Air cooled DE hoods....scam?

kratos015 said:

You're correct, this will deteriorate the bulb after a while. Look into the ACDC hood, it's the only one that will cool it properly without causing issues.

What's the size of your tent? You could just grab a normal DE fixture and dim it down to 600w. I'm using mine at 1150w, ceilings are 8ft high and the light is mounted on the roof itself as high up as it can be.

If your tent is 7-8 ft, a good inline fan and mounting the light directly on the ceiling and dimming it down to 600-750w should be fine for your situation. Because of how high the lights need to be, heat won't be as much of an issue because all the heat will be in the top 1-2 ft of the grow room itself.

With proper distance, air conditioning/ventilation, and dimming when needed, you'll be fine.

Best upgrade I've made to my room by a long shot. Definitely go for it if you can make it work.

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reallybigjesusfreak said:

Thanks for the info. I've already got a 600w cooltube (single end) in my 4x4, and while it has worked well for my first 3 grows, I'd like to get something with a little more oomph for these Bodhi seeds I just popped. I pulled 365 or so grams from my 90% filled out 4x4x7 last grow, so I"d like to try and improve on that.

is dimming it down to 600/750/whatever it is still better than a 1000w SE hood? I've already got the inline fan and plenty of ducting, so would just running ducting close, pointing it near, and venting that way work at all?

A point I forgot to mention though, is my basement runs cold, and I can actually use the heat to keep my grow space up to a good temperature. Without any sort of venting, it does get in the 90's.

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kratos015 said:

It will still be better because the DE bulbs have a significantly better spectrum than SE bulbs are capable of putting out. My SE 1000w only covered a 4x4 area, my 1000w DE covers a 5x7 space with ease. I'd imagine that at 750w, the DE would not only be able to cover the same 4x4 area as a 1000w SE, but the spectrum would be much better to boot.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I had my DE dimmed down to 600w for a while and it still covered the same 5x7 space, the penetration just wasn't as deep was all. I can't say enough about these lights, I'll never go back to SE again.

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reallybigjesusfreak said:

Good to know. Can you speak on the heat it puts out at all? I have seen people claiming both ends of the spectrum, that it only runs 5-7 degrees hotter, and that this is the hottest thing on earth and it will light children on fire from 10 feet away.

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