cooltubes

I've just purchased a 600w hps lamp but im kicking myself because i've found cooltubes for sale for only a few quid more. my grow rom is 2m x 2m x 2m .I have a 150mm inline fan drawing air out and passive vents bringing cool air in from outside. I can cool the room with a/c if i need to but im unsure if i'll be able to get it close enough to the plants to be affective without burning them. Does anyone have any opinions on weather my light wil be ok or should i try and get a refund and buy a cooltube? Thanks in advance.

get a a cool tube for sure. that lamp will heat up your room.

Would it work if i positioned my extractor duct near my light or drilled holes through the hood and drew the hot air out that way

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hi check this link out and try and make your own cooltube if you cant exchange your light.

htg sells cooltubes for $85...

High all ,
Very first post but a think this to be usefull info. I'm in the process of building a cab (6' x 4' x 2.5') getting all the stuff together and just purchased a "pyrex Bake-a-round" off ebay for 10$ 19.14 shipping and all. many DIY threads on how to make one. I'm gonna be cooling a 400w hps w/ it.

good luck and good grows

Sneaky

I have made a thing or two for my grow room. I could not duplicate the cool tube for less than it cost to buy. They included the socket and cord, the way I figured the costs I got the glass free. VV

I've just ordered a cooltube for £40 it shoul be here in two days so that solves one problem but creates anouther. Does anyone know if i can put a carbon filter on one end and draw the air through it, so it cools my lamp and cleans the air in my room out at the same time?Also how this would work with CO2 ,for example does my fan need to run all the time when my lamp is on if so how would this affect my CO2 levels?

chrish said:

I've just ordered a cooltube for £40 it shoul be here in two days so that solves one problem but creates anouther. Does anyone know if i can put a carbon filter on one end and draw the air through it, so it cools my lamp and cleans the air in my room out at the same time?Also how this would work with CO2 ,for example does my fan need to run all the time when my lamp is on if so how would this affect my CO2 levels?

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Your cool tube needs to be a closed system that blows air thru the light. A cheap axial fan around 100 cfm will work. Your room 'fresh air/ exhaust system' needs to be a seperate system. THe fan for the cool tube will only need to run when the light is on and by making it a closed system it will have zero effect on your co2. Some try to run higher temps with co2 might want to think about that part. VV

chrish said:

I've just purchased a 600w hps lamp but im kicking myself because i've found cooltubes for sale for only a few quid more. my grow rom is 2m x 2m x 2m .I have a 150mm inline fan drawing air out and passive vents bringing cool air in from outside. I can cool the room with a/c if i need to but im unsure if i'll be able to get it close enough to the plants to be affective without burning them. Does anyone have any opinions on weather my light wil be ok or should i try and get a refund and buy a cooltube? Thanks in advance.

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Minus the bulb socket, I designed my Cool Tube for a little over 30 bux. I broke my Bake-A-Round being stoned 2 nights ago but I am waiting for a new one to come in any day now and plan on writing a step-by-step. But heres a couple pics. Its so simple dude, I only used like 5 parts!

VictorVIcious said:

Your cool tube needs to be a closed system that blows air thru the light. A cheap axial fan around 100 cfm will work. Your room 'fresh air/ exhaust system' needs to be a seperate system. THe fan for the cool tube will only need to run when the light is on and by making it a closed system it will have zero effect on your co2. Some try to run higher temps with co2 might want to think about that part. VV

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I've been wondering about this for a while now. My original plan was:

charcoal cannister > can fan > cooltube > exhaust

But now I keep reading about scrubbing with the charcoal and exhausting separately works better. If you could expand on this I would greatly appreciate it. Bear in mind, I have a tiny room (about 50 cubic feet), passive intake and can vent heat to a bedroom and exhaust through the roof. I don't really want the extra space and noise of another fan, but I do want the most efficient room possible.

Aloha,
Spicolli

I'm running a homemade cooltube using a pyrex bake a round to cool my 250w HPS.

You can see it in this picture below. My cab has a floor print of 22"x16".

Forgot to mention I'm running a S&P fan which pushes about 135cfm and is fairly quiet. The glass on the cooltube is warm to the touch, but not hot. I try to keep the tops of the plants about 2-3 inches away from the light.

You're going to want to run a cool tube because your a/c will probably not keep up with the heat unless you run duct directly to your box.

