Is more efficient to cool light or room? I have an extra 6 in line that u was going to dump into room. Anyways someone mentioned just running it straight to intake to help cool bulbs which will cool room. Never tried this before, dont see how it would be more effective. ..anyone run that way
A cool tube, or vented hood, does both Nip. It decreases heat transfer from the bulb itself and removes heated air from the space. There's a slight risk of "over cooling" the bulb since HID lighting is intended to run at an optimum operating temperature. If you cool the bulb too much some lighting pros claim you stand the possibility of decreasing the efficiency and life span of the bulb itself. In my gardens that have used cool tubes I've found that it is more efficient to remove excess heat at the fixture.
Grabbing the heat right off the bat from the bulb, worked better for me in a big walk in closet grow, made a good difference in temps. Plus I was able to bring the light down some. You can tell a major differance putting your hand 6" under a cooled bulb and one thats not.
my hood is vented, one side is open to the room the other has a fan pulling air through the hood and exhausting. there's only a 4in air line running to the room, I rerouted another from a spare bedroom and was going to just dump it in the room. One thing I was worried about over cooling but I didn't know if that was bullshit or not. I'm running 80 right now, so I figured I would hit this before summer hit, but not sure which way to go. JCO, did you notice a bulb life difference? I'm close to being due anyways (6 months) Also, does anyone know of a way to rig something up so that at night the cooled air dumps into the room instead of being vented? Just so I don't waste AC?
I was going to mention some say there is a life of the bulb difference, I honestly couldnt tell. But it makes sence there is. You could prob rig up a damper on a "T" split that could split a vent to the room at night? Something on that line of thinking?
I don't understand what you are asking. What's the extra line? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Is there an inline fan on the the line? When you say dump into a room, do you mean a grow room or romper room? Do you mean blow air into a room? When you say "running straight to intake" intake for what? I use cooltubes that draw air from outside the grow room and pass it over the bulbs and then exhaust the hot air outside the grow room. The duct line connected to the cool tubes is sealed and no air from the grow room itself is drawn into the duct. That way I can run the fan and cool the lights while enriching with CO2 at the same time. Are you talking about a veg room or flower room?
I couldn't tell a difference on light efficiency using cool tubes. Just read a few things along the way referring to the possibility. As I see it the HPS that lights my barnyard is considered within "normal" operating range at -20F in the middle of winter so the odds of me overcooling a garden lamp are pretty much nil. But that's just an opinion...we all gots one. Think of using one of these? If you order one with a default position closed it could be wired into the light timer. http://www.amazon.com/8-Inch-Diameter-Normally-Electronic-Damper/dp/B0026GPDU8
put the bong down FF, or maybe i need to lmao The hood is open to room on one side and vented through ducting and fan on the other to pull heat. The room already had a 4" AC duct in there to cool, but I pulled a 6" line from a spare bedroom. When I say running straight to intake, was wondering if it's worth trying to run the AC line straight to the intake of the hood. Right now I just dumped it in the room, not sure would I'm changing yet because I'm thinking about adding more leds at the moment. But that doesn't help with the HPS in there. Odd time of year, with it being warmer outside so is the room, but seeings how it's not hot yet, AC isn't running in the room enough to properly cool RR, Yea I didn't know if that was a wives tale or what bout over cooling, just because hps is used out doors etc. It's not like street lights go out during winter. As far as temp swings by using a damper. Who's knowledgable about temp swing. I've seen lots of people swear that it's harmful and that plants don't do well with a temp swing of 10 degrees between day and night temps....but then again, when reading agriculture books, most plants including tomatoes actually preform better with big swings
You cats with central air systems...:5obsessed: Now I see what your question is. I don't know if dragging cold air over a bulb decreases it's life span, but I do know that all winter I took air from outdoors and piped it 10 feet through rigid ducting to my lights. Sometimes there was actual condensation frost on the first two cooltubes in the line. The rigid duct feeding it was covered in a quarter inch of frost buildup. At night, dead of winter the air hitting the first few bulbs in the line had to be -25 F. Here we are spring and same bulbs and fat chunk under them. I've added CO2 so that accounts for some of it, but bulbs seem fine. I know its anecdotal but I'm leaning towards believing that pulling cool/cold air over an HID bulb doesn't hurt it. As for temp swings, I'll bet it's strain specific - some do better big, others small. I have never isolated that one factor and done multiple runs to compare properly. What I've heard is that big swings make fluffy bud. But that could just be high heat too.
High heat, not temp variance, makes fluffy bud. Common mistake since high heat is usually coupled with big swings in garden temp. Yo FF..AC is rarely part of my gardens. Temps can run a split of 68F-50F in winter months to 85F-75F in the summer/fall months. Think the biggest temp split has been something in the range of 85F-45F. All can, and have, produce quality bud. The tightest buds typically come from the coldest gardens, but these also tend to be smaller. Healthiest frostiest plants are typically those that lived in a 70-75F average. Biggest buds have come from warm running gardens (80F average) with healthy plants. While I'm sure there is an ideal temp range for every strain (A Mexican sativa is not going to perform well in a cold garden whereas an Afghan Kush would), methinks it usually ain't quite as critical as many claim.
Depends on your terms of efficiency and equipment. To efficiently cool yes cooling the bulb is more efficient as far as heat isolation and removal. Though you decrease the efficiency of the lamp some. I can't remember the exact figures. Which is why it's so laughable when you see someone running an air cooled hood passively. Not cooling any better, just having a small degree of isolation then also absorbing and robbing light passing through the glass. Air cooled hoods are the easiest to manage a spaces heat due to the cost of other environmental control equipment like dehumidifiers and A/Cs. So even after you cool the bulb you probably won't see much, if anything other than lower room temps. I would not leave one end open like you are doing though. I would either attach the open end to a carbon filter, or like friendly described I would pull from outside of the room possibly the same as your intake space, then you are pulling cooler air that doesn't even have a chance to warm up over the bulb. Then the other perk is like he mentioned you are now capable of running a sealed room and running CO2 with exhaust on controllers if really needed that would also shut off the CO2 enrichment. But if your temps aren't too crazy and over 90-95* why not just get the room together for a good CO2 setup? Though I've got to look into a dehumidifier my self because room humidity I can't keep under 60-70% the last week or so because of all this damn rain here. Way too much moisture in the air entirely.
I run Co2 and 48k BTU of cooling for 12,600 watts in a VERT setup and carry around a 84-90F garden during lights on and never lower than 68 when off, 8- 16inch wall mounted oscillating fans to move my air and Co2 around....ive never had budrot and always produce the same product everytime, also consistently ROCK hard buds, fwiw
Exactly and that's going to be about the most efficient without DEHID. Bare bulb with vertical placement so 100% is emitted and not reflected light, no glass to absorb anything other than the bulb itself, and CO2 to provide all the extra biomass.
As one resident psychometricologist(somewhat fictitious, and 100% made up), as a function of btu's removed from the space effectively, it is more efficient to decrease the timeframe that the heated air is in communication with the grow space. Eg. Air intake from outside => Air cooled hood => fan => exhaust to outside. Secondarily I've found it best to tie two T's together right at the exterior wall between the intake and exhaust with a motorized damper connected to a duct stat in the duct at the inlet of the hood. This eliminates the condensation issue, which for me at -20f outside can be severe. With the light heat taken care of in this way I use another fan to circulate and bring in fresh air based on the room thermostat. Happy Growin'
