Evaporative air coolers? too good to be true?

5

5Jperday

Active Member
Hello guys,
basically heres my sitch.

I grow in a 6 x 4 x 6 closet with 2x 600's and a 750 m3 for extraction and passive intake. ( i ordered a 4" for intake)

My temps stay around 28-29 C and my humidity is around 20% only when i leave my window a little bit open which makes it pretty cold in this room sometimes, being winter n all.

Anyways here is my question,
im wondering whether those evaporative air coolers actually do the job, especially when i have my extraction fan exchanging air in there so fast?

And will it get my Humidity up do you think?
 
I just cant see something costing around $100-$150 being good enough to raise my humidity from 20% - 50% whist cooling down my room.

I did read one guy who used one but he didnt provide much detail, i just want to hear from others who may have used these.

Im wondering if they do work but only the bigger more expensive ones. Dont wanna waste money or time.

Also, they dont have any hot extraction ducting do they?

I bought a portable Air con system from my local hardware store, ended up taking it back because of its 2000W usage, extreme heat output, much more than both my lights, and the need to run ducting seperate for it. Also it was huge and sucked at what it did.

I dont want something like this..
 
They work, but will it work for what you want I don't know. Are you talking about a window mount cooler or a portable unit. I've never had much luck w/ the portable units. They raise the humidity very well but don't do much cooling (air gets to humid & they don't cool much). If you exchange the air in the room quickly enough that the humidity does not go to high I'm sure you would see some good out of it tho. Peace Jack
 
I bought a large evaporative cooler last summer and it worked well except for the 8 hottest weeks of the year. It was great for humidity but once it got too hot outside it was just maxed out and didn't cut it. Next summer I'll be going to air conditioning no matter what the cost. In my opinion evaporative coolers are great and they work well but you will just have to be 'lucky' to have it work well enough for your application, whareas if you get a big enough ac you an MAKE the temp anything you want instead of hoping the other one works.
 
The trouble you have is with your extraction of your air.

The room size you have would mean that to successfully clean your air you only need a 280m3/h fan and filter combo.

the trouble is that you are cooling your lights too with this fan.

If you want to stop all your troubles i have a simple solution for you.


I take it your lights are air cooled using the 750m3/h fan. This fan is far too high to ventilate your grow room.

My solution is this.

Create your air cooled lighting system so that it pulls cool air from outside the grow room and exhausts away from the grow room in a sealed air cooled lighting system. Sealed as in no air from your grow goes through the air cooled lighting system.

Then have another smaller fan/filter combo inside your grow room.

So you would have something like this

Cool air intake -------- light system ---------- fan -------exhaust this would be a closed air cooled lighting system


Then have a fan and filter

Carbon filter -------- Fan --------- Exhaust out of your grow room. So all your grow room smelly air is passing through the filter and exhausted away.

This way you can also speed control the 750m3/h fan to help temps inside your grow room. That way your passive vents can stay passive and as long as the temp of the ambient air in the room with the grow in it doesnt get above 24C you should stay within 2-3C of the ambient air.

Does this make sense or would diagram help?


J
 
GoFish104 said:
They work, but will it work for what you want I don't know. Are you talking about a window mount cooler or a portable unit. I've never had much luck w/ the portable units. They raise the humidity very well but don't do much cooling (air gets to humid & they don't cool much). If you exchange the air in the room quickly enough that the humidity does not go to high I'm sure you would see some good out of it tho. Peace Jack
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input,
and yea im talking about those Portable wheel around ones, smallish in size.

What size cooler did u use?
and how much did it raise the humidity by?

My room is around 15-20% RH atm due to central heating and no intake.
 
jondamon said:
The trouble you have is with your extraction of your air.

The room size you have would mean that to successfully clean your air you only need a 280m3/h fan and filter combo.

the trouble is that you are cooling your lights too with this fan.

If you want to stop all your troubles i have a simple solution for you.


I take it your lights are air cooled using the 750m3/h fan. This fan is far too high to ventilate your grow room.

My solution is this.

Create your air cooled lighting system so that it pulls cool air from outside the grow room and exhausts away from the grow room in a sealed air cooled lighting system. Sealed as in no air from your grow goes through the air cooled lighting system.

Then have another smaller fan/filter combo inside your grow room.

So you would have something like this

Cool air intake -------- light system ---------- fan -------exhaust this would be a closed air cooled lighting system


Then have a fan and filter

Carbon filter -------- Fan --------- Exhaust out of your grow room. So all your grow room smelly air is passing through the filter and exhausted away.

This way you can also speed control the 750m3/h fan to help temps inside your grow room. That way your passive vents can stay passive and as long as the temp of the ambient air in the room with the grow in it doesnt get above 24C you should stay within 2-3C of the ambient air.

Does this make sense or would diagram help?


J
Click to expand...

Hey man,
appreciate the input but i havnt got air cooled shades, ive been meaning to but i cant fork out the extra 500 for them atm.
The pic attached is my setup, you cant really see how my extraction is setup but thats all i got.

My grow area is actually 4x4 but there is an extra shelf about 18 - 24 inches high that my Filter sits on with all my tools and stuff.
I know its pretty inefficient but its a heavy 8" fan/filter and im scared to mount it, these walls are plasterboard so dont want that caving my house in.
As my humidity is so low -%20-

How the hell can i raise this humidity? xD
my temps are around 28-29 atm but i ordered a 4" intake which will arive next week.

Ive heard those Foggers are pretty good but wont they spit water out over my lights and damage some shit? :P

There are only 2 plants btw because i am scrogging them.