Wow, now all you need is a reflector to point the light down and some ends to attach your ducting. And of course you will need to add the cost of the light socket and then figure out how to center it in the second piece of bake around. YOu can find step by step directions for building one in our diy forum. And don't forget the hardware to hang the light, that was included with the cooltube I bought. When you add all of the costs........??? balls in your court sport. VV

Spicolli said:

I've been wondering about this for a while now. My original plan was:

charcoal cannister > can fan > cooltube > exhaust

But now I keep reading about scrubbing with the charcoal and exhausting separately works better. If you could expand on this I would greatly appreciate it. Bear in mind, I have a tiny room (about 50 cubic feet), passive intake and can vent heat to a bedroom and exhaust through the roof. I don't really want the extra space and noise of another fan, but I do want the most efficient room possible.

Aloha,
Spicolli

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I would be happy to expand on this. What you are trying to do is control the environment your plants are in. If you have a small space and you are going to put a furnace in it (Read hid light) you will not want the hot air from it mixing with the air in the room. By making it a closed system you won't need a can fan for it, just a cheap axial fan will do, I bought one at Menards for $28.00, they have them for installing in furnace ducting to boost flow from the furnace to a room far from it, the 6" one is listed at 200 cfm. When Al B Fuct was installing them for his lights he ran test, air temperature into the light and air temperature out, chained his two 1000watt lights in one run.
Your charcoal filter/ can fan exhaust system can be smaller because you have taken most of the hot air out of the equation. The purpose of the exhaust system in to get rid of the co2 depleted air and bring in fresh air, the intake can be passive, if it is it should be twice the size of the exhaust. You should size your fan and ducting so you can replace all of the air in the room every 3-5 minutes, small rooms may be able to use bathroom exhaust fans especially if you have it vented to the outside.
For a small space like your I would probably be inclined to buy an Ona Block (less than $10.00) and skip the can fan/ carbon scrubber. If your exhaust goes to the roof who would be up there to smell it anyway?
It sounds like you just need to view a few journals from folks that have about the same space as you and see how they accomplished this, my space is a little larger, there are around 200 in it and I don't use a carbon scrubber, I exhaust the room air at the roof. VV

but cool tube people sayin u loose light
400w is like 250w is that true on cooltubes?

Thanks for breaking it down for me Vic. I kinda knew most of the info you provided but was trying to live in a less complicated grow room. This is another one of those mistakes I hope to only make online and not with my plants. I will revamp my ducting plans, and in a hurry! My girls are growing and I can't wait to get the cooltube online!
I was planning on using ona as a supplement, do you really think I could get away without the charcoal? (2 x 4 scrog under 400 hps, btw)?

dude, i just set up my grow tent over here. I hooked up my lighting, and i got a cooltube setup. While i was hooking up all my ducting for exhaust n everything, i let the light run to see how hot it got. 600w MH bulbs get HOT AS FUCK. once i put the ducting on my cool tube, and ran it out of the tent, it cooled WAYYYYYYYYYYY down. N now that i have active air intake (80cfm fan), temps are at about 75 degrees F. Cooltubes are the shit man. Inline cooling was a genius invention for sure.

Spicolli said:

Thanks for breaking it down for me Vic. I kinda knew most of the info you provided but was trying to live in a less complicated grow room. This is another one of those mistakes I hope to only make online and not with my plants. I will revamp my ducting plans, and in a hurry! My girls are growing and I can't wait to get the cooltube online!
I was planning on using ona as a supplement, do you really think I could get away without the charcoal? (2 x 4 scrog under 400 hps, btw)?

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I have 4 tables for my flowering plants, 2 for clone/ seedlings and one for mothers, my room is about 14' by 10' and I don't use a carbon filter. I live in a trailer park, there is 10' between me and my neighbor, no problems. It may just be the strains I am growing, too many folks talk about this being a problem for me to ignore. What stain are you going to grow? Maybe someone has grown the same strain and can help. VV

dude, to be honest, you would benefit from the charcoal filter. I mean, you can get away with using other methods of odor control probably, but the filter is your best bet. If your shopping online for a filter, get the Growbright Jr. filter, which is only 59.95 from HTG supply through EBAY, and the Cooltube is 89.95 through EBAY, once again HTG is the supplier for that one too. But heres the reason why i say you may as well go with the carbon filter. In order to cool your reflector to the point that you REALLY want it to be cooled (depending on the wattage of your lights), your gona need a high cfm fan to cool it. And since your gonna be using a good fan anyways, you might as well run ducting through everything, and throw the filter in there too, using one fan to pull air through your filter, to cool the tube, and for exhaust. You can run one fan to do all of this. Check out my tent i just set up last night. Its in the 2nd or 3rd to last page. click my sig, n youll see what im talking about. Its really beneficial to have the filter, but its even more beneficial to have the vortex fan or a lookalike with at least 400cfm sucking air through the filter, blowing onto your lights, and out your growroom. Kill three birds with one stone man.