Lighting Heat/Ventilation question.. in dire need of your help!

[MoChillah]

Good evening everybody,

hope this catches you fine and well. I wanted to inform myself about a couple of aspects..

I'm planning on building a 3x2 or a 2x3 growbox with about 4 feet or 4,5 feet of height.

I bought an HPS floodlight with a 400W ballast and a 250W HPS Lamp.

Several questions arise..

I know that the ballast gets extremely hot, this is why I'm planning on keeping it outside its all in one enclosure and outside the box, i.e keep a remote ballast.

1. If I'm running a 400W ballast, will it ballast produce the same amount of heat regardless of the lamp I'm using? (Either a 250 or a 400)
2. Does the lamp itself produce much heat as well? Or is the heat problem concerning HPS system mainly based on the heat emitted from the ballast.
3. Is there a big difference in the heat that's emitted from a 250W vs a 400W?

I'm sure I have many more questions and since I always feel comfortable here I always like to ask for advice here, too. I'm not sure whether I'll be growing Autos or Photos in the first round but I'm thinking due to my limited height of 4 feet or 4' 6" I'd do a scrog with 4-6 plants in that area.

Any thoughts are more than welcome, answers are highly appreciated!

Happy Growing..
Oh yeah, and a Happy New Year as well!

M

 

[Marty5678]

Hi MoChillah.

The problem with heat won't be on ballast. It will be with the lamp. Metal Halide and High pressure sodium really do pump out the heat. I was using 400w MH + HPS in a 3 x 3 x 5 cupboard and could just control temps, but had to use a cool tube. Without cool tube was reaching 50+ Celsius. With cooltube sat at 30. So still not ideal. That was running a 6" cooltube as well, so had quite a powerful fan cooling

I wouldn't recommend running you're 250w bulb in a 400w ballast, they should both be match.
i had ballast that was adjustable to run 250 400 and 600w bulbs. There was a slight difference in temperature between running 250 and 600w on ballast. But the temp of bulbs is a mega difference.

There is a massive difference in heat omitted from 250 and 400w. I always found MH to be slightly hotter by a few degrees so veg period was getting quite a bit heat stress.

I'm onto my 8th grow now and after 2 the best thing I done was switch to LED's. No temp problems at all. Managed to get rid of one fan so just have outtake going through carbon filter. Would recommend making the jump to LED's to anybody! Can get some decent units at an affordable price now, and not to mention the massive saving on my electric bill!

Hope this has been some help, happy new year

Marty

 

[24hrs]

Look into a grow tent , they are cheap