I am redesigning some things in my flowering tent, preparing for the summer months. I wanted to know if this design would be unreasonable. Here is a basic diagram of what I wanted to do. I wanted to run the 400w HPS on its cool tube like this outside air > cool tube > 170CFM Fan > Y Adapter > EXIT threw wall. For the room I was planning on putting my 6" 452 CFM Vortex on a speed controller with a carbon filter rated at 424 CFMs like this Filter > Fan> Y Adapter > Exit. The reason I am questioning this set up is I am curious if the 4" exit will be enough and if the Y adapter presents a problem. I need to Y adapter because I will not be able to make another hole into my wall for HPS to vent separately. Here is the diagram
The 4" + 4" to Y-adapter shouldn't be a problem. You''ll be flowing a lot of air thru the exit vent though, might get a little noisey. When air can't spread out it speeds up... Can you enlarge your current 4" exit to a 6"? That would definitely keep things restriction-free.
I may be able to bore it out slightly more depending if the wall frame would allow it, I do not know the distance between the 2 support beams. Noise is not to much of a concern but I do got to keep it a decent volume I sleep by this thing.
Putting those two fans down to 1 reduced duct may create a backpressure issue. This may lead to your fan working harder/hotter and early failure of fan
I would personally use the bigger fan on the light, and the smaller one for the room. You will need an anti-backdraft damper for the room fan, so when the light fan is running , it is not blowing hot air back into the room. My advice is to go larger with the Y unit. Get a 8-8-10 Y. Adapt the 2 8" sides to be 6" and 4", This way the 10" will be their exit and not have such a problem. Also, there is no need for a filter that big for that size room. (I at least assume the size of the room, due to the size of the HPS. Using the 6"fan for the light will make the intake air issues I see go away. You can use the 2 4" intakes with the 4" tent exhaust. If you do a 6" tent exhaust, you will need a bare minimum of one more 4" intake (2 more would be optimal) to accompany the other 2. We aim for 1.5x-2x the size of our exhaust for our intakes. 6" exhaust is 28.28in2 Two 4" intakes equal 25.14in2 THree 4" intakes equal 37.71in2 four 4" intakes equal 50.28in2 You will no doubt have to cut your holes bigger in your tent, but your tent is not a rental, so you are allowed to do that.
That is a lot going on at once let me see if you got this right. I will also be re posting the same diagram with my tent dimensions(Its a secret jardin dr80) but re arrange to the way I think you are explaining. So your saying that you want the a larger Y that contains 3, 8" ports; 2 of them I will reduce down to 6 and 1 to 4. The 4 inch will connect to the exhaust fan which would be the 4" 170CFM with a matching filter. All of the exhaust would be flowing out a 6" hole? A backdraft damper I am confused what that is and how it works. I figured Id mention this upgrade orignally started when I decided I need to buy a carbon filter. Would that help decrease the pressure of my 6" Vortex enough to make my intakes work better? I really would like to due minimal mods to the tent. Just thought of another idea. What if I used a 6" Y and ran both the filter on 1 end of the Y and then the cool tube on the other?
You need the bottom of the y to be larger. 8 on 2 sides, and 10 on the one. Just search "electronic damper" on google, or any grow equip sites. You will need that to block air from the cooltube (which would run the whole time the light is on) from coming back into the grow area through the exhaust fan when it is not running. The problem I see is the bottle neck of 3 4" or 3 6" Y's. One side has to be larger, and 2 sides will need reducers. This is the best way to explain it. But the only mod would be cutting the one 6" vent on top to make it 10", thats it. If you had 2 6" fans, the intakes would need to be increased.
so ultimately what I've gathered here is it would probally be best and most cost effiecent for me to add 2 holes to the tent for the light and another to my wall. So the ducting would go like outside air>light>6" vortex>exit via wall. Then for the exhaust of the tent use the pre existing holes and vent like this carbon filter>4" 170cfm fan> exit via current 4" hole in the wall. I didn't wanna do many mods but this seems the simplest way. My next question is running the tent this way, would this make that much of a difference in temps and would this also set me up for the future mod of co2? Of course to run co2 I'd need more equipment but that is a long term goal of mine. Thanks so much for your help
assuming I was going to run them both on seperate tracks like my last post, I wouldn't need a electronic damper correct? Also by doing all of this extra work and spending the extra money on another fan. Is this really going to cool my room much more then it already is currently? I am managing temps now fine I am just really worried about once I add my filter and summer makes it's way to me. I really don't want to waste anymore $$ if isn't gonna do anything worth the while. I have waisted so much on changing things that don't even make changes at all.
So you think you will have higher temps when summer hits. Is your house Air conditioned? It should be about the same inside year round in a house. We have it 70 pretty much year round for the heat and in the summer the AC. So our interior temps never really change.If no AC in your place, get one for the window of the room (providing you have one where the cab is) and keep the room chilled. This will be easier than modding the tent. only about 100 bones.
See that's what I thought but I saw many people claiming there temps climb in the summer. I keep my house at 68f all year round. I think I'm gonna go ahead by the fan and filter and slap the 170cfm filter on the end of my cool tube for now and speed control the fan down. It seems like if I did that, it would make my intakes more effective and quiet the jet in my closet some as well. Generally by adding the filter how much of a pressure change in my fan could I expect? Also early you said my filter was way to big for my room, I was under the impression you wanted the filter to match the air flow of the fan. If that's true wouldn't a smaller filter like you recomended not even work at getting rid of the smell? Thanks again dude I appreicate the re occuring effort you put into the city espeically here in the design section.
You'll be fine temp wise, if not, make changes when it is needed. The carbon filter that I have is in a bigger area, with 50 clones and 4 moms. It stinks in that closet. But no where else. It is a small little guy. The 2600 CAN filter. I have a 6" duct fan and a 4" duct fan hooked up to it with a reducer (it is what I had around) Wormsway.com sells them, and it has the CFM rating on the website. There is a review about a guy using a homedepot duct fan with his as well. Just have to make sure the intake is good. They slow down quite a bit. If you are using a real fan (vortex or the like) you won't have to worry about it slowing too much. A good vortex will eat static pressure for lunch. I would only go with a 4" cab exhaust, being that there are only two 4" holes on the lower walls (at least that is what I see in your diagram). Those little intakes will not be able to work well with a 6" cab exhaust.
Thanks dude, its a real vortex so pressure will be eaten alive . I do not like buying junk stuff, you usually need to re buy it. I am going to pick up the same filter as you from my local worms way. Worms way told me to stay away from the speed controller when I called up and asked if they had them in stock. So we will see what happens when I slap this filter on there. Thanks for so much help +rep