Piggy Squishy
New member
While talking to a Hydro Shop today, and lining things up to buy for my system that I am building I heard some things which honestly first confused me, and then later had me doing some researching the questions and that lead me here to a couple of really great posts one on Ventilation. Truly an eye opening post fully of amazing details, but surprisingly I did not feel it answered my question enough to be satisfied which has me here to try to learn even more yet.
Okay to put as simply as I can about 12-years ago I had the inside of my house as my grow room, and then one day I came home and I didn't even have curtains on the windows or dishes in the kitchen. Thus I had to start all over from scratch as someone decided they needed everything so much more than I did, but now I am ready to start all over. Only this time I have been putting together a simple but I believe a smart plan, I am going to not just buy cheap and hope it works, or go middle of the line and upgrade every step of the way either. Instead I have a long term layout planned, and I would rather buy a good Bluelab Meter upfront now and save the hassles of a cheap meter and loosing tons in crops, nutrients, electricity, and time, etc... So here is how it applies to the Carbon Filter and Fan...
Starting out to get everything dialed in I am going to start out with a 2-foot by 2-foot, by 4-foot ceiling, and go with an LED light which will cover a 4-foot by 4-foot space, because I know the first long term goal is to get my space back up to 8-foot in length, 4-foot in width, and a ceiling of 6 to 7-feet. However I know enough to start out small, and if I have problems lose six plants in aeroponics, and start another six over again from clones. Once I can get six plants up and healthy and making a full successful cycle, then expand more and do it again, over and over again until I get my room size up to the size I want to. The Hydro Store asked me how big is the space I am working within, well I was honest and explained it as I did here.
I want an 8-inch fan, and an 8-inch carbon scrubber to match, somewhere I think I saw two 8-inch carbon scrubbers one was long then the other, both had the same widths, so I want the longer one for sure. It did not say how many CFM's they could filter, so I would rather be oversized than undersized within reason of course.
The three types of Fans I was really wanting to dig more into were:
#1- Hyper Fan 8 in Digital Mixed Flow Fan 710 CFM
#2- Vortex S Line S-800 8 in Fan 728 CFM
#3- Vortex Inline Fan 8in 747 CFM
I was taught everything old school from people that used the Can Fans and Carbon Scrubbers, but when I am looking on Youtube of course now I am seeing things like the Hyper Fan being ducttaped onto a Carbon Scrubber, I would have used a neoprene clamp myself and then sealed it up with some good tape as a secondary measure. But I believe in better to do to much than have the nosey neighbors knocking on your door to see what you are doing.
The guy tells me that for my 2x2x4 foot space I only have 16-cubic feet, yeah I know I did pass math class. But I pointed out my goal space for this unit will be 8x4x7- feet which is 224-cubic feet.
1. I'm adding 5% per air cooled light or 10-15% per non-air cooled lights.
2. CO2 – add 5% for rooms with CO2 enrichment
3. Filters – if a carbon filter is to be used with the exhaust system then add 20%
4. Ambient temperature – for hot climates (such as Southern California) add 25%, for hot and humid climates (such as Florida) add up to 40%.
* It will get into the 90's-100+ here in the summer with high humidity.
So yeah I am going overkill on my fan, so I can use a fan controler to underclock the fan speed to make it quieter, and then if I need more air moving for carbon scrubbing or to move more air around I can turn it up as well as down. But the last thing I'll have to worry about is having an issue so as long as my fan doesn't break down. Now I really thought I had this thoroughly thought through and that I was erring on the side caution myself.
The guy turns around and tells me that nobody needs that much CFM for such a small space of 16-cubic feet... I do realize that I'm still here on the planet Earth. But I am not going to tightly seal up by little box anymore than worrying about light and bugs. When I am working on the final space I will re-use the parts of the small box, as I will use them to finish building my bigger area as the final stage.
