Water cooled lights.....

[Guest]

Not such a pipe dream.

Now that Hydrofarm is putting money into water cooling I think it'll start popping more and more...... 79 degrees at the bulb while its on?

Second half of the video.

http://www.hydrotv.com/showhd2.html

 

[phr3d0m2gr0]

Interesting, but i think it's hyped more than it's worth. Sure you get cooling, but you have to run a pump, have an extra res, and run a chiller. Plus going through two tubes of glass and a layer of water you get some light loss. Not to mention the danger in having water run next to a bulb. I'm sure they engineered it to hold up, but the parts will degrade over time and a leak is possible and that would be disastrous.

-Phr3

 

[Guest]

But wouldn't that be cheaper and quieter than a bunch of air conditioners? A water chiller for 6K lights VS all the air conditioning? Which is more of a cost and pain? I'm seriously asking because I have Zero experience in complete grow rooms.

I post this stuff because its really interesting to see something like growing bud get so mainstream and now starting to see a lot of R&D go into it instead of some of the old tired bs thats been floating around for years. Its also shitty because you get a lot of douche bag products like the odor sock.

Like the other parts of that video series there is just tons of innovation. A rep from can fan saying centrifugal fans will be obsolete in a couple years. Another guy talking about tissue culture mother jars.

 

[Guest]

What do Professional "for the money" growers use? Just a thought.

Ty-Stik

 

[Harry Gypsna]

to be fair, for the money growers will use whatever works...so if a water cooling sytem appears that isnt prohibitively expensive, is really safe to use and does what it says on the box, then chances are thered be some mersh dudes using it..... In fact a lot because(especially for u guys in warmer climes) aircon is very expensive to use to cool a bigscale grow

 

[FreezerBoy]

Call me a luddite but, I'll watch from here. Waaaaay over here.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

to be fair, for the money growers will use whatever works...so if a water cooling sytem appears that isnt prohibitively expensive, is really safe to use and does what it says on the box, then chances are thered be some mersh dudes using it..... In fact a lot because(especially for u guys in warmer climes) aircon is very expensive to use to cool a bigscale grow

i guess you havent used many mini-split a/c units. way mroe efficiant then window units, and more flexable, i think the water coupleing will break after time, plus more water to deal with? algea in the thing i could imagine green tinted light...reduced lumins etc..headache i could imagine changin bulbs...lol

as the guy said "you can literly pour water out of both ends while the bulb is burning..."

aircooled also...lol.

 

[Murphy]

You loose a lot going through that water. I read about one and it said the suggested rez size was like 30 gallons.......I don't even have a 30 gallon rez for my hydro system...... and then that fixture weighs in at 25 or 30 pounds, then the alge and the cleanings.

It will be a solution for some but to pricey for me. there's plenty of options that work just as well that don't involve all that hassle.

 

[yamaha_1fan]

why would there be algae? Are you using the same rez as your plants? I would use a seperate rez and put some bleach in there evrry week or so.

I wouldnt go water cooling though. I would rather buy a little more ducting and some bigger fans and air cool those lights. For me, it seems like a recipe for diaster

 

[Murphy]

why would there be algae? Are you using the same rez as your plants? I would use a seperate rez and put some bleach in there evrry week or so.

I wouldnt go water cooling though. I would rather buy a little more ducting and some bigger fans and air cool those lights. For me, it seems like a recipe for diaster

When I read about them, the manufacture said to ad chlorine to keep algae out. The problem is once you have it inside, that's going to be a bitch to clean.......
Hard water would cause problems, cloudy water, all kinds of things. I'd like to see one that way 4 or 5 years old and see what shape it's in. They are not cheap and there is a lot of potential for problems. Because of the cost, and potential problems, I'm guessing they won't be to popular.

 

[yts farmer]

theres a hydro shopin england that sells water cooled lights and they have done for at least 7 years.

in all my time on the boards ive only seen water cooled lights talked about maybe 3 times and have never seen 1 in use,in all that time you would of thought youd of seen at least 1 in action.

i'll try and post a link so you can take a look.btw this shop has a bad rep pricewise.

http://www.blunt.co.uk/hydroponics-shop-uk/hps-grow-lights/grow-light-kits.htm

 

[BlindDate]

Hydrofarm must be very confident in their light hood considering the legal liability of such a product.

Personally, I think they are only worth doing if you have a free cooling source like a swimming pool, river, pond, etc. And, once you've jumped all the hoops and have water lines running all over your room, congratulations, you've just saved $50 a month in what it would have cost to run an AC unit. Oopps, I forgot that since the AC was eliminated we now need a dehumidifier to do the job the AC was doing ($50 is back).

Oh, but they say you can bring your 1000 watter 5" from the tops! Absolutely worthless since the coverage area would be about 6" square at that distance.

