Too much heat in the grow room/shed

Leave the fridge door open and bam air conditioning lol
Also the fridge in the shed when it runs adds to the heat inside as well as dehumidifiers do too.
If you could afford newer LED fixtures that can go seed to harvest without the heat that would help.
If not what they said above…lol
Good luck

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I think you’re going to fight a losing battle. The problem you run into is that no matter what you do for lights, without ac your grow space will always be warmer than your intake air. And your intake air in Florida through summer is already too hot and humid for indoor growing. Good LEDs or an air cooled hood would help, but I don’t think either would solve your problem. You could maybe go with air cooled hood and just wait until air temps are in low 70’s to flower maybe?

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@dbrn32 I agree with you on the battle thing. I kept thinking this morning about extra insulation, ridge vent combined with foundation vents, etc. - all a lot of work and expense. What about switching to fluorescent lights? Obviously they won’t grow as well as HID or LED, but they can still grow. Do they produce a lot less heat than the other types? It seems like they do, but I’ve never measured.

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The lower amount of heat is just indicative of lower amount of power and light. All power in minus what the plants absorb will eventually be heat loss. I’m not engineer that can put on a lesson in thermodynamics or anything like that. But my basic understanding is that electrical power in is converted to light energy or heat waste. From there the light energy is either converted to something else or back to heat waste. I think the plants themselves will create some heat through metabolic processes.

Long story short, it’s unrealistic to expect to keep temperature in your grow below your intake air without environmental controls to do it. I don’t know if any of you guys have interacted with donaldj, but he’s a staff member that lives north of the imaginary line above us. He runs shed type of grow, and under powers it a little then uses light movers to increase his coverage. Even in a much cooler climate he fights some heat issues over the summer months. It would be watching his setup that makes me think there’s not really a good way to do this in Florida summer heat without ac.

If this was me, I would plan on not running it in the summer or take a look at air cooled hood and installing a window unit or DIY ductless. I would duct the air cooled hood so that it takes outside air to cool the light and then exhausts it back outside, completely separate from any other environmental controls of the space. That right there would remove a lot of the heat we’re putting into the space. Then it shouldn’t take a lot of cooling power to account for the environment itself.

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Almost all the heat of a qb light comes from the driver. So you get oversized boards and run driver at half strength, leaving you with all the light with half the heat

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I had to get a big window unit for my room in my house. problem solved.

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Man led heat us the least of your problems just the out side temp is to hot to be flowering coupled with the humidity @dbrn32 said exactly what I said hes been there with me through my failed attempts at this and I had all the controll environment devices it’s just pointless to do the… yes the units them self’s cause heat been 1 u have 1 bad ass 3 in 1 unit which I did u can control these issues but if it wasent one thing ur another I got the heat undetcontroll… by segregating my grow space in my shed with a framed out wall and foamed all corners and caulked and did this and that and still that cool space was inviting to bugs from the heat or rain… heat lol u think that’s a problem get infestation going of thrips unrealized or aphids or spidermites they will leave your head spinning… bottom line unless your fully outdoors start to finish with super vigilance… oooor… ur fully indoor … that half half I did In the shed … the start inside then put out side … started inside put outside and flowered inside… I’ve tried all variations except fully outdoor and I’m finally doing fully indoor… anything outside ur dealing with unbeliveuble bugs in this climate take my advice I’ve made these mistake and check out the begining if my journal it’s my start in my out side shed it’s called gsc x ?, purple haze x ? First indoor grow

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First indoor grow ( gsc x ?, purple haze x ?, couple randoms) - #893 by fano_man that’s my journal check it out make sure u start at the top it’s pretty informative of your situation trialsand tribulation of semi outdoor in south Florida… Nightmare… but once you figure it out how to beat the.heat your headed down the right path that means your determined… I suggest going inside with the solo plant and go back outside in the shed in fall with the Chinese lights hps will not work anytime without ac

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You will waste all your time and money and effort on a CFL grow with only there very top buds being within 6inches ofnthe light MIGHT be be KINDA tight the bottom buds beyond 6inches from light will be so airy you’ll be mad at your self I promise CFL good for vegging only lot of blues the plants love em but I veg eith a 4000k 400hps lil much hut I have alot vegging

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Well the new SPL Ballast 1000W sodium is not working after 3 days. I dug out of the shortage a cooler 400W PL made in Canada about 40 years ago and hung back up two of the cheap Chinese lights again. I hope something comes from my effort.

