Marijuwana

Wow Helpful! I think Im going to mount a computer fan or two in the top of my hood, thjey will pointed upwards so they blow all the riseing heat from the bulb straight up and out of the exhaust holes in the top of the room. hopefully this will be efficient enough :/

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CloudyBongWater

Hey Knore, I was going to take pictures of each step as I built it, but they were turning out too blurry. All I have is a little webcam, and it pretty much sucks. I'll see what I can do about remedying this, but in the mean time I'll just type what I did and hope that it makes sense. Dang this is gonna be long. Read through the entire post a couple times before trying it, just to make sure you know what the next step will require so you don't mess the previous one up.

I ordered one of those bake-a-round tubes from ebay for about $8, but with shipping was $15. It's almost exactly as long as the bulb, so it works great. You'll also need some foil tape (great stuff!), pipe strapping, 4inch ducting, nuts & bolts, either wire ties or those metal duct fasteners (I used the metal ones that tighten with a screwdriver), and a solid metal (aluminum I think) tube that ducting is meant to attach to - it's about 5 inches long and 4 inches wide because it matches up with 4in ducting. All of these peices (except the tube) can be purchased at home depot for under $20.

The first step is to get the socket for your hps. The only kind I could find came with the entire socket assembly. Its from Sun Systems I think and its made to go with one of their manufactured hoods. So I took this apart so that all I had was a socket with 3 wires coming from it - green, white, and black I think. The green one was grounded to the metal of the orginal socket assembly, so I decided that I'd ground it in the same fashion to the metal of my kooltube assembly.

Okay, so coming out of the butt end of my socket (the side opposite the bulb) were a couple of screws. This was a stroke of luck, since the butt of the socket will need to screw to a piece of metal. If yours doesn't have these, then you'll need to fashion some sort of way to screw it to the pipe strapping, which I will now explain.

The pipe strapping - I believe that's what it is called - is a lightweight metal strip that is about 5 or 6 inches long and it is very bendable with your hands. It will come in a shape like a "U", but the very top of the U bends straight out to the side on each side.. like you are gonna try to fasten a round pipe to a flat wall. The pipe would go inside the round part, but the flat edges would go against the wall. Okay, so take this peice and bend it perfectly straight, then bend it so that it looks like a perfectly straight-shaped U (make the bottom of the U flat rather than curved). WAIT... the length of the bottom of the U must match up fairly close to the width of the piece of metal tubing. For instance, here is your metal tube.. [ ] .... so when you bend the strapping it should look similar to this... [u]. The sides of the U will be screwed into the sides of the metal tube, thereby suspending the socket (which will be screwed to the bottom of the U) perfectly in the middle of the tube (Haven't reached this step yet... just letting you know where you'll end up).

So basically you haven't attached anything yet - you have only bent the strapping to a flat U shape that is matched to the width of the metal tube. Now, attach the socket to the strapping using the screws that hopefully come out of the socket (mine had these). Make sure to fasten the socket to the bottom of the U facing down (away from the 2 arms of the U, not between them). You may have to drill holes in the strapping for this - I can't remember. After the socket is fastened to the strapping, it's time to fasten the strapping/socket to the metal duct tube.

First, you have to consider that once the socket is suspended inside of the metal tube, the metal tube will then be attached to the glass tube. So placement of the socket in the metal tube is important, as you don't want the metal tube to be surrounding your bulb when you are finished. So you'll basically want the socket to face outside of the metal tube and be suspended near the very end of it (which will be right at the beginning of the glass tube). Once you have the strapping correctly placed, you'll need to drill two small holes in opposite sides of the metal tube. Place a small bolt through each of these holes, then line up the pipe strapping to make sure the bolts go through the sides of the U. I used a wingnut in order to fasten the strapping U to the bolt, but you could use a normal nut. Wingnuts are all I had around, but it did seem to make it easier because it made it easier to tighten inside of the tube. FYI - this is where I grounded the green wire... between the strapping and the metal tube... tightened down by the wingnut. The other two wires will go to the ballast.

Okay, so now you have the socket suspended in the short metal tube. This was by far the hardest part of the process, though it sounds much harder than it really was.

