Adding ductwork to LED lights?

[Camaro1691]

Anyone tried it? Seeing as how the biggest source of heat for most people is from their lights venting directly into the grow area, why not add ducts to where the fans exit to pull the heat out of the room and outside, in theory effectively eliminating the need for air conditioning except in those scorching summer months, I myself use viparspectra v600 LEDs which have 2 fans on top pushing the heat up. If I were to use (2) 5” to 4” duct reducers hot glued to the top I could use a couple short pieces of flex duct up to one “Y” splitter per light, if I run my duct down my ceiling with a “T” at each light then at the very end of the run step up to a 6” inline booster this would hold a vacuum across all the lights then run my vent outside, if smell is a concern for anyone I would suggest running a inline carbon filter as well seeing as how your going to be removing air from your room as well. A active intake will be needed with 1/3 less cfm than your exhaust or else the use of a carbon filter will be essentially useless.. pictures of the top of one of my lights and the reduced duct I would hot glue to the top. The big question would be to leave the fans in the lights or remove them. I’m already past my warranty period although vipar has been good to me about good willing their light even after the warranty period. But more air is more efficiency Thoughts?

 

[Dobeyflange]

I use the same light as you but that sounds like a lot of work for a small problem.
It sounds plausible but.
Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing the results man.

 

[Dwight Monk]

If you are pulling air from the top of your space for your exhaust should be just as fine, as heat rises and all that. As you could end up transferring the heat to your duct which might transfer more heat back to the light in theory, whether that how it works is hard to say. Same goes for removing the fans could change the way it was engineered to work and cause you more problems than any potential gain.

 

[Camaro1691]

I use the same light as you but that sounds like a lot of work for a small problem.
It sounds plausible but.
Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing the results man.

While it may sound like a lot of work, any amount that cuts back on cooling costs is worthwhile in my opinion, when running (4) v600’s in a 6x8 space in the summer time it was nothing to see ambient air temps of 120 or even higher during flowering. Being in a mobile home has it’s downfalls to battle... In a basement it was no issue at all with just the simple 6” exhaust fan at the top of the ceiling. Not the case now though.

If you are pulling air from the top of your space for your exhaust should be just as fine, as heat rises and all that. As you could end up transferring the heat to your duct which might transfer more heat back to the light in theory, whether that how it works is hard to say. Same goes for removing the fans could change the way it was engineered to work and cause you more problems than any potential gain.

The fans naturally pull the air thru the vents on the sides of the light bringing it past the heat sinks, and these particular lights the fans are tied into the toggle switches one fan for the veg side and one for the bloom side. They have nothing to do with the led drivers soo over driving the leds from removing them would not be a concern. I worked directly with the company diagnosing one of the lights when only the veg side of the board would work, they gave me permission to open it myself and inspect which is how I know soo much about the light lol. I do also have a fairly strong background with 12v electrical and reverse engineering stuff soo I’m plenty confident there will more benefit than downfall from taking this task on, just need to wait for a little extra funding to gather the parts to do so. Already tapped out for a tiny bit after building a new undercurrent system haha

 

[SteveJasmine]

I run 4 1800 cobs, they have fans on the back of them that seem to do the trick. Personally I wouldn't muck about with my lights but it's up to you.

 

[Camaro1691]

I run 4 1800 cobs, they have fans on the back of them that seem to do the trick. Personally I wouldn't muck about with my lights but it's up to you.

Keep in mind MM that cobs don’t produce nearly the heat that traditional leds do, and whatever heat you do receive is offset by their efficiency. The drivers are what produce the most heat in those situations. Are your drivers mounted in your tent or out of your tent? If your in a basement you also won’t experience the kind of heat problems as someone would see in a mobile home setting

 

[Camaro1691]

I guess one of my biggest arguments goes back to looking at heat issues guys with small grow areas and HPS’ have to deal with and most all of them are running sealed hoods with inline ducting. While I know led does produce ten times less heat than hps, it does still produce heat, and some of us need to minimize the amount of heat we generate in our rooms, we go to the extent of mounting air and water pumps out of the room, ballasts when they’re there, every extent we can, except venting the lights like the old days and in my opinion was rather effective

 

[Bud]

Pull cool air in on the bottom,... out thru the top into another room, ideally, I use a adjustable 440 from my closet to the attic where the fan is mounted with bungee cords to lessen vibrations and noise. It’s better to pull air out than to push it. IMO, The distance between grow and fan is about 10’ with 6” flexible ducting and a scrubber in the grow room. Temps & humidity are adjustable with fan speed and humidifier. Hope this helps a bit.

