Create precise grow temperatures with a Fan Controller

The battle with hydroponics grow room and grow tent temperatures can be easily managed by adding a fan control unit. Last week we looked at the immediate benefits of ensuring that your - lights off - temperature doesn't drop below 18C in your plants growing environment - how you implement the heater switching on and off - can easily become an automated task depending on the fan controller unit you decide to purchase.....

Fan controls are in two main types Circuit-board type Fan Speed Controllers and Variac style Fan Speed Controllers...with out going in too much depth here's the differences:

Circuit-board type Fan Speed Controllers

These are generally cheaper and also lighter in weight than the Variac style these fan controllers work on the principle of switching on and off the mains voltage to your fans rapidly - many times per second, if off period is called a cycle. The unit fine tunes speed control by adjusting the amount of time voltage is on for - compared to the length of time that it is off for per cycle.

These are affordable units and as they contain electronic circuit boards - you will more often have an option of adding a temperature probe.

This then allows you to then control the fan speed by or by temperature control or thermostatically, and depending on your budget many models allow control of both intake and out-take fans thermostatically. To maintain negative pressure the intake fan will always run slower than the out-take(extraction) fan - to ensure and maintain negative pressure.

Very simple to setup - once you have set the fan speed & desired temperature, place the temperature probe in your grow tent or room at plant canopy level and your environment is now automated. Fans will kick in when your set temperature is reached.

Variac style Fan Speed Controllers

Working on totally different principle from the circuit boards - variac style fan speed controls - constantly reduce the voltage feed to the fans to reduce fan speed. Naturally these weigh more due to the transformer and will have no fan resonance as there is no pulsing of electricity in this type of control - but  - you will not have the function of automatic temperature control and fan speed must be adjusted manually.

Depending on the rating of the fan controller you can run both intake and out-take fans - as the variac doesn't often feature separate intake and out-take inputs as found in some circuit boards models.

Hybrid the best of both worlds....

Then there was 'hybrid' - as you would expect these are the 'dogs' when it comes to fan controller units. A solid investment for any grower - SMSCOM Hybrid Fan Controller Units - are available in 2amp, 4amp, 8amp or 16amp and are complete with a 5 year warranty.

Giving you all the benefits of the above controller technologies combined - all our SMSCOM Hybrid Fan Controller Units feature:

  • Completely silent fan speed operation
  • Zero humming from extractors
  • Highly accurate temperature control
  • Automatic and Manual settings
  • Easy to operate
  • 5 meter NTC Temperature Sensor
  • 5 Step fan speed control*

* 2amp model has 2 step - min/max control only

Hydro Hobby Fan Controllers

Hydro Hobby fan control range starts at £34.95, selling only established reputable brands such as GSE, RAM, GCH & Maxibright Fan Controller Units

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