150w HPS Club and Resource Guide......

[growDaddy]

Quazi that's a really nice harvest. Congratulations!

A very merry Christmas indeed

 

[growDaddy]

I also got the glass I'm going to use as my cool tube.:

just be aware that the glass will reduce heat but also reduce the light output by 10-20%

I used a glass on my last grow and the tops could get very close to the glass, no heat at all. I then corrected the ventilation and took off the glass, boy those plants reacted to the extra light in a most fantastic way.

good luck with your grow

 

[TraneRek]

Hmm, well since I've already got the most expensive part of the cooltube I think I'll try it out, and maybe try w/out it next time (granted my ventilation, etc is on point).

My next priority is getting my exhaust fan.. I think I'm gonna go w/ Quazi's Lasko Blower Mod. I'm still debating whether to have all my exhaust run through my cooltube into the utility area, or to have my cooltube on its own circulation (using my PC fans). Because I've read that running your exhaust through your cooltube causes it to get dirty much faster, costing you even more precious lumens.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

-Rek

 

[Bulénath]

Hmm, well since I've already got the most expensive part of the cooltube I think I'll try it out, and maybe try w/out it next time (granted my ventilation, etc is on point).

My next priority is getting my exhaust fan.. I think I'm gonna go w/ Quazi's Lasko Blower Mod. I'm still debating whether to have all my exhaust run through my cooltube into the utility area, or to have my cooltube on its own circulation (using my PC fans). Because I've read that running your exhaust through your cooltube causes it to get dirty much faster, costing you even more precious lumens.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

-Rek

If the air is first filtered through carbon, and the carbon with its pre-filter sheets such as disposable Aircondition Filters are changed regularly, there shouldn't be any problems...

I think the best design would be:

-->Carbon fitler-->cooltube--->fan--->exhaust.->

 

[Bulénath]

just be aware that the glass will reduce heat but also reduce the light output by 10-20%

I used a glass on my last grow and the tops could get very close to the glass, no heat at all. I then corrected the ventilation and took off the glass, boy those plants reacted to the extra light in a most fantastic way.

good luck with your grow

Any chance you have comparison pictures?

I would grow with outa glass shield if I could counter the heat in the 17-1/2" high flower chamber....

 

[Quazi]

I think the best design would be:

-->Carbon fitler-->cooltube--->fan--->exhaust.->

Cooling is more important than removing smell. As such, you want your air-flow to be completely unrestricted before hitting the cool tube if you can avoid it. If you put your carbon filter before it, then you'll have to go through the filter and possibly some ducting before getting to the lamp. Unless you plan on placing your filter on the very end of your cool tube.

I would rather there be no constriction of airflow before the lamp to ensure maximum heat removal.

The smell can be taken out after my lamp is cooled.

My next priority is getting my exhaust fan.. I think I'm gonna go w/ Quazi's Lasko Blower Mod. I'm still debating whether to have all my exhaust run through my cooltube into the utility area, or to have my cooltube on its own circulation (using my PC fans). Because I've read that running your exhaust through your cooltube causes it to get dirty much faster, costing you even more precious lumens.. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Unless you plan on equally pulling air through both the intake around the plugs and the intake you plant to modify, then you might run the risk of warping on down the road for this blower. The Dayton blower, as I've explained before, is more suitable for a single-intake setup as it does not have an intake split down the middle like the Lasko. Just an FYI. Only failure I've ever heard of was a guy unequally pulling through 2 400W cool tubes. I don't think that'll be happening here so you may have nothing to worry about.

-Q

 

[TraneRek]

Hmm, what if I did something like this..



Where the majority of the airflow is going from the..
flower chamber --> cooltube --> carbon filter --> utility area --> fan

Then if needed I can add more exhaust holes between the utility and the flower chamber to make sure the intake/exhaust ratio is correct. This way I won't warp my fan, and I'll cool my cab/light/utility all at once. Oh, also I'll put pantyhose or something of the likes on the end of my cooltube (where the first arrow's pointing) to block some of the dust/debris from getting in there. What do you all think?

-Rek

 

[growDaddy]

Any chance you have comparison pictures?

