fan mounting ideas...

[bautin2]

I'm about to begin to make my canopy and will need to incorporate a couple of cooling fans to fight my lamp heat. I know someone's got photos of a canopy with some integrated fan action. I don't know whether it would be beneficial one way or the other to mount them to where they're blowing the hot air out of the back of the canopy, or sucking the hot air out of the back of the canopy. Any pics? Suggestions?

[johnrags1234]

1 sucking air in on the left one on the right pullin it out

[Pikelet]

I'm not an expert on cooling down MH or PC lights in hoods but, if I remember my electronic engineering lectures correctly, you should mount the fans on the inlet side of the hood so that it sucks cool air in and have an outlet vent on the other side allowing the heat to escape. The reasons are:-

 

Your fan is working with cool air from outside so it increases fan life as opposed to sucking out hot air.

 

Fan is partially pressurizing the air volume under the hood so you will get less dust being brought into the hood.

 

Fan on inlet side creates more turbulence due to the pressurizing nature of the design.

 

Also ..... make sure the outlet aperture is about the same size as the aperture for the fan, keep the outlet hole away from the inlet fan to avoid short cycling warm exhaust air back into the hood, and make sure you don't have anything obstructing the inlet fan directly inside the hood as this will greatly reduce the fan's cooling capabilities.

 

I built my own hood with lots of ventilation spaces at the back and above my 2 x 55W PC's. No need for any fans which, from an engineering perspective, is a far far better design.

[bautin2]

pikelet,

 

How big is your tank? How high above the water are your lights? Do you have a lid over the water but below the lights to help prevent evaporation? Do you have problems with evaporation? Thanks for all the help...

[Pikelet]

Its just one of those cheap 29g tanks from Petsmart. I think it its made by AGA.

 

I gutted the hood that came with the tank, bought some quality endcaps for NO tubes, and popped in a URI NO actinic, 2 x 55PC's and reflector from Hellolights. I made the hood out of Red Oak from HomeDepot - front, two sides and two pieces at the top spread apart like slats to allow ventilation. The back is open. Water temp varies 1-2 deg over the course of the day - worst case. PC's are 4.25" off the water's surface. NO slightly less. Evaporation is 1/3 of a gallon per day but the tank is connected to a 10g refugium. The total water volume in the system is about 32g.