage. I'm not saying it's the source of my heat issues, because it isn't, but there are light leaks every-fucking-where. Like, literally, everywhere. Every day I find new ones, there was a huge rip at the top when I initially set it up and wherever there's a zipper, there are pinholes all along the zipper. Super-annoying. Definitely gonna build my own space when we move. And maybe even before that.

Anyway, thanks for chiming in. No lie, I laugh my ass off every time I even see your avatar, even before I read your posts haha. Mr. Belvedere.... Fucking classic!

cool :) good to know, that qube is expensive! you don't need to build anything really. Can you just hang the apache from the ceiling? Is there an attic above the ceiling? Or a bathroom connected? You could use your vortex fan(s) to pull the hot air out of top of room and into the office. The let the cool air come in thru your central air ducts. If you have enough ventilation it should be fine. Or maybe just install a small window A/C that will keep the whole room cool without running the central air all the time. even if the AC is off, the central register will still supply cool air into the room. cooling a room is way easier than a tent. The EPDM pond liner they sell on amazon will keep the floors nice. Hope you figure something out...

 

[We Solidarity]

LEDs are notoriously hot. As far as I know LED growers lose all their energy savings trying to cool their lights.

the most efficient and low-heat lights out there right now are 315w cdl, I love em.

 

[Minitiger]

cool :) good to know, that qube is expensive! you don't need to build anything really. Can you just hang the apache from the ceiling? Is there an attic above the ceiling? Or a bathroom connected? You could use your vortex fan(s) to pull the hot air out of top of room and into the office. The let the cool air come in thru your central air ducts. If you have enough ventilation it should be fine. Or maybe just install a small window A/C that will keep the whole room cool without running the central air all the time. even if the AC is off, the central register will still supply cool air into the room. cooling a room is way easier than a tent. The EPDM pond liner they sell on amazon will keep the floors nice. Hope you figure something out...

Wellllll, I'd be a little reluctant to hang the light from my ceiling, simply because it is such a heavy light. But I do have an attic that I could vent into. The thing is, I'm renting the house I live in, so I'd be a little apprehensive to start cutting holes in the ceiling and shit. And a window AC unit is out of the question, just because the grow room and our tv room are both running on a single 20 amp circuit, so.... We actually used to have a plasma tv (my girlfriend's tv, had no idea what it was) that was running on the same circuit that's powering the grow room. That tv was hot as shit! We couldn't even watch it in the summer because it raised the temperature like ten degrees. When I decided to start growing my own meds, I got a kill-a-watt and hooked it up to the tv. It was drawing fucking 8.9 amps and using 700 watts, which is basically the same as running my Apache haha. Needless to say, that tv was gone and I bought a new one (secondary expenses that you never account for when factoring in the cost of growing haha).

The good news is I woke up about an hour ago and the temps inside the tent were 77 degrees with 52% humidity, which is right about where they were when I went to bed last night around 1. So I think if I start running my AC around 6:30 (half hour before lights on), run it until 10 or so and then just open a window, I'll be fine.

And you're right, the qubes are extremely expensive. I actually have two of them, one of thems still in the box. I don't even know why I have two, but somehow I ended up with them. It's called being flush with money and spending it on shit I don't really need haha. Unfortunately, all that money's gone now....

I'm a fucking perfectionist. And I really need to start accepting that nothing's ever gonna be perfect haha. I'll tell you one thing, though: when we do start looking for a new house, the first thing I'll be looking at is the circuit box haha. Our's is so freaking ghetto. I actually had an electrician come over a few months ago to see about adding additional circuit breakers and he was like,"Uh uh, no way, can't do it." I guess our circuit box is already to the point of being overloaded or whatever. He said that adding even one more circuit would be extremely dangerous. Although he did say he'd do it, but it'd have to be "off the books" and he'd have to be paid in cash, which I thought was nice of him haha. But I'm not willing to risk burning my house down just to grow a little weed hahaha!

 

[Minitiger]

LEDs are notoriously hot. As far as I know LED growers lose all their energy savings trying to cool their lights.

the most efficient and low-heat lights out there right now are 315w cdl, I love em.

Hmmm, I'm not familiar with 315w cdl's. Are those LEDs? Honestly, after spending as much as I did on this light, I'm really not in a position to start changing shit up and buying new stuff. But I'll definitely look into those when/if I ever have enough money to be buying more lights. Who makes those? Where would I go to find info?

 

[REALSTYLES]

@Minitiger Just leave your tent open while the lights are on. I have 5 tents running but I use diy lights but I used to use Mars panels and had that issue with heat. It won't cost you anything to try trust me you'll see the difference

LEDs are notoriously hot. As far as I know LED growers lose all their energy savings trying to cool their lights.

the most efficient and low-heat lights out there right now are 315w cdl, I love em.

No you are so wrong about that. I have several lights that I made that will kick the shit out of that cdl. I just made a light that is crazy efficient and I'm running it at 59 watts from the wall

The tent on the right is running 59 watts CXB3590 6500k DD bin no one has that bin but me lol I got lucky ass fuck just ask Supra

 

[We Solidarity]

@Minitiger Just leave your tent open while the lights are on. I have 5 tents running but I use diy lights but I used to use Mars panels and had that issue with heat. It won't cost you anything to try trust me you'll see the difference

No you are so wrong about that. I have several lights that I made that will kick the shit out of that cdl. I just made a light that is crazy efficient and I'm running it at 59 watts from the wall

The tent on the right is running 59 watts CXB3590 6500k DD bin no one has that bin but me lol I got lucky ass fuck just ask Supra
View attachment 544937

View attachment 544938

I would love to see that -- show me a 300 watt LED that pulls 2 gpw and only costs 350 retail...and doesn't create a heat problem to where you need to leave the doors to your tent open...Show me that and I'll stop buying 315s and start buying LEDs by the hundreds...

What's the LED in the tent on the left? 150w? What's MSRP on a light like that?

LED technology has come a long way, I can't wait to see where it is in another two years.

 

[Minitiger]

@Minitiger Just leave your tent open while the lights are on. I have 5 tents running but I use diy lights but I used to use Mars panels and had that issue with heat. It won't cost you anything to try trust me you'll see the difference

No you are so wrong about that. I have several lights that I made that will kick the shit out of that cdl. I just made a light that is crazy efficient and I'm running it at 59 watts from the wall

The tent on the right is running 59 watts CXB3590 6500k DD bin no one has that bin but me lol I got lucky ass fuck just ask Supra
View attachment 544937

View attachment 544938

Actually, I've gotten the temps under control. I start running the AC at 74 at 6pm, one hour before the lights go on, then turn it off around nine, turn it back on for an hour at ten and then off for the rest of the night. It's gotten cool enough at night that all I have to is open a window after 11pm. When I woke up this morning, temps were 74. The humidity's a little lower than I'd like (between 45 and 55%), but I can deal with that. The highest temps have gotten is 82 and that's actually during lights-off, around 5pm. But 82's okay with me.

Sowed five seeds each of Bodhi's Apollo 11 Genius f4's, Gold Star f4's (Malawi Gold x Sensi Star, suuuuper-excited about that one especially) and five Prayer Towers (Lemon Thai x Appalachia, pretty dang excited about that one, too) last night, so hopefully something'll be happening soon haha.

I looked at some of your threads after somebody mentioned you in this thread, pretty fucking bad-ass, building your own lights like that. Wish I had the tech savvy to do that. I'm gonna start reading up on how to do that and see if I can't start building my own at some point down the line.

Anyway, thanks for chiming in.

 

[Minitiger]

Just outta curiosity, though, @REALSTYLES , do you ever have any problems with pests or anything by leaving the door open? I have two boxers that are constantly in and out of the house and they get pretty dirty. The girl in particular seems obsessed with finding the dirtiest spot in the backyard and rolling around in it all day haha. I'm trying to keep this grow as clean as possible, and obviously they're not allowed in the grow room, but I still worry about bringing in something into the grow room.

 

[REALSTYLES]

@Minitiger I have 2 Pits lol and I have no pest problems knock on wood. Why I open my tents is because I don't use any AC at all and now it's getting cooler and I can turn up my lights to full power which is 423 watts each panel

I would love to see that -- show me a 300 watt LED that pulls 2 gpw and only costs 350 retail...and doesn't create a heat problem to where you need to leave the doors to your tent open...Show me that and I'll stop buying 315s and start buying LEDs by the hundreds...

What's the LED in the tent on the left? 150w? What's MSRP on a light like that?

LED technology has come a long way, I can't wait to see where it is in another two years.

lol Just cost is double but I don't need AC and those still produce heat and it wouldn't work in a tent lol heat issue. You really need to know who I am. I'm like the George Washington Carver of weed lol. I use to grow for a dispensary and have been growing for over a decade and led is my new adventure actually les the new tech.

 

[We Solidarity]

@Minitiger I have 2 Pits lol and I have no pest problems knock on wood. Why I open my tents is because I don't use any AC at all and now it's getting cooler and I can turn up my lights to full power which is 423 watts each panel

lol Just cost is double but I don't need AC and those still produce heat and it wouldn't work in a tent lol heat issue. You really need to know who I am. I'm like the George Washington Carver of weed lol. I use to grow for a dispensary and have been growing for over a decade and led is my new adventure actually les the new tech.

idk man, I do breeding runs with 3 315s in a 4x8 with no a/c, just turning over air...stays a perfect 82 in there. I also set up a veg room a few months ago with 20 315s, it also stays in the low 80s with nothing but an 8in. exhaust in a 12x30 ft room. I know lots of people running 315s in tents none of them have heat issues, only time I had heat issues with those lights was when I tried to cram 9 of them into a 9x9 room with a 7 foot ceiling and no air exchange. Even then it was manageable at around 86-87 deg.

I def wish I knew who you were, you're doing some badass work with the LEDs. lmk if the price point comes down, I used to grow for dispensaries too now I just do build-outs and consult, always looking for new and innovative products. If you're in CO you should def shoot me a pm.