Do not use your fan to push the air. They aren't built for that and you will shorten your fans life considerably. The fan goes at the end of your chain. Pulling everything through. I have a small setup, 3 x 3 tent, so my exhaust is one chain. It starts at the carbon filter. the fan pulling the air at the end of the chain, pulls the air in thru the carbon filter, where it does its job of filtering the odor out, then there is ducting from the filter to my cooltobe, then ducting from the cooltube to the exhaust fan, which then runs up thru my ceiling and out of the house thru a dryer vent in the roof. So the fan pulls the air through the filter for odor control then thru the cooltube for temperature control and up and out. In a larger room, you may want to have 2 exhaust fans. One for just your filter (filter, ducting, fan, out of room. And another for cooling your light and exhausting the warm air. But do not use fans for intakes, they are mostly not necessary as the exhaust fans pulling causes enough negative pressure to continue pulling fresh air in. Well, thats my advice. Good Luck. peace.
I thought the end of the chain was the fan THEN the filter? Or should i put my filter on the inside of my room right before the fan exhausts it?
Pulling hot air through your fan is worse than pushing air, by far. I've been pushing air through my carbon filter in my veg cab for 8 years and the fan has never malfunctioned. It's recommended that you attach your fan directly to the filter, pulling air through it, and then pushing it through your tube and out the cab. This doesnt matter so much with 400w or smaller, but the bigger bulbs produce a lot of heat and can damage fans over a period of time. Fans ARE more efficient when pulling, that's why it's the "normal" way to set 'em up.
No, the filter is at the beginning of the chain. The air enters the filter first, gets cleaned, then travels out via the exhaust fan. If you want to see how I do it, click on the journal links in my sig. I show how my tent is setup. Now of course, you are in a much bigger room then my tent, so this will just give you an idea of the proper exhaust chain, and allow you to design yours for your room. Pushing is not recommended. Always pull air with your fan. I have tried pusshing the air, just doesn't work as well. Also, if you use a fan to push air into your carbon filter, as in the fan is connected to the filter pushing it in, the air will be entering the filter way to fast and will not get scrubbed, so the filter will not do its job properly and you will have odor.
Your 2nd 2 paragraphs are right on point, but conflict with your first one. And I do not care who pushes air with their fan, pulling air is not worse than pushing air, not in any way. Exhaust fans are mean to pull the air through the chain, not push it. You get no where near the efficiency, and you tax your fan way more. So there are no clear benefits whasoever to pushing the air rather than pulling it.
Ive almost always pulled the hot air through the fan and have never had a problem either. Especially when you are running lots of lights and have lots of ducting intersections and such its a hellof a lot easier to pull through them and only have a complicated plenum/manifold on the exhaust side instead of having them on both sides of your setup. Unless you have a shit fan you should be fine. Ive done a lot of work with setups which actual do produce enough heat to effect a fan motor, and hid lights are nowhere near that level of heat, otherwise i am sure companies would offer belt driven units. I had 20 lights exhausting through one 14 inch fan for several years and that thing still works just fine. Currently i have an 8 inch pulling from 4 lights, i have a dust shroom right on the hood for the intake. Its amazing how the initial intensity of the heat disipates within just a couple feet of insulated ducting. Even the heat from 20 lights may be warm, but its nowhere near burning hot.