Is this a good deal?

[Grim Reefer T]

Wondering if this is a fair deal. It is a 250 watt lumatek ballast with bulb in a cooltube for 270 bucks.

Amazon: 250W 120V HPS Cool Tube Digital Grow Light System

I would get the 400 but I am worried about heat as my plants will be VERY close to this light. Just how cool is the cool tube?

 

[SnowBender]

Just how cool is the cool tube?

with proper venting CFM pulled from an area with nominal ambient temps it should be almost cool to the touch...

 

[Grim Reefer T]

Well my Ambient temp is about 74 and I will have a 165 CFM inline fan attached directly to the cooltube. From there will be an immediate 90 degree angle 5 feet of pvc and one more 90 into a carbon filter. The fan is 4 inch but the pvc will be 6 inch.

Do you think that will be good enough ventilation? The area the light will be in is 2 feet wide 2 feet deep and 3 feet tall.

 

[Grim Reefer T]

Anyone know the answer to my CFM question? How many CFM will keep a cooltube cool to the touch? After the inline fan there will be 5 feet of PVC with 2 90 degree bends.

 

[Grim Reefer T]

BUMPITY BUMP BUMPY....C'mon someone gimmie some wisdom here.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I have seen plants growing right up against the glass in a standard air-cooled reflector where a 400-watt ballast was used. Probably hurt things a little - but the glass was not hot to the touch. IDK what the CFM of the fan cooling the reflector was, but it was moving air from outside of the grow, across the light, and out of the grow. I would recommend that over using air from within the grow area any day of the week; not only is the air used for cooling going to be cooler, it also won't smell like cannabis. (Meaning that when you vent the actual grow area separately, you can use a smaller fan and smaller filter - which will last longer because the air flowing through IT will be cooler.)

Get the 400-watt ballast. Lumateks are dimmable, so you could run the thing at 250 if you really needed to. If you didn't, you could run it at 400. Even if you did have to step it down, when you get around to upgrading things, you won't immediately be looking for a newer ballast.

 

[SnowBender]

Good advise TS, i was going to say something similar...

Anyone know the answer to my CFM question? How many CFM will keep a cooltube cool to the touch? After the inline fan there will be 5 feet of PVC with 2 90 degree bends.

depends on how many cf the grow is...if you go with a dedicated run with outside air to vent your hood 165 cfm would be fine. keep the ballast outside the grow too.

happy growing!