Today is the day I get to replace the noisey inline fan and replace the T12s with COBs. Yay! I have been excited to do it since I bought the new equipment. Waiting on shipping can be such a drag. While I am replacing the old fan with the new one I am changing my "hvac" from a sealed/recirculating to a unsealed/circulating system. By doing so I will be drawing cooler air from an attic like space between the main floor of the unit and the garage. Air conditioned air from the unit sinks through the floor into the attic space since the floor is not insulated like the garage ceiling is. I will run a insulated duct through the garage ceiling directly into the tent. The fan and fliter will be in the tent and will vent into the garage. My last grows was done this way. I decided to change it at the beginning of this grow when I setup the tent. I took pictures during installation for you all to see what I did.
First step, find the board I used to hang my fan/filter in the tent and add another to it that is as wide as the new fan mounting system.
I screwed the two pieces together. Drilled pilot holes for the fan mount.
Screwed down everything tight.
Tested it in the tent to make sure it's good to go.
Test for fan.
Installed the filter and reducer. Ran insulated ducting that is the exhaust out of the top port of tent. That part is now half done.
Now for the inlet side of the hvac system. I forgot to take a picture of the ducting in the tent for this part but you will see it in other pictures of this post. In the next picture, that is a piece of Styrofoam that conveniently had a six inch round hole so I used it at the inlet of the ducting in the attic area. You will see why below.
I cut some filter material to match the Styrofoam duct inlet.
Inlet in attic area complete.
Next is installing the new cobs. A 300 watt kit from a former sponser containing six of the Citizen leds, with a meanwell driver that runs all six cobs and a riostat dimmer. I was surprised how big and heavy the driver was. Below is a picture of the kit.
Below you will see the rods I cut to fit the tent where I will hang the cobs from. This way I will be able to move the rods back and forth from the center, out. I will be able to slide the cobs sideways as well. Also in this picture you can see the straight inlet ducting from the attic area.
I used wire that is for plant tying/training as hangers. I was going to use clothes hangers but they were to thick for the application.
Last but not least is the money shot. Cobs, driver, exsisting led, and plants. I have the new lights turned down to about fifty percent.
Now I have 600 watts of lighting in the tent drawing about 425 watts from the wall. As for watering them, since I was working on the tent, the plants were in the reptile tank all day covered up for the night cycle. For daytime they got some light from the cfls that are in the tank hood. They look droopy but I'm not sure if it was because of the weird day or showing dry signs. So I will check on them in the morning before lights out. That way they will get about ten hours under the new lights. If they are still droopy I will water them then. I looked at the bottom of one pots and I have roots poking out. That's a good sign to me that the roots are growing. Do you guys think they are big enough to start feeding them? I am going to bed now. Ttyl
Hopefully others will chime in as well.
