Lighting Which reflector

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I'm adding a 600w dimable ballast package and I havea choice of reflectors

air tube or air cooled. (or perhaps a parabolic reflector for vertical)

image.jpgimage.jpg
both systems c/w 600w MH and HPS, hangers, timer and are the same price...any suggestions


Using
4'x4'x6.5' tent
8" carbon filter and 720cfm inline fan with speed control (have 8" to 6" adapters)
DWC and coco if that makes a difference
 
I'm adding a 600w dimable ballast package and I havea choice of reflectors

air tube or air cooled. (or perhaps a parabolic reflector for vertical)

View attachment 381247View attachment 381248
both systems c/w 600w MH and HPS, hangers, timer and are the same price...any suggestions


Using
4'x4'x6.5' tent
8" carbon filter and 720cfm inline fan with speed control (have 8" to 6" adapters)
DWC and coco if that makes a difference

I have a vented hood on my 1000W HPS, two 6" cool tubes on my 400W HPS lights, and have used the 400W with open-air bat wing reflectors.

Obviously open air reflectors are going to put the most amount of heat directly into the tent.

There are a few key notes between cool tubes and regular vented hoods that, at least in my opinion, should come into consideration:

If heat is an issue in your tent; you may want to consider the cool tube route. The cylindrical shape of the tube offers the greatest efficiency for air flow and should, in theory based on what I've read (I'm deaf as hell, I'm not the guy to be giving sound advice... OHHH man is that a pun? I think I just made a pun! :rofl: ) should be less noisy than a similarly sized hood. Reason being that when air flows through a rectangular chamber versus a cylindrical chamber, there are more potential areas for air turbulence to occur, which diminish air flow. Turbulence is the swirling of air, and as it increases, decibel levels increase as well.

Cool tubes are typically also smaller in overall footprint and I've found them to be a lot lighter and easy to work with personally.

The downside:

Typically much poorer light coverage versus a normal vented hood reflector. My two cool tubes have wimpy little reflectors that are connected together with a thin band of metal. They work for what I use them for, but there better options out there if light coverage/spread is a big factor for you.

Vented hoods will typically give you better light spread/coverage, but at the expense of slightly higher temperatures.

I don't have any experience with parabolic so I unfortunately can't really comment on those.

If it were me and I knew my temps wouldn't be too much of an issue, I would go with the air cooled (not tube) hood for your setup. Your 720 CFM fan is pretty massive for that sized tent brother haha! I won't poke fun at you though; I have an 8" 720 CFM myself that I sometimes play with for ventilation. The 8 to 6" reducer is going to cause you a lot of noise right there; so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess sound isn't too much of an issue (that 8" fan itself is a noisy beast!)

Hope that helps brother; just my "My 2 cents"
:karma Cloud:
 
Id use bat wing reflectors and use a walmart fan to blow across them. This is what I do but Id like to buy a stand up ac unit. no more heat issues. :Sharing One:
 
Son of Hobbes...the sound advice isn't necessary...tent is in bedroom and the noise helps me sleep. yep...fan/filter way too big, full speed and the cat gets sucked onto tent intake j/k.

Thanks for the good advice..heat shouldn't be an issue so will go with the air cooled hood...sold separate it's $20 more than the cool tube so I feel like I'm getting something free ;)
 
unix after you do get some cash spend some money on good bulbs. My bulbs cost as much as my Apollos! the cheap builbs will work fine but after a Hortilux grow you will know!
 
Id use bat wing reflectors and use a walmart fan to blow across them. This is what I do but Id like to buy a stand up ac unit. no more heat issues. :Sharing One:

I have a 12000 btu portable a/c...outputted directly to tent...can you guess what happened after 2 dark cycles? Sometimes I think I shouldn't play with my setup when I'm buzzed hehe.
 
unix after you do get some cash spend some money on good bulbs. My bulbs cost as much as my Apollos! the cheap builbs will work fine but after a Hortilux grow you will know!

Money really isn't much of an issue but I always assumed the more expensive bulbs would run hotter and wouldn't yield an increase worth the cost?? Is this a myth?
 
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