Carbon Filter

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now anyone who has made one these and put it to use. i need an honest smell report on it as it will determine where i route the exhaust on my upcoming winter grow box design.
if i have it routed into a room will it totally eliminate smell and viola...stealth?
or am i gonna have to route it outdoors some how.
basically how much of the smell does it eliminate thruout various stages veg vs flower?
 
Mine vents outdoors and there is no smell whatsoever. I even had one venting indoors, that I bought as part of a kit and it was small and horrible. I think if you use these guidelines, you will be fine venting it indoors.
 
DL, I'm interested in hearing more about how you vented it outdoors. Would you care to indulge that information?

The room I'm using is a special room. We have a three car garage, and the 1-car portion of the garage was converted into a room. The wall that is closest to the pseudo garage door has about a 2' gap that was normally used for storage. In that small area, the wall of the house has one of those ~4"x10" rectangle cutouts that garages normally have on the outside walls. I want to use that cutout to exhaust the air from the room to the outside of the house.

I've made my carbon filter, 6" exaust fan at the top of the room, connected to a 6" hose (it's the ones people use to exhaust dryers). Then from there I have the hose hooked up to my carbon filter I made. I actually did it a bit different. Instead of using chicken wire on the outside, I opted for 8" sheet that snaps together to form a duct. Then, instead of the 8" end cap, I used another 8" to 6" reducer so I could vent it outside. Not ever doing this before, and reading quite a bit on the subject, I felt this would work just as good as the way everyone else does it. Air is still passing through the activated carbon through the inside 6" tube, through the stockings, through the carbon, and out the other side, which leads outside.

One thing I'm a tad disappointed in is the size. I think I would have been better off going with an 8" duct fan, as it would extract more air from the room. It's a fairly large room - 10' x 20' - I use it as my office/chill room and want a carbon filter for when we smoke for respect of the neighbors. The 6" just doesn't seem like it's cutting it. In fact, it feels as if there's too much restriction on the end of the exhaust, because when you put your hand over the 6" duct fan that's in the wall, you can feel air pushing through (shouldn't it be pulling all air instead of pushing some back?). If I add poly-fill to the side of the filter closest to the outside wall, it doesnt' feel like much air gets passed through.

Another issue is the smell. Since we smoke in this room, the exhaust air that comes out of the filter people have commented that it smells like cat litter. Is this normal? I picked up 17lbs of activated carbon on ebay from someone who's posting CLAIMS he's got the best around. I'd show you the link on ebay in which I got it from, but I haven't made 15 posts yet here, and the forums won't let me link it. Just search for Activated Carbon and look for one that says in the title "Tons Sold w/o 1 Product Complaint-See Specs/Feedback".

One of the questions floating around my head is, how much air SHOULD be going through? Should it slowly pass through the activated carbon, or does it really matter? How much carbon is actually needed in order for it to be effective? Is more airflow better, or more carbon better?

I included a picture of what my setup looks like. Right now I took out the Polyfill from the exit exhaust (the entrance part of the filter still has some) and placed some stocking over it. It's also just pointed into the garage for the time being, until this weekend when I connect it to flow outside. I was hoping to experiment with eliminating the smell from the garage before I start pumping it out the side of the house, towards the neighbor's house.

Sorry for the long-winded post. Let me know if anything is unclear :)
 
Well, that was a read! ;) You are tossing a lot out there, so I will try to tackle it all...

First, you say at the outlet you feel suction rather than air blowing? That just means the fan needs to be flipped around so it blows rather than sucks. Right now you are filtering the outside air, not the air inside your garage.

Secondly, I vented straight out a window... Well, not straight out, as I had some nice drapes and stuff covering that actual outlet. Yours looks great!

How many CFM is your fan? Sure, you could pull the air through the carbon too fast with a massive fan... But, with your piping that long and using a inline fan, I doubt you have an issue with oversucking that filter. Try shortening up the piping and, need be, buying another fan or building an additional setup.

Hope this helps a little, it's been a while since I've really thought about how all this works. Feel free to ask away. :48:
 
I'm using a 250cfm fan I bought online for about 40 bucks. It's positioned the right way, as I feel more air coming out the filter than I do from the fan itself. It feels like backpressure, as if the air isn't going through the filter fast enough, so it kicks back.

It might be the dryer tubing, as it's 24 feet long and there's lots of slack. I was also thinking about purchasing another fan and placing it closer to the filter as well, but I'd like to use that as a last resort.

How long is your tubing going from the inline fan to the filter?
 
24' for a 250 CFM fan is a lot of extra work for nothing. My tubing is 2' long as there is no reason for it to be any longer... There has to be something wrong with it somewhere man. Without looking at it, I really can't offer you any other advice, sorry.
 
The issue I have is that the inline fan is at the top of the room, about 10 feet up and 6 feet away from the outside house wall. I need to vent it outside through the 4x10 vent which is located on the lower part of the outside wall.

I'll do some testing and see what i come up with. Thanks again for all the comments.
 
HEY DL--
I'm curious how much activated carbon it took to fill up that filter you made. I read through the thread but didn't notice it if it was in there. Thanks in advance!!
 
Hmm... As I said in my pm, I'm not too sure as it was a few years ago now. I bet it was around 3 lbs or so. Don't be afraid to buy extra as you'll need to swap it out with fresh stuff every few months.
 
pics would help.but if i understand,you need to have the filter lined on the outside of something that can breath.if its a solid oudside,it is not drawing air adequately thru it to filter out odors.jmo
 
Well, i'm back into trying to do some growing again, but this time, i'm only looking to grow one plant since its just for personal.

The one built for the original tutorial is used for a room how large? I'm building a box (still undecided on the size...it all depends on the strain I purchase), so I'd assume that there is no need for such a large filter, correct?
 
Well, I was using that one for a 10w x 6w x 6h room. That had 2 mothers and maybe 70 clones that were put into flowering as soon as their root system was developed enough. You can make one MUCH smaller if you are just looking to clean the air in a closet or something.

You probably will even want to use smaller piping. Try making one half the size... With a fan that is half as powerful as well. ;) GL!
 
does it make the exhaust fan work really hard ? i need something and may try to make one of these. i'll have to push the air through the filter. is that okay?
 
Air can go either way through this filter...

The fan working hard? No, not really. It just won't move as much air due to the resistance of the filter.
 
the **** i have reeks.man made one of these got fan blowing through the filter.night and day.honest opinion:YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS IF YOU HAVE AN ODOR ORDEAL.i have to run exhaust 24/7 though.smell was seeping out passive intakes when fan was off.just left it on for now to take care of that. will put screen over bottom of intake holes then fill holes up with charcoal.take care of that.mine vents into my basement.
 
I'm in the process of making a new box and was wondering if I had this right...


top side of the box has fan blowing into the side of the light from the outside...
on the top of the box (outside of the box)a carbon filter and exhaust fan...

or should I make it easier and use a passive intake and have the exhaust fan pull from inside the box to the filter which is outside the box?

it's only 2x3x7
 
Passive intake will work fine if you don't have a heat issue... HIDs in cooltubes work wonderfully in conjunction with no fan intake.

However, these plants breath. The fresher the air and more optimum the conditions, the better they thrive. I think you will have better luck with an intke at the bottom and the exhaust at the top. :ccc:
 
What type of fans for them do you think I should use? In the past I used computer fans, but I think I would like to do something a little nicer and more professional. Quiet is key.

I know a small computer fan might be good enough for the intake, but as far as what pushes out through the carbon filter, what is a good size for a 2x3x7 box?
 

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