vent ideas

Cory and trevor

Cory and trevor

Well-Known Member
Try and follow me on this: I have 2 1K watt HID lights in 6" air cooled hoods. I have an AC unit, one of those that has a vent out for a window but not be IN the window deals that vents out 6" duct. I have the lights together and they cool just fine with some fans I got at menards that suck but run. I want to upgrade and control this funky smell cuz it's going down the block! My best thought is put the choarcoal filter as the start to line that goes filter to fan to light to light to out. but I have this ac duct too and its exhaust can smell....... this is where I start going in circles. ideas? Thanks in advance.
 
bowlfullofbliss

bowlfullofbliss

Well-Known Member
Well I have a sealed room, and my lights are cooled by pulling outside air through them and back out. For odor control in the room, I have a 60lb carbon filter with an inline fan attached to it suspended from the ceiling with heavy duty eyelets and two ratchet straps holding it up. I just run it to circulate the air and keep down the odor. It really does a good job.

Don't know if this is at all applicable to what you've got going, but good luck figuring it out, kind of important!
 
Cory and trevor

Cory and trevor

Well-Known Member
do you think the smell is under control in your room enough to where you could vent out if you wanted to? If I can do that I can run the heated shit out seperate or together it doesn't matter if the air is clean enough from just recurculation with that filter.
 
bowlfullofbliss

bowlfullofbliss

Well-Known Member
Oh definatly not. My issue was that even though it's "sealed" its still not airtight. I could smell it. My xxxl hoods leak, even though I've tried to improve it, so I had to find a way to make it better. Any time you're pulling air out it has to be pulled through a carbon filter for sure.

Are you trying to have a sealed room? I might be a little confused......
 
abe supercro

abe supercro

Well-Known Member
a larger or second scrubber just circ/filtering the stank in room keeps PPMs of stank waaay more manageable. can't read rt now.. or I'd dig deeper.. I'll be back. high humidity makes the carb filters less efficient. also, temp inversion in winter drives smelly hot air straight up quicker. all about chimney in city.

correction:
PPMs - scrubber key
 
FatMarty

FatMarty

Well-Known Member
Cory and trevor said:
Try and follow me on this: I have 2 1K watt HID lights in 6" air cooled hoods. I have an AC unit, one of those that has a vent out for a window but not be IN the window deals that vents out 6" duct. I have the lights together and they cool just fine with some fans I got at menards that suck but run. I want to upgrade and control this funky smell cuz it's going down the block! My best thought is put the choarcoal filter as the start to line that goes filter to fan to light to light to out. but I have this ac duct too and its exhaust can smell....... this is where I start going in circles. ideas? Thanks in advance.
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That is the same problem I saw with the portable AC when I tried it.
If I vented outside it smelled, and I don't want to do that.

I think the only good options are a mini-split or a wall-mount AC unit that recirculates inside air while blowing seperate outside air over compressor coil.
Both require a lot of work and add additional constant cost to garden.

That's why I'm trying to get temps down without needing AC everytime my lights come on.
I'd much prefer just running the central air for the whole house on hot days if needbe.
If it's 90* outside I probably need AC running in the house anyway.
 
bowlfullofbliss

bowlfullofbliss

Well-Known Member
Were you using a dual hose portable ac? They don't vent out any air at all, zero loss of co2. Was yours a dual hose or a single? Mine is a dual and I love it.
 
kindone

kindone

Active Member
bowlfullofbliss said:
Well I have a sealed room, and my lights are cooled by pulling outside air through them and back out. For odor control in the room, I have a 60lb carbon filter with an inline fan attached to it suspended from the ceiling with heavy duty eyelets and two ratchet straps holding it up. I just run it to circulate the air and keep down the odor. It really does a good job.

Don't know if this is at all applicable to what you've got going, but good luck figuring it out, kind of important!
Click to expand...
Dont you run into condensation problems and get water in your lines and hood?
 
kindone

kindone

Active Member
Cory and trevor said:
Try and follow me on this: I have 2 1K watt HID lights in 6" air cooled hoods. I have an AC unit, one of those that has a vent out for a window but not be IN the window deals that vents out 6" duct. I have the lights together and they cool just fine with some fans I got at menards that suck but run. I want to upgrade and control this funky smell cuz it's going down the block! My best thought is put the choarcoal filter as the start to line that goes filter to fan to light to light to out. but I have this ac duct too and its exhaust can smell....... this is where I start going in circles. ideas? Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE

I think you should do as you say and start with filter then hoods then fan" should always suck air through your hoods rather than push it" and then out. Your weak point is your fan, I think with 2k you should be able to cool without ac if your fan is pulling enough,unless your in too small of a space. I have a friend in Jackson that has been going through very similiar issues you are and I have been trying to help him figure it out. You guys should hook up.
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silusbotwin

silusbotwin

Well-Known Member
I run 3 1KW's in big kahunas with a 6 inch centrifugal pushing air in, another centrifugal pushing air out, and a little ass Can 33 filter connected to yet another 6 inch centrifugal. The filter just sits upright on the ground. It does wonder to control the odor even though the ratings just barely meet my requirements for my room size. My flower room is 14x12x7 and this little Can 33 is doing great.

Keep in mind that carbon filters can handle 3-5 times the amount of airspace if they are set up as scrubbers. To set as a scrubber you just allow the filter and fan to sit independently in your room. It's much more efficient then using it as an end cap style filter.

Before I set up the filter, you could smell it just passing by my house from the street.
 
