Let's talk liquid cooled lights.

[green_tea]

a radiator is NOT going to cut it, even a few rads probably wont cut it.
(IMO)

if you are going to do this right, you DAMN WELL BETTER plan out the design of the water tube REAL well.

Gotta remember you want to make it easy for yourself to change light bulbs etc.

you will also want the water directly in contact with the light bulbs glass.

 

[1love1earth]

no, he stated earlier that the reason behind not aircooling was for the "heat signature" that could show up in thermal imaging.

The point behind a fridge is that it keeps things pretty cold, but there are a few problems here:

#1. a fridge is terribly undersized, it is not built to reject a constant heat load, IE when you are putting heat into the water via the bulb, that heat has to be rejected by the fridge, and it just won't keep up, same reason why folks really don't do successful fridge PC cooling by just putting the PC in the fridge (plus condensation).

Better would be to convert the fridge to a lab bath of sorts, using the freon loop to chill water, but again, condensation is going to ruin you.

 

[green_tea]

ignore condensation, all you have to do is make sure the water stays like 5 degrees above ambient at all times (not hard electronically)

also, why are we all caring about condensation?

As long as there is no moisture in the plug and its air tight and sealed (add some electrical grease to remove any air pockets.) how is condensation going to matter?

were not talking about tiny little microchips where all you need is a drop of water to create a short, were talking about heavy duty wire that is insulated pretty much everywhere.

condensation on the outside of the fixture is also going to do CRAP to the fixture, all its going to do is drip onto your plants...

NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT, since you are surrounding the bulb 100% / 360 degrees, you probably wouldn't even have to worry about condensation happening within the fixture.

on another note, when you make the fixtures, make sure the pipes right before and after the glass / light part have like a spiral pattern of really short fins, to help "spin" the water around the bulb as it goes by. water flowing by the bulb/hr will stay the same, but more water will be coming into contact with the bulb, thus cooling it better.
(creates turbulence)


I'm going to go research the condensation thing a bit more.

 

[Uncle FREEDOM]

Thanks for the replies boys...

I am even beginning to like the negative ones, just if your going to bring up a problem try to offer some idea's (no matter how crazy) as to a possible solution... (i detest "it can't be done" attitudes) Sometime harder=more rewarding.

b.t.w. researching alternatives to the ground loop... will post more when i get it looked into propper... but keep the idea's for both setup coming!

This is the kinda discussion i wanted to start, where we as a community can work on problems for the betterment of all of us.

cool...cool....cool (no pun intended!) LOL

 

[Stealthy]

Not shooting down anything...it's been discussed in depth many times and most people have concluded that all the potential hazards, problems, light loss through water and the intricate setup (water sensors/auto shutoffs etc) outweigh the "coolness" of having this technology.
I love new gadgets / technology and I love the idea of a completely cooled light with no hot air being expelled from my house for FLIR to see (then I would grow with lights on at night and save myself some money on AC/electricity).
Someone (CALLING PICO) needs to run a light meter under one of these things to see how much light is actually lost. Anyway...good luck and be safe.

 

[gregor_mendel]

Uncle:

Could you install a small pond on your property?

 

[Guest]

It seems to me that the cost of running even a half football field sized circuit of copper pipe will negate any monetary benefits associated with this project. Why are you against running a water chiller or two? If you're going big, the money shouldn't be an issue. The noise won't be an a problem either. You should consult an engineer or geothermal heating and cooling contractor.

It's like dude said about diminishing returns; this idea isn't economically feasible. Even if you did do this, I think you would have a serious case of buyers remorse. I think you have no intention of following through with this idea.

 

[sinickal]

my gawd...... this is a thread to talk about the positives/negatives and ideas relevant to the topic.

but i did find a pretty large radiator for computers, http://www.frozencpu.com/products/5..._XTREME_Nova_1080_Radiator.html?tl=g30c95s667, if you use maybe one or two of these, with fans cooling them, you could possible cool the water almost enough to sustain a couple of large lights.

 

[Guest]

my gawd...... this is a thread to talk about the positives/negatives and ideas relevant to the topic.

No shit?

 

[bighogg]

I think water cooled lights are an awesome idea and I recently looked into it....

The problem with water cooled lights is not the complexity, it is the light wavelengths that are blocked by using water. Your harvest will be decreased in size and thus ruining the efficiency of using HID lamps.

How about a water cooled vent hood?

 

[1love1earth]

This is a big side thought, that somehow just hit me!

Why not get the best of EVERYTHING, and skip HID entirely!

Go LED. Take that immense amount of money you were going to spend on the watercooled setup, and go LED.

BTW, I'm talking an LED setup like nobody has EVER run. For every 1000 watt light you were going to use, how about 4 procyon's or lightblaze's.

They run about $500 each, and supposedly each is equiv to 400 watt HID, but runs on 1/4 of the power, and heat? It's a joke. There really isn't any.

So how about running a crazy number of these "Cree" led units, they are the future IMO.

I bet you could get one HELLUVA discount buying in bulk, hell it might even become cost effective to put a build order in for 20-40 custom units, I'm talking much larger arrays of cree LEDs than the procyon or lightblaze.

You could be the first person to truly "break" LEDs with a major crazy commercial op.

 

[Guest]

my gawd...... this is a thread to talk about the positives/negatives and ideas relevant to the topic.

