Water cooled COB Build/pic heavy

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
20 gal of water would be downright hot water if it was taking ~250W of pure heat off of cobs for 12 hours at a time
It doesn't even take that long. I forget the equation, But in testing 20 gallons on a 650w light was room temp from 50F in about 2 hrs.
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
As someone who's already done it, it's my opinion that is a solution increasingly in search of a problem. As LED lighting gets cheaper and more efficient, this will be less and less necessary.
This is a form of evaporative cooling and can be very effective. One must be sure to monitor nutrient strength as it will tend to rise, as well as RH in the space where the reservoir is kept.
Spoken from experience :bigjoint: Listen up
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
maybe liquid cooled bars need to become cheaper and more efficient ;)
We're working on, But cheap and water-cooling ........hmmmmmmm yeah, we're workin on it. The cheapest way really is to say fuck water-cooled lights and just water cool an LED lit room...... But wheres the fun in that. Boring!

And, the big and, why can't the lights be the air handler as well. This is what I applied for with my NPP. A light fixture that cools the room as well as lights it.
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
@Godfather420 and @ttystikk this is one the last true threads I ❤! An exchange of ideas and information, without any name calling and belittling! Please, keep this discussion going. With my next grow room I would like to implement a smaller scale of what you guys are doing (not 90,000 btus ). Here in Oregon we fight the humidity year round so all this information is quite useful.
Thanks Organic Miner,

It's people like yourself that drive me to give back to this site. Thank you for all the years of sharing your experiences to me.
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
I have a few ideas...
Well do tell ol' mate! We're here to learn.

The way I see it, system design is about about balance. In my mini split and air-cooled HPS trailer, the ac dehumidifies as well as two bigs Sante Fe's. My girls are sweating out 25 gallons of water a day.... Trying to deal with this in my water-cooled set-up became a nightmare of three way control valves, by-pass lines, and micromanaging 2 temps of water. 55-60F as ttystik stated early and 38-42F for dehumidification. Also, you then need to repipe and recover the waste heat from the chiller and only a chiller because you need that hot gas side.

I plan on running free cooling in the winter. Without a heat source (wasted energy) my room would be too cold trying to achieve the amount of dehumidification I need with chilled water or air conditioning. I'm planning on using my trusty old sante fe's to dehumidify with... and my lights to cool the heat from them and remove their LED heat as well. Some of these new dehumidifiers are getting some very efficient numbers. I can then work on balancing flow with outside ambient air temperature by cycling the fan on the radiator and decreasing the speed of the pump. My cooling in the winter should be real nice and I'll blast the chiller for the 4-5 months here.

I've got some drawings on an air cooled dehumidifier that I'm working on as well that run's off 40w and should pull a couple gallons of water a day.

One thing for us all to consider.... Like it's always been ,what works for me, may not work for you. For example, over in montana, water- cooled lights and just a lil burp of fresh air exchange keeps there rooms nice in the winter. They have harsh humidity dips in 20-30's. Using air cooled lights, conventional lights or even LED's or any type of unsealed room had very poor VFD in the winter. not exchange as much air allows you to bump that humidity up a little. Everybody's environments are a little bit different.

And another thing, the thing that first attracted me to Fresca Sol's, maybe water-cooled lights will allow some of us to keep growing herb just a little bit longer without getting busted! FUCK THE POLICE! FUCK YOUR CORRUPT SYSTEM! FUCK HYPOCRISY! These motherfucker's are my sworn enemy! They have harassed me and my friends for way to long. This is one of the many ways I choose to take a stand. Since I was a boy, I've dreamed of growing up to find more ways to fight this system. And I'm happy to report back that I'm winning this battle, not ALL, but most! On we go. OOOPS....Allright.. I'll get off my soapbox.bongsmilie
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Well do tell ol' mate! We're here to learn.

The way I see it, system design is about about balance. In my mini split and air-cooled HPS trailer, the ac dehumidifies as well as two bigs Sante Fe's. My girls are sweating out 25 gallons of water a day.... Trying to deal with this in my water-cooled set-up became a nightmare of three way control valves, by-pass lines, and micromanaging 2 temps of water. 55-60F as ttystik stated early and 38-42F for dehumidification. Also, you then need to repipe and recover the waste heat from the chiller and only a chiller because you need that hot gas side.

