Quietest 100-150 CFM 4" Exhaust Fan? Elicent Inline or Dayton/ActiveAir Blower?

Whats up fella's good thread, hey Mr micro the speedster will make it hum there is a good thread over at rollitup dot com they are talking about those fans. One member says the speedster type controller made his hum...

Nice, here's hoping everything works out.

CAUTION! BUMPS Ahead!

Any updates? Been real curious about the results of this fan. Think the X version on low w/ a carbon scrubber could vent a 3' X 1.5' X 3' NGB box?

The 2 fans in my horse race (for now) are the S&P 100x and the CAP Valuline 4"...

because they're about the same price. I have to tackle some heat issues because I'm growing in a triangular stairwell space that forces all the hot air up to the top real fast plus the space is cramped for a fan/scrubber.
I'm very interested in the S&P outcome...
OldYeller

Update time!

Well, I got the fan last week, wired it up and installed it, and I'm sorry to say it was far too loud for my needs.
Don't get me wrong, the motor in the S&P-100 fan ran almost completely silent and there were no vibrations at all. There was no way you could hear the motor running if you were more than 3 feet away.
However, the "woosh" noise of the air flow was like a small tornado in my closet! I think that's pretty much unavoidable when you're talking about inline fans, and even with a carbon scrubber on the intake side the noise of the airflow was still much too loud to be stealthy.

I'm sure it would have worked perfectly fine had I built a small duct muffler for it (and there are plenty of good guides here on how to build a cheap duct muffler) but even with the fan running on full blast (100cfm) my little DR40's temps were around 95°F when the room temperature was 75°F. Mind you I was using a Floralux internally ballasted 150w HPS, but the heat combined with other issues (lack of stealth) made me decide to return all the items I bought for my tent and go back to PC case growing.


So, to sum it up, here's how I feel about the S&P-100 fan...

It's the quietest inline fan I've ever heard in terms of motor noise and vibration, since the motor runs almost silent and it doesn't vibrate at all. However you'll still have to deal with the very loud noise of the air rushing out of the fan and through your ducting.
I think if you installed an exhaust muffler it would be an excellent stealth fan that would be almost completely silent, but without an exhaust muffler there is no way it could be considered a good stealth option.
With the addition of a muffler I think it would make a great exhaust fan for smaller cabs, since it's 7" long and 5" wide profile make it much easier to fit in small spaces than most "4 inline fans (which are generally about 9.5" wide).

Hope that helps!

Hey, thanks for the update. Sorry to hear it didn't suit your needs. I think I'm still going to try it out tho. W/ a scrubber on the intake do you think it's powerful enough to draw air through PVC pipe from my veg to flower areas? (NGB box btw) Also, if I attached another carbon scrubber at the exhaust end, would that quiet it any?

Sorry to hear about the noise. I'm thinking "fans" and "quiet" just don't go together. The best you can hope for in a stealth operation is to lower the noise to the point you can blame it on something else: Aquarium, computer, freezer ...

Still, way to take one for the team. Many posters abandon threads when things don't pan out as planned but, you came back and let us know. Rep for you.

mr. Micro, sorry to hear about the noise as well. I was hoping for a positive report, as I was ready to order one. Did the router speed control make the fan hum? I was able to speed contol an Elicent 6" (309cfm) and could strike a balance between exhaust noise and air movement.

Hard to believe that your small grow tent still ran 95 deg with 75 deg ambient temps while your fan was moving so much air. Something ain't right here...

I had good success making a muffler and adding it to my setup. But, even though its not a conventional setup it still works pretty well. It's like this: gro box in a closet>>>4" venting to out side>>>muffler>>>4" venting to fan>>>scrubber. You just about can't hear this thing run at all when in the same room. I put the fan & scrubber up in the attic though.

MrMicro - Props to you for the follow up (what FreezerBoy said). It looks like speed controllers become very important for us who have to run fans/scrubbers inside our grow areas. For myself, I'm gonna have to get the Variac type controller (no noise) to go along with the S&P fan if I want to put any kind of HPS/MH light in my space.

One last question - S&P lists their fans as 2 speeds - is there a switch on the outside of the fan or is it in the way you wire it up?

Hey! Time to wake up this thread..

I have a question for all of you who have been trying out various ventilation systems and have been searching for the ultimate in stealthy quietness...

Mr_Micro's experience with the S&P TD-Mixvent 100 was unacceptable to him in the noise department, but it was the sound of the rushing air, not the fan's operating noise level, that made it unusable. In my looking around IC threads trying to find info on reducing noise levels, it seems like the culprit is almost always the air rushing through the ducting that creates these noise problems. My question is...what would happen if there was no ducting....if the fan was installed in a cabinet so that it pulled directly from the grow chamber and exhausted directly through the wall of the grow cab? Would there still be a 'whooshing' sound?

