Bulénath
Member
INTRO: (skip to next post for the tour)
Finding an extremely quiet yet powerful fan is not easy. This holds especially true for stealth operations and for bedroom growers who are insomniacs, like myself. After wasting $400+ on a 172 cfm Vortex Inline Fan, Can-9000 carbon filter, a specially designed attic housing two feet of home-made, 12" thick fiberglass insulated ducting, solid state speed controller, and countless hours of research, I finnaly gave up on growing.
There was no answer to my ventilation problems. This insomniac could barely sleep with a desk fan set on "high", let alone a grow box feet from my bed! Not only that, no one could know about my stealth operation. There had to be no sound, smell, glow, or high electricity use. Whats a stoner to do? A whole year later, Buffalo Grown introduced the Panasonic Whisper Fan. He convinced me to make my last and finnal investment in hopes of being a grower. It turned out to be a god send. When I first plugged the 80cfm, 0.4 sone fan into the socket, I thoguht it was broken. There was no noise. I put my hand over the exhaust and couldent believe the amount of air rushing through the 4" duct! It defies the laws of physics! Ten feet away and I could feel the breeze of air flowing past!
There are two types of noise when it comes to ventilaton.
First is air noise. That is the sound of air rushing through a vent.
Second is motor noise. Self explanitory.
Most fans are rated acording to motor noise.
Air noise is caused by two things: The speed of air being exhauseted and the restriction of air being exhausted (i.e. the diameter, shape, length and obstructions of the vent/intake.) Inline fans like the Vortex 172cfm move so much air through a 4" duct, that the hollow "Woosh" sound of blowing air becomes very noticeable. Not only that, inlines have very powerful motors. These motors are so strong, the Vortex 172cfm fan sounds like a mini jet engine! Not suitable for a bedroom grow what so ever!
PC fans tend to move a decent amount of air, yet have very weak and usually "whiney" motors. When the air flow is restricted, most PC fans tend to whine even louder while loosing a significant amount of CFM. In my opinion Motor Noise is *much more* irritating compared to Air Noise.
Finding that perfect ballance between Air Noise, Motor Noise and Power is not easy.
This is where the Panasonic Whisper Fan comes into play.
Using the 80cfm model, not only is the Air Noise barely noticeable, but there is no motor noise at all! Nor is there any vibration that needs to be absorbed! How can this be? Its panasonics secret! But our Holy Grail!
What about the power? Surely a fan this quiet is super weak! This is not so!
For some reason, when the air flow is restricted, the motor pushes harder!
I dont know why the fan does this! Within a two second delayed reaction, putting your hand over the exhaust reveals a sudden increase in air flow, as if the fan is programed to maintain a constant and consistant CFM!
Because of this, and the coincidental perfect mounting design of the fan, I had to experiment with a carbon scrubber. In the end, with two and a half pounds of activated carbon, 2" thick, the over all noise increase is less than 50%. That is fifty percent of virtual silence. The decrease in airflow is roughly 25% when exhausted straight, i.e. no ducting. There is no subsequent whining of the motor, although the scrubber does create a very slight "choppy" noise which is equal to a small HEPA filter on "low" setting. The HEPA filter I am comparing it to is this small one available at walmart:
I was so impressed with this fan, I bought three, and converted two into a carbon scrubber. The third one was removed from the casing and hooked up directly to a rectangular shaped exhaust, making the quietest, most efficient exhaust ever. When its hooked up like this, it is not lightproof, so its perfect for 24/0! Here is a off topic picture of direct exhaust, just to show what is possible with this fan.
view of the rectangular exhaust from the top
And here we go...!
Finding an extremely quiet yet powerful fan is not easy. This holds especially true for stealth operations and for bedroom growers who are insomniacs, like myself. After wasting $400+ on a 172 cfm Vortex Inline Fan, Can-9000 carbon filter, a specially designed attic housing two feet of home-made, 12" thick fiberglass insulated ducting, solid state speed controller, and countless hours of research, I finnaly gave up on growing.
There was no answer to my ventilation problems. This insomniac could barely sleep with a desk fan set on "high", let alone a grow box feet from my bed! Not only that, no one could know about my stealth operation. There had to be no sound, smell, glow, or high electricity use. Whats a stoner to do? A whole year later, Buffalo Grown introduced the Panasonic Whisper Fan. He convinced me to make my last and finnal investment in hopes of being a grower. It turned out to be a god send. When I first plugged the 80cfm, 0.4 sone fan into the socket, I thoguht it was broken. There was no noise. I put my hand over the exhaust and couldent believe the amount of air rushing through the 4" duct! It defies the laws of physics! Ten feet away and I could feel the breeze of air flowing past!
There are two types of noise when it comes to ventilaton.
First is air noise. That is the sound of air rushing through a vent.
Second is motor noise. Self explanitory.
Most fans are rated acording to motor noise.
Air noise is caused by two things: The speed of air being exhauseted and the restriction of air being exhausted (i.e. the diameter, shape, length and obstructions of the vent/intake.) Inline fans like the Vortex 172cfm move so much air through a 4" duct, that the hollow "Woosh" sound of blowing air becomes very noticeable. Not only that, inlines have very powerful motors. These motors are so strong, the Vortex 172cfm fan sounds like a mini jet engine! Not suitable for a bedroom grow what so ever!
PC fans tend to move a decent amount of air, yet have very weak and usually "whiney" motors. When the air flow is restricted, most PC fans tend to whine even louder while loosing a significant amount of CFM. In my opinion Motor Noise is *much more* irritating compared to Air Noise.
Finding that perfect ballance between Air Noise, Motor Noise and Power is not easy.
This is where the Panasonic Whisper Fan comes into play.
Using the 80cfm model, not only is the Air Noise barely noticeable, but there is no motor noise at all! Nor is there any vibration that needs to be absorbed! How can this be? Its panasonics secret! But our Holy Grail!
What about the power? Surely a fan this quiet is super weak! This is not so!
For some reason, when the air flow is restricted, the motor pushes harder!
I dont know why the fan does this! Within a two second delayed reaction, putting your hand over the exhaust reveals a sudden increase in air flow, as if the fan is programed to maintain a constant and consistant CFM!
Because of this, and the coincidental perfect mounting design of the fan, I had to experiment with a carbon scrubber. In the end, with two and a half pounds of activated carbon, 2" thick, the over all noise increase is less than 50%. That is fifty percent of virtual silence. The decrease in airflow is roughly 25% when exhausted straight, i.e. no ducting. There is no subsequent whining of the motor, although the scrubber does create a very slight "choppy" noise which is equal to a small HEPA filter on "low" setting. The HEPA filter I am comparing it to is this small one available at walmart:
I was so impressed with this fan, I bought three, and converted two into a carbon scrubber. The third one was removed from the casing and hooked up directly to a rectangular shaped exhaust, making the quietest, most efficient exhaust ever. When its hooked up like this, it is not lightproof, so its perfect for 24/0! Here is a off topic picture of direct exhaust, just to show what is possible with this fan.
view of the rectangular exhaust from the top
And here we go...!
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