Slinks
Well-Known Member
I have a 4x4x2 tent running 400w + 600w lights my current rvk fan is rated at 365m3/h my temps are hitting 33c should I upgrade my ducting n fan to 700m3 or would money be better spent on Aircon for the room?
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1,000 watts of light works out to roughly 3,412 BTU per hour of heat.
What's the temperature of your intake air? If the differential is low enough, it takes significantly more airflow to control temperatures (obviously). If it's 30°C where you're getting your intake air from... then your tent only being 3°C higher is not bad. If, OtOH, that intake air is only 20°C, then you have an airflow problem.
Are you actually getting 365 m³/hour of airflow from your exhaust fan? Most fan ratings are "no-load" ratings - and some brands'/models' performance really tanks under any kind of load (carbon filter, et cetera).
Are the 400-watt and 600-watt lights both HIDs? If so, do you have them in air-cooled reflectors? IF SO... do you have those lights on a separate ventilation run? And have you added those "reflector insulator" blanket/wrap things? They seem to help (a little) minimize heat transference from one's lights to one's grow space, and they're a one-time expense.
Air-cooled HID setups are awesome, IMHO. Big LED panels with little computer-style fans in their cases and no attached duct flanges so that one cannot easily connect them to ventilation runs... much less so. It means the user is forced to treat his/her lighting and grow space as one thing instead of two. Also, the power supplies for most LED grow light panels are inside the case - which is much like having an HID and deciding to place its ballast into the grow room, LMAO... an extra heat-producing device that has no reason to be inside the grow space.
Most portable air conditioners suck. The remaining few... well, they suck, too, lol, just a wee bit less. IF you are forced to go this route, make sure you get a dual-hose model. That'll help a little. A window (or through-the-wall) unit would be cheaper, more efficient (cost less per month to run), and cool better. An inverter mini-split air conditioner setup would be even more efficient, and could potentially cool more than just your grow tent (I've seen mini-split kits with up to five individual room units, but three seems more common) - but is significantly more expensive to purchase (and you may require a professional to install it). All the portable a/c units I looked at (I researched them for my mother, who - like me - melts at 20°C ) had really short hoses - and, although a couple stated in their documentation that the user could link two hoses together, I think the longest I found that one could be placed from a window was something like nine feet (about 2¾ meters). That might cause some inconvenience, if your tent happens to be hidden in a closet instead of placed relatively close to a window. I did look at a halfway-decent Whynter unit, and this was a dual-hose model. It was rated 14,000 BTU. In practice, though, it was probably on par with a 8,000 window a/c unit (or slightly more) - whilst using as much electricity as a good 14,000 BTU window unit.