Water cooled cobs

H

hour

Well-Known Member
nfhiggs said:
Problem with that kind of profile is there is much less surface area in contact with your water. Plain square tubing maximizes that. The EZtube you showed above would work much better.
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Spose my thought was that say a 4 foot section of the black extrusion would be significantly more material than say the CPU water blocks used by OP. Heat would be distributed throughout the large run of thick aluminum before a ton of heat went to the air, and both passages with water flowing through them would be able to reduce temps of the extrusion for purpose of keeping cobs safe and tent temps bareble. That’d be 8 feet of 1/4” water flow utilizing both holes. My gripe or lack of understanding with those using square tube: is your entire tube getting filled with water? I’m imagining that happening if your outlet is the same size as the inlet.. and the volume of water in a 1” square tube is a little less comfortable than nice passages with threaded fittings even if not as effective at moving heat out of the tent

I can’t find anything conclusive on max flow rate of a 1/4 inch passage but it seems like 30gph. With two supply lines at the inlet side (instead of a tee) I could supply 60gph through the rig.

Not sure why I’m blabbing here, I already have nearly 2500 actual watts of passive and active cooled leds and a spare 4 cob / 200w setup to evaluate effectiveness on.

Thought being: some people, self included, just want to find a cheaper alternative to pin heatsinks and not bother with wiring up cpu coolers. A $20 3-4 foot extrusion to host 4 cobs for a 4 foot wide tent sounds pretty nice and the extras don’t tack on that much either (barbs, teflon tape, a tap kit [or 8020 inc can pre tap the holes], a pump, and some tubing. Maybe $35 all in and cheaper for additional lights. I paid over $100 for 4 heavy pin heatsinks with shipping...

And easy as hell to hang with the T-slot, which would also make a convenient place to tuck wires. Could drill straight thru the T slot and not hit either water passage for passing wires down to cobs, and also screw cobs in diamond fashion or whatever to miss water passage.

Will follow up in a few weeks, lead time sucks for that particular extrusion
 
shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
I had also ordered some LT-F562B in 4000K for some under-cabinet lighting in the kitchen but I found something way more convenient on a trip to IKEA. So.... Threw them in, all ghetto-style, just dangling by the wires.
 

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shimbob

shimbob

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Welp it appears the driver decided to kick the bucket. Went into the tent expecting the lights on, no lights were on. Getting zero volts on open circuit.
I just recently bought a second timer, as we're about to expand into a second tent. The new timer I bought (an Apollo 11) was smaller than our existing timer so I decided to use it on the small veg tent with these LEDs and our existing timer on the flower tent with the larger light. Did the new timer somehow f'up my driver?

Ordered an HLG-240H-C1400A to replace it.

[an hour later, edit]
uhm, this is embarrassing. Triple checked all the connections, found something suspicious in the AC-side 220V plug, redid the plug, and uhm, well nevermind then, it works once again. Not cancelling the order for the new driver, time for another little upgrade.
 
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ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
shimbob said:
Welp it appears the driver decided to kick the bucket. Went into the tent expecting the lights on, no lights were on. Getting zero volts on open circuit.
I just recently bought a second timer, as we're about to expand into a second tent. The new timer I bought (an Apollo 11) was smaller than our existing timer so I decided to use it on the small veg tent with these LEDs and our existing timer on the flower tent with the larger light. Did the new timer somehow f'up my driver?

Ordered an HLG-240H-C1400A to replace it.
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Was it hot? They have internal thermal safeties.
 
shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
ttystikk said:
Sorry to hear that. Guess it's toast.
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It's not, turned out to be my wiring inside the AC plug. I didn't catch it the first two times I checked the plug, but on third check of the wire-side screw terminal inside the plug, I noticed I had it clamping down on the wire insulation, not the wire. DOH! Newbie mistake, but it did run until I changed the timer.
 
shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
1212ham said:
Frankenlight, LOL. ;) Sounds like a title for a fun thread.... Show us your Frankenlights!
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I suspect there's an under-represented subcategory of homegrown lights. Not just made at once, but grown over time. I don't think this is its final form.

Homegrown means sometimes the screws come close to the plumbing.
 

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shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
Disaster.

Light has been running perfectly since the beginning, I have 4 large mothers under it that have grown up into the ceiling of the tent.
So I moved the light to the side and tilted it to hit the plants on their sides.

Unfortunately tilting the light elevated two waterblocks and I suspect air bubbles made their way in where they stayed and accumulated. The pump was not running hard enough to push the air out and back into the reservoir. Without water, they got little bit too warm...

Thus ends this prototype. Time to design another.
IMG_20190403_210703.jpg
IMG_20190403_210639.jpg
 
shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
No kidding, primer started toasting. Came into the room expecting the delicious aroma of the flower tent but instead inhaled melted PVC and toasted primer.IMG_20190403_223600.jpg
 
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1212ham

Well-Known Member
shimbob said:
No kidding, primer started toasting. Came into the room expecting the delicious aroma of the flower tent but instead inhaled melted PVC and toasted primer.View attachment 4311779
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Wow, I'm sure glad it wasn't worse! Did the cob survive? Future plans for the light?

2-3 years ago I concluded water blocks can do a great job, but they don't work if there's ever a water flow problem. LED strips were coming on strong and I realized they are ideal for water cooling, if there's a water problem, the tube has enough area to keep things cool. I can run my light passively, or with water cooling. I figured I gotta build a frame, why not put water through it?

You could put sheet aluminum between the cobs and water blocks, it would give some passive cooling for a safety margin.
 
shimbob

shimbob

Well-Known Member
I think the cobs are still good. I was hunting the source of the smell and went straight to shut off power the moment I realized what was happening, pretty sure the cobs were still lit at the time.
For now to replace the veg light I just finished assembling two full-sized baking sheets with 14 1' F strips and an hlg-240H I had. But that's not watercooled and thus not interesting. No rush to rebuild it. For the next build I'l like to keep the waterblocks but weld them together into a self-supporting assembly of copper wyes and bent tubing. This would give it the thermal mass for passive cooling. Low priority though.
 
ttystikk

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
shimbob said:
I think the cobs are still good. I was hunting the source of the smell and went straight to shut off power the moment I realized what was happening, pretty sure the cobs were still lit at the time.
For now to replace the veg light I just finished assembling two full-sized baking sheets with 14 1' F strips and an hlg-240H I had. But that's not watercooled and thus not interesting. No rush to rebuild it. For the next build I'l like to keep the waterblocks but weld them together into a self-supporting assembly of copper wyes and bent tubing. This would give it the thermal mass for passive cooling. Low priority though.
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Air in the waterlines was a real issue for me. I had to redesign my setup to make sure air bubbles had a way out.
 
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