It seems Mr_Micro hasn't posted in a few months on these boards, hope all is well with ya dude!, if you're still lurking would love for ya to comment. But there seemed to be many others who had important experience in this thread who could also help out here.

Also, petemoss had a comment that I'm interested in as well....namely, why were the temperatures so outa whack (95 degrees when ambient were 75 degrees) with this S&P mixvent fan? Any ideas, from anybody out there, why the fan was not keeping the inside cooler than that?

Thanks for helping me in my quest for silence

Howdy Hal,
I'm surprised Mr_Micro gave up on his tent and S&P fan and went back to a PC case. Seems he was 90% there except for the heat - 20 deg above ambient. I think his problem was airflow. Maybe not enough intakes or poor air circulation inside the cab/tent. What I like to do is intake at the bottom and exhaust from the top, where the hotter air rises to. Even better to intake from the bottom front and exhaust from the top rear side so that the air has to go through the plants. Mr_Micro, if you are still around, please comment.

Hal said:

My question is...what would happen if there was no ducting....if the fan was installed in a cabinet so that it pulled directly from the grow chamber and exhausted directly through the wall of the grow cab? Would there still be a 'whooshing' sound?

Click to expand...

I would definitely think the noise would be even greater without ducting.

hmm, and that is opposite of what i would have guessed.

Hal said:

Hey! Time to wake up this thread..

I have a question for all of you who have been trying out various ventilation systems and have been searching for the ultimate in stealthy quietness...

Mr_Micro's experience with the S&P TD-Mixvent 100 was unacceptable to him in the noise department, but it was the sound of the rushing air, not the fan's operating noise level, that made it unusable. In my looking around IC threads trying to find info on reducing noise levels, it seems like the culprit is almost always the air rushing through the ducting that creates these noise problems. My question is...what would happen if there was no ducting....if the fan was installed in a cabinet so that it pulled directly from the grow chamber and exhausted directly through the wall of the grow cab? Would there still be a 'whooshing' sound?

Click to expand...

Not an exact answer to your "Q" but you are on the correct path.
When I was growing in my converted wardrobe I had the wooshing noise problem using ducting....I switched that out and used rain gutter pipe instead and it made a big, big difference.
Ditch the metallic spiral wound ducting and get smooth flat or round ducting. Just google flat ducting and you will see the stuff I mean.

I ain't dead yet

After a long summer hiatus from growing and the growing community I'm back once again and starting to plan new ideas for a slightly larger grow tent or box. At this point I'm looking at a DR60 tent (the biggest that would fit in my closet) and outfitting it with a 2'x2' Ebb & Flow table along with a 250w remote ballasted HPS along with a few other goodies.
The DR40 tent I tried before and gave up on was just too small to comfortably fit all the equipment I'd want to use in and was too difficult to cool a internally ballasted 150w HPS in. So I'm hoping something a little bit larger will do the trick.

After thinking about my experience with the S&P TD-100 fan I think that's actually the fan I'm going to go with for my larger tent. As Hal and others have stated the problem with the S&P fan wasn't the noise of the fan running at all, the fan itself made almost no audible noise, the problem was the noise of the air current rushing out of the fan and through the ducting. So in order to remedy this problem the next time around I've decided to try using the same fan but this time with Fantech insulated ducting for all my ducting and a Fantech 4" duct silencer for the air leaving the cab. So it will go...

Elf Carbon Filter --> Insulated Ducting --> S&P TD-100 Inline Fan --> Insulated Ducting out of the tent --> Fantech 4" Duct Silencer --> Insulated ducting running up into the ceiling

I believe that the combination of insulated ducting and a duct silencer should eliminate the vast majority of noise, at least enough to make it all but silent unless you put your ear right up to the closet door that the tent will be behind.


And Hal, Bumble Buddy is indeed correct, without any ducting attached the noise from the fan would be even greater (much like a jet engine firing up right infront of you!).




The only question bumping around in my brain now is if a 100cfm exhaust fan pulling through a Elf Carbon filter (rated for 150-200cfm I believe) will be sufficient to cool a remote ballasted 250w HPS in a DR60 tent (2' x 2' x 4.5' ). I could still use some advice on that from anyone with experience in the 250w department

Mr_Micro,
You're back! I think the duct muffler and insulated ducting will solve your noise problems. But I'm wondering if the TD-100 will be enough to overcome the restrictions from your scrubber, muffler and turns in the duct run. I'm guessing that 100 cfm will be reduced to less than 70 cfm, but that should be enough for the Elf.

BTW where does the air cooled light fit in your setup? I assume you will be using a hood or cooltube to enclose the light, no?

yes...petemoss thats the same question I had was if he is using some type of cooltube or some other air ventalated reflector to help keep his temps down.......