The PHRESH Filter Club

[BorkBorkBork]

you should use a fan with between 520-660 cfm on it. The vortec I am using is 747 cfm. My filter never really worked awesome

Your problem is that your fan is too fast, moves too much air. You're exceeding the rated MAX cfm of the filter by nearly 100 cfm.

Buy a variac speed controller, and run your fan at ~75% and you'll be golden....well, you would have been, at least before refilling it yourself. No guarantees now.

They changed the name for marketing purposes. The sites that have phat filters have old stock. They are the same.

Incorrect, actually. From the Phat Filter blog (about 3/4 down the page):

The Phat Brand Has Never Changed Its Name
All filters claiming that they used to be called Phat filter are NOT Phat filters! After losing a lawsuit in Federal Court for using our brand name, several companies started claiming that their filters are the old Phat filters. Indeed, THEY ARE NOT.
The Phat brand is still produced just as it has always been and it is still the industry’s best choice for nasty odor removal.
Phresh is not Phat and never has been.
Dragon is not Phat and never has been.
Rhino is not Phat and never has been.
Don’t be fooled by ads that claim that “only the name has changed”. We never changed our name! We never changed our filters. The copy cat wannabees are riding off our our coat tails trying to promote their brands and their claims are illegal based on our court victory.
Buy the real Phat Filter, not the guys trying to make their off brand filters sound like ours.

get a phresh and a fan bigger then what you need then get a speed controller and run the fan slow .... no ozone ever needed on my end.

What he said.

I run a 6x20" Phresh, and they're great. Even managed to jam it into the top of a 2x2 tent somehow.

I used my first one through....3 grows, all exhausting into the attic. When I changed my setup, I changed the filter, but I'm keeping it as emergency backup, since it was still capturing the stink.

Now I run a closed room, and the new 6x20 is recirculating the air, and doing a great job, you have to stick your schnozz right in the buds before you smell them.

 

[dunkydunk]

I have two phresh filters -- no smell, no problem, no complaints.

 

[pyite20v]

My phresh definitely went bad in under a year.

 

[WasntMe]

My phresh definitely went bad in under a year.

with what setup? what fan? what size cfm and what size room?

I have only seen phresh fail when the cfm was way over spec ... which would cause failure on any filter.

 

[grow nerd]

I just realized that this thread is for PRESH filters, not PHRESH!

 

[gdbud]

I tied the make my own scrubber for my cabinet even modifying it three times to get it to work perfectly. Then one day I walked into the room and was almost knocked over by the odor escaping from my home made scrubber.

That day I when out and got my self a new phresh filter through out the home made thing installed the phresh filter and have not had a problem since.

My advice is forget the home made scrubbers. Go for a phresh filter in the first place and save yourself some Money.

 

[milehighmedical]

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[Snagglepuss]

So what is the difference between phresh filters and phat filters? I have seen some sites selling phat filters and some selling phresh filters?

From what i gather they are fairly similar .Here's some info that might help.Phat filters use low density RC 412 .Phresh uses
RC 48 .But according to this info ,i think the charcoal is the same.A big difference i noticed is the price.I bought a 6 x 24 550 cfm Phat filter last night for $99.The same 6x 24 from Phresh is $180

I was able to get the 550 cfm filter,a 400 cfm blower and a hydrofarm fan speed control all for $229 ,now thats a deal.I hope it works well.

Comparison of Phat filters to other filters


http://www.phatfilter.com/hydro/tagged/RC_412



1. Phat filters use RC 412 charcoal mined in Australia. RC 412 is virgin, non pelletized charcoal. RC 48 charcoal is no longer available there. RC 48 was slightly bigger than RC 412. Because this charcoal is not ground into dust and then re-glued and pressed into a pellet, there is NO glue (or binders) being used which means that the small piece of virgin charcoal is lighter in weight than an equivalent size piece of pelletized charcoal. The only other filters using this charcoal in the USA are said to be the Phresh filter from NGW and the Dragon filter from Micro Hydroponics & Rhino in Europe.

Binders or glues used for pelletized charcoal are not only heavy; the glued portion of a pellet also doesn’t filter anything, it cannot. All pelletized filters have this disadvantage in their carbon.

3. Carbon is also tested for quality using an Iodine test. Iodine tests yield a number that attests to the ability of charcoal to attract organic matter. All charcoals attract organic matter but some do it better than others. RC 412 has a very good Iodine test ratio.

Pelletized filters have one advantage in that the man-made pellets fit together more uniformly and because of this, a pelletized filter will hold a higher volume of charcoal in a given space as compared to a filter made with virgin charcoal. If comparing only volume of charcoal in a given canister, one could make the claim that a pelletized filter will filter more than a non-pelletized filter. However, only measuring charcoal volume is erroneous and misleading as it doesn’t take into account the importance of binders (glues) not being able to filter anything. Volume of charcoal (surface area) + binders or no binders + Iodine test all need to be factored into a realistic test on charcoal’s ability to filter. These are key factors when reading certain advertising currently being circulated.

5. Percentage of open air mesh—the inner and outer cylinders of traditional charcoal filters are made of a perforated metal mesh. Depending on the quality of machines available to the manufacturer, the percentage of openness versus percentage of metal (closed-ness) will determine what percentage of the total volume of air being pushed into the filter makes it easily to the charcoal for filtration. The more metal in the way of the air, the less the filter can clean. Phat filters have a 53% open air mesh. Phresh, Rhino and Dragon have a 51% open air mesh. CAN filter and Pro filter haven’t made this knowledge available to me so I cannot comment on those two brands.