Now he points out that I am still going to be using to high of CFM even for that, and the Carbon Filter and Fan will not work properly in such a small space as they are all rated for 700+ and my area will only be 224, that I'd be better off buy a 4-inch Can Fan and 4-Inch Carbon Filter, and then when I upgrade later just go to a 6-inch Can Fan and Carbon Filter. Because by oversizing it this much my Carbon Filter will not be able to properly scrub the air going through it even with a Fan Controller to dial down its speed.
He also tells me that ONLY a Can Fan is meant to be secured to a Carbon Filter, and that the Inline Fans are only for intakes and moving air when not being put under static pressure. Further that I have to size my Carbon Filter as closely to the Can Fan as possible, which is why they sell the Carbon Filters and Can Fans they do as they are sized up with one another per manufacturer's specifications.
I'll be the first to admit the last time I saw or deal with an Inline fan they were galvanized and typically used in HVAC applications. Can Fans were what you used with Carbon Filters, so I am not really in any position to argue about Fan types with him or anyone else, I simply just do not know and am having trouble finding that information.
As far as matching a Fan to a Carbon Filter, I know not to oversize your fan to your Carbon Filter and don't use a 4-inch Fan on an 8-inch Carbon Filter. But some Carbon Filters have 2 to 2.5-inches of depth (width) of carbon in the filtering area; so how can getting a filter that is longer be a problem? I mean it's more carbon to filter the same CFM and no increase in resistance since it is in length not in width which are said to be the best filters.
Then I am utterly confused how slowing down my fan so it is both quieter and draws less power a problem when slowing it down means that I will be pulling less CFM's across the carbon, but when I need to speed it up to move more air for whatever reasoning for smell or whatever else should be a good thing, right?
I mean sure you may not typically want to exchange all the air in a room 3-4 times every minute, but I can definitely think of times I wish there was more air movement and used fans to try to make that happen with open windows. Which lead me here to read everything on the other two posts one being Ventilation and another one talking about undersized fans to carbon filters, both of which I read, hence why I have tried to be so complete in explaining myself.
Can Fan is used for ?
Inline Fan should be used for ?
CFM, Fan Speed, and using a Fan Control to turn it down...
Too much of a Carbon Filter and it doesn't work? Really?
What am I missing, don't know, or just flat out am not understanding here?
Okay to put as simply as I can about 12-years ago I had the inside of my house as my grow room, and then one day I came home and I didn't even have curtains on the windows or dishes in the kitchen. Thus I had to start all over from scratch as someone decided they needed everything so much more than I did, but now I am ready to start all over. Only this time I have been putting together a simple but I believe a smart plan, I am going to not just buy cheap and hope it works, or go middle of the line and upgrade every step of the way either. Instead I have a long term layout planned, and I would rather buy a good Bluelab Meter upfront now and save the hassles of a cheap meter and loosing tons in crops, nutrients, electricity, and time, etc... So here is how it applies to the Carbon Filter and Fan...
Starting out to get everything dialed in I am going to start out with a 2-foot by 2-foot, by 4-foot ceiling, and go with an LED light which will cover a 4-foot by 4-foot space, because I know the first long term goal is to get my space back up to 8-foot in length, 4-foot in width, and a ceiling of 6 to 7-feet. However I know enough to start out small, and if I have problems lose six plants in aeroponics, and start another six over again from clones. Once I can get six plants up and healthy and making a full successful cycle, then expand more and do it again, over and over again until I get my room size up to the size I want to. The Hydro Store asked me how big is the space I am working within, well I was honest and explained it as I did here.
I want an 8-inch fan, and an 8-inch carbon scrubber to match, somewhere I think I saw two 8-inch carbon scrubbers one was long then the other, both had the same widths, so I want the longer one for sure. It did not say how many CFM's they could filter, so I would rather be oversized than undersized within reason of course.
