Grow room fan question for temperature control and dark cycle use

[FootClan]

Wow, what a setup! I've worked construction for awhile and have pretty good DIY skills and a basic knowledge of residential electrical stuff, though that was never my main area of work (did tile mostly). I'd love to see some more pics, maybe a diagram or something if your dad set up some specs when he was brainstorming it. I'm not sure if I could replicate it or come close, but its a great looking rig and I'd love to learn more about it!

ya i can get all the info on it for you if you want.....

 

[ArcadiaAbsent]

I had similar issues with my grow closet. 2000 watt. I added an additional fan, I call it an air exchange fan. All it does is removes air from the closet and pumps it into the main room outside of the closet. This solved a lot of problems for me. Getting moisture out of the closet, balanced out the temps to the house temp, it also made it to where I could reduce the exhaust cfm so I could add additional CO2, it helps circulate the CO2. It probably will not help in your case with the CO2 since yours is a room and not a closet. It should help with your temps and moisture issue, but it will stink up the house.
Just something to consider.

Yeah, I've though about running an air exchange type of secondary fan, still might. I have a separate 6 inch fan and filter in my veg room, otherwise I would have already probably set it up to use in my bloom room at night. Your comment though got me thinking a lot about the idea of using a closet that borders the room in my hallway as a semi cold sink air supply or even a CO2 supply type of room. Kind of the reverse of what you were saying, pumping air from your grow closet to your main room, this would be the opposite order, but it allows some extra room for additional inputs or outputs. Thanks for the comments man, appreciated!

 

[ArcadiaAbsent]

ya i can get all the info on it for you if you want.....

Awesome man! Thank you so much! I'll PM you my email and any info you have that you can pass along would be great. I've got a good buddy with a lot of experience in computers, so I'm hopeful he and I could devise something half as cool as what you are running. Its also really cool that your dad helped you with it, my family is so uptight about little stuff I barely talk to them, they'd have a damn brain aneurysm if I showed them my grow op. Very cool that your dad is involved, very envious man!

 

[FootClan]

Awesome man! Thank you so much! I'll PM you my email and any info you have that you can pass along would be great. I've got a good buddy with a lot of experience in computers, so I'm hopeful he and I could devise something half as cool as what you are running. Its also really cool that your dad helped you with it, my family is so uptight about little stuff I barely talk to them, they'd have a damn brain aneurysm if I showed them my grow op. Very cool that your dad is involved, very envious man!

ya thanks man......Ya well my dad only into it cause my mom grows for her crones dieses.. but ya if it wasnt for that he prolly wouldnt give a shit really haha

in pics you can see me holding up my sensors... the big white box is the Co2 the long single probe is the humidity and the to small tipped wires are the temps.... they are all wired to panel and pass through the wall into the grow room

 

[Thedillestpickle]

Hey man that's the Cadillac of all grow room controllers you got right there! Im sure there's not too many people around with something like that. Thats in inspiration, I would like to make something similar some day, any info you could share would be awesome.
How do you interface the contoller with your computer? USB?

I might try to make a primitive version of that someday, but I'm thinking long term, so like in 5 years from now, I'll need more education before I can tackle it

 

[mrmadcow]

... The only thing that worries me is probably needing to tie into a filter .... When you ran your PC fan did you use a filter? Did you have it in a room or a tent?

never thought about a filter,I vented into another room that had a ozone gen.

... I thought of a cool way to work the fans but I'm not sure if this is safe or if it would work: If you split the power line that runs your fan and had one line go through a timer(or humidistat) and the other line go through a thermostat and then merged the two lines together just before the fan then the fan would run any time either the thermostat or the humidistat were to switch on. But I don't know exactly how you would do that or if it is safe to do.

Heres how I would do that: have an extention cord with 2 plug ins on it. Plug a thermostat into one plugin, and a humidistat into the other. Create a custom extention cord that has 1 female and 2 male ends(this is why its dangerious because if one male becomes unplugged it could electrocute you or short circuit on any conductive material). Plug one of the males into the humidisat and the other male into the thermostat. plug the fan into the female. Mr mad cow you're in the electrician thread alot maybe you can clarify whether or not that will burn down the house lol.

it could work but you could be setting up for a couple dangerous situations. like you said, if 1 gets unpluged,it will be male & hot.another is if you used 2 prong w/out a ground,either could get flipped and cause a short. finally and worst case,if 1 male got pluged into 1 outlet & the other into a different outlet,you could have 220 running through your fan and controller. =fried fan/controller or fire.

