KapScot
Just Say No... well ok then if I must
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- . . . I'm on rations of Forum Stomper till next harvest.
I was going to ask if anyone else had experienced this problem but then found my own solution, but it needs sharing (and input/expansion) as I haven't seen this in forums before.
Background
I came in-from-the-cold as an outdoor grower about 2 years ago. Now have a medium sized cabinet grow everything LST to stay under 50cm grow height from pot, soil grow, 2 x Mars Hydro 300s. I like to have one plant going full flower and one seedling and stagger the grows between 2 or 3 plants, I find this helps balance temps and humidity as well as making the small space workable.
Keeping the wife and the law happy aka being odour free is a damn good idea here. So I didn't skimp on filtering and put in a 5" RhinoPro and matched extractor fan, acoustic ducting and home made baffled-end of the duct which while not quite a silencer shaves a few dB off...
As a Mephisto fan now, I had a Sour Hound, Sour Stomper (both in full flower), with a 24C ready to chop - a long summer break meant I had got out of sync and the first grow was going to be a full on flower fest of 3 plants to stock up on winter meds. The house was stinking!!! If I can smell it there's a BIG problem (weed nose blind), and that is the filter can't keep up and even with OnaGel in abundance it's a terp-fest out in the shared stairway.
The filter is only 18 months old and I can't imagine a company like Rhino offer no quibble 2 year warranties on their kit if it doesn't do the job.... USER ERROR IS NORMALLY THE FAULT Dum de dum dum... I do read the instructions... for optimum results turn every 3 months...!!! HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM - Just rotate the drum - ER BUT THE DRUM IS VERTICAL AND ROTATION IS MEANINGLESS IN THIS ORIENTATION (you take it out periodically and give it a good shake but that's all I could and did do). But it's still not performing.
Thinkin' about it ... several bongs and a bit of logical brain power.
The two factors acting on the performance of the filter were outside my control.
(1) Gravity will cause the carbon to settle and become denser towards the bottom of the filter, and since my filter sits in a vertical orientation and CANNOT be reoriented there's bugger all I can do about this. The less dense top will be pulling more air from this portion of the filter, and hence it will be depleted quicker << which is why I can smell all those Sour Mephistos outside my door (NOT GOOD).
(2) Vibration from the extraction fan will compound the above and drive larger coarser granuals or small clumps towards the top turning the filter into a loose top and dense base.
Soultion(s) :
(A) A damn good vibration - rubber mat with washing machine on spin and press hard with the filter inverted through the spin cycle. Well that worked for about two days LOL I guess that carbon is pretty packed in there, so onto the next option...
(B) If the packing is less dense at the top remove the top air intakes. Gonna just love this - I just taped-off the top 3 inches of the filter with duct tape and apart from a small reduction in airflow (+0.5 deg C cabinet temp) it's now back to odour free grow and anything you smell is probably just me smoking ... everyone's happy . . . except the wife.
I don't mind having to replace a filter every two years so if this solution gets me through a couple more grows I consider it a deal. I guess if you weren't using a fairly balanced fan/filter then taping might over strain the fan but I hope this helps someone, and do feel free to add your own solutions or thoughts. (I initially left off the filter dust sleeve expecting a big temp rise but it's back on now).
I'm waiting till filter replacement before trying some of Mephistos Auto Blues (Purple Pheno) as Bill pre-warned me they can be more than whiffy (aka don't run them with Sour Hounds at the same time - one of my favourites), or perhaps they could return to Spain for some outdoor fun in the sun
With Brexit who knows LOL << we may lose our watering rights in Costa
Background
I came in-from-the-cold as an outdoor grower about 2 years ago. Now have a medium sized cabinet grow everything LST to stay under 50cm grow height from pot, soil grow, 2 x Mars Hydro 300s. I like to have one plant going full flower and one seedling and stagger the grows between 2 or 3 plants, I find this helps balance temps and humidity as well as making the small space workable.
Keeping the wife and the law happy aka being odour free is a damn good idea here. So I didn't skimp on filtering and put in a 5" RhinoPro and matched extractor fan, acoustic ducting and home made baffled-end of the duct which while not quite a silencer shaves a few dB off...
As a Mephisto fan now, I had a Sour Hound, Sour Stomper (both in full flower), with a 24C ready to chop - a long summer break meant I had got out of sync and the first grow was going to be a full on flower fest of 3 plants to stock up on winter meds. The house was stinking!!! If I can smell it there's a BIG problem (weed nose blind), and that is the filter can't keep up and even with OnaGel in abundance it's a terp-fest out in the shared stairway.
The filter is only 18 months old and I can't imagine a company like Rhino offer no quibble 2 year warranties on their kit if it doesn't do the job.... USER ERROR IS NORMALLY THE FAULT Dum de dum dum... I do read the instructions... for optimum results turn every 3 months...!!! HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM - Just rotate the drum - ER BUT THE DRUM IS VERTICAL AND ROTATION IS MEANINGLESS IN THIS ORIENTATION (you take it out periodically and give it a good shake but that's all I could and did do). But it's still not performing.
Thinkin' about it ... several bongs and a bit of logical brain power.
The two factors acting on the performance of the filter were outside my control.
(1) Gravity will cause the carbon to settle and become denser towards the bottom of the filter, and since my filter sits in a vertical orientation and CANNOT be reoriented there's bugger all I can do about this. The less dense top will be pulling more air from this portion of the filter, and hence it will be depleted quicker << which is why I can smell all those Sour Mephistos outside my door (NOT GOOD).
(2) Vibration from the extraction fan will compound the above and drive larger coarser granuals or small clumps towards the top turning the filter into a loose top and dense base.
Soultion(s) :
(A) A damn good vibration - rubber mat with washing machine on spin and press hard with the filter inverted through the spin cycle. Well that worked for about two days LOL I guess that carbon is pretty packed in there, so onto the next option...
(B) If the packing is less dense at the top remove the top air intakes. Gonna just love this - I just taped-off the top 3 inches of the filter with duct tape and apart from a small reduction in airflow (+0.5 deg C cabinet temp) it's now back to odour free grow and anything you smell is probably just me smoking ... everyone's happy . . . except the wife.
I don't mind having to replace a filter every two years so if this solution gets me through a couple more grows I consider it a deal. I guess if you weren't using a fairly balanced fan/filter then taping might over strain the fan but I hope this helps someone, and do feel free to add your own solutions or thoughts. (I initially left off the filter dust sleeve expecting a big temp rise but it's back on now).
I'm waiting till filter replacement before trying some of Mephistos Auto Blues (Purple Pheno) as Bill pre-warned me they can be more than whiffy (aka don't run them with Sour Hounds at the same time - one of my favourites), or perhaps they could return to Spain for some outdoor fun in the sun
With Brexit who knows LOL << we may lose our watering rights in Costa
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