I am going to do some upgrades so I was looking through my hydro shops catalog. I came upon a water cooled light hood for $274 that you can hook into your ressy chiller. Has anyone used these? If so how good do they work? They are just like a cool tube, so it will save me alot of space and I will not need any vent ducting saving even more space. Double bonus!! But before I buy one I would like some info on them. $274 is too much for me for a light tube to go in blind.
Funny you mention this, 2 Fresca Sol Platinums and 2 Master Blaster 1500ws are on my shopping list. I just picked up a 1HP chiller, getting everything bit by bit. My closet will be sealed, only little fans inside to keep the co2 distributed.
John, If you're even blinking an eye at $274 don't even consider watercooling your garden. To cool more than your ressy you need a Seroius chiller and, and, and....You get the picture. Retiree
I cant remember whether it was in a thread or I bumped into it on some web site one night of a fancy water cooled outfit for the lights. The price to rig it was just to high for me to pay any attention. I am sure it would be deluxe though. t6
At a grow shop we visit we dicussed the water cooled lights, they have all the systems set up and running, we were told it is best to have a seperate res for the water to the lights, we were also told that if you went with a 1000 watter you would most likely need a chiller, perhaps even a chiller for the 600 watt system. We came to the conclusion that a portable air conditioner would work better with an air cooled sytem about the same instant that the store manager said "our customers have found it cheaper and with less hassle to use an air-cooled system with a air conditioner if needed. He said the water cooled lights were really so customers can say I drive an escalade instead of I drive a chevy Tahoe, or NO thats not a Toyota, its a Lexus
I water cool my garden for several reasons. One - Electrical efficiency. I don't know what the cost/Kwh was at my last grow. Or this one for that matter. But the point is I'm now running more equipment and paying about $50/mo less. Yes it is true that a watercooled space will cost significantly more to initially set up. But that investment will slowly pay for itself every month. The reason for this efficency is simple. Water conducts heat Much more readily than air. Example: hold your bare arm out in 70° air. It feels cool but comfortable. Now immerse your bare arm into 70° water and it feels COLD. Two - I am limited to growing in a closet and every square inch of floor space is at an absolute premium. The way I see it every bit of space that can't be used for growing is costing you money. My portable AC takes up the same ammount of floor space as at least one large plant. That's one plant less x4/yr. That's significant. Now a split system AC would solve that problem but those are expensive as well and you need an AC guy to run the copper tubing. I don't want some AC guy hooking up a unit inside MY closet. Also, a portable AC can only direct cool air out in one spot. With my water cooled plenum, I can pull warm air in and plumb cool air out to specific locations. For instance from my ballast and to the area immediately under my bulb as well as into my veg room. When running my portable AC I could keep the temps down in the room in general but what really matters is at the canopy immediately below the light. This allows my to keep my light much closer and increasing the effictiveness of the light. Three - Chillers have evolved and become smaller and more powerful. This allows them to be effictively utilized by gardeners. But this also opens up other commercial applications as well. I am using my garden as a testing ground for the application of water cooled residential AC. AC companys have got us all by the balls because you need a licence to handle the freon associated with AC. A water cooled system can be installed by a homeowner, contractor or simple installer. This means that you can offer a significant savings to the consumer. This savings offsets the somewhat higher initial cost of the water cooling equipment. Now this isn't something the person buying a $150k home will be attracted to. But to those purchasing a $300k+ home, I believe it will be quite attractive. These customers have the investment capital to realize the longer term cost savings. To each their own. But I certainly didn't choose the water cooled path so that I can say I drive a Mercedes not a Dodge or something like that. There are solid reasons behind my decisions. Can't say that's true for everyone but I study a LOT before I make choices that affect the single most important aspect of any garden. I think it might have been GG that said something to the effect of "You need to begin the design of your garden with your cooling system and work from there.". I couldn't agree more. If you can only cool 400W plus extras but you've got 600W plus extras, the poor environmental situation will not allow you to realize any advantage of the extra light that is essentially wasted because of an insufficient cooling system. Well now I'm just rambling. Retiree
Well im not worried about the heat or chillers. I have built my room in the attice and it is fully insulated. I installed a window ac unit for a 2000 cubic foot space in a room with 240 cubic feet. I had to run with no vent for my light the last 3 weeks of my last cycle cause the booster fan broke with no heat issues except a hot spot directly underneath the light. i just adjusted the vent to blow directly under the hood glass of the light and it was ok. I only vent to keep the ac costs down. as for a chiller i have a 1/4 hp chiller i got the other day. it is supposed to cool 100 gallons by 30 degrees. i currently only have a 15 gallon res. so that is not an issue either. I just am having problems with the smell leaking through the vents and low head room cause the peak in the center is only 6'5. so i need to cut down on possible places for smell leaks and would like the extra space in the top. But i decided not to do the water cooled lights after discussing it with the hydro shop owner. He has heard nothing but negative feed back and says every one he sold is no longer in use. he said they first came out in the 80s and failed and he thinks they will fail again. he said that they are put together with machines so they cant come apart and be put back together without leaks. he said you have to take them apart eventually cause they get full of algae and must have the inside cleaned. he said everytime someone tried to put a 1000w in them it turned out to be a disaster. then immediately said that much electricity that close to water is a bad idea. I didn't ask him to elaberate on that phrase cause i had heard enough to know it is to much trouble for me. but if you are using them and they are working for you then keep doing what works for you.
ccrete you shouldn't laugh at others when you have no idea what you are talking about. maybe you should FULLY read a post before you decide to try and make yourself look cool on the internet for others. It gets to 120 in the attice but my room has maintained at 62 degrees when i had nothing growing in it just to see if I could do it. Whose laughin now. :roffl: :roffl: :roffl: :roffl:
