cooling a 600w setup

[dec]

Hey!

I'm about to buy 600w hps kit with cool tube for my 3x3 tent (dr90) and I would some feedback about how hard is it to cool it.

Setup would be:
3x3 tent
Filter> 106 CFM fan > out
148 CFM fan > cool tube(600w hps) > out
Oscillating fan for plants

Room temps are around 65.


Would this setup be enough to keep the tent under 84?

 

[willyweed]

cool tubes ,from what i have read are not that great at getting the most light output .perhaps you should read some reviews on air cooled light reflectors first ,only an idea !
the sizes you have sound correct,a lot of things to take into consideration first regarding where is the air coming from ? what temp is it? does it change temp during your growing light cycle .and where is the warm air going after it has been through the light?
all the best.willyweed

 

[Chevy cHaze]

Hi dec.
Search for "ventilation" here on IC, you need to take the total volume of your tent into consideration and see if the cfm of your extract fan are sufficient.
Do that BEFORE you buy ;-)

 

[actionaaron]

I could never get the temps cool at the canopy at 600w in a Dr90, there's not much headroom once your plants have reached their max height and my parabolic hood took away more precious space, had to turn it down to 450w until I got a taller tent.

 

[Cobra420]

Where the exhaust is ducted will be key in my opinion. If it is ducted into the same room, you'll more than likely have issues unless you have an ac running or a way to keep ambient temps low. If the light exhaust is ducted somewhere else, you should be fine.

I've done filter>4"fan>hood>out to a different room on a different floor of the house and it worked fine. Now i do 6" fan>hood>out to different room and filter>4"fan>out into the same room. With the dual fan setup, i turn the fans way down and still have temps at ambient. Depending on the season and what my basement is at the time anywhere from 55°-70°

My 600 is running in a homebox thats 39.5"x39.5"x i think 78" and ive only had issues when attempting to exhaust the light in the same room. Turned the room into a convection oven quick haha. I also have to agree the 2 big ventilation threads on here have some excellent info.

 

[dec]

Thank you all for anwsers! I've read the ventilation post on this forum and my setup should be good enough.
I know a hood would be better but I just don't have the money for it, maybe in the future.

The room where the tent stands is 19x16 feet so it's pretty big and I don't think that exausting the heat from the cool tube into the same room for 12 hours per day ( I will be doing SOG from clones) would heat up a room that fast and if it would I could always just leave a window open ( I will not grow during the summer).

does a 600w in cool tube cover the whole 3x3 or will I have airy buds at the sides?

 

[Cobra420]

Good luck. I would think if you have the light, hood and fans already, placing it in the room without the tent and running it as if it were in the tent would give you an idea how hot the room will get when everything is setup and everything is exhausting into the same room. Just figure the inside of the tent will be a littler warmer than the room.

The room i tried this in is just slightly smaller than the one you have. It was at 95 degrees and rising FAST in under an hour hahaha. I had to turn it off because it was starting to heat up the rest of the house to an uncomfortable temperature too quickly. If growing in a cool climate, it may work with a window open.

I let a buddy use some of my equipment and he tried it that way aswell. Same issue, but since he was on an upper level floor, it made it that much hotter. He wound up buying an ac unit for the room that he said ran a LOT. I actually use my setup to heat a poorly insulated room in the winter time. It is on the opposite side of my house, up a level and works well considering how much ducting it runs through to get there.

You never know, you may have better luck. Your climate could be the deciding factor. Im on the mid east coast and even in the winter, i couldn't run it that way. Never tried with the windows open though so things may be different. Keep us updated on what happens. Im curious if it works out for you.