I would grow with outa glass shield if I could counter the heat in the 17-1/2" high flower chamber....

No, sorry no pictures. Just when I took of the glass the tops exploded the next day. weird, only the 4 tallest ones did this. What was nice white hairs on a normal bud began to produce these green growths out the top - I can't explain it but it was fantastic. The tops expanded greatly and all grew nice white hairs within a few days. These four ended up being the largest like baseball-softball size on the tops of those buds.
These are two views of the same bud:


For this grow I have the glass off and added a second 150w HPS to the mix.

17 1/2" doesn't allow for much error. Using glass does really cut down on the heat, and it sure looks to working for you, man go with it

 

[Bulénath]

Cooling is more important than removing smell. As such, you want your air-flow to be completely unrestricted before hitting the cool tube if you can avoid it. If you put your carbon filter before it, then you'll have to go through the filter and possibly some ducting before getting to the lamp. Unless you plan on placing your filter on the very end of your cool tube.

I would rather there be no constriction of airflow before the lamp to ensure maximum heat removal

As for cooling being MORE important that removing smell, it does depend on everyones unique growing situation, granted we all try to adrhere to the basic growing rules, which I assume we all know...I.e. 5 air exhanges per minute.

But the question I was initially responding to was TraneRek's concern that
"that running your exhaust through your cooltube causes it to get dirty much faster, costing you even more precious lumens".

And through my experience, having a carbon filter attached to any intake will filter out the dust particles, allowing the contents, in this case his light bulb and inner cool tube, to stay cleaner much longer.

Like I said before, there is no comparrison between my Panasonic that has no filter and the ones that do. When I periodically change the carbon filter on those particular Panasonics, the insides look spotless and brand spankin' new.

As for having a filter or not, having increased ducting or none at all, having a more powerful fan or a crappy one that can't use a fitler at all, it ALL depends on your (the readers) growing situation.

Second of all,
"running your exhaust through your cooltube" is going backward...Remember that you wana use negative pressure in any instance.

 

[Bulénath]

No, sorry no pictures. Just when I took of the glass the tops exploded the next day. weird, only the 4 tallest ones did this. What was nice white hairs on a normal bud began to produce these green growths out the top - I can't explain it but it was fantastic. The tops expanded greatly and all grew nice white hairs within a few days. These four ended up being the largest like baseball-softball size on the tops of those buds.
These are two views of the same bud:


For this grow I have the glass off and added a second 150w HPS to the mix.

17 1/2" doesn't allow for much error. Using glass does really cut down on the heat, and it sure looks to working for you, man go with it

That new growth you speak of, with with white hairs at the tips of the colas and new green bracks forming, I find that they usually are the best cuts when dried! My plants do that too, but only directly under the bulb in the very sweet spot!

I wouldn't dare remove the glass shield, the whole desing depends on it!

 

[Bulénath]

TraneRek, how high is your cabinet?

 

[growDaddy]

Last night I took down crop after a 10 day dry. The stems snapped, nice and crispy. This is how they looked going in.



The total take for my 150w HPS plus 6-55w CFL 6 sq ft 10 month 3 plant (80% from 1, 15% from 1, 5% from 1) 1st grow was:
pop-corn 72.0g
dried bud 135.7g



I surely didn't achieve the magic 1g/w by any means, but I got a little over an oz per/sq ft, which is much more than I ever would have expected!

These are pics of the bud: 135.7g
Please note that is an 18" ruler, couldn't find a 12" one!




I'm planning on a merry little Christmas

 

[Bulénath]

That is a beautiful harvest!
Now you need glass on glass Apothecary jars to cure it!!!

 

[catman]

I got my Panasonic Whisper today.

It is obvious the whisper is CFM for CFM quieter than a 120mm DC fan!

That is 80CFM vs ~80CFM.

Mine makes a very faint clicking noise every 1/2 second, but silent otherwise. The 120mm makes a higher pitched buzz while the whisper's tone is much lower. It has a little flap on the exhaust and when you restrict it the fan speeds up and gets a bit louder.

I used a PC power supply cord rated for 10 amps for power.