 

[FootClan]

Hey man that's the Cadillac of all grow room controllers you got right there! Im sure there's not too many people around with something like that. Thats in inspiration, I would like to make something similar some day, any info you could share would be awesome.
How do you interface the contoller with your computer? USB?

I might try to make a primitive version of that someday, but I'm thinking long term, so like in 5 years from now, I'll need more education before I can tackle it

thanks ya it pretty sick, everytime i show a grower the panel they start drewling at the mouth.....haha then they say.... can he make me one too? lol

Im about to start a journal with pics from the studs in the wall up to finished room and flowers in it....I just finished it yesterday and have been taking pics the whole way...... i just need a catchy title ... what you guys think??

 

[CaptainCAVEMAN]

How about Robocrop

 

[FootClan]

How about Robocrop

haha that could be a good one...

 

[jeeba]

They make a tempature and humidity controler.Titan I believe.Foot Clan thats a bad ass setup.

 

[lorenzop]

what I think you need is a 120 volt DPDT relay, like this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/IDEC-DPDT-10-AMP-CONTACTS-120V-AC-CONTROL-RELAYS-2-pcs-/170703093102?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27beb27d6e it has a 120 volt magnetic coil and 2 switches that both have on and off positions. the coil of the relay would plug into your existing thermostat, the on position of the relay contacts would either plug directly into a wall outlet or just connect in with the coil (either will work in this case), then the off position of the relay contacts connects into a fan speed controller to run the fan at low speed while the thermostat is off. then the common terminals of the contacts goes to the fan. when the thermostat is on, it turns the relay on and gives the fan full power. when the thermostat turns off, the relay turns off and switches the fan over to low speed. using s DPDT relay will isolate the internal electronics of both the thermostat and the fan speed controller.

 

[NewGrower2011]

Extremely sweet when you have those type of industrial control "components" to cobble together. Nice.

I'm in a technical field but that may even be much for a technical person doing it DIY... unless you're familiar
with that tech of coures...

 

[NewGrower2011]

what I think you need is a 120 volt DPDT relay, like this one http://www.ebay.com/itm/IDEC-DPDT-10-AMP-CONTACTS-120V-AC-CONTROL-RELAYS-2-pcs-/170703093102?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27beb27d6e it has a 120 volt magnetic coil and 2 switches that both have on and off positions. the coil of the relay would plug into your existing thermostat, the on position of the relay contacts would either plug directly into a wall outlet or just connect in with the coil (either will work in this case), then the off position of the relay contacts connects into a fan speed controller to run the fan at low speed while the thermostat is off. then the common terminals of the contacts goes to the fan. when the thermostat is on, it turns the relay on and gives the fan full power. when the thermostat turns off, the relay turns off and switches the fan over to low speed. using s DPDT relay will isolate the internal electronics of both the thermostat and the fan speed controller.

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That's what I was thinking... Basically you have two different source voltages that can serve as triggers.... one is based on a thermostat and the other a cycle timer.... either one closing the relay lets the juice flow and the fan does it thing... put it together into a project box and you've got 1 outlet for the fan and three pigtails to hang outside of the box... 1 to the power source itself and the other 2 to the triggering devices respectively... yup... no electrician here but the principles are very basic... sounds do-able even for a DIY...

 

[lorenzop]

That's what I was thinking... Basically you have two different source voltages that can serve as triggers.... one is based on a thermostat and the other a cycle timer.... either one closing the relay lets the juice flow and the fan does it thing... put it together into a project box and you've got 1 outlet for the fan and three pigtails to hang outside of the box... 1 to the power source itself and the other 2 to the triggering devices respectively... yup... no electrician here but the principles are very basic... sounds do-able even for a DIY...

sure, if you want a short cycle timer in place of the low speed fan controller, just swap them out in my diagram. the other method using extension cords with 2 male ends and one female, extremely dangerous. I remember messing around with something like that hiding away in the garage when I was 6 or 8. I realized I could have died after not paying attention and touching the other male end. also, something else I didn't realize until I was much older, if the polarity is reversed on either cord, it creates a dead short in the line. that could be a fire hazard, or just fry your equipment.