Since the metal tube is about 4in wide and the glass tube is a little smaller, there will be a small gap between the two when you try to attach the metal tube to the glass one. This is perfect because it would be hard to attach metal to glass anyway. It allows you to "build up" the diameter of the glass tube a bit with the foil tape. The foil tape is fairly wide, so you may want to cut it in half so that you don't end up covering too much of the glass with tape (the light needs to be able to get to the plants afterall). After building it up with foil tape so that the metal tube fits snugly on the glass tube (with socket facing into tube), you'll need to attach the two. FIRST, I'd recommend bringing the wires through the juncture of the two pipes. This is because you'll be attaching a very long section of ducting and a fan to the other side of the metal tube, so the wire must go out of the side attached to the glass tube. Another option would be to drill a hole in the metal tube and feed the wire through it. Either way is fine. After taking care of the wires, secure the metal tube to the foil covered section of the glass tube by using one of the metal duct fasteners (or wire ties, though these could possibly melt, so I recommend metal). Then use the foil tape to seal it up real good. TA DA!! Now you have your 1000w bulb ready to be used inside the glass tube.

The only step left is to hook the flexible ducting (looks like a wire slinky covered in foil) to the other side of the metal tube. This can easily be done, just as above, with the metal duct fastener. I used more foil tape in order to make sure it was nice and sealed.

At the end of the duct, I attached a small computer fan for exhaust. This brings air in one side of the glass tube, funnels it past the hot bulb, past the socket and metal tube, through the ducting, and out past the fan - the hot air never enters the grow room. If this doesn't keep your room cool enough, you can put some foil tape on the other side of the glass tube and hook up another peice of ducting on that side. You could then hook up an intake fan to this duct - helping to push even more air by your bulb - plus you'd be protected in the event that one of your fans breaks down.

Okay, I know this is hard to understand without pictures. I will try to take some crappy pictures of my tube tonight when the light turns off so that you can at least see the finished result and maybe see what I'm talking about.

Feel free to ask questions...

CBW

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"Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." - Thomas Jefferson

PuffnChronic

witch way to u hook the blower up to the cool tube i got someone over here who thinks he should hook the blower up in a way that it sucks air from the tube instead of blowing it right though the tube though ducting and out the box.

CloudyBongWater

You can hook the fan up either way... or both ways (by using two fans). Currently my one fan is blowing the hot air OUT of the duct, but I plan to hook up a duct to the other end of the kooltube to blow air IN the tube, thru the tube, and out the other duct. Seems like it would be the same either way, but by having two fans it will be a bit safer for your plants in case one fan breaks.

But I'd put the fan at the end of the ducting either way - not right next to the kooltube. Attach ducting to the tube, then a fan to the ducting, IMO.

CBW

__________________
"Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." - Thomas Jefferson

Crabs

CloudyBongWater. I'll be ordering my tube very soon. Thanks to your info

Summer will be here soon so this info has come at just the right time. thanks again.

Harrydude

So let me get this straight .. you want the glas tube with air ducts and what is better to have the air being sucked or blown across the lihgt???

I have a 1000watt mdh buld and I guess I can do the same as long as I fins a good glass pipe to use???

this is a great thread and keep up the god work guys.......


later

rpo503

will a 80cfm cage blower work if i have the two ends of the cool tube on the outside of my box so the only air thats needed to be sucked is the air in the tube? thx

CloudyBongWater

Harry Dude - I don't think it really matters which way you do it. Eiher you are pushing the air across the bulb or pulling it across. When moving a dresser, I guess it's easier to push than pull, but I wouldn't think it would matter that much with air.

rpo - I'm not sure what you meant. I think an 80cfm blower would work great by itself. If you only want to run one fan, you can use the fan as an exhaust fan and leave the other side of the tube open. This is how I currently have mine set up.. and I plan to take the pictures tonight - though I'm not promising that I'm computer literate enough to post them or that they'll be clear. I'll try to post them in 3 to 4 hours. Wish me luck!

Crabs - Glad I could help. I think you'll be happy with it. Plus it's pretty dang fun to make! And rewarding when you finish.

CBW

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"Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." - Thomas Jefferson

CloudyBongWater

Okay, trying to attach the only picture I took while making the Kooltube. I displayed all the parts on the floor and snapped a pic, but it looked blurry so I didn't keep taking pics. Maybe I should have - and tried a bit harder.

Anyway... I hope this works...

CBW

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__________________
"Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." - Thomas Jefferson

CloudyBongWater

Dang, no wonder I stopped! That is blurry. Sorry bout that guys.

Here is a picture of the completed Kooltube, with duct attached to right hand side.. which is connected to the fan pictured. Hope this one is better...

CBW

Attached Thumbnails

 

__________________
"Men fight for freedom; then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves." - Thomas Jefferson