beaster: Room design - sealed vs. vented

[FullMetalJacket]

oh ok, that sounds a lot better lol...great post, that helps a lot....i will look into that controller, it sounds like it is just what i need

Yea i think its the best one..they have a cpu port on them and supposably they track data internally and are realeasing software for them so you can download the data to you laptop. They say the software will be free for download but you never know... CAP has a model but it isnt digital and doesnt allow for different day and night temps. I alo like the CHHC-1 because the temp/hum/co2 measuring device can me mounted internally and the main uit externally or up to 8 feet away. The CAP measure the CO2 on the unit so placement sucks. CAP is also more loot.

Regardless of what you go with get something with the fuzzy logic CO2 controller, it helps keep your levels accuate and doesnt waste CO2.

Good luck bro...

 

[BonsaiBud]

Cheap (most) window AC units use 1 motor for both the inside and outside fan. Besides hurting efficiency a little bit, this makes for a spinning shaft that has to be air-sealed. You could still gut one and just use an axial fan for the inside. The thing with small AC units is they are solder-sealed and lack refrigerant ports. If you break the circiut, or fix a leak, you have to solder on a high and low side port.

 

[BonsaiBud]

Q: What is the difference between a single hose design and a dual hose design?

A: Some portable air conditioners offer one air exhaust hose while some offer two, one for air intake and the other one for air exhaust. A single hose takes the air in, cools it and returns the same air back into the room. A small portion of this air will be blown out of the air conditioner’s exhaust host. A dual hose unit works by taking in air from the outside though one of the hose pipes cooling the air and releasing it while releasing the hot air through the exhaust pipe. As of now, there is no conclusive proof as to which unit produces more efficient cooling and conserves energy at the same time.

You can take the single hose "ac or dehumidifier" design and toss it in the bin.

Take the entire system: You have a room or an apartment. Assume totally sealed. Assume outside summer air is 95 F with 100% humidity (deep south of US). Now you have about 800 watts going into the machine. You also have a 4 inch hose blasting hot humid air out of the "chamber". Now, WHERE DOES THE MAKE UP AIR COME FROM?
Result is you put your room or house under negative pressure and suck in hot, humid outside air. People report that the things only cool in a 10 foot radius around the device.

WALL MART DOES NOT EVEN SELL SINGLE HOSE PORTABLES ANY MORE. THEY ONLY SELL THE TWIN HOSE TYPE.

 

[BonsaiBud]

Now, when I said "sealed". Yeah.

Hot humid air seeps in anywhere it can, including the walls and leading to mold. It comes in in big gushes when you open an outside door. It sucks the toxic vapors of your upstairs neighbor's hair perm job into your apartment. The smells get sucked into her kitchen and bathroom vents (even though off) and down and out the kitchen and bathroom vents of the person below. Single hose AC: sure fire way of losing the game: war of the stinks with your upper or lower flatmates. Luckily, It wasn't my unit that had one of these pieces of SHIT. I had two units horizontally between me and them. On a positive note, that single hose AC put enough suction on the perm-girl's unit and the ones above and below so that no smell went up into the attic (flawed ventilation code or code enforcement). It it had gotten up into the attic, then it could have come down into my unit via the vertically-shared kitchen and bath vents.

Flawed designs INFURIATE me.
Now I finally don't live in an old shithole.

 

[yukino_asano]

I agree about using the sentinel. I have there older model that only does c02.

Also setup a room with the CHHC-1 works great.

For AC, mini split is way to go if you got the $$.

Get a good de-humidifer too.

I agree. bonsaiBud is spot on, single hose portable sucks literally.

Plus there EER (energy efficiency rating) also sucks

Controlled enviroment agriculture a.k.a. Sealed room is the way to go.

-peace

 

[TGT]

Bonsaibud, great post and thanks for the info! That is exactly what I wanted to know. Luckily I have a 12,000 BTU 2 hose design we bought from Walmart a couple years back that I am going to try and use. I would have purchased a mini split, but I had this portable brand new and never used just collecting dust. It's for a fairly small grow, 4 - 1000 watt HPS and the lights are all air cooled, so I am hoping it will cool enough to get a good crop. I am going to run a few tests to see how well she keeps in the smell, so I will post more when I start.

TGT

 

[Beaster]

interesting..i was looking at the portables yesterday...walmart has a 10k btu single hose unit for $337. Lowes had a delonghi 12k for 500....hhhmmmmm

if i went this route i would exh. into the workshop part of the shed and was thinking i would need something to control the smell in there as well...although i do not think it will be that bad

 

[BonsaiBud]

For smell, you would want to keep the whole room under slight negative pressure with, say, a small 4 inch fan to a Can filter. However, that might suck in pests. So, to take the design up a notch, (and for thermal stealth) you may want to put up another layer of wall/insulation material about 6 inches or more inside the wall/ceiling of the shed. Keep the empty "jacket" space under positive pressure with filtered outside air via a fan and one of those new automotive-looking hepa filters. Just a thought.

 

[chiliwalt]

Yeah, Bonsai B knows what time it is. And you can rock a mini-split for about 700, and yes they rock. Seal that bitch up, run the Co2 by regulator/solenoid tank and calculate the area and release the amount needed by simple timer. Don't need a controller. I personally like to flip flop the lights 12/12, run it as bloom room, 3 chambers, 2 grow chambers and 1 lung (air mixing room). All equal size. That way u have no wild temp. swings (lights off/on). And I only veg. know for one to two weeks max, so the 18/6 room can be very small, and separate from main grow area. But I digress into off topic, yes seal it, scrub it, and co2 it.

 

[chiliwalt]

Also, I've messed with a quite a few a/c's and do not believe you can truly seal a window or through-the-wall a/c. A lot of the newer ones don't even offer the option to recirculate. A good 2 hose portable, that truly will not introduce any outside air in or let inside air out (wasting Co2) of your sealed room, will run all the way up to 5 large, and no less than 2, I'm talking about the commercial units often used to cool server rooms.

 

[Beaster]

the ones i have seen are lik 700 plus..do you have a link for cheaper ones?