Portable Aircon Filtering Question

Picked up a portable reverse cycle heat pump/air conditioner for my new tent. Was hoping to keep the filter and fan in the tent, stealth is reasonably important. Had a bit of a search but couldn’t see anybody running a portable unit like this. Is the only option to run the carbon filter outside and point the portable ac outlet house at the ducting/fan? Ducting the aircon out a tent opening rawdog style is going to be stankola. Can I just point the outlet of the ac at the filter in the tent? Or is the heat just going to soak back into the tent? Any advice or experience with this sorta setup would be much appreciated

I’m not sure what unit you’re talking about, any ac unit, you would have to isolate the condenser fan exhaust air out of the room the tent is in. It could work if the grow is heating an area. I have done a split room with ac heat dumping around the grow room, it worked but the unit never shuts off just to maintain somewhat cooler in my case, was not concerned with smell.

Whatever you end up doing, don’t forget you need negative pressure and scrubbing to mask smell in the end. If I used a tent and ac, smell being a factor, I would hunt down a dual hose portable, go into it and duct tape all the cracks and try and vent the room the unit exhaust is dumping in or direct it elsewhere. I never had one but hear single hose portables are not very good for masking smell.

GaryTheSnail said:

I’m not sure what unit you’re talking about, any ac unit, you would have to isolate the condenser fan exhaust air out of the room the tent is in. It could work if the grow is heating an area. I have done a split room with ac heat dumping around the grow room, it worked but the unit never shuts off just to maintain somewhat cooler in my case, was not concerned with smell.

Whatever you end up doing, don’t forget you need negative pressure and scrubbing to mask smell in the end. If I used a tent and ac, smell being a factor, I would hunt down a dual hose portable, go into it and duct tape all the cracks and try and vent the room the unit exhaust is dumping in or direct it elsewhere. I never had one but hear single hose portables are not very good for masking smell.

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Any pics of your setup?

GaryTheSnail said:

I’m not sure what unit you’re talking about, any ac unit, you would have to isolate the condenser fan exhaust air out of the room the tent is in. It could work if the grow is heating an area. I have done a split room with ac heat dumping around the grow room, it worked but the unit never shuts off just to maintain somewhat cooler in my case, was not concerned with smell.

Whatever you end up doing, don’t forget you need negative pressure and scrubbing to mask smell in the end. If I used a tent and ac, smell being a factor, I would hunt down a dual hose portable, go into it and duct tape all the cracks and try and vent the room the unit exhaust is dumping in or direct it elsewhere. I never had one but hear single hose portables are not very good for masking smell.

Click to expand...

We don’t have dual hose where I am unfortunately. So I’ve got a portable unit which has one hose to expel the hot, humid air. I’ve done some experimenting today:

1. Aircon in the tent pumping the hot air straight out of the tent. Works pretty well for temp, right where I want it. Humidity was still 69% (its 90% outside the tent in the garage). Dehumidifier in there will sort that out though. This option would be great if you want to smell skunk 2 blocks away, but not for me.

2. Running the ac outlet in the tent but pointed at the extraction fan inlet. This was like pissing in the wind. It got cooler than ambient but the extraction fan had to run so hard to keep up with the aircon outlet that it was too slow (and expensive) to cool. Was also pulling in too much of the hot, humid external air.

3. Just testing this now. 3x3 tent with the aircon inside it as a lung room. Air is clean, so no worries about external venting the aircon. Will keep the fan and filter inside the big tent with all the vents closed except the passive to the lung tent. Then the ac infinity in the big tent should be able to kick on whenever it needs to cool down or drop the humidity.

Think #3 is a winner but will have to change the wings while flying since the 3x3 is packed full at the moment.