A.C infinity 4 inch carbon filter

[Herbalist]

I ran with Rhino pro filters for 15 to 20 years and i never got any problems before i switched to CarboAir last year. I only switched after reading many posts and other stuff ripping Rhino filters with peeps getting lots of problems since Rhino moved manufacture to China. I went with CarboAir cus they are made local up road a few miles away in Barnsley, well that and i read plenty of good feedback about them, its on its 4th grow now and still rocking.

That's good to hear. I have a huge 6inch rhino pro that i have had for about 7 years because i didn't wanna throw it out. Only had 1 grow worth of use but was great. Now it holds my playstation

If the Rhino is 7 years old i think that should be a decent one before production was changed to China and if its a Rhino Pro filter i used to get 2 to 3 years of constant growing out of them.

Another thing to tic is if your humidity is high, which i think is around or above 65%rh then your filter loses its ability to scrub smells so well

Here`s a good post below that i ripped from another place which explains carbon grades etc but really your wanting the rc48 or rc412 the latter being the best but both are said top grades in filters. But generally the bigger the pieces in filter the better it absorbs stinks for longer periods.

The 412 in the "RC 412" is referring to the mesh sizing distribution of the carbon. The carbon is run through two screens (or sieves,) trapping only the desired range of particle sizes. The 412 is actually 4 mesh x 12 mesh, which means it will have particles smaller than 4 mesh (4760 microns) but larger than 12 mesh (1680 microns.)

Think of it like this:

X = range of particle size of the carbon used
In 4 x 12 mesh,
X < (is less than) 4760 microns in particle size
X > (is greater than) 1680 microns in particle size

So there should be a range of carbon particle sizes of 1680-4760 in RC 412 activated carbon.

The other common mesh size is RC 48, which you'll see on other carbon scrubbers (big name brand ones too!) That's 4 mesh (4760 microns) and 8 mesh (2380 microns,) so there again should be a range of 2380-4760 in the RC 48.

The thing that probably is going to be much more important though is what type of activated carbon the manufacturer is using. It looks like there are 3 different types of activated carbon commonly used:

mineral (coal)
coconut fibers
wood based (peat)

Activated carbon from coconut fibers is supposed to have more/larger surface area than coal-based carbon, but it has a higher ash content than coal based (which I've found conflicting information on how much ash content reduces efficiency.) The other major thing I read about coconut based carbon is that 85-90% of the surface area is micro-pores, which is not necessarily the only thing you want when trying to filter out a wide range of VOC's produced by your flowering cannabis.

Micro-pores < 1 nm in size
Meso-pores 1-25 nm in size
Macro-pores > 25 nm in size

Macro pores are essentially access points to micro pore. If your surface area is primarily micro pores, you have no access point for larger VOC particle sizes to essentially get trapped into through adsorption.

Wood based carbon is supposed to be mostly meso and macro pores.

Coal based carbon is the best mix of all micro/meso/macro pores (which is probably why it's one of the "best touted" choice of most carbon scrubber vendors.)

About the ash content, some of the information I've read (and I see a lot of vendors use it in their ads) is that the ash content (which is usually a percentage, like 13% ash content in RC 412 carbon,) is directly related to the efficiency of the carbon over-all. So 13% ash content would make the carbon used no more than 87% effective (period.) Another reason why it seems like that would be a good reason to use coal based carbon vs coconut in terms of efficiency (most coconut based carbons average around 20% ash, or 80% efficiency.) BUT, then you have the "eco" side of it (if that floats your banana boat,) where you're basically firing coal vs coconuts (which are probably arguably much more renewable.) Then I read some other reports that the natural (emphasis on natural) ash content produced in the process doesn't effect the efficiency; only if it's ash produced by a re-firing or regeneration process (which would make it non-virgin then, I'm pretty sure.) So not quite sure what is what there; can see how claiming ash is much more important than it atually is could be a marketing trick too.

Then there are things like appropriate amount of contact time; temperatures and humidity (high humidity renders scrubbers less effective, high heat generally releases more terpenoids (volatile compounds, etc etc.)

So I'm not totally sure how much of a difference RC 412 vs RC 48 really is if the source material is both coal based carbon of the same quality/grade. My first thought that is that the wider range of micron size could be a blessing or curse as that could potentially filter out more of OTHER things in the air as well, diminishing the life of the scrubber. On the flip side, by going with the smaller range, you could be missing out on a range of particle sizes that could stink. I mean, look how many terpenes/terpenoids cannabis produces. Stiiiiiinky. In either case; it's a good idea to keep the air quality of the tent and surrounding area as clean as possible so the filter is working more on filtering cannabis smells and less on your dirty gym socks, cigarettes smoke, cannabis smoke, etc etc.

Thanks Scoops. Some good info in there. There were a couple times in veg that my RH got up in the 85% range. That probably didnt help the filter.