I am looking to buy an air cooled HPS light. I was looking to purchase an air tube, but according to Cervantes, they are extremely inefficient, and create a bunch of hot spots. So then I got thinking, what if I placed a Gavita bulb inside of the air tube. For those of you who don't know what a gavita bulb is, search for them online, they are crazy. In short, they have the reflector built inside the bulb, reducing the distance the light has to travel before it gets reflected, increasing efficiency to a stated “95%â€. So my question is, will using this bulb inside the air tube reduce the inefficiency of the tube, or is it the concave shape of the glass that refracts the light which makes tubes inefficient?
Hey man. I see you posted this in 3 different places. No problem, I will give my thoughts here. I checked out that bulb (pretty expensive) and part of its selling point is the fact that it keeps cooler than equivalent bulbs. Therefore, you probably won't really even need an air cooled hood when using it. If you do decide to use the bulb in an air cooled hood, I can't imagine that any efficiency would be lost by doing it that way.
You can purchase the gavita on ebay for under 70$. Is that expensive? Also, I am growing in a small box, so heat is an issue, therfore I will need to air cool my light. Thanks for the reply though, hoop
id have to say YES but anytime you have to put light through anything more than it's own glass its gonna refract and create an innefficientcy to some degree
you can build your own for less than $100 if you already have the mogul base n ballast..... i took a tin trashcancut it in 1/2 and spot welded the open ends, with a whole saw put 1 hole in 1 closed end to fit mogul base, then placed a hole big enough to accomidate a small fan at the other, took a piece of plexiglass 3/4"thick(thats the spendy part)and fit it to the open bottom and secured it with a few self tapping screws..... now i have 800 watts in there n a different piece of glass to hold the heat, i have plans to get this one hooked up different here in a few daze but yeah you'll always have a refraction issue and the closer te light is to the reflector(gavita's)and the other piece of glass the better IMO..
Hmm interesting. Thank you. Do yall believe that circular glass surrounding a bulb (the glass tube) is worse for refraction (and inefficiency) than just straight glass? The reason i ask is that for air flow with the lest resistance, a tube is the best option. Oh yeah, I have heard from some that the gavita runs cooler, and some that it actually runs warmer. So dont beleive what the ebay auction tells you, hoop
Ok, the ones I saw were about $110 per bulb. I recently ordered a Hortilux 400 watt hps and that was around $65. What are the dimensions of your box?
Are you sure, I just went to ebay, and searched for gavita, and you can get it for under 70. My box is about 2x4.5 feet...thanks
Not really sure about the fan question. I would guess you would need at least a 256 cfm fan for that space and a 400 watt light.