View Single Post
Old 01-20-2004, 03:28 PM   #6
PaoniaPurple
Seedling
 
PaoniaPurple's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: the High country
Posts: 291
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
PaoniaPurple is beginning to sprout.

That fan is fairly easy to wire. A couple (actually three) of wire nuts, and an extension cord. Cut off the 'female' end of the cord (with it unplugged, of course), strip about 3 inches of the outer insulation. Strip about 1/2 inch of the inner insulation on the three conductors inside the cord. One will be black, one white and one green. Wire these with wire nuts to the same colored leads on the fan. Plug it in (preferably to a power strip with a circuit breaker), and you'll have air. If you want to actually measure the negative pressure, that's simple, too. Take a length of clear vinyl tubing-aka aquarium air tubing. Poke a hole in your grow closet and run one end of the tube in there, sealing the hole as best as you can. On the outside, make a "U" of tubing, maybe by taping the plastic to a peice of cardboard or something. A useful size of 'U' is about six inches high. Fill the bottom of the "U" with water. Notice that the water level on both sides of the U is the same. Turn on the fan, and the water will rise a little on the low pressure side-the side going into the grow room. Measure the difference in height of the water on opposite sides of the 'U', and you have the vacuum in 'inches of water', a common term for small vacuum differentials. If your negative pressure is great enough, the water will suck all the way through. Two to three inches of vacuum is plenty to assure that odors will remain in the box and the exhaust stream. For the geekier reader, this device is called a differential manometer. Now you know.
__________________
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think... Dorothy Parker
PaoniaPurple is offline   Reply With Quote