Water Cooled Growers Unite!

[bogfan]

Bozo,
I am very curious about how much water you go through in a 12 hour cycle? What exactly are you cooling? Is the condenser and fan cooling the entire sealed room with the 4 600 watters?

Budleydoright,
I see that you have that air conditioning unit exhausting into the room. Do you feel that that is a problem? Also, could you use that unit while still in the window, with a reservoir against the wall under the unit? How would that change how it worked?

Love this thread, wish we could get some more input from water cooled users.

 

[Hydropimp]

anybody running water cooled a/c?

 

[overbudjet]

Pics of my modded a/c way more efficient with water .

 

[apartmentblower]

do the ice boxes work as climate control for the room? I.e. is it possible to run them as the sole source of cooling for the room provided source water is ice-cold year round (mountain spring)? i used to have a nice big heat exchanger that cooled 10 bare bulbs. with cold tap water anything is possible

 

[bogfan]

The iceboxes are supposed to work in conjunction with the fan to remove the bulb and radiant bulb heat. With a chiller or some really cold water and additional ice boxes, you could achieve air conditioning with them. Most everyone agrees that to achieve air conditioning, the iceboxes arent the best heat exchanger.

 

[bogfan]

overbudjet,
You are a badass! If my goal wasnt to reduce electric consumption even more than that, i would be building your setup now.

hey guys consider this:
I want to make a jumbo diy heat exchanger for air conditioning my 4x600s

I want to do it with a 500 or 1000 gallon buried reservoir( 3 feet below the surface) in conjunction with some type of geothermal coil, either copper or Pex or pvc. I want to do drain to waste, but it would overload my septic tank, so I was thinking I would have a drain to buried tank design. I should be able to use some combination of the tank and geothermal pipe to get my temps down before the water heads back for another cooling cycle.

I am contemplating the differences between putting the geothermal coil on the drain side ( when the water is warm and returning to tank) or on the fill side( when it is cooled and headed back to the exchanger). I know I dont want the pump to have to pump through a lot of pipeand I want to buy as small a pump as possible. I can put the reservoir either uphill or downhill from the grow.

I am also curious about the heat loss difference between pex, pvc, and copper, and how the width of the pipe affects the heat transfer.

My goal is to use as little electricity as possible to cool, regardess of cost.
I want to try water cooled lights eventually but for right now, I want to try to cool my room with 4 air cooled 600s with this idea.

Would love to have all input.

 

[bogfan]

we gotta unite better, lol

 

[Ganglere]

Fan-coils?

Fan-coils?

Hi y'all!

Have read through this thread now, and I can't remember having seen this, other than in a cannibalized AC-unit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_coil_unit

Something like this would definetly help me, hell, until I can afford a chiller I can run DWT from tap. Water here is plentiful and colder than most. With water almost 20C cooler than ideal room temps this should help heaps. And with the price of these units being low, I could buy a back-up...

I plan on running a 12' by 12' insulated room with four vertical towers (@ 4X600w) with cooltubes and straight ducting from floor and through ceiling, ballasts outside grow. two towers (8X600w) will be blazing at any time. Co2 will be added by genny.

As this will be a sealed room (minus neg. pres.), humidity is my greatest concern.

Any ideas how this should play out? I intend to publish both my planning of this system, and my first grow in it.

Peace, G

 

[toohighmf]

You can't have a Sealed room & negative pressure. It's one or the other. The point of CEA is that nothing enters, nothing leaves as far as air is concerned. It's the whole point of water cooling. I have witnessed cold air blowing through 4k in lighting. After pulling room air through the heat exchangers, you simply exhaust out your last hood. No holes in ceilings, no exhaust or dump for exhaust needed.

 

[Ganglere]

You can't have a Sealed room & negative pressure. It's one or the other. The point of CEA is that nothing enters, nothing leaves as far as air is concerned. It's the whole point of water cooling. I have witnessed cold air blowing through 4k in lighting. After pulling room air through the heat exchangers, you simply exhaust out your last hood. No holes in ceilings, no exhaust or dump for exhaust needed.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense, thanks

I've been looking for heat exchangers for a while, but finding little. Does anybody have any hints for where to look? Are car radiators efficient enough to use?

Peace, G

 

[toohighmf]

try VW trans coolers..

 

[bogfan]

Why the volkswagen? WOuld a automobile radiator be more efficient than an air conditioner condenser?

 

[toohighmf]

you can buy a whole room chiller with a car sized rad on it to cool the room, but a tiny little rad like a VW trans cooler would be more ideal to make your own ice box style cooler that will cool the lighting. If your in CAN, check out Central valley radiator (CVR) the make BIG room Chillers

 

[+Vibes]

anyone ever thought about a geothermal water-cooled system with a cold in hot out?
or dropping a big copper coil in a well for similar purposes? maybe not for ice boxes though......

 

[jaspmf]

Why the volkswagen? WOuld a automobile radiator be more efficient than an air conditioner condenser?

I'm not positive but I doubt it. I'd bet that an automobile radiator is slightly less efficient because of the compromises made to make it more usable & durable @ high-speed.

Cooling with a fixed temperature source is really all about surface area (or "fins per inch" is the term of measure in this industry I've learned).

 

[jaspmf]

do the ice boxes work as climate control for the room? I.e. is it possible to run them as the sole source of cooling for the room provided source water is ice-cold year round (mountain spring)? i used to have a nice big heat exchanger that cooled 10 bare bulbs. with cold tap water anything is possible

You better be prepared to buy a whole bunch of 'em.

 

[Marleyville]

My chillking has worked awsome

My chillking has worked awsome

I've read lots of diff opinions on the watercooled setups. I imagine that normal in life. I wanted a sealed room for the multi positives. Bought a 2h chillking waterchiller with the 1/2h cast iron flotec pump. Built the 9valve Custom manifold for res chillers and heat exchangers. Sinced dumped the aero gear and res chillers. No problem disconnecting with ball valve manifold. My watercooling has been totally sweet. In the beginning I didn't have a dehumidifier and everything was wet with condensation. After buying the lows 70 pint dehu the rooms been perfect. The watercooled hydrogen pros been keeping a constant 1300 to 1500 co2 ppm. With a push of a chillking digital button I can drop my rooms temp by 10 degrees. I've got my waterchiller set to 65* which keeps my room temps at 82 degrees. Not sure what my ideal temp is with the co2. I'm thinking about 82 day, 72 night. I'm only cooling 1 600, 2 400s, and a 4 4 foot 216 watt t-5. The 2h chillking will easily cool my 4 600 and 2 400 watts all on with no problems. I've had issues were I dealt with Lucas from chillking and he was great. I will say you could save a bunch of money diying the heat exchangers and res chillers. The wort staineless chillers for beer production I think for res chillers.
My experience
Happy growing

 

[ajc0k]

holy shit, you dropped a couple g's on a 2 hp chill king when your running 1600 watts? very nice.. sort of overkill though.. i want a 2 hp for my 5000 watt room.

 

[Marleyville]

Well I'll be running 3200 watts of hid at full capacity.I was reading the beginning talk of this thread about efficiency. This system does not feel efficient. Again though, running thousands of watts of hid takes a lot of juice, and then to cool it is commitment. Can put you in the ranks of players though for sure. Seems like watercooling is a great choice

 

[Marleyville]

I miss San Fran, my bar murios on upper height was great