Problem with exhaust/temp control

[Dominok56]

Been having trouble recently keeping the temperature in the tent under 86, so I upgraded from a 6inch to an 8 inch but the problem persists. The Z8 definitely feels like it’s pushing out more air than my previous fan, but the tent is still Atleast 7 degrees hotter than the room it’s in. I’ve been thinking about switching out fans for the AC Infinity CLOUDLINE PRO T8, but I wanted to double check here to see if anybody had any tips before I proceed. The room it’s in is pretty cool. Usually around 63-75F but on a hot day it could be as high as 79 or 80 and with the light on it gets as high as 86-87.

4x4x7 grow tent
sf4000 grow light
Vivosun Z8 8 inch inline fan
2 oscillating fans

[kingfish]

Do you close your tent during lights on? If you do, don't. I only close my tent during the 12 hours of dark during flowering, then I open it again. Helps keep the temp down.
I don't close it at all during vegging.

[Dominok56]

Yes, i do. I didn’t at first but then i started noticing a lot of spiders creeping in. Almost knocked the tent over a couple times when i was sitting in the back of it doing LST lol. I’m gonna look into changeofpace’s idea of pet screens. Much appreciated

[changeofpace2014]

have same issue, with same upgrade...conclusion the volume of fresh air intake is not enough, no way to change or mod it so the tent door is cracked and with two light on maybe the whole door open...put some pet screen up to keep bugs, pets and some direct light from beaming out...

[Dominok56]

YES. I wanted to leave the door open, but I couldn’t think of anything to keep the bugs out. Did you end up keeping the 8in fan? I’ll try out the screen door and lyk how it goes. Thank you

[Allenpro]

Do you have a portable AC you can pipe so cool air in there? If you can seal up the tent and want to spend the $ to install it C02 will let you grow in higher temps. After a several years of fighting the heat & humidity, paying the electric and C02 bills I decided not to grow in July and Aug. Dont mess with Mother Nature, you cant win and its really stressful

[Dominok56]

A portable AC was actually one of the options. I’ve read about CO2, but it was something I wasn’t sure about. I usually avoid the summer months too, but i wanted to get a harvest in before we brought the Christmas decorations out. The temp really isn’t too bad it’s just that I upgraded to the SF4000 LED from a 300W HPS so I wasn’t ready for how hot it got inside the tent. I appreciate your input.

[Allenpro]

They do under exaggerate the heat those LEDs put out and the electric they draw. I went from 3 1000 watt HID's to 3 500 watt LEDs and I dont think the temps or the draw ($) changed more than 10%

[Dominok56]

3 1000W HIDs to 3 500W LEDs? Holy moly man talk about a dream setup. I’d love to see pictures if you’re willing to share. Have you posted any? I glanced at your profile, but I didn’t see any.

[Bluey]

Try dimming your light down to about half and lower it to about 16" from the canopy. Something like that. The driver can also be removed from the tent that will help a bit too.

[Dominok56]

I actually started off around 50, but the heat was the same. I even had the thought that maybe the dimmer was faulty. I’ll check when I get home but I’m pretty positive the driver on this one is built into the board

[Allenpro]

This is the RDWC setup that is getting taken down this summer and replaced with 3 Ebb & Flow tables on wheels. RDWC is the most impressive grow method I have tried but it's too hard for me to get to the back of the plants Those solar blankets are coming down too.
The other picture is with the LED's I only ran 2 of them for that grow. I modified a bike hanging setup for the lights so I can raise and lower them from one cord,

[Dominok56]

Yeah, that’s a pretty impressive setup. I love it. What are you putting on the res’ to hold the tomato cages in place?

[Dominok56]

Also I love the creativity with the bike hanging setup for the lights.

[Allenpro]

I bought some hooks that I screwed in place on the tops. If you look at the picture of just the tops you can see them scattered around.

[Radeon]

I've done some research on your light and the consensus is that the driver runs very, very hot. Keep your current fan and mount the driver outside of the tent. The driver on my new led runs hotter than my last led. Had to do some adjustments to compensate. Not bad enough to mount on the outside yet because I can control room temp pretty well.

