Homemade 1000w cool tube!

First off let me say! that I asked around this forum several months ago about cool tubes for lights,we all know how exspensive those cool tube's with fans can be!...............by the time you buy the hood with glass $200 then you have to buy the fan and the duct work another $160 or so,it can get exspensive and odds are you will have to order most of it through the mail,which has a shipping and handling rate of another $50 to $80 bucks depending on where you live!.........

So believe it or not after some research I came to the grim reality that by the time I get everything I need for one cool tube right down to the last screw and piece of tape to the shipping and handling it would be fare to say it probably would have cost me$400 or more canadian or so! I even checked out EBAY,still peeked at the $400 dollar mark..............

and when I did alot of research on how to make a cool tube the information was there but not for a 1000w hps bulb! there were links to information for smaller wattage lights but not much info for the big bulbs...and to behonest I found the information was kinda not in-compleshion and left you with unanswered questions lol..............................So I went out to the stores in my area like home depot,walmart.canadian tire,home hardware and had a good look around and managed to come up with a cool tube complete for less then $100 I couldn't believe it..............

I noticed there may be links to cool tube information on this forum throughout different post's made by different members but instead of a link I decided to post a thread right here with instructions on how to make a cool tube,as well step by step pictures along the way........

First thing first!.........

You will need glass tube,based on the size of the bulb you use!400w,600w,1000w or less........this project will be based on a 1000w hps bulb...You can get this glass tubing just about anywhere,you might find yourself looking in the candle section or glass tubes they put over large tall candles,I found mine in walmart they had several sizes ,based on some candles are bigger so get the glass that measures up to your bulb simple really!........my candle cover thAt I bought was 11 1/2 inch's long....and only paid $6.79 for one ...I bought 3..................

Continued...........

You will also need a fan to suck the heat from the glass tube,so what I came up with was a air duct fan for moving air along the funace of your house in the area's that the heat never seem to get to,these fans help transport heat through the duct work on a furnace to get heat to the colder spots of ones house!............................I bought the fan at home depot for $65.00 tax and all this is the most exspensive part of the project...........

roll foil tape $5.00
black electric tape $2.50
1 tie plate used to anchor bulb socket inside ducting0.90 cents
steel strapping $3.06
exstension cord$10.00 has to be a 3 prong cord because the fan doeswnt have a cord with it and the fan has to be grounded so make sure the cord has 3 prongs...
you will also need a foot of duct to hook up to air booster duct..the fan is 4 1/2 inch's so you need a foot of duct to fit the 4 1/2 booster fan.....$5.00..
you will also need flex duct to run to the place you decide to dump the heat! I purchased mine for$6.00 it's about 7ft long when fully exstended......

Note all these things except the glass candle cover where all at home depot...

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Now that you have all the needed parts for the cool tube.....

take a moment and lay out the pieces to get a little idea of how it should all work!.....lay the glass tube into the 1ft long piece of duct and lay the bulb inside the glass tube ,this will give you a good eye's view of where everything should be! because you have to make sure your bulb doesn't stick out past the glass tube as well you want to make sure you don't anchor the bulb socket so far into the duct vent that alot of the bulb is to far inside of the duct...

Now take you bulb socket of your light Kit and wrap some steel strapping around the socket and anchor with a a little nut and bolt but just make it a comfortable fit! and don't over tighten it the socket could crack if not carefull,then take tie plate and anchor it t6o the back of the socket both of these steps will allow you to later centre the socket in the centre of the duct..........when it's you have that done it should look like this!

Once you get the steel strapping and the tie plat onto the bulb socket now it's time to once again line things up with a eye's view.....

Take the bulb and screw it into the socket then take the bulb and socket and lay it into the tube to see where the holes in the duct need to be made to anchor the socket inside the 1ft piece of duct,remember make sure you measure up where the socket should be placed so your bulb isn't to far inside of the duct.........once you have everything lined up make 2 hole's inside of duct to anchor the socket.......the hole's should be directly above the socket and directly underneath the socket........... note: you should be able to make those small holes in the duct by starting with a little nail first,the duct isn't that hard to punch a hole in.......

Continued!..................

Now after you got the socket secured into the duct work,take the bulb out of the socket and take the foil tape and wrap the inside of the edge of the duct several times to try to build up a cushion for the glass tube to rest against also helps take up the gap between the duct and the glass tube because it isn't a perfect fit....................you can also use normal foil to help build up the base of the funnel.....................

Now take one end of the glass tube and wrap it with foil tape,go around the base of glass a couple of times to once again create a cushion for the glass where it meets the end of the duct! after all glass on metal isn't the best idea!.....................now insert glass tube into the duct end that you prepared just keep working with it until the glass tube fits nicely snug into the duct......once you do this.then wrap the glass and the duct together but stay close to the edge of the glass because you want as much of the glass tube being clear,try not to go to far down the basde of the glass,may restrict some of your light!................once you have both ends taped together with foil tape,reach inside of the glass tube and tape the inside of the tube to the duct that way you have a complete seal once you turn on your fan!......................Now we are half way there!.............

now we have cooltube hooked to the 1ft duct,as well have the light socket anchored inside the 1ft duct...............

So now we take the fan or air booster which is already anchored inside duct work already by the factory..perfect!...............so now we cut the end off the exstention cord and keep the pronge side of the cord!.......hook the wires up to the fan,if you notice the fan has 3 wire's thats why I said further up that you needed a 3 pronge exstension cord......in this case green wire on both exstension cord and air booster are both ground wire's......and the 2 remaining black wires on the fan can be hooked up to the exstention cord either way! doesn't matter......just make sure the green wire on the air booster is the ground wire that hooks up to the exstenion cords green wire can't go wrong really lol...........

O'k now we got the fan wired up,as well we have the glass tube taped to the 1ft duct.......now comes the part to wire up the ballast light cord back to the socket that is now inside of the 1ft ducting......

Sorry the picture I took doesn't show the 3 wires that is needed to hook up to the back of the bulb socket! the black wire is hiding behind the white wire that is screwed to the socket!.........but anyhow when you do take the wires off the bulb socket in the first place just remember where the wires were too,if you look close you can see that I marked the socket with w for white and B for black,in this case the groundwire is the green one bolt that wire to the plate that is holding the socket inside of 1ft ducting ,make sure your wires arent touching in anyway lol make sure it's a good clean job wouldn't want your house to burn down even though in most cases if you wired it up wrong and plugged it in youl'l probably only trip your breaker! but to avoid this just pay special attention to what your doing...............

Also take note in the same picture I cut about a inch or so into the duct so I could slide my cord into the duct, so when I hook the airbooster up to the end of it won't interfere with the cord,also take note,I wrapped up the cord where it begins to enter into the duct on both sides kinda built up tape on both sides of the cord so the cord can't move back and forth ,as well prevents you from pulling the cord out of the duct in case you dropped it or something,you don't want that cord moving around inside the duct while your adjusting your lights might cause something to wiggle loose so make sure you tape both ends of the cord up until you have a spacer made between the duct and the cord.................................