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The 2 Chinese lights will do you fine 3 fixtures is not gonna be feasible I’m telling you… unless you have serious air flow u aren’t going to be able to use any hps the 1000 watt Chinese lights have produced some good weed here I’ve seen just keep the lights lower in flower you can get them less pretty close but still your ambiant temp is gonna be in the 80s 90s and today lol sry had to do it lol any way led only or ac that’s ur options and even led only is gonna be highly unusual in flower… are u in south or north florida… if your down south so help you jesus it’s just to hot brother … how big is your flower space that the plants will occupy I think its 4x 4 or something you should he fine with the LEDs and the LEDs only more heat is gonna be a flavour potency and taste killer …it will be a bunch of tasteless hay that dosent get you high your leaves will start tacoing or canoeing up… the plant can even jus wilt altogether I’ve had it happen…your soil will dry so fast… I would come inside if possible or go fully outside the sheds like an oven no good

I live in north Florida and the air in and out is about the same. Good airflow and the area is 4x4. Out goes the sodium light.

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Good choice man I know u wanna max the wattage per square foot but it’s not worth compromising all your efforts…still without the sodium lights unless u have intake and or exhaust fans allowing passive intake from outside you will still have humidity issues and heat and lil humidity is a breeding ground for molds

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Unless u plan vegging for another four months till we get out of these hot months then you can flour and ambient temperatures in North Florida but until then I wouldn’t dare flower in the shed in summer in Florida made that mistake won’t do that again

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I realize I’m kind of bringing back a dead thread, but I thought some might be interested in some amateur tests I did today. On another forum an LED manufacturer was showing off one of their redesigned LED lights and posted a photo of the topside at 115° F.
I thought it might be interesting to take some measurements of my own. I took some temperature readings of my air-cooled 1000 watt HID setup and my HLG 100 LED I use for veg’ing. This is totally unscientific of course, but still interesting(I think).
Hydrogrow XB200: 115°F topside
HLG100: 113°F at the ballast
HLG100: 100°F topside
HLG100: 109°F underneath
1000wHID: 87°F topside (ballast is outside the tent)
1000wHID: 103°F underneath

The ambient temperature outside the tent with that 1000w fixture is 75°F and inside the tent it is 80°F. I bet the air coming out of the exhaust vent is pretty warm, but I don’t have a way to measure that.

I’m not saying to choose air-cooled HID over LED (LED has the obvious advantage of power consumption), I just wanted to show that the proper reflector can make a big difference.

I also don’t have time to mess with it, but I wonder how much difference it would make putting an extension on the HLG-100 driver so it could be outside the tent.

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Sweet comparisons! Always wantd to see realtime like that

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Worth noting in my opinion that it’s an air cooled hood. If you put fans blowing over the leds they would also be significantly cooler. But the bigger picture in the efficacy. The hlg 100 is already quite a bit better than the hps light. But if you added the power that fan consumes takes it more into favor of leds. I also feel that temp at top of pcb or heatsink isn’t as crucial. With a properly designed ventilation system that heat never really sees your canopy.

Well, to reiterate, but you may have just scanned over it quickly:
I did note that it is an air-cooled hood.
I stated that I wasn’t saying to choose HID over LED.
What I didn’t say because the thread was already addressing, but perhaps should have emphasized, is my point:
People often say HID puts out too much heat, which is only true if you aren’t using an air-cooled hood. The heat from that HID is definitely not reaching the canopy or altering the ambient temperature even as much as the LED fixtures. But realistically, all 3 lights are generally benign on that facet.

Imagine if you enclosed the hhLG100 and had it in a cool tube type set up that wasn’t constantly exchange the air around your board u probably wouldn’t get any where more then a few degrees increase in tent temps i read it in another forum once this electrical engineer was explaining watts are watts …period …the difference is in the way the the 600 watts is used but still the 600 watts of btu is the same the led is just better at turning that energy into a usable energy for the plant in stead of the heat loss of the 600 in say hps. Its photon flux is lower because the heat loss is so great compared to the focused Angled diode lenses which transfers its 600 watts into photon flux heat hence more btus are going tword plant metabolism in photosynthesis instead of heating up things around it because the up a bulbs are so massive and so light bounces around and dosent go where its supposed to or its bounced aeound so ma y times its weaker as wellpl

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Got a Ink Bird and hooked it to the AC. My guy has flowers but was struggling. This last weekend was cool; in the low 90’s. I have the AC set to 82 during the day and at night the temp in close to ambient…upper 70’s. With this still blistering sun that 1500 BTU unit will have it coils full.