Wet Strippers Inside

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
My old Veros are coming up on four years old now and much more efficient strips are available now so it is time to upgrade! My old build is water cooled and was expensive but I have grown four pounds of varying but increasing quality weed with it, so it's really paid off. If you want all the details, the original build thread is at http://rollitup.org/t/more-money-than-brains-a-water-cooled-cab-build.802108/ The new lights are looking to be Samsung Q strips.

The cab is a three chamber perpetual affair with 35L x 17W x 30H for flower and a pair of 17 x 17 x 21H chambers for moms + veg/clone. There are currently three old Vero 29's @ 1.9A in flower, a Vero 18 @ 1.7A in veg, and a Vero 18 @ 1A for the moms, all at 4000K. I'm using those 40mm square water blocks found on AliB, eBay, and everywhere else along with a little Eheim pump and a PC watercooling radiator housed in a small PC tower.

Issues I had with my old build in flower were burning buds that got too close to the emitters. Buds grow up and around the emitters and shade everything else, wasting light. The uneveness is really an issue in the mother chamber, where I have sixteen moms in solo cups. There also just isn't enough light in the mother chamber and seedlings all stretched too much.

The good thing about the old build is the water carries quite a bit of heat out of the cabinet and out of the closet it is hidden inside and into a much larger room. My temps have been perfect, a steady 76 degrees and only getting up to 80 in the middle of summer. I run the lights at night... I also like how the LES is about half an inch below the top of the chamber, maximizing my limited space. Everything is super quiet since I'm not relying on my ventilation fan as much to remove heat, only humidity (stays around 55-65% in flower.)

So I'm sticking with water cooling, the problem is now I need water blocks a foot long and ideally also sub-35-inchers that will fit the length of my flower chamber. The Chinese ones only go up to 160mm and the minimum orders for custom parts are pretty big, 50 pieces, but I only need eight long ones in flower and a dozen 1 footers total in the bottom. So it's DIY time.

I'm making water blocks out of 1"x0.5" aluminum rectangle tube. I'm sealing the ends off with pieces of 0.5" aluminum angle and attaching hose barbs to each end. I thought about soldering (pseudo-brazing with alumiweld rods) the pieces together, which is why I have some expensive aluminum barbs, but I thought it would get tricky to simultaneously solder a cap on the end and a barb on the side without setting up a complex fixture. So I'm experimenting with gluing the parts together using JB Weld steel reinforced epoxy. At first I tried some aluminum reinforced epoxy putty but it wasn't sticky enough and hardened too quickly.

Unassembled 1' water block.

unassembled.jpg


Assembled with epoxy below. Once it fully hardens I'm going to drill through the block and any excess epoxy blocking the hole by using the barb as a guide.

assembled.jpg

You can see by using the angle as a cap there is now a tab on each end where I can drill a hole and just screw the assembly to the top of the cab.

I've got parts to build a few more and do some leak testing. If all goes well I'm going to order parts to make nine more 1' blocks and eight 34" ones to fit in my bloom room.
 

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
Thanks! I think once it hardens I can go back and smear more epoxy around the seams and over the sides of the block and cap on the ends to make the bond stronger than just on the edges (though it is 0.125" walled tubing.) Then it definitely shouldn't leak. I haven't had any leaks with my current rig, just air building up in the radiator making it less efficient. Once a year I top up the reservoir and tilt the radiator to get the air out.
 

freemanjack

Well-Known Member
Thanks! I think once it hardens I can go back and smear more epoxy around the seams and over the sides of the block and cap on the ends to make the bond stronger than just on the edges (though it is 0.125" walled tubing.) Then it definitely shouldn't leak. I haven't had any leaks with my current rig, just air building up in the radiator making it less efficient. Once a year I top up the reservoir and tilt the radiator to get the air out.
Could try a slow cure silicone, the quick ones lack adhesion but a good thick schmoo of the slow cure shite would seal yer end plugs in and be dismantleable with nowt more than a craft knife in future.
 