Conical vortex at the bottom of the filter, inside the inner mesh cylinder—Phat, Rhino Dragon and Phresh all use a conical base inside their filters. This cone on the inside acts a an air diverter when air is forced onto it, the air is then diverted easily away from the bottom of the filter and back up into the center of the filter to help that air get to the charcoal. Other filters do not use this feature as far as I know.

7. Charcoal settling during shipping is common to all filters. As the filter bounces around on the cargo ship or in a truck, gravity draws the charcoal downward and the charcoal compresses tighter and tighter together. This is a good thing for the bed of charcoal as it assures better air contact with more charcoal for the air that passes through the charcoal. However, charcoal settling downward opens up a space at the top of the filter where there is no longer any charcoal that was once there. Additionally, the packing of charcoal into a smaller space will cause the charcoal to rub together tightly as it compressed and the rubbing will produce charcoal dust. This dust will come out of the filter when it is first used. Some filter companies use nothing to take up the space caused by settling charcoal during transport. This allows air to pass over the entire bed of charcoal and out of the filter and this air has not been filtered. We call this air “bypass air” as it has effectively bypassed the filter entirely and is not clean air. Other companies like Rhino, Phresh and Dragon use a piece of foam at the top of their filter. The foam expands into the space caused by the settling of charcoal. Phresh and Dragon filters both advertise an “anti air bypass system” but in reality, this is false. Foam is air permeable which means air passes right through the foam and is not filtered. This is clearly shown in the Phresh filter manufacturing video. To our knowledge, Phat filter is the only filter that uses a membrane over the foam to STOP all air from bypassing the filter entirely. Phat filter wraps the expanding foam layer with a non permeable membrane and this disallows any air from bypassing the bed of charcoal.

 

[walindour]

i run a 6" x 16" phresh filter i love it. instead of buying a new one when the carbon is used up i plan on drilling out the rivets replacing with new carbon & using bolts n nuts to replace the rivits to put it back together then i can reuse it forever.

Anyone else try this with a Phresh filter yet? I want to try this as well with a 6 x 24? I have been running for the past year. I'd love to hear if this was a successful option, how much replacement carbon would be required and where to buy it. My local shop sells 35 lb bags of carbon for $125 but i think that is a shit ton for a 6 x 24. I have tried a few pet stores but they aren't a good option. Ebay has a few sellers of carbon but if anyone has advice on where to find good quality online I'd love to know.

 

[ddrew]

Took the old prefilter off last night and put a new one on, bit of a PITA without unhooking stuff.
You know what would be nice on pre filters?
A zipper, that would make changing them so much easier.

 

[louie]

So I am thinking about buying a 12" x 39" phresh filter and on their site it recommends using a 1700 cfm fan with it. Now I am debating on buying either a 12" vortex fan rated at 1140 cfm or a 12" can max fan rated at 1740 cfm. I am leaning toward the 12" Vortex because Lazyman said that is what he uses and it works nice. And the 12" can max fan is rated slightly higher than recommended cfm for the phresh filter. Which one would be optimal? Lazyman, or anyone else what do you think I should get?

 

[dunkydunk]

Go for the vortex at 1140. Just because a filter is rated for 1700 cfm, doesn't mean you have to max it out. Whether you are using it for exhaust or a recirculating scrubber, more filter + less fan = fewer problems, so long as you've sized it properly for the volume of air in the room. I've always used the fresh air principal, that is, you will want to exchange all the air in the room at least once every five minutes.

 

[ganjasuiteseat]

...

 

[Randybobandy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Randybobandy
They changed the name for marketing purposes. The sites that have phat filters have old stock. They are the same.

Incorrect, actually. From the Phat Filter blog (about 3/4 down the page):

My bad. Guy at the hydro shop was tryng to sell me on one of these a couple of weeks ago....."Oh ya it's the same brand just a different name". What a dushbag. Im really glad to have heard the right info. Thanks

 

[ambertrich]

Apparently Rhino filters was usuing the name Phat as well, and has had to stop.
From the Rhino website:


"Why the name change?

It was necessary to make a definite distinction between the name Phat Filter and our Rhino Filter for a number of reasons. Recently there has been a copy right issue regarding the name Phat filters we used to use. Due to the success of the court order we had to re brand our filters. We do not manufacture filters under the name Phat filters anymore. There are filters that look similar to our filters but are of a much lower quality, These filters cannot use carbon from Tiwest and will be using a much lower quality carbon."

 

[Snagglepuss]

How can someone be so skinny,and live so Phat?


They even look the same,well time will tell .Delivery any day now.....

 

[WasntMe]

Phresh filter club....not phat, mountain or rhino.... if you're not Phresh then get your rotten arse out.

 

[ambertrich]

Checked out the Phresh filters and the Phat filters. Not seeing a lot of difference in the two other than the price.

Anyone interested, Greners has both Phresh and Phat filters.

 

[WasntMe]

the difference is mostly in the type of carbon used and phresh are slightly lighter in weight. greners has both but seem to support/recommend phresh more

 

[milehighmedical]

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