Sunshineinabag
Active member
cat piss phenos only lol great banter guys! sily we are
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Q3corn's dank mini adventures
- Thread starter q3corn
- Start date
q3corn
Active member
I actually use an old grow cabinet for my cat litter box! It has it's own carbon scrubber to filter the air.
q3corn
Active member
I've been working on my new cabinet getting the temperatures and airflow all figured out. I have 6x 14w LEDs that are on the warm side, so I've got some heat to remove from this space. My exhaust is an ACinfinity fan with a dimmer, and I have 2 fairly weak 120mm fans circulating air around. To measure everything,
I have 3 different thermometers placed in different parts of the cabinet. One at the top height of where the plants will grow, one about 2" from a light, and one just off the floor. I checked temperatures every half-hour or so and paid attention to the average between the three.
Last night I ran the cabinet for 5 hours, checking pretty much every half hour. At the end the temps averaged about 82F, which is a fantastic range for an LED grow. A little warm, but totally doable.
I left the lights on a timer and they turned on at 7am today. I woke up at noon and checked. Average temp was 86.2! Higher than I want! Granted this was with no plants and the lowest fan setting, but the lowest fan setting is definitely the quietest and it's ideal, so I figure I gotta change something.
...That is, until I realize the rest of the apartment is really fucking warm. My roommate turned the heat on and it's a gorgeous sunny day out, so my room's ambient temp was sitting somewhere between 75 and 78F (considering the reading of all the other little hygrometers I have in here still. Despite being in a box they still work).
So! That suggests that my cab rests somewhere around 10 degrees F above ambient temperature. That's doable, I just need to keep my room around 70, which is what I *want* to do anyway! Oh well, signs of what's to come in the summer I suppose.
I turned the exhaust fan up to about 1/3 power and I'll see how that effects the temperatures.
Now time for
& 
I have 3 different thermometers placed in different parts of the cabinet. One at the top height of where the plants will grow, one about 2" from a light, and one just off the floor. I checked temperatures every half-hour or so and paid attention to the average between the three.
Last night I ran the cabinet for 5 hours, checking pretty much every half hour. At the end the temps averaged about 82F, which is a fantastic range for an LED grow. A little warm, but totally doable.
I left the lights on a timer and they turned on at 7am today. I woke up at noon and checked. Average temp was 86.2! Higher than I want! Granted this was with no plants and the lowest fan setting, but the lowest fan setting is definitely the quietest and it's ideal, so I figure I gotta change something.
...That is, until I realize the rest of the apartment is really fucking warm. My roommate turned the heat on and it's a gorgeous sunny day out, so my room's ambient temp was sitting somewhere between 75 and 78F (considering the reading of all the other little hygrometers I have in here still. Despite being in a box they still work).
So! That suggests that my cab rests somewhere around 10 degrees F above ambient temperature. That's doable, I just need to keep my room around 70, which is what I *want* to do anyway! Oh well, signs of what's to come in the summer I suppose.
I turned the exhaust fan up to about 1/3 power and I'll see how that effects the temperatures.
Now time for
& 
PCBuds
Well-known member
I don't know where your air comes in and out, but if you draw out from the top with air coming in from the bottom, you could remove the circulation fan and just let the heat from the lights be sucked right out without blowing the heat around.
Summer is coming and your place is bound to get a lot warmer.
I don't know how your plants will do without a circulation fan?
Summer is coming and your place is bound to get a lot warmer.
I don't know how your plants will do without a circulation fan?
q3corn
Active member
My air comes through the floor and the exhaust is out the top-right of the cabinet, since this cab sits under some shelves. I am not going to be cutting any more holes for airflow as there's already enough. What i can do is make sure the bulbs themselves don't get too hot. Or change my bulbs to lower-powered ones and add more lights.
q3corn
Active member
Honestly just having the circulating fans blowing towards the bases of the bulbs controls temperature a whole lot, so I'm not too worried about much more than that. I probably should just toss these 44cfm lame-o fans and bump it up to something a little more heavy duty. I feel like my 80mm fans actually move more air, so I might just use those.
PCBuds
Well-known member
PCBuds
Well-known member
Don't cut any holes.
Just make a baffle for your bulbs and pull the heat off the top.
A sheet across the top with holes just big enough for the bases.
You'll have to screw the bulbs in from inside the cab.
(I'm really wasted right now.)
PCBuds
Well-known member
ReikoX
Knight of the BlackSvn
This suggestion actually works really well. I did it with my old 86-watt filing cabinet. These were actually LED bulbs to replace recessed lighting.
It worked so well, I did the same thing with these COBs. The heat sinks are in a sort of "cool tube" with air being blown over them.
It worked so well, I did the same thing with these COBs. The heat sinks are in a sort of "cool tube" with air being blown over them.
q3corn
Active member
Ah I see what you're saying. build a barier between my plants and the bases of the bulbs so that the heat doesn't go from the bulbs to the plants.
If I got, like, a sheet of acrylic or something that I could cut in place and just have the diodes pointing through that would probably be great. I've thought about this but don't have any extra wood or anything to cut up. I'd have to buy something, and since my woodworking space is basically none, it would need to be almost perfectly sized.
I'll think about it more!
ALSO:
Ran my cab with 4 of the 6 lights on for 5 hours. Temps were under 80 all over.
Let's also remember that all of these tests are with my fan at it's LOWEST setting. I can bump it up, but it gets noisy, so I'd rather not. Looking like the heat barrier is a better idea.
Thanks for the kind suggestions folks!
PCBuds
Well-known member
You can buy a sheet of "coroplast" (corrugated plastic) at the dollar store.
It shouldn't need to be anything too heavy-duty as long as you're not supporting anything from it.
I doubt that there's any risk of melting or fire especially if the plastic isn't actually touching the base of the bulb.
Just something rigid like a voting sign on someone's lawn.
You can buy a sheet of it in the craft section that's about 2-3 feet square and you can easily cut it with scissors or a knife then just tape it in place.
Or you can snatch a voting sign from someone's lawn.
PCBuds
Well-known member
Or you can snatch a voting sign from someone's lawn.
^^^ There ya go...
No money spent at all !! Lol
PCBuds
Well-known member
It looks like your exhaust fan is a bit lower than the surface of your bulbs but the coroplast is so easy to work with that you can easily box in the bottom edge of the fan.
It's like building a 3-D puzzle.
Try to avoid square corners for better airflow.
Taper it in a bit. Leave some tabs along the edges for tape or glue.
You might need to steal two voting signs. Lol
It's like building a 3-D puzzle.
Try to avoid square corners for better airflow.
Taper it in a bit. Leave some tabs along the edges for tape or glue.
You might need to steal two voting signs. Lol
Sunshineinabag
Active member
im using 100watt replacers and i keep em 16 inches from the canopy top....im convinced thats the sweet spot ...no way in hell a bulb would heat up a plant that much from that distance, unless the box has no air flow.......
PCBuds
Well-known member
What are the actual Watts of your bulbs and how many do you have ?
How big is your cab?
If you air-cool your SILs, your cab temperature is only 1°-2° above the input air temp.