FatMarty

FatMarty

Well-Known Member
bowlfullofbliss said:
Were you using a dual hose portable ac? They don't vent out any air at all, zero loss of co2. Was yours a dual hose or a single? Mine is a dual and I love it.
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Yeah mine was dual hose.

Wow - I'm kinda stoopid.
I just realised I was sucking air from inside when I did my tests...
Pretty sure I was doing it all wrong.

Still - I don't have extra room in bloom room to set one of those units.
Nice to know they can be used without odor if installed proper.
 
Huel Perkins

Huel Perkins

Well-Known Member
My set up consists of a big ass carbon filter (I forget the brand), 6" ducting to two 1000w hoods to a 6" 450 cfm fan which exhausts everything through the wall directly outside to the atmosphere.

When I first built this set up I tried making my own carbon filter, at 5 weeks of flowering you could smell my grow a full block away... Then I said fuck it and bought a real carbon filter which completely solved the problem. One thing I did look for when I bought my filter was that it was rebuildable, every couple years it needs fresh activated carbon.
 
Cory and trevor

Cory and trevor

Well-Known Member
This what I'm leaning toward. My only reservation to setting it up to include the exhaust of the AC unit in with the other items and make a single complete line and add a hung-daddy fan to pull thru all of it is I wonder if my ac unit will suffer if it has to fight a carbon filter to exhaust out. Now let me run this by everyone as you've all started adding very useful info my way- If I run a Y that's 6" and 6" into 10 or 12" so one line of 6" items is both lights and then a Y to include the AC unit and add the carbon after all that and connect to a 10" or 12" fan right at the wall. Also, I think I will have a timer on the AC so it shuts off before the fan running the vent/scrubber and hopefully eliminating the resistance the AC unit might encounter from the filter. My other option as I see it is to set the lights with the junk 250cfm (2 one for each end pull and push) as totally sealed and run a carbon filter inside to recirculate and remove the AC unit. I do not like that idea as I saw 78 deg WITH the thing this year in the basement but for now til I have a blackout spot of brilliance or summer hits again.
 
J

Jonezin102

Member
Not sure if I can help, but here it goes:

You need to have two separate airflow/cooling architectures for you bulb and the room. The two systems need to be isolated from each other. For the bulb/cool tube you need to grab clean cool air from outside the room and flow it past your bulbs and dump it outside your room/house. The air in this system can not come in contact with the air in the room. If your bulb airflow system is airtight you should not have not have a problem with exhaust smell, you will just be blowing hot air. If you do have a smell problem, find some high temp epoxy and hose clamps in order to make it airtight.

Now that you've isolated the bulb air system from the room, time to tackle your main problem, the smell and temp of the room. If you have isolated the bulb airflow system, your halfway there temp wise. An AC is simply a heat pump, it moves heat from one place to another. The efficiency of an AC system is based on the delta T ( the differential of air temperature entering the system and leaving the system). The AC needs to grab hot air from the room and pump it outside where the temp is lower. If your flow rate and/or delta is too low and you add restriction (carbon scrubber) the system will not work, you will be choking your AC. Here is where the problem lies, you need to flow enough air through your system so that your 15K (just an example/guess) BTU AC unit can carry 15K BTUs of hot air out of the house. Now you add a carbon scrubber, (google diy pvc carbon scrubber for plans) that adds restriction to the system. On the exhaust side of your AC you will flow around 350-400cfm (guess for 15k BTU AC example). Make your AC exhaust tube/carbon scrubber piping diameter as large as you can (2-3 times larger than your 6" pipe if you can) and run it for 6-8 feet long(the scrubber), then duct the air outside. There are a lot of variables to the system, the number I posted are not absolute, but should give you a good place to start.
 
J

Jonezin102

Member
Just an idea:

Try a manifold exhaust design. Connect your 6" AC exhaust to a 6" PVC 'T" connector. attach 2 6" 90 degree connectors to the "T" an run 2 ~6' scrubbers off of it. Maybe try to add a 2nd "T" connector and get 3 scrubbers. more volume = lower back pressure = better flow = better cooling.
 
bowlfullofbliss

bowlfullofbliss

Well-Known Member
Cory and trevor said:
all great ideas, is everyone using a "dead" intake somewhere in the room with your AC for intake?
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I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a dead intake here. With my Whytner dual hose ac, it just pull in air from the outside, through the machine, and back out. There is no air exchange in the room, so there is no smell or co2 going outside.

About the moisture question above (I'm not great at this multi-quoting thing, sorry), I have not had any issues, even in the dead of winter. I pull fresh air in at all times, right through the hoods, and back out the other side of the building. I was worried about it, but it never materialized. I just think the lights are so hot inside the glass it evaporates and is blown out. I've only had one lamp blow up on me, and it was a MH, and they are know for that.
 
Cory and trevor

Cory and trevor

Well-Known Member
Bowl, mine pulls air from the room and vents out a 6 in duct menat to go out a window. I must have intake or the pressure won't allow the machine to vent out the room. it does nothing to put that hot air right back in the room. I do not have a split mini it must vent or its blowing hot air back into the space it just tried to cool. Therin lies my issue taking air in and blowing it out with aroma control and an AC unit that vents stinky hot air.
 
abe supercro

abe supercro

Well-Known Member
insulate the exhaust hose 6"/8", weak in-line fan assist it into a LG garbage can wherein exists a good carbon filter and turbine fan, exaust that shiz right out the side o the hse.. yeah the CFM formula will likey get 'winged', which I can dig, have extra fire extinguisher, this system is ghetto-tronic.

cut two hole on ea side of garbage can.
 
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