Oops, my bad.

 

[Uncle FREEDOM]

Hell ya i could make a pond but the problem might be explaining why it does not freeze, and maybe give off steam in the middle of winter! lol!!

but 2 of these might do the trick (2 so the water has 12 hours to cool)

http://www.gototanks.com/1600-Gallon-Fresh-Water-Tank-D.aspx

As for losing light, i have access to a light meter and will buy a couple of the water tubes and compare them with a cool tube... There are to real reasons for going the water way. heat signatures, and reducing sound, since being in the country sound travels, and the people next property over are noisy. Quite frankly loosing up to 10 % is "cool" with me, i like the peace of mind.

as for the spectrum, the site that sells the tubes clains a broader spectrum passing through the water tubes. (take that with a grain of salt, as i have no way to confirm that.) But i will tell you i spent a day in panama drinking in the pool with just my head above water, and boy did i get a sunburn on my shoulders and upper chest. (so much for water cooling! LOL) sunscreen on my face worked GREAT! hehe

Right now i am working on a fail safe for pumping the water... (think cycle timer, flip/flop, back flow preventers, and 2 pumps.) that way if one pump fails, i have time to fix the problem.

let me know what you boys think.

As for led's... ya i follow that stuff online... But quite frankly i think you should do a search for plasma arc lights... runs at the temp (and spectrum) of the sun, and uses even less power then led's. Unfortunately they will not be out for a couple of years. (should see them in projecters first.)

peace my brothers

 

[word]

heat exchanger works awesome...... buddy is using w/ 5 gallon rez and is coooollll!!! its crazy when you can almost touch the bulb and feel nada.... cool to the touch and you can use it with any reflector as well.... and only a 9% lumen loss from that... which you will gain way more than that back by how close you can drop to the canopy!!!!

Plasma Arc lights will be the end all, be all........

 

[GMT]

Wouldn't it be much easier to turn the idea on its head. Run the cool tubes, and then pipe the hot air into the piping system, and run the copper coils through large water drums burried into the ground to cool the air before it either emerges somewhere or gets pumped back through the cool tubes. If you were determined to run water for heat signature purposes, then a series of double glazed windows can be used and the water pumped inbetween the pains of glass once a couple of holes are drilled into the plastic frame. These could be mounted above the grow, creating a cool barrier for the heat. This way you can avoid all the stress of running water around the actual bulb itself. A combo system would be very effective, but lots of work.

 

[green_tea]

the reason you got sunburned was because the light reflected off the water and back up to your face....

you kinda just shot the whole water idea down on your own!!! (hehe)

BINGO:

http://www.d-a-instruments.com/light_absorption.html

check it. shows a graph of how much the water (pure water ) will absorb the light based on wavelength

EDIT: so you are looking at a coefficent of .001 - .07ish based on the light color.

can anybody help me out and figure out the actual formula we need to plug this into???

 

[Uncle FREEDOM]

my face did not get burnt.... i had sunscreen on it.

but wow my shoulder BELOW the water sure got red.

 

[gregor_mendel]

I hope you get this figured out.

Besides the lack of typical heat signature, the near silent operation compared to high power fans and AC is worth the $400-$500 per lamp cost.

Uncle:

If you run the numbers, you could size your pond to freeze "enough" on top.

 

[2buds]

Looking at the pic of the water cooled light fixture, wouldn't each fixture need to be plumbed to a manifold? Can you run these things in sequence? In sequence wouldn't you face the same problems as air cooled lights where only the first couple of lights actually cool and by the middle of the air stream the heat has built up to a point that nothing is cooling at the end of the line? This all falls in the geothermal type of heat/air doesn't it? I can tell you copper is fuggin expensive. Plan on $1000's in copper expense. The PEX tubing comes to mind since it works for radiant heat flooring, wouldn't it conduct the heat from the lines in the soil returning your water at an ambient temp of whatever the ground is? Would you have 2 closed loop systems with an exchange happening in a res or would your water in your tubes also circulate under ground?( be wary of leaks underground which all of a sudden drain your system and no water equals burned up pumps and no cooled lights, may want to add a top off system just in case you spring a leak outside while your away) The loop underground(if separate) could use an anti-freeze type fluid that would possibly prevent algae problems and conduct the heat transfer better? (???) Hell, I'd like to see you do it. I like the idea on the cool tube auction about using the heated water to heat your pool. A 50 gal res per 1000watt light is a big res.( How much 1" tubing would you need to hold 50 gallons of water times how many lights running?) When you start digging for the tubing area might as well put in a pool next to it. You'll be the only guy swimming in December. Maybe you could use your in ground tubing idea with a couple of those industrial shop/swamp coolers that use a water res pumped through that mesh/gauze type material to produce cool air. Large industrial facilities(hospitals) use a water cooling type system. Good luck man. Get you some AC out of this too.
Peace

 

[Uncle FREEDOM]

Ya copper is like gold now... was thinking the pex too. but since i live in a farming area, i might just get a big tank since they are everywhere out here. (looking to pick up a used one cheap.)

Ya it would be cool to install radiant heating in my house, and help heat my hot tub too, but unfortunately it is not near the house. But if someone wanted to do it it would be super easy to do. (well at least what i would consider super easy LOL)

We shall see i am going to order some of the lights this week, will try and have it up and running within a month.

Loving the flow of idea's