Yet after all the negatives water cooled lights never seem to go away. It's because the thought of such a system is just so damn cool. Gotta have one.

 

[DIGITALHIPPY]

Hydrofarm must be very confident in their light hood considering the legal liability of such a product.

Personally, I think they are only worth doing if you have a free cooling source like a swimming pool, river, pond, etc. And, once you've jumped all the hoops and have water lines running all over your room, congratulations, you've just saved $50 a month in what it would have cost to run an AC unit. Oopps, I forgot that since the AC was eliminated we now need a dehumidifier to do the job the AC was doing ($50 is back).

Oh, but they say you can bring your 1000 watter 5" from the tops! Absolutely worthless since the coverage area would be about 6" square at that distance.

Yet after all the negatives water cooled lights never seem to go away. It's because the thought of such a system is just so damn cool. Gotta have one.

thats a good idea, pump river water through the lights.. oh the stick getting stuck wont block the lumins... what about dirt? DEFINATELY going to get algea at some point... the pool idea though, nifty, if u had 10k u probably could heat your pool!!!!

 

[Guest]

Light rays travel at 186,000 miles per second, when the light leaves the bulb and enters the air jacket around the bulb it will bend, it will bend again when it passes through the first layer of the plastic water jacket due the higher density of the plastic over water, it will bend again when it passes through the water because the water is of a lesser density than the plastic and it will bend once more when it exits the outer plastic jacket of the water cooled unit. Refraction being the Keyword as I recall. It's been over 45 years since graduation from H.S. and I hope my memory serves me correctly.

Phewww, that was a mouth full. Having said that my curiosity has me wondering what impact if any the water cooled jacket might have on light distribution as relates to focusing of that light onto a specific footprint without scattering the rays.

Pico, PICO, where for art thou? I would be interested to see the performance comparisons of this new and improved Widget against conventional air cooling methods. Maybe we/us/you can find one for Pico to test.

TyStik

 

[BlindDate]

thats a good idea, pump river water through the lights.. oh the stick getting stuck wont block the lumins... what about dirt? DEFINATELY going to get algea at some point... the pool idea though, nifty, if u had 10k u probably could heat your pool!!!!

Dumb post, of course not....These systems will always use a heat exchanger. The lights will recirculate RO water only.

A swimming pool is the most practical method as it will also heat the pool. Another way is to bury copper tubing (hundreds of feet) below the frost layer about 6ft down and take advantage of earth cooling. Another method would be to tap into a sewer line. Just think of ways to get free cooling.

 

[Onepunchko]

Well folks, Ive decided to be the guinnie pig. Im running 4 600's side by side and two are water cooled. I have seeled up the holes from the ducting on that side of the room and removed the fan that was cooling the lights. I added a trash can as a rez for the lights with a chiller in it. As soon as I take more pics Ill post up a diary. So far so good though. The lights stay very cool and I have one less noisy fan that was running for 12 hours every day. Stay tuned.

 

[BlindDate]

Since you are going water cooled why not use 1000 watters?

 

[sneakyninja]

While i'm all for the latest and greatest technology there is one problem with this idea.

1. lets thing about what the vast majority of buyers for these high end grow lights are growing: Marijuana, as you all clearly know, an illegal crop.

2. Lets think about what happens when someone here gets busted, we all ask to know why so that we don't repeat the same mistakes

Therefore Hydrofarm is facing a market that is willing to spend the cash, but if that market hears even one report of these lights going wrong and causing someone to get busted or even come close (which, I would imagine any failure involving this level of wattage would be fairly catastrophic and likely to cause at minimum a visit from fire dept. and worst case a bust and the entire grow site burning to the ground) then it would take years to gain back any kind of trust for this method/product.

Now lets think about the # of these devices out there, with the kind of production #'s it's almost guarenteed that eventually they are going to produce a defective unit, and like I just explained, all it will take is one to ruin the market for the device for years.

I'm all for the advancement of technology and have owned a couple of watercooled computers, but that markets tolerance for defective units vs. this markets tolerance are vastly different.

 

[fulltimehuman]

I wonder if they are B.S.ing when they claim the water diffuses the light in a better spectrum or some marketing claim?

 

[simba]

look up water as a Filter..
water Blocks red in no time.. even a half inch of water will block a crap load..
IE look at ocean water in HI.. its blue (partily cause clean) but because blue is able to penetrate deeper and in shallow water bounce allot back to the surface and back to your eye.. EYE water filters red and allows blue to pass. (kinda funny when people use these with hps.)
id like these for MH in Aquariums but even thats pushing it..

Great idea but PITA to.. also the res for the system..
never ever mix water and electricity Unless the Bulb itself is designed to be water cooled (there are a few out there) but not for us..

go with a lamp that isnt such a pita to cool ie cmh that simulates growing Outdoors IE Full spd