 

[Camaro1691]

Pull cool air in on the bottom,... out thru the top into another room, ideally, I use a adjustable 440 from my closet to the attic where the fan is mounted with bungee cords to lessen vibrations and noise. It’s better to pull air out than to push it. IMO, The distance between grow and fan is about 10’ with 6” flexible ducting and a scrubber in the grow room. Temps & humidity are adjustable with fan speed and humidifier. Hope this helps a bit.

I’m aware of how of to circulate heat out of the room, I use a 6” vortex fan with around 550-600cfm for my exhaust and a duct booster for my intake with around 2-300 cfm. In a basement, even in the dead of summer this works flawlessly.. something most people don’t understand is battling summer temps in a mobile home where the hot air passes under the home, theres no heat sink from a foundation into the ground to obsorb heat it all enters the home. Concrete foundations soak the cold from the ground.. I’ve grown in a mobile home before then went into a basement now back into a mobile home.. I’m not running into heat issues yet as we’re not even into spring yet but I know what’s in store for me and trying to plan ahead. Guys with hps hoods in small areas need vented hoods, I’m merely trying to adapt the concept that seems to have gone away with leds because they produce less heat, there’s no argument about that. I do have an air conditioner for my grow room,but I’d rather not need it and cut back on how much electricity I’m using to cool the room soo I can shift that usage towards more lights.. And I also like to think outside the box and build stuff soo there’s that too haha

 

[George Mc]

Anyone tried it? Seeing as how the biggest source of heat for most people is from their lights venting directly into the grow area, why not add ducts to where the fans exit to pull the heat out of the room and outside, in theory effectively eliminating the need for air conditioning except in those scorching summer months, I myself use viparspectra v600 LEDs which have 2 fans on top pushing the heat up. If I were to use (2) 5” to 4” duct reducers hot glued to the top I could use a couple short pieces of flex duct up to one “Y” splitter per light, if I run my duct down my ceiling with a “T” at each light then at the very end of the run step up to a 6” inline booster this would hold a vacuum across all the lights then run my vent outside, if smell is a concern for anyone I would suggest running a inline carbon filter as well seeing as how your going to be removing air from your room as well. A active intake will be needed with 1/3 less cfm than your exhaust or else the use of a carbon filter will be essentially useless.. pictures of the top of one of my lights and the reduced duct I would hot glue to the top. The big question would be to leave the fans in the lights or remove them. I’m already past my warranty period although vipar has been good to me about good willing their light even after the warranty period. But more air is more efficiency Thoughts?

You know the old saying, if there's a will there's a way.

 

[Bud]

If your looking to reduce concerns about heat ..try a 315 CMH all in one.
If your looking to reduce your electric bill ... try a 315 CMH all in one. And just like that Poof all my heating problems disappeared as well as a large drop in my electric bill about 40.00 difference between my 600 watt and now.

 

[TurboBucket]

There's nothing wrong with your plan. I'm not sure how much it will help but it will help.

If you use a register boot you can have a 90° take off on the top of the light. Cut the top vent openings out and attach the register boot with zip screws or silicone.

 

[Camaro1691]

If your looking to reduce concerns about heat ..try a 315 CMH all in one.
If your looking to reduce your electric bill ... try a 315 CMH all in one. And just like that Poof all my heating problems disappeared as well as a large drop in my electric bill about 40.00 difference between my 600 watt and now.

