Enviroment control

I have been growing hydro in a 4x4 tent now for a while and I use timers to control all of the equipment. The whole setup is in my garage. I have a dehumidifier that runs when the humidity is high. I have to two 6" inline blowers, one for the enclosed light hood that draws air from the garage, and one for evacuating the tent (pulling air from the garage as well) through a Phresh filter. Both of the outlets are ducted to the outside. I have a 1'x1' screened opening near the tent that allows air from outside into the garage. I have a heater in the tent when the temps drop. The problem with this is when the temps drop I am pulling cold air into the tent which makes it hard for the heater to keep up. I've heard of ducting some of the hot air from the light enclosure using a damper back into the tent. Not sure if I have room for the damper. Timers are driving me nuts trying to run the blowers, heaters and dehumidifiers. If I were to get a controller what would be a recommendation for the setup I have? I am on the fence on CO2, but I definitely want the heat and humidity and blowers and lights to be as automated as possible. How would the controller handle the two different blowers? Thanx

wth- I feel for you- I had similar problems. Looked thru the specs of all the environmental controllers like the Autopilot and the CAP and the Sentry, but was unable to locate one that was reasonably priced or even do what I needed it to do. Had to design my own. Used thermostatic speed control on my hood vent (the heat source) fan and a fixed speed controller on the vent fan- this is mostly just to match the vent fan to the airflow needed for my set up. The hood vent fan would not run at all or run very slowly when the room was cold, recovering heat from the light, then as the room warmed the hood vent fan speed would increase to max.

You might want to try something similar using off-the-shelf speed controllers. Beware speed controllers that use phase control techniques, like light dimmers, as opposed to pulse skipper type speed controllers. Your fan motors may or may not like the phase control type speed controller.

Are you running your lights at night, or during the day? If it is during the day try switching your lights on cycle to run at night. And Titan has some cheap but effective temp controllers. When using a tent what seemed to work for me was to have a fan blow air in when the temps got to high and have 8 inch duct go from the tent to a carbon filter, no fan. Seemed to cut the smell down when it was not forced, Could be just me tho. And if you want to go the CO2 route but don't want to invest in the entire setup try the CO2 generators in the bags, they actually work. Not as advertised but I had 3 in a 5x5 tent and got readings of 1370-1450