I plan on running free cooling in the winter. Without a heat source (wasted energy) my room would be too cold trying to achieve the amount of dehumidification I need with chilled water or air conditioning. I'm planning on using my trusty old sante fe's to dehumidify with... and my lights to cool the heat from them and remove their LED heat as well. Some of these new dehumidifiers are getting some very efficient numbers. I can then work on balancing flow with outside ambient air temperature by cycling the fan on the radiator and decreasing the speed of the pump. My cooling in the winter should be real nice and I'll blast the chiller for the 4-5 months here.

I've got some drawings on an air cooled dehumidifier that I'm working on as well that run's off 40w and should pull a couple gallons of water a day.

One thing for us all to consider.... Like it's always been ,what works for me, may not work for you. For example, over in montana, water- cooled lights and just a lil burp of fresh air exchange keeps there rooms nice in the winter. They have harsh humidity dips in 20-30's. Using air cooled lights, conventional lights or even LED's or any type of unsealed room had very poor VFD in the winter. not exchange as much air allows you to bump that humidity up a little. Everybody's environments are a little bit different.

And another thing, the thing that first attracted me to Fresca Sol's, maybe water-cooled lights will allow some of us to keep growing herb just a little bit longer without getting busted! FUCK THE POLICE! FUCK YOUR CORRUPT SYSTEM! FUCK HYPOCRISY! These motherfucker's are my sworn enemy! They have harassed me and my friends for way to long. This is one of the many ways I choose to take a stand. Since I was a boy, I've dreamed of growing up to find more ways to fight this system. And I'm happy to report back that I'm winning this battle, not ALL, but most! On we go. OOOPS....Allright.. I'll get off my soapbox.bongsmilie
I had no trouble keeping my RH under control with just one cold water circuit at 55F.

Fresca Sol is an obsolete nightmare of a bad idea. How many layers of shit do you really want to send your light through on the way to the plants, anyway? Zero is best; results suffer increasingly from there.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
how much water were you pulling out a day? Sealed room yeah?
10kW of HID lighting 288 sq ft of growing trellis area in a 16x11' room, was mostly filling a 32 gallon barrel of water daily, so easily 25-28 gallons. I'd add a few gallons of stock solution and it would be that day's nutrient reservoir.
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
10kW of HID lighting 288 sq ft of growing trellis area in a 16x11' room, was mostly filling a 32 gallon barrel of water daily, so easily 25-28 gallons. I'd add a few gallons of stock solution and it would be that day's nutrient reservoir.
Thats about where I'm at. 16 600's.... So you mean to tell me ttys that you were dehumidifying and cooling a full 10k sealed on 16A/240 average draw?
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
I use to do this, but all the slime i find growing in my condensate pumps and lines over the years keeps me from liking to do this.....But Its admirable.:clap:
I don't drink it, i put it back into the plants. Works great!

Same chiller keeps the RDWC temperatures in line, so never a problem.
 

Godfather420

Well-Known Member
Number 5 is the only change I made. I went with tinned stranded 18gau

View attachment 3993494
As you can see in the pic, where the little metal finger of the BJB holder strikes the cob, its not exactly on the money.

View attachment 3993496
In this pic you'll notice with the wire inserted it is cocked to the left.... Could have something to do with the tinning process and it not being circular...We figured a work around.

@CobKits- We're still having immense difficulty dealing with these bjb' holder's and 2 more lights that failed to light any of the 9 cobs...... Do the Ideal chip holders have the same bolt layout as the bjb's, because we're totally over these?
 

CobKits

Well-Known Member
ideals have a slightly wider/stiffer spring tab mechanism

I hasten to say they are "better" necessarily, out of 1000s ive sold and assembled, i think you may be the only person thats had an issue with the BJBs. its my holder of choice because i like the look and the "mini-reflector". i usually only recommend ideals for people with builds over 150V

and as we discussed i always use paste over pads

as for the cobs not lighting up, remember in a string it only takes one bad connection. if i had to guess, id put my money on the tinned stranded wire. this could put the 18 ga diameter (which is already right at the limit of spec) out of spec

i can swap them out for ideals if you wish

email me
 
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