Spent the weekend setting up my closet. Lined it all with Flashgro, absolutely loved it, nice thick material that was easy to cut, tack up, and just do whatever with. Covered my air cooled hood with Poly Shield (from Lowes) figured it would help with heat and sound... I have nothing to compare it with but my thermal gun shows that it's not hot at all and it's silent. I hung everything with bungee cords to help reduce vibrations, I just need to buy some more yo-yo hangers... Work great for the lights, but I need to be able to move the fan and carbon filter up and down as well so I can keep the ducting as straight as possible and maximize air flow, so improvements are still to come. I know I need the light lower, etc, but I have to wait for the yo-yo's to come in to easily move it all up and down. I gave uyp on trying to light seal the closet... it just isn't happening.
With the doors closed and everything running the temp hit a high of 82 on Sunday. The ac in my house was also a little jacked up because I forgot to change the filter, so the house was 75-76 degrees when it's normally stable at 72. Also, I still have the ballast in the closet, wanted to see how how it got before I removed it, and let me tell you, it's hotter than the lights! Used a thermal temp thingy and the glass over the lights doesn't even get as hot as the ballast... the ballast has spots that are about 115 degress. So if I move that out of the room I know the temp will drop. So all in all, I think this came out damn good. I have a couple more thing I need to do to make this space more efficient, like moving the ballast, getting yo-yo hangers for everything, adding in a fan or 2 for air circulation... Not bad for a 600 watt light (I have not dimmed it at all, trying for full 600 watt in this space).