Observations about the AC Infinity Tent Fan

I installed an AC Infinity tent fan recently and thought it might be helpful to pass along my observations about the product.

The fan is used in a 2’ x 4’ Gorilla Grow tent that’s located in my unheated garage in SoCal. I’ve used a few different models of clip on fans and one of the problems has been that the clips are poorly designed to fit tent poles, even the Gorilla Grow tent poles which are a bit larger than poles used by other manufacturers.

Controlling the speed of the air flow has been another a limitation. The fans I’ve used just power the fan on and off and have just two speeds on the power switch. For smaller plants, the air stream is so powerful that I can’t aim it at the plants. Instead, I have to aim the fan away from the canopy and “bounce” the air stream off the walls of the tent.

Another weakness has been the inability to turn and lock the fan in multiple axes. There’s a friction lock to keep the fan at a given orientation on the vertical plane (the “elevation”) but, the ones I’ve been using don’t allow me to rotate them horizontally (the “azimuth”) and keep it set in a certain direction.

The AC Infinity fan addresses the first two issues very well. The clamp for the fan grips the poles of my grow tent well due, in good part, to having foam in the jaws of the clamp. It’s simple improvement that makes a big difference.

The big one is fan speed is adjusted by pressing a large, easy to reach button that has a circle of blue dots that light up, one each time the button is pushed. Fan speed increases with each push until you hit 10 when the next button push powers it off. You can’t actually turn the speed down. Instead, cycle through the power levels until you get to the desired speed. If the fan speed is a just a little too high, just push the button, for example, nine times to have the fan run one speed lower; press eight times to reduce it to run two speeds lower, etc. The fan responds quickly to button pushes so changing the speed becomes second nature. Another option to control fan speed is to use one of their controllers. AC Infinity has a variety of controllers available now and have more on the way.

Unfortunately, there’s no ability to lock the fan from rotating on its horizontal axis and the range of motion in the vertical plane is somewhat limited. Even with an improved product like this one you may still have to get creative in how you aim the fan to get the right results.

The most surprising limitation for me was that AC Infinity recommends running the fan for only 18 hours in a 24 hour period. That could be a carry over from their oscillating tent fan. Seeing that there’s no similar restriction using other fans in the marketplace, why would a company introduce a new product that’s limited to being run only 75% of the time? I generally run the fan at 3 or 4 out of 10 and leave it on at lights out.

Despite the limitations in controlling how the fan is oriented and the “need” to give it 6 hours a day to rest, the fact I can vary the fan speed makes this fan a keeper for me. I retired my “old fashioned” fan the day I got the AC Infinity fan and have no intention of going back.

The tent fan is a recent addition whereas the AC Infinity 4" inline fan has been installed for the past year. The inline fan has worked flawlessly and is running on one of their “Controller 67” controllers. That controller is accessible by Bluetooth and can control two devices at once.

Remote control is handy, no doubt, but if you’re interested in controlling two devices, the Controller 67 does not allow you to control them separately. If you need that feature, you’ll need their Controller 69 which handles up to four devices, each being controlled independently. For more info about controllers or any of their other growing equipment, check out their website for the details.

Good thoughts, and I don’t disagree with you on any point. I also have the clip on fans (the non oscillating version), and am very happy with it. The 18 hour thing is strange to me. While I understand it can be controlled, I don’t see an upside to not having a fan run 24/7.

Time will tell. If it last 2+ years I’ll consider it a win and a superior product as my previous fans barely last a single cycle.

Mine’s chugging along really nicely. With the dry weather we’re having here in SoCal, it’s really nice to be able to set the fan to 1/10 and have it blow mist into the tent. No way I could have done that with a regular, two speed fan.

Don’t know if you’re running into this but, from time to time, the controllers disconnect. At first, I would walk into the garage to get them to pair again but I’ve found that I can just shut Bluetooth off on my phone and they’ll reconnect when I turn Bluetooth back on. WiFi will be nice. :slight_smile:

I’m an east coast homie, and my grow space is super humid right now. Not using very much HVAC in my house given its spring, so I don’t get the natural dehumidification from my gas heat or central air.

In reference to the controllers I assume you are talking about the Controller 67? I got my unit two thanksgivings ago, so mine doesn’t have the bluetooth. I will likely upgrade to the controller 69 wifi once its available. As you indicated, bluetooth is too flakey for me, prefer wifi.

It’s worth mentioning that I want to upgrade to the controller 69 mainly because of the ability to set a min fan speed. My current unit will click on at >X% humidity and scale down after it reaches <X% humidity. The new one apparently lets you set a “min fan speed”. So if you start venting at say 60% humidity, you can set the fan to say speed 2-3 when <60% but ramp up to a configurable fan speed when >60%. Ideally this prevents the swings from the fan coming on full blast and wildly swinging your VPD.

(Psst Hey Peet. You and the homies from AC Infinity should collaborate and put together some videos about how to maximize your grow space using both products. A LOT of people use both, and unless you are going after each others market, seems like a fine partnership)

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Yup, East Coast’s has humidity. West Coast has sand. :slight_smile: We’re getting weird weather here. It’s been cooler than normal but we’re in the middle of cool temps and really low humidity, as in almost single digits low humidity.

“In reference to the controllers I assume you are talking about the Controller 67?”
Yes, it’s the Bluetooth version of the 67. Better than having to walk into the ten but nothing like WiFi. I saw that there looked to be pretty good flexibility in setting up the fans via the controller but didn’t dig into it much. That’s a pretty good level of sophistication and it’s at a good price point.

I agree that it would be nice to have the Pulse and the Infinity communicate but I don’t see Infinity opening the kimono like that. They’ve already got temp and RH readings from a sensor that’s the size of a Q tip so they can do the math for VPD. Having a UI on a controller is handy for us but it’s a cost driver. As the Pulse shows us, there’s an advantage not having a device with a screen. Instead, just send the data digitally and let a device that already has a screen take care of that issue.

My suspicion is that the Pulse has a better sensor and they definitely have a more sophiticated data infrastruture. The latter takes time and expertise to build. My impression of the products that I’ve seen from Infinity is that they’re becoming the Bose of the cannabis small grower market - their stuff looks good pretty good but, after you’ve used it for a while and can dig beneath the surface, thea mount of marketing and the snazzy product visuals exceeds the quality of engineering. Case in point is their lights. Like the Wendy’s ad from years ago, “Where’s the beef?”.

I think Infinity is going to sell a lot of product. Per above they have good marketing and good looking products that has a lot of appeal to and utility in the home/personal/small grower. Pulse, OTOH, sells into that market but my sense is that they have far more appeal to the commercial market.

Who knows…both companies could be owned by Elon Musk just so that he has cool stuff for his own little weed tent. :slight_smile:

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This is incorrect in regards to recommended run time of 18 hours. This only applies to the Cloudray oscillation fans and the actual oscillation action.
Fans can run all day every day but for maximum lifespan of oscillation mechanism they recommend only running 18 hours but plenty of people are still running 24hrs a day.

This does not apply to their inline duct fans.

What happens to these fans if the power goes out? Will they come back on when the power is established? We have lots of outages here in the Pacific Northwest. Thx.

Once power is restored the fan will return to operation using whatever parameters it was using prior to the outtage.

Thanks very much!

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