Cooling ideas

[lightlocker]

Well I'm doing my first grow and it's going pretty well. Only problem is I think things could be a little cooler. I'm using a locker to grow in that's about 58" h, 12"w, 17"l; I know it's small, but I think it'll be more than enough for one plant in lst. I have an exhaust fan at top and some holes at the bottom creating neg. pressure to cool, and a couple fans at bottom on plant. Initially I put the filter against the fan, but after finally checking temps I realized it was between 95F and 100F. So i removed the filter for now, since it's not even close to flower i got some time for smell. I also moved the light up to about 32" away which really helped. So now I have the temps between 86f and 88f. I know one thing I'll do is double up on the exhaust fan. Anyone have any other simple and cheap cooling ideas?

 

[TheBEAK]

I think your own idea, about doubling the exaust capacity is the best thing to do. But it's also important to have a big enough passive intake. I go by i pretty big intake, so my exaust doen't have to work too hard.

But there is a fine line, so dont make it huge.

 

[lightlocker]

Ya, isn't there some sort of ideal ratio like 2:1, size of intake to outake?

 

[Guest]

If you are using a metal locker it makes things even worse, if you are inside and in a heated room it makes things worse, if you cannot draw outside air into the cabinet and exhaust it to the outside it makes things worse. Having too small a grow cabinet ain't the best thing to do.

Growing is fun unless one complicates the issue. You need to do some serious reading in the "Micro Grows" section just below this forum.

Good Luck

Ty-Stik

 

[lightlocker]

Thanks Ty, I completely missed that forum, lol. Well i picked up the locker because it was free and all, but I totally hear ya and have all the problems listed. I'm already a month into the grow, so I don't think a change now would be good. For the future though, I think I'll go with some sort of wooden or plastic container that's a bit more uniform in size, not so tall. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Pirate138]

what watt light are you using? buy a cooltube

 

[vaprpig]

Yeah, I was going to say air cool your light. Like Pirate said a cool tube would work well. Suck air from one side and blow it straight out the other for max cooling. Not exactly cheap though.

 

[salgjkhaf]

i'm pretty sure i'm not alone on this one, dont skimp on your fan. if you do and temps get a little to high, then you're looking at a whole new set of problems like uncalibrated meters, bacteria, algae and all kinds of crap. since you have a locker setup, i would recommend taking a look at pipedreams 150w hps setup he's got going. it's stickied in the hydro sections