IMG_1342.jpg
 
first off your RH will be low because you are removing too much air and your plants are small. As plants grow bigger they transpire more which increases RH 2x600 on those 2 plants right now is a waste of elec and not helping your RH.

You could use 2 x cooltube 45GBP each to get yourself aircooled.

Your temperature readings of 28/29C was that at canopy level?? if not what are the temperatures and RH at canopy?

You could try adding a few bowls of water in the room to help for now. If you speed control your fan to about 50% your RH will also rise.


J
 
jondamon said:
first off your RH will be low because you are removing too much air and your plants are small. As plants grow bigger they transpire more which increases RH 2x600 on those 2 plants right now is a waste of elec and not helping your RH.

You could use 2 x cooltube 45GBP each to get yourself aircooled.

Your temperature readings of 28/29C was that at canopy level?? if not what are the temperatures and RH at canopy?

You could try adding a few bowls of water in the room to help for now. If you speed control your fan to about 50% your RH will also rise.


J
Click to expand...

awesome man i understand what your saying, that makes sense.

thats the problem really, i do have a speed controller but if i dont have the fan on max it gets over 30 degrees even.
Things should be abit better when i have that 4" intake setup at my window, i can turn the extraction on much lower and the intake on max with my 0 to -9 degree air coming in.

but how do you think the humidity would be then?
is it worth getting one of those 4l Humdifier mister things or do they suck?

oh and so you know, i didnt have both 600's on when they were small. i booted up the 2nd when they where able to take 1/2 feed.

They are bushy now, only about 6 inch tall but im tieng all the branches down to bush it out for when i put my screen on.

just need to get some chicken wire for the frame i got.
 
5Jperday said:
Thanks for the input,
and yea im talking about those Portable wheel around ones, smallish in size.

What size cooler did u use?
and how much did it raise the humidity by?

My room is around 15-20% RH atm due to central heating and no intake.
Click to expand...

I don't really know the size of the portable unit, picked it up at a yard sale. I run a humidifier, same thing as an evap. cooler actually in a 2.5X6X7' high tent w/ a 4" fan & filter & it will cool about 10 degrees & raise the RH from reading "low" to about 35%. Please understand I live in the freaking desert & am dealing w/ outside RH in single digits. The lower your begining RH the cooler air coming out of the unit will be. This is a case of bigger is not always better, if the RH gets to high, say 50%, they don't cool worth a darn but will still raise the RH a little. Hope this helps. Peace Jack
 
GoFish104 said:
I don't really know the size of the portable unit, picked it up at a yard sale. I run a humidifier, same thing as an evap. cooler actually in a 2.5X6X7' high tent w/ a 4" fan & filter & it will cool about 10 degrees & raise the RH from reading "low" to about 35%. Please understand I live in the freaking desert & am dealing w/ outside RH in single digits. The lower your begining RH the cooler air coming out of the unit will be. This is a case of bigger is not always better, if the RH gets to high, say 50%, they don't cool worth a darn but will still raise the RH a little. Hope this helps. Peace Jack
Click to expand...

Interesting,
how much wattage does your model use and do u run it 24/7 or does it switch on when the humidity drops past a certain point?
 
Looks like something I saw at a bakery.

You have to have air cooled hoods, no ifs ands or buts. (and by you I mean individually not you as in all readers collectively)
 
The yardsale cooler draws 3.3A, the humidifier does not say but it's a very small ($17 @ Walmart) unit. I run the the humidifier 24/7 in the winter. In the summer I have a whole house swamp cooler (evap. cooler) mounted on the roof that runs 12-16 hrs. a day. Sorry but not gonna crawl up on the roof to check it lol. It has a 3/4 hp motor on the fan & a 1/16 hp waterpump. Peace Jack
 
jondamon said:
The trouble you have is with your extraction of your air.

The room size you have would mean that to successfully clean your air you only need a 280m3/h fan and filter combo.

the trouble is that you are cooling your lights too with this fan.

If you want to stop all your troubles i have a simple solution for you.


I take it your lights are air cooled using the 750m3/h fan. This fan is far too high to ventilate your grow room.

My solution is this.

Create your air cooled lighting system so that it pulls cool air from outside the grow room and exhausts away from the grow room in a sealed air cooled lighting system. Sealed as in no air from your grow goes through the air cooled lighting system.

Then have another smaller fan/filter combo inside your grow room.

So you would have something like this

Cool air intake -------- light system ---------- fan -------exhaust this would be a closed air cooled lighting system


Then have a fan and filter

Carbon filter -------- Fan --------- Exhaust out of your grow room. So all your grow room smelly air is passing through the filter and exhausted away.

This way you can also speed control the 750m3/h fan to help temps inside your grow room. That way your passive vents can stay passive and as long as the temp of the ambient air in the room with the grow in it doesnt get above 24C you should stay within 2-3C of the ambient air.

Does this make sense or would diagram help?


J
Click to expand...

Looks like you know your "shit." I am in the process of building my own tent. Not sure on final dimensions but approx 8x8 give or take. I was wondering if we could chat a minute - I am going to pick up some stuff and would like to pick your brain. I, too, came here for the swamp cooler but it wouldn't be my main source for temp and rh. It would be an additional piece of equipment for me. As far as humidity for seedlings I use 2L bottles as tops. This gives them their own domes. I have very good luck with this. Using the cap, plastic or nothing helps control the humidity in that. So as far as the early stages it's easier to me to manage each pot vs a whole tray or room.

So BF asked what I wanted for xmas...........I would like to talk to you about that LOL
 
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