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
Could try a slow cure silicone, the quick ones lack adhesion but a good thick schmoo of the slow cure shite would seal yer end plugs in and be dismantleable with nowt more than a craft knife in future.
That's a good idea. I don't think I'll need to dismantle them though. I like the permanence of the epoxy. I'm not too worried about leaks now that I think about it, because I have trays under all of the lights, there's not that much water, the strips probably won't burn out, etc... JB Weld is thick and sticky, I'm confident in the seal.
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
I like it. I thought about using 1/2" square aluminum tube on single row strips.

I've probably used 50 pounds of epoxy on aluminum. I use Devcon-F but JB is good stuff, you should have no problems unless it gets very hot. Roughing up the surface with very course sandpaper etc. and cleaning with brake cleaner or lacquer thinner etc. recommended.
 

mahiluana

Well-Known Member
I'm confident in the seal
have a look to a solution with rubber and flange...

whenever needed I can open the tube ... to clean and renew anti-corrosion.

I use a heatexchanger to cool down my lamp and have hot showers for not to waste the
...still enormeous heat production of led light (~75% of input)

The direct contact of the led chip to the water, gives me an excellent Tj and longlife (:

S6001991.JPG S6001993.JPG S6001989.JPG
 

whitebb2727

Well-Known Member
JB weld is ok stuff. I prefer the two part epoxy that comes in a syringe.

How did the cooling blocks work out?
 

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
have a look to a solution with rubber and flange...

whenever needed I can open the tube ... to clean and renew anti-corrosion.
I forgot to mention that this is a cool idea, using threaded rods in tension to hold the caps on. I'm not sure I'm ever going to want to open up the water blocks, I'm hoping to avoid too much corrosion by using all aluminum parts. I alsoI think it's might be too much additional work for me since I'm planning to make quite a few water blocks for the strips, 21 in all. 7 one footers each in the mom and veg rooms, plus another 7 three footers in the bloom room.
 

Observe & Report

Well-Known Member
I digitized some of the graphs in the Bridgelux EB Gen 2 datasheet strips and used Alesh's spreadsheet to calculate the LER and QER.

EB Gen 2 3000K @ 350ma & 25C
VF 19.5V (typ)
Flux: 1195 lm typ)
LER: 327.16 lm/W
QER: 4.8369
-> 2.589 uMol/J

3000K @ 285 ma * 25C
vf: 19.3
flux: 969.68275 (1195 * .81145)
-> 2.606 µmol/j

By my calculations, the Samsung Q strip is maybe 4% more efficient than the EB-II strip when run at about the same luminosity. However, the one foot Q strips are $5.75 in quantities >25 while the EB-II strips are only $4.14. So I could add a couple more EB strips and meet or exceed the Q strip efficiency at the same initial outlay. Also, as far as I am aware Bridgelux does not manufacture any autonomous weapon systems.

Looks like I'm remaining a member of the Bridgelux Brigade!
 

mahiluana

Well-Known Member
to avoid too much corrosion by using all aluminum parts
i guess your fittings are not made out of aluminium and inside the water circuit maybe you will find other metals as well. So corrosion also depends on your local water - best value, but expensive is destillated water.
I put an anticorrosion called "fluid film gel bn" - it`s kind of grease made out of sheep wool.
It is very similiar to warmed up, transparent shoe polish. I put a very thin cape on all metal parts.

@Yodaweed - to help yourself out of depression and disappointing - it is also a brilliant protection against brittle leather of any hanging slut tit - wiping the windshield of your car. :o

might be too much additional work for me since I'm planning to make quite a few water blocks
Preparing bigger number of the same parts - made my working process more efficient and productive.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
i guess your fittings are not made out of aluminium and inside the water circuit maybe you will find other metals as well. So corrosion also depends on your local water - best value, but expensive is destillated water.
I put an anticorrosion called "fluid film gel bn" - it`s kind of grease made out of sheep wool.
It is very similiar to warmed up, transparent shoe polish. I put a very thin cape on all metal parts.

@Yodaweed - to help yourself out of depression and disappointing - it is also a brilliant protection against brittle leather of any hanging slut tit - wiping the windshield of your car. :o



Preparing bigger number of the same parts - made my working process more efficient and productive.
Another cheap option to reduce corrosion is to use 5-10% antifreeze with corrosion inhibitors.
 
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