 

[Quazi]

Well done growDaddy! Quite the harvest!

Just need to put it in the glass now:


Curing is awesome.

-Q

 

[Bulénath]

I got my Panasonic Whisper today.

It is obvious the whisper is CFM for CFM quieter than a 120mm DC fan!

That is 80CFM vs ~80CFM.

Mine makes a very faint clicking noise every 1/2 second, but silent otherwise. The 120mm makes a higher pitched buzz while the whisper's tone is much lower. It has a little flap on the exhaust and when you restrict it the fan speeds up and gets a bit louder.

I used a PC power supply cord rated for 10 amps for power.

You can go ahead and just pull that flap off!

So you can hear a clicking noise without the carbon attached?
I get a slightly choppy air noise with my carbon, but it is still a whisper..

 

[growDaddy]

Yes, glass for sure for next grow, but this time I have only plastic. I don't see this grow lasting long enough to do much curing anyway.

 

[Bulénath]

Definately get a glass on glass Apothecary jar for the next harvest!
Curing in such jars will bring out the full potential of your harvests flavour..
You can get decent deals on Ebay!
RooR jars are nice too, but they can be a bit pricey.


Ahhh yes, glass on glass everything

 

[isit4.20yet]

For the people buying the E-conolight 150W HPS vapor tights. If you are concerned about the power they use, here's an excerpt of a post I made in the "How To Remote Ballast a 150W HPS Vapor Tight Light" thread.

Now because this is a normal power factor ballast it draws quite a lot of current. I measured it at 3.8 amps to start and it settled to about 3.4 amps in a few minutes. This works out to 425 volt-amps of apparent power while the actual power that the lamp and ballast use is 170 watts. I had done a little research and found that a high power factor ballast of this size uses a 52 microfarad capacitor to correct the power factor to over 90% so i had also ordered up a 330v motor run capacitor from eBay of that value. (well, 50 mfd was close enough.) I then connected this cap across the line and neutral of the incoming ac cord, fired up the lamp again and measured the current. I smiled as the new starting current was down from the previous 3.8 amps to a mere 1.75 amps. A couple minutes later it seemed to settle in at 1.4 amps. Now the apparent power is only 175 volt-amps and the true power of the device is rated at 170 watts. This means the capacitor corrected the power factor to 97% and cut 2 amps of current from my wiring.

The power company doesn't charge you extra for those extra amps of reactive power so this won't cut the electric bill, but if your house wiring is as old as mine or you plan on running more than 2 of these on a 15 amp circuit it sure does cut the amps which do nothing but heat up your wires.

So if you want to add this to your project get yourself a 50 microfarad / 125 volt or higher (mine's 330v) motor capacitor and connect it right across the black and white wires entering the box from the outlet in parallel with the whole circuit (see diagram below).

If you are planning on hooking up more than 2 of these lights to a 15 amp circuit, remember that without the capacitor they draw almost 4 amps to start and settle to 3.5 amps. That means that it's only safe to run 3 lamps on a 15 amp circuit. With the cap added to each lamp, your startup current is less than 2 amps per light so you can run up to 6 of them on a 15 amp circuit safely.

Here's a little diagram I whipped up in MS Paint:

 

[Quazi]

Hell yea isit4.20yet!

Nice info added.

To add to the amazing info above.

Thunderkel asked this question in my cabinet thread:

I heard the Econolight $20 150w HPS that eveyone gets actually pulls 350w total due to how cheaply it's made have you found this to be true??

Barnt came back with a wonderful response:

Yes the light pulls more current than a 150W light because it is missing a capacitor to keep the voltage and current in phase. Essentially, more current goes through the ballast, however about half of it is returned back into the wall. You don't get billed for this as its not current that you have used. If this is done on a large scale though (multiple 150w) then the added current will become a problem faster. With a 15amp circuit you could only have a few 150w lights without caps because of the extra current they draw. If you needed 5+ lights on one breaker you would have to fix the phase issue (as larger ballasts do). Also, if the phase isn't corrected and you are running large things out of phase and returning power to the grid, the electric company might get pissed.

Just adding some additional info to the mix.

-Q