Temps of 175W MH?

Potato42

Member
I've been going back and forth on what lights to use for my Veg area, and it all comes down to temperatures. I will not have an easy way to cool the light other than just a fan blowing on it, and the I hope to have the room itself filled with Co2 so I don't want to vent right out. Anyone have an idea if it would be possible to just have the light on with a fan without overheating the room? Size is about 2.5' x 4' x 8'.

If not then I'm not exactly sure how to approach it. The smaller enclosed lights I've found don't have the same kind of fittings as the larger enclosures. There is one model I'm looking at with a glass lens for $145, but the small fan they have as an option is $50 and mounts on the top. This doesn't work for my area and I was planning to connect it to an inline fan anyway. Other smaller enclosures I've seen have a bunch of vents and I'd worry about pulling Co2 out of the room along with the lamp heat.

Any other ideas?
 

Potato42

Member
yeah use cfls for veg and you don't have to worry about the heat as much
That's the typical mind set but I don't know how much truth there is in that once everything is evened out. I did a little test (not very scientific I admit) where I plugged in 4 CFL's and tested the temp in my little grow room. Temps were around 85-90º near the lights. That makes sense considering the "optimal" temperatures for most newer fluorescent lights are around 95º or so. Now in order for me to have light equivalent to the 175W MH, I'd need 8 of these 27W (actual) bulbs which put out 1,750 lumens each. This also doesn't take into account usable light, and I think general consensus is that the MH spectrum will be better than a typical CFL.

All that said without testing myself I still don't know if a single 175W MH will produce more or less heat than 8 CFL bulbs.
 
Top