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.
