I think I agree with everything but the last point made by TechnoMage.
I've just finished installing the same exhaust system that I had with my 400 HPS, and the temps are still hovering around 85 to 90 with one door open. A little lower with both open. When I had the HPS in there, it wasn't a cool tube, but an air cooled light, and I did have temp problems, but not this high unless the exhaust ducting fell (which happened more times than I care to remember... hence trying T5 this time). I am not going to blow more money on a light at this point, so I'm going to have tinker with cooling this thing off some more. MORE frigging fans, damn it.
God awmighty, this has got to be the absolute worst part of building a grow room, keeping the temps in check. The first time I did it was last November, so I could open the window to that room during the cooler months and that would help a lot with the temps. But then . . . sometimes it would get too cold. I remember once seeing the thermometer go to fifty-something degrees. That defintely affects your yield. It's been one heck of a frustrating adventure, lemme tell you.
Just before I got back online now to see if anyone had commented and I could learn something it did occur to me that with the air cooled HPS, the fan was at least pulling hot air from the bulb, which was separated from the plants by glass. So yes, the HPS does generate more heat, I'm sure, but you can keep at least some of it in that glass chamber, with air temp air running across it, being taken out by the fan system.
Not so with the T5. I was just wondering before I read this: Is there some way for me to put something, some glass chamber or something that I can pull air through, to keep the heat from this ballast and the liglhts themselves from creating such heat??/
Now, look at that. Just as I am writing this, I'm thinking: SCREW IT. I'm so sick of rebuilding grow rooms as I am growing, that I want to go buy a cool tube, maybe a 600 watt this time, and just start it all over again, but without all the jerry rigging that I am now doing.
If it's money that is bugging me (and you), think of all the TIME that you spend as well as the money spent on things like this fan, that one, this new experiement, etc. Maybe these T5's just need to be reworked somehow.
I was also looking for info online elsewhere about this issue. There's not much here on rip and there's not much online except for advertisements to buy the things. It seems like every single one of those ads claims: AND NO HEAT PROBLEMS. That's just not true. I'm having more problems with heat than I did with the HPS.
THis lamp cost me $250 from a seller on ebay, and it's less than what I've seen the same lamp for other places. I'm just not convinced at this point that the good things about the T5 are worth this hassle.
One thing I do disagree with the previous poster, although I don't think it's giving me much solace tonight, is that you need more watts. I do NOT have an electrician's or a scientist's understanding on this, so forgive me if I am wrong. That said, I do not believe you need more watts, becauase allegedly the T5 puts out more lumens per watt than the HPS does. I can't follow all the technical jargon very well, but from what I've read and what I've been told by very experienced growers, these things put out more light that can be used by the plants per watt.
If I'm wrong, I'm more than happy be disabused.
I"m so blasted ticked off right now, thinking of a few hundred in perfectly good seeds that have been destroyed by the heat this thing puts out.
And here is the really dumb blonde part: I did not even have a thermometer in there until just now. I foolishly believed the advertisting, and figured: well, you know, yeah, it's warm in there, maybe even hot, but it's not THAT hot.
Oh yes it was. It's definitely getting cooled more now than it had been before I hooked up the exhaust, and it's still too hot for growing healthy plants.
I'm mad at myself right now. So if ya'll don't mind, I'm going to go kick my ass and then, well, see what i do have left to smoke. I'd go smash the fucking thing to smithereens right now, but I don't want to deal with the mercury. Well, that and I'm thinking that I will find a way to cool it off.
For right now, the temps are lowered to about 85 with the one door open, but I want them closed to keep all the light on the plants.
Grrrrrr. I wish I'd never given away my HPS and never decided to try the T5.
If it all somehow works out, I'll be sure to let you know. For now, I'm pissed off and frustrated. Sure, they put out a LOT of light compared to the 400 HPS, but that god awful heat is really something to contend with. And my money's been flushed down the drain with the heat stunting my plants due to heat. NO WONDER they kept drying out so badly. It was like the Sahara Desert in there.
Please. Someone comfort me!