The three types of Fans I was really wanting to dig more into were:
#1- Hyper Fan 8 in Digital Mixed Flow Fan 710 CFM
#2- Vortex S Line S-800 8 in Fan 728 CFM
#3- Vortex Inline Fan 8in 747 CFM
I was taught everything old school from people that used the Can Fans and Carbon Scrubbers, but when I am looking on Youtube of course now I am seeing things like the Hyper Fan being ducttaped onto a Carbon Scrubber, I would have used a neoprene clamp myself and then sealed it up with some good tape as a secondary measure. But I believe in better to do to much than have the nosey neighbors knocking on your door to see what you are doing.
The guy tells me that for my 2x2x4 foot space I only have 16-cubic feet, yeah I know I did pass math class. But I pointed out my goal space for this unit will be 8x4x7- feet which is 224-cubic feet.
1. I'm adding 5% per air cooled light or 10-15% per non-air cooled lights.
2. CO2 – add 5% for rooms with CO2 enrichment
3. Filters – if a carbon filter is to be used with the exhaust system then add 20%
4. Ambient temperature – for hot climates (such as Southern California) add 25%, for hot and humid climates (such as Florida) add up to 40%.
* It will get into the 90's-100+ here in the summer with high humidity.
So yeah I am going overkill on my fan, so I can use a fan controler to underclock the fan speed to make it quieter, and then if I need more air moving for carbon scrubbing or to move more air around I can turn it up as well as down. But the last thing I'll have to worry about is having an issue so as long as my fan doesn't break down. Now I really thought I had this thoroughly thought through and that I was erring on the side caution myself.
The guy turns around and tells me that nobody needs that much CFM for such a small space of 16-cubic feet... I do realize that I'm still here on the planet Earth. But I am not going to tightly seal up by little box anymore than worrying about light and bugs. When I am working on the final space I will re-use the parts of the small box, as I will use them to finish building my bigger area as the final stage.
Now he points out that I am still going to be using to high of CFM even for that, and the Carbon Filter and Fan will not work properly in such a small space as they are all rated for 700+ and my area will only be 224, that I'd be better off buy a 4-inch Can Fan and 4-Inch Carbon Filter, and then when I upgrade later just go to a 6-inch Can Fan and Carbon Filter. Because by oversizing it this much my Carbon Filter will not be able to properly scrub the air going through it even with a Fan Controller to dial down its speed.
He also tells me that ONLY a Can Fan is meant to be secured to a Carbon Filter, and that the Inline Fans are only for intakes and moving air when not being put under static pressure. Further that I have to size my Carbon Filter as closely to the Can Fan as possible, which is why they sell the Carbon Filters and Can Fans they do as they are sized up with one another per manufacturer's specifications.
I'll be the first to admit the last time I saw or deal with an Inline fan they were galvanized and typically used in HVAC applications. Can Fans were what you used with Carbon Filters, so I am not really in any position to argue about Fan types with him or anyone else, I simply just do not know and am having trouble finding that information.
As far as matching a Fan to a Carbon Filter, I know not to oversize your fan to your Carbon Filter and don't use a 4-inch Fan on an 8-inch Carbon Filter. But some Carbon Filters have 2 to 2.5-inches of depth (width) of carbon in the filtering area; so how can getting a filter that is longer be a problem? I mean it's more carbon to filter the same CFM and no increase in resistance since it is in length not in width which are said to be the best filters.
Then I am utterly confused how slowing down my fan so it is both quieter and draws less power a problem when slowing it down means that I will be pulling less CFM's across the carbon, but when I need to speed it up to move more air for whatever reasoning for smell or whatever else should be a good thing, right?
I mean sure you may not typically want to exchange all the air in a room 3-4 times every minute, but I can definitely think of times I wish there was more air movement and used fans to try to make that happen with open windows. Which lead me here to read everything on the other two posts one being Ventilation and another one talking about undersized fans to carbon filters, both of which I read, hence why I have tried to be so complete in explaining myself.
Can Fan is used for ?
Inline Fan should be used for ?
CFM, Fan Speed, and using a Fan Control to turn it down...
Too much of a Carbon Filter and it doesn't work? Really?
What am I missing, don't know, or just flat out am not understanding here?
