Inline Fan issue/question with a Timer.

Hey Guys,

Are there known issues with running an inline fan on a timer? I've recently purchased a 4 inch inline along with a carbon filter. It seems to work great but occasionally I will go take a look and its shut itself off.

Its my first grow so I've got zero experience with any of this gear. I have an area 51 Led grow light, a small circulating fan and this filter all running off of one timer. It runs in the middle the low setting as its just a 2x2 tent and heat isn't an issue.

Perhaps I should just take it off the timer and run it all the time? Maybe its a dud? Any help is appreciated as it gets a little stanky if everything else inside the tent is running and the inline shuts off.

try running it all the time. it sounds like something is restricting too much air flow and the fan is shutting itself off with an automatic resetting thermal overload. you may need to try and run the fan without the filter just for testing purposes.

Sounds like the motor is running too slow to cool it's self off. Try running @100%, you may need to open your intakes so you are not creating too much negative pressure. See if that doesn't help keep the fan running.

Trust me, once the girl starts flowering you will want to keep the inline fan on all the time. You need to check the rating of your filter, in cfms, and match that with your inline fan. I have a 6" inline with a 6" x 16" filter with a rating of 400 cfm on the filter, the inline fan is rated at 435 cfm. You do want to get a fan speed controller for sure, as if it sucks air through too fast it will not have the time needed to scrub the odor. Also, are you pushing or pulling on the filter?

edit: smoke and coke and Grandpappy may have the cure to your problem.

Hey All,

Thanks for the responses everyone. Going to try those suggestions and they make sense. To answer your question LeafGnosis I am pushing through it. I never thought about it but I suppose that cold cause some issues as well, especially on a low setting.

You can push through, as there are many setups this way (specially if you have more than one tent on the fan via splitter). I know that pulling will help better with smell. But yeah, you are probably not getting enough air to cool the motor off.

I think you're right. The reason I set it up this way was because I intended to set up a veg tent beside it and pull air from both and push through the one filter.

As of right now I took it off the timer and will try running it full time at a mid medium setting. I figured the smell would get bad enough to be on full time at some point anyways.