How warm are cmh’s though? Aren’t they hotter than leds by a considerable amount? Hot enough you can’t rest your hand against the glass right? I do like all the feedback, it really is appreciated. Right now I’m running a (4) 600w equivalent led lights, that have fans on the top, I had a picture of the top of the light but it’s a brand that’s not currently a sponsor soo I’m not allowed to use the picture I did (I have since emailed the company requesting they become a sponsor and I urge others with their lights to do the same) my initial thought was to use register takeoffs as you suggested @TurboBucket, but the extra work it would require between cutting and fitting for each light then making a new way to hang the light, in my opinion became more troublesome of an idea than worth while. There’s 2 ideas I’m currently tossing around in my head. First idea is remove the fans from the lights, seal the top shut completely as well as 2 sides and use the front and back to attach registers soo I can make the cooling a passthru system as a sealed hps hood would be. If I go this route I can put a water to air exchanger on the output of each light and use a water chiller to cool the air coming out, and circulate the air in the room, being 10x more efficient than air conditioning because water is denser than air. My second and current idea (although considering the first more and more) is to leave the side vents on the lights alone, and still remove the fans from the lights, with the duct reducers I have in my first post, would fit over the fan holes perfectly and I could either hot glue or silicone them in place (2 per light) with a “Y” adapter to connect the 2 vents together, and all the lights would be chained together with “T” adapters, going this route I won’t need to modify how the light is hung and the flexible duct will allow the lights to be raised or lowered without having to move anything else where as with my first idea having ducts coming out the side will allow the flexible duct to droop into my light canopy without being supported.. each idea has its pros and cons. Unfortunately money is always a limiting factor. I’m hoping that won’t be an issue after this summer though as I intend on also doing an outdoor grow this year with the intentions of harvesting 10-15 pounds or better this fall

 

[Bud]

No glass blocking uvb rays, no prob putting hands on the hood it’s cooler than under side witch is in the mid 70’s at the top of the buds approximately 20” away from the light .
Aren’t u talking about a swamp cooler? Best intentions with your summertime grow.
I have never grown with led’s And have no idea how much heat thay put out? I just hate burpee lights. With each turn or tee or y installed to ventilate reduces the strength and output of the fan in general .

 

[Camaro1691]

No not a swamp cooler, having a water resivoir with a pump and chiller for cooling everything.. I’m going to need a chiller for my undercurrent system when it’s warmer out soo I may as well get the most out of the chiller as possible. Hydro innovations has what they call a ice box heat exchanger. They mount it on the end of hps lights to cool the lights and to double up as the air conditioner for the room. Soo if I get a chiller slightly larger than I would need I could use it for light cooling/air conditioning/ and cooling my nutrient resivoir. I’m a big fan of using water when possible. I know most fear water leakage adding more and more components that use water but if used properly, can be quite advantageous. I think I’m going to consider this route more. This summers indoor grow will be a little of a struggle with this being first year in our first home but once fall hits things will smooth out quite a bit then I can focus on dialing the room in more

 

[Grassmaster]

I've been thinking about running the exhaust from my tent through the wall and then outdoors. Like what is used for a laundry vent. That way, you would pull fresh cool air into the tent from the rest of the house. And get rid of moisture and heat during the Summer.

While I know led does produce ten times less heat than hps, it does still produce heat,

HPS have an efficiency of something like 1.3. Some LED's are even less efficient! Some COB's and QU boards have an efficiency of around 2.0

To reduce heat you need the most efficient watt/lumen lights you can get with dimmers to use the least amount of energy that is necessary. Heat sinks are better as fans use energy and have to be maintained. If necessary you have to use energy for cooling.

 

[Bud]

The only problem is the smell. I would put a scrubber ( 6”)in the tent and attach it to the flex ducting going to the exaust fan and outside thru the dryer vent

 

[TurboBucket]

It's not the only problem. Any air that you send outside has to be replaced. For every cubic foot of air that you blow out another cubic foot will be sucked in from outside. Ideally your home should maintain a slightly positive pressure so conditioned air escapes outward through any air leaks as opposed to pulling in unconditioned air with any associated dirt/pollen, humidity or temperature issues.

 

[Bud]

Pulling air in thru from the house to the scrubber and the fan and out thru the vent sounds like a plan to me, a air conditioner filter takes care of any contamination drawn thru it before it enters the grow room. Tackle one problem at a time and move on. I use a adjustable exaust fan to control heat and humidity in my room with a few small oscillating clipon fans to secerulate? Air.