New closet setup - hps temp issues - questions

[malachii]

Hi guys,

Just finished spending way too much time and money building my nicely setup (for me anyhow) grow closet. The space is around 36" wide x 24" deep x 6 feet tall.

At the top I have my fan (4" 120cfm) exhausting the air pulling through a carbon filter. I also have my ballast up there (quite warm), and the 400 watt HPS light.

I'm amazed at the heat being put out! I'm having trouble keeping it cool. I'm at 87 degrees stable. I think I can get another 2-3 degrees lower by adding more passive intake (I think I'm a little restricted at the moment).

If I get down to 85, is that OK, or should I do some more work? I want to avoid noise since this is stealth. So no mega fans please. Also, I'm using existing 4" exhaust ducting, so don't want to upgrade to 6" (but I could use 6" fan, adapted into the 4" exhaust).

I tried blowing a fan around in there - did not help. Just mixed up the hot air, and made the plants hotter (!).

I have a couple of ideas. I can move the ballast out. Not sure how much that would help. Where to put it in this stealth grow though? In the ceiling maybe. Not convinced it would do that much - I'm pretty sure that open bulb is causing 99% of the problem.

Would a cooltube knock down my ambient temperature? That would be some work though - because they are all 6" ducted.

As a last resort, and it's cheaper than the tube, I can move down to 250 watts. I wanted to avoid that though because I've read so many times that 400's get you better results.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[convex]

I think you will be surprised as to how much heat a ballast radiates.
Pull it out and run it for an hour and check your temps.

Cheers

 

[malachii]

I think you will be surprised as to how much heat a ballast radiates.
Pull it out and run it for an hour and check your temps.

Cheers

Hey thanks for the tip (it's awesome when people help out in your ventures). I'll do that today and post back the results. I'm actually hitting 90 today, not just 88 like overnight. I guess my house might have been a couple of degrees cooler during the night which makes sense. I need to get down at least 5 degrees.

 

[darlingmaster]

Without a doubt try and move your ballast and uncork your intakes.

 

[hiboy]

For flowering i wouldnt run it above 80. You can get away with it more in veg. Good ideas to move the ballast out of the room, just make sure you dont set your ballast where it could cause a fire hazard. More intake from a cooler source will def. cool it down also
hiboy

 

[malachii]

For flowering i wouldnt run it above 80. You can get away with it more in veg. Good ideas to move the ballast out of the room, just make sure you dont set your ballast where it could cause a fire hazard. More intake from a cooler source will def. cool it down also
hiboy

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll start by adding a ground-level intake (colder, and more, intake). I'll then move the ballast out of the room. Who knows, maybe I'll gain my 5 degrees that way. It won't hurt. Finding a stealthy place for the ballast is the problem, where it's not a fire hazard. I wish stealth weren't necessary, but it is.

My next step will be a cooltube with separate fan, fed from a cold-air source (not from the grow room). That should be the most I think I can do reasonable. Fitting in the cool tube will be a pain. The one I have available near me is 29 inches wide flange to flange, and I only have 37 inches of width to work with. I can "force" the bend in ducting I suppose a little, since it's a short run, and 6 inches are overkill for my 400 watter anyhow. I can get a shorter one for twice the money, but the $150 they are asking for seems like a lot to me.

 

[hiboy]

An idea for your set up,
Suck the air out of your tent thru a carbon filtner, then thru the cool tube and then out.
Have a fan suck air from a cool source for your intake.
hiboy

 

[malachii]

Well, I'm going to buy a cooltube tomorrow to see what it does for my temps. I'll just hook it up to my existing fan/filter. I don't know how much that will help my ambient temps though. I think I might need a separate fan that uses air from outside the grow area (cooler) to cool the tube. But I'd rather not have to figure out how to fit 2 large (relative to my grow area) fans into my smallish space.

The air intake is passive (I prefer negative pressure), and at near ground-level, so it's cool.

Thanks!

p.s. Update: the extra ground-level passive intake did not change my temps. I'm still at 90 degrees in my small grow area. Don't want more fan (140cfm -> enough for my space by a mile in terms of air exchange) -> also becomes hard to control humidity. We'll see what the tube does I guess!

 

[LordDankinstien]

Nvm

 

[hiboy]

Your 140 cfm fan might be moving too much air. Normally with h.i.d. lights air conditioners are a must.
hiboy

 

[malachii]

Your 140 cfm fan might be moving too much air. Normally with h.i.d. lights air conditioners are a must.
hiboy

Yeah basically my problem is increasing humidity, while needing a powerful fan (well, 150cfm is a lot for my small 2x3 space) to remove all that heat.

The cooltube has helped a LOT though in reducing heat. The real answer will be to have it with its own fan, so I can really reduce the fan speed on the exhaust. Then, with a humidity controller (not sure the right name for that) hooked up to a humidifier, I think I'll be golden.

I wish there was some kind of humidifier I could hook up to my water supply to avoid refilling it all the time.

Mal.

 

[hiboy]

I was searching for a humidifier , said fuck it and went to Target. Works great, but yeah i hate refilling it every other day. I did see a humidifier that hooked up to a water line. This was online, not at target of course. I think it was kinda spendy.
hiboy

 

[rhead]

I have a similar setup. 2 x 3.5 under a 600w baddass red diamond & a 42w CFL. You gotta bump your air draw wayyy up, overkill cuz its a small spot. At first I tried this:

drawing through my hood 2' away

then through a worthless ass filter

well that got me about 85f but thats too hot... Had upgrade my fan to this

and this

Now that my early am temp on the ecoplus, no ac 87f outside, gets about 80f by the fan 76f under the light.
:joint:

 

[motherlode]

Your 140 cfm fan might be moving too much air. Normally with h.i.d. lights air conditioners are a must.
hiboy

Im running 2600 watts - no air cooled hoods and no AC

how many inches of passive intake do you have - where does the air come from?

 

[hiboy]

Im running 2600 watts - no air cooled hoods and no AC

how many inches of passive intake do you have - where does the air come from?

Must be nice with no ac.
I have no choice being in california. 6000 watts and two air cond. I think they are 23000 btu. total.
hiboy

 

[rhead]

Im running 2600 watts - no air cooled hoods and no AC

how many inches of passive intake do you have - where does the air come from?

you have that in a closet?

 

[SSC]

My opinion, get rid of that HPS light and go with LED!! You will have no more heat issues! As far as a good humidifier, the best type of there is a steam humidifier. It is made by Honeywell. The cool thing about it is that the actual humidifier can be remotly mounted and then you just run a hose into you grow room that injects steam humidifaction!! Another good thing about that is that there is no pad collecting water that could create mold. Good luck!

 

[motherlode]

you have that in a closet?

lol no its in an 8x12 room