CMH Bulb Flickering?
- Thread starter T.C. Bosby
- Start date
T.C. Bosby
Well-Known Member
The ballast is outside of the tent and I have it up high on a shelf. About 7 feet or so above the intake fan.
T.C. Bosby
Well-Known Member
All unused vents are closed. I exhaust outside of the room.
T.C. Bosby
Well-Known Member
The air at intake is around 73 degrees.
T.C. Bosby
Well-Known Member
Well, shit. At this point I might as well just lock myself in the tent and put myself out of my misery. This was definitely not an issue I expected, hence why it's probably happening. At least I know that I'm not crazy in my assumption that heat shouldn't be an issue in this setup. Back to the drawing board!
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Are you sucking air out of the top of your tent?
T.C. Bosby
Well-Known Member
At the top, right hand side, of my tent I have an exhaust fan, sucking air out of the tent and expelling it. At the bottom, left hand side, I have an intake fan blowing in air.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
I think yours was defective. I've been running my phantom for 2 weeks. No issues. And the ballast is only warm at most. I can rest my hand on it for a while. The opp said the issue was the bulb wasn't in all the way.
Another friend ran his phantom for a whole cycle so far and no issues.
Where did you get yours? Both of ours came direct from hydrofarm.
With any ballast of it runs hot. Place a fan towards it and most of the heat goes away .
hyroot
Well-Known Member
Move your intake to the top. I have no idea why people say to put them at the bottom. It does nothing. And co2 is denser than o2 so it falls to the ground immediately. There's no benefit of having the intake on the floor. You want your plants to get the fresh air / co2. The leaves don't get anything with the intake on the bottom.
Your tent will be much cooler if you move the intake.
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Intake at the bottom, exhaust at the top- because heat rises.
pookat
Well-Known Member
my bulbs flicker as the ballast starter is packing up, again (cheap stuff i buy)
not meaning to cause agro
Fan assisted (suck) intake at the bottom causes a mixing of the heavy co2 with fresh to recirculate via the fan/air shifter and raises it up to the top by heating from the lamps.
the cold air is heavy, (technical swirly eddy current stuff), moving it to give a better cooling and mixing effect. my fan is at bottom pointing up at one end of canopy on a diagonal to cause a swirling motion ensuring a good mix then returning to start again, if co2 introduced at top then the co2 falls gets picked up by the warming air and falls again repeatedly, leafs get both sides co2'd.
i'dont use co2 but thought about it, and had a smoke instead.
not meaning to cause agro
Fan assisted (suck) intake at the bottom causes a mixing of the heavy co2 with fresh to recirculate via the fan/air shifter and raises it up to the top by heating from the lamps.
the cold air is heavy, (technical swirly eddy current stuff), moving it to give a better cooling and mixing effect. my fan is at bottom pointing up at one end of canopy on a diagonal to cause a swirling motion ensuring a good mix then returning to start again, if co2 introduced at top then the co2 falls gets picked up by the warming air and falls again repeatedly, leafs get both sides co2'd.
i'dont use co2 but thought about it, and had a smoke instead.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
Heat rises so you want the cool air to combat the warm air. What's the point in having a cool floor when the top area is hot. You want the same temp below the canopy, above the canopy and above the lights. Putting it on the floor because heat rises is ass backwards logic. An exhaust isn't going to suck out all the heat either.
The leaves don't take in any co2 from the fresh air if the intake is on the ground.
pookat
Well-Known Member
Thermal dynamics and moving air may be a solution...maybe not
if you removed the top layer while adding more to the lower layer then what was the lower layer will become the top layer (eventually).
mixing warm with cold will increase humidity thus allowing electrical conduction resulting in the possibility of a flickering bulb.
if you cool strawberry roots they produce a sweeter fruit.
but they still have the seeds on the outside? strange fruit indeed.
(i have a really sad life)
if you removed the top layer while adding more to the lower layer then what was the lower layer will become the top layer (eventually).
mixing warm with cold will increase humidity thus allowing electrical conduction resulting in the possibility of a flickering bulb.
if you cool strawberry roots they produce a sweeter fruit.
but they still have the seeds on the outside? strange fruit indeed.
(i have a really sad life)
hyroot
Well-Known Member
If you raise brix levels in the plants that will create a sweeter more pungent fruit as well. The higher the brix levels the higher the terpene profile.
dbkick
Well-Known Member
All three were defective , it was random and intermittent. At first I thought it was a power thing since we got that huge snow and that's when we discovered the issue.
Resetting the ballast will clear up the problem until next time it happens. We bought from a hydrofarm dealer.
When I thought it was the snow affecting power lines me and another guy were having the same problem , his location is miles from mine so the snow was a coincidence.
I've since got a sunplix that I'm liking a lot. I'll be buying several more , the fixture they use I'm not that excited about since the lamp runs horizontal but as far as operating temperature the sunplix runs cool as can be while the phantom runs pretty warm.
hyroot
Well-Known Member
I think i'm going with the sunsytems next . Or nanolux. I just don't like cords going everywhere. Too bad you can't daisy chain them like led. I'm keeping my phantom for now at least.
The snow and power issues could have possibly caused issues to the ballast from a surge or what ever.
One of my buddies a year ago got a 330 allstart cmh on a 400w mag ballast. The switch was set to 240 and he plugged it into 120 and blew the bulb and ballast. He thought it was defective until we deduced what he did.
dbkick
Well-Known Member
You should try a sunplix, dimming down to 150 and a 350w boost. I just bought one but the distributor just lives a few blocks from me and I will be getting more.
Gonna use them in an OG hood during summer months then when it doesn't cost a fortune to cool things down I'll unscrew the mogul extension and mogul to pgz adapter and put in an allstart on a Baddass or platinum.