[Dominok56]

Upon further inspection it looks like the driver might be removable. I’ll probably wait until morning to try and detach it. 7% is 7% and it would bring my temp below 85

[Allenpro]

Keeping the water temps under control is really important in DWC grows. Did I give my Hydroguard speech yet? Dont grow in water without it or something similar.

[Dominok56]

AHHHH. I can’t even hear Hydroguard without getting flashbacks from this grow I lost years ago a couple weeks before harvest. I tried to tell myself I was imagining the smell because it was faint and there weren’t any major deficiencies yet but, as Allen said, Mother Nature always wins. That was when I thought Hydroguard was optional. Good times.

[Dominok56]

I ended up installing a screen on one of the doors and the temps are a lot more stable. It’s still a work in progress considering the adhesive backed Velcro strips don’t want to stay attached to the screen BUT it works for now. It got down to atleast 75 when usually it’s at 82. It’s working with the 8in, but I’m interested to see if it will with the 6.

[changeofpace2014]

thumb tacks!

[Rootsruler]

If your leaving the door open is what brings the temp down then you have an intake issue. You said you have an 8" fan pulling air into the tent which is way more CFM than you really need. Are the bottom flaps open in the tent or are you pulling in air only from the open tent door? How much air are the fans moving inside? I have a few of the new ACI gen 2 fans and I really like them but I think they are unnecessary.

I have a 5 x 5 that I was using the fans with but I think I'm going to pick up a cheap box fan and just hang it a couple feet off the roof pointed at the roof. This will pull the cooler air from the bottom of the tent, also pulling air through the bottom flaps, through the canopy and up into the roof area where my exhaust fan can suck out whatever gasses and moisture the air pulls with it. Pulling the air in this direction will also draw heat away from your lights up into the roof area moving the heat away from your plants to get sucked out by the exhaust fan.

As much as I like the ACI gen 2's I can accomplish the same thing with a $20 box fan. I'll probably still use a couple of them but underneath the canopy as I like to run ScrOGs so air movement underneath is important.

[Dominok56]

Even with the doors open I can only get it a few degrees hotter than the room it’s in. All the bottom flaps are open as well as 3/4 ducts. The fourth was originally open, but it didn’t seem to affect the temp and it was letting spiders in at the time so I closed it.

As for how much air the fans move inside the tent? No clue. They’re just two cheap 8 inch lil blizzard oscillators to prevent any hot spots. They’ve worked well for me in that aspect.

The box fan pointed toward the ceiling is actually a pretty good idea, but due to height restrictions idk if that’d work for me. I do manifolding and it usually gets to about 4-5 ft in a 6.5ft tent.

[Rootsruler]

True. Your style would negate having a box fan like that versus my style where height is not the issue so much as the foot print of the tent.

If you have the coin invest in a couple of the ACI Gen 2's. They're really nice and sturdy AF. They have a mode where they vary the wind speed like in nature.

I guess my only other suggestion would be to find a way to cool down the lung room. My old lung room was an office in the house I just moved out of and the house had HVAC so I could drop the temp in the house to better control the lung room temp.

[Dominok56]

I wasn’t getting the results I’d like so I switched back to 6in and it’s doing just as well, if not better. Temps are still a bit high so I’m debating making another screen door, but that is a lot of light so I’m not sure. I’d like to get a portable ac but the lung room is too large to realistically be in the budget.

[changeofpace2014]

Well I have come to the conclusion our central AC needs to be 3 ton... Growing in winter is so much different then growing in summer....Inside of coarse..

[Rootsruler]

Around these parts the outdoor temps are normally around 105° this time of year give or take but lately we've been seeing between 114° and 120°. Thankfully, the last grow yielded 4P in dry weight so we're still well stocked. Electricity charges are stupid expensive around here with having to run the A/C but once temps start to drop I can use the HVAC to keep the tent cooler and not have to take a loan out to pay the electric bill.