Cooling lights with room air or box air?

[ThaLonelyStoner]

I hope to put a big dent in my box building on Sunday that way when I pick up my 6'' Vortex next week everything will be good to go. But I have a question on cooling my light.

I have a 1000 watt HPS going in a 6x4 box, my plan is that it will be fully enclosed. I have a Sunsytems 2 reflector I believe. Its the one with 6'' holes on both ends and the glass on the bottom. I am thinking I will drill 2 3'' or 4'' holes in the base of box and take some ducting and feed those into one of the 6'' holes in the light. Then on the other end hook the 6'' Vortex up so its pulling in the cool air passing it over the bulb and out into the room through a hole in the top or side.

As for cooling the box I think, not sure, I will get a 4'' Vortex and use it to just pull cool air in through another hole drilled in the bottom. My logic is the 6'' Vortex cooling just the light alone will be enough to keep the box at around 80ish. My basement stays pretty cool even in the hot summer but I tope to be done with this before the 90 degree days set in.

Any suggestions?

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

I have a suggestion...
Do not exhaust your hot light air, into the room right outside the box, or you will raise the room temps, and then continue to circulate the "exhaust" air back into the box thereby not efficiently cooling your lights, possibly compromising your grow...I would think. Maybe not, if you have an AC in there I guess but you didn't mention anything like that, so I dunno...I would give it some more careful thought though. Just my thoughts.

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

I know I had a 4x4x8 tent at one time, and 2 400s and they were air cooled, I just pumped the exhaust out the tent, throught duct straight into the ceiling getting it out of the cycle completely, and my intake was from an adjacent room still, and it still had it's moments. Just saying...
Good luck midwest ehya..

 

[ThaLonelyStoner]

Thanks! I appreciate any advice! I did not want to put an AC in there but I guess that will be a call I have to make once I get everything setup and see where the temps are. Thanks again!

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

Still and yet I would rethink exhausting the air off your lights into the room you are intaking from....

 

[Sambiala]

Just a few things from my initial trial and error…

Depending on the starting temperature of the room you’re sucking air from, your temps will get up high pretty quickly with 1000w exhausted into the same room. I only have a 400w HPS and a few fluro’s in a 3x3x8’ clone/veg cabinet sucking from the bottom, exhausting out the top which gets the whole room temp up around 24-26 deg C constantly (room is around 13x15x10’) which is just acceptable for the veg area.

My flower room is a separately sealed area also part of the same room which has 2 x 600w HPS lights, I tried a few configurations initially to cool the lights but the only way I could keep the flower area below 25 deg C was to suck cool air from under my house/crawl space area, through cool tubes and out into my ceiling. Even a single 600w HPS would get the room temps up around 30 deg C and both running would have room temps up around 35 deg c + even on a colder day. I was using digital ballasts for all 3 lights also, if they were old ballasts I could see the temps getting up around 40 deg C pretty easy.

I’m using an 8” vortex fan to cool the 2 600W’s and a 4” vortex for the 400W, I tried many others but nothing was good enough.

Also, if you do end up cutting into your box floor, you will need to use larger intake holes than your exhaust (calculate the total area/s of the holes, not diameter). 2 x 4” holes will not give you enough intake hole area for the 6” exhaust, I used only 2” holes for my cabinet intake but used 12 of them spaced out so the air flow would be fairly even throughout the area with no strain on the fan. I tried running a sealed cabinet initially so the air flowed through the light only but temps inside got up around 35 deg C, sucking from inside the cabinet through the cool tube and out the top brought temps down below 25 deg C.

Sucking from another room or under the house also gives you a fresh air source, your plants need regular air changes if not using CO2, the effects of circulating the same old air again and again will show up in your plants.

 

[ThaLonelyStoner]

Hell of a first post, thanks so much!

 

[Sambiala]

Hell of a first post, thanks so much!

No problem. I have been lurking around here for so long I should give something back to the community if I can.

I spent several weeks setting my room up before I started growing and had a lot of documented trial and error testing so let me know if you get stuck with something, I will help where I can.

Goodluck!

 

[Tr33]

if you are thinking about AC for inside your chamber, I'd suggest reading hoosierdaddies thread, on inside ac box's.
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95491

and his thread on Airflow
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95491

these will get you up to speed with your chamber.

 

[ThaLonelyStoner]

Thanks for all the help guys, I started building my box last night. Since ill have Veggies in there too I went a little larger than I had planned.

3' deep
6' long
5.5' tall

That gives me 5 feet of vertical grow space, the hood is roughly 5-6'' tall.

Now I am going to get a 6'' Vortex just to cool my light, it will bring air from the basement cool the light then out the furnace vent and up to the roof. I have read that the 6'' vortex will be enough to cool the 1000w bulb.

Now to tackle the air inside the box for the plants. I need to figure out the formulas in the Ventilation thread, whew I hate math, thats why I became a designer not an engineer.

 

[ThaLonelyStoner]

Its all starting to come together no, slow but steady. I have decided on the 6'' 440cfm Canfan for cooling, but still uncertain how I am going to set it up, but we are getting there. I put a crap fan blowing across the tops and granted the box top nor the doors are on here the temp directly under the light was about 85-90. Lots of good veggies in there too (strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, basil, broccoli, and more).

 

[IE2KS_KUSH]

That's warm.

 

[KUSHEATER1]

cooltube those lights and add ac if temps are average or warm to begin with ,now a room that is always cool may work for ya I mean 60ish all the time like a basement