Project Big Blue Bastard - 100 watt UV ioniser

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Ionisers are tops for scent killing. There's 2 basic kinds, high voltage corona discharge types and ultraviolet (UV).

Corona types are very cheap, very effective scent killers and easily home built. They are nothing more than a stack of diodes and capacitors connected as a string of voltage doublers to AC mains voltage. However, corona types create nitrogen oxides (NOx) which mix with humidity to form nitric acid (HNO3). Grow exhaust air treated with corona ionisers must vent directly to outdoors. If you vent into a building void (attic, crawlspace), the nitric acid could corrode steel structural parts like joist nailer plates. Bad bad bad. Grow op not allowed to hurt house.

UV types are much more expensive, but do not give off NOx and thus don't create HNO3. However, most UV types are single 10-15 watt fluoro tube units and can not treat large volumes of air.

The answer is more UV tubes. Here's a commercially made multi-tube UV ioniser by Big Blue Air:



The 5 tube, 10" version makes 4000mg/hr of ozone, suiting up to 1200CFM of airflow.

Problem is... it's $US600, would cost $150 to deliver from the US and would need a 110v-240V transformer (another $150) just to run on my local AC mains.

I strongly suspect I can replicate this for a lot less than $900 and build it to suit 240V 50Hz. Mounting 5 UV tubes inside a piece of steel duct sounds like quick work.

I've started combing the lighting suppliers for ballasts and tubes. Found some 20W tubes and if the cost is OK, I'll use 5. Should be able to get 5500mg/hr O3 our of 5x 20w tubes. Housed in a length of 10" duct, it should have no trouble treating my exhaust fan's 280litres/sec (600CFM) flow rate.

yee haw, babay... bigger, better, more. :D

Will post construction notes & pix as I accumulate the parts. Will be an afternoon's assembly project.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Dunno VV, I've never torn an autoclave apart. It would make sense as these UV lamps are also germicidal.
 

th3bigbad

Well-Known Member
what is the nanometer reading of those lights you found? i have been looking for some UVB bulbs (280-300nm) but cant really find much more than 6" bulbs use to dry finger nails.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
what is the nanometer reading of those lights you found? i have been looking for some UVB bulbs (280-300nm) but cant really find much more than 6" bulbs use to dry finger nails.
Pretty sure they're at 253.7nm. I think that's the frequency of emission for all mercury vapour germicidal lamps. The tubes I've found I believe are UVC.

I have just found a 115 watt single tube as well, but it is in a 4' long conventional fluoro tube, type [SIZE=-1]TUV115VHO-R[/SIZE]. One of these 115 watt UV death monsters could theoretically do the job for me. Checking into this a little further.

Thought about this a bit and decided that the scent of ozone itself is a giveaway, so I'm going to continue on the multi-lamp path, with individual, remote power switches for each of the 20W tubes. This way I can dial down the O3 if it is noticeable where it should not be.

Seeing which UV tubes have lighted would be hard in a duct, which is tucked in a difficult to reach place in my op. I could put some photocell operated nightlight circuits in the duct housing the UV tubes, photocells masked so they only see one UV tube at a time, to trigger some indicator lamps (or LEDs) to indicate if any the UV tubes has burned out. Might also be able to simplify this with some optical fibres run to the switchbox. Optical fibres would allow one to see the actual UV tube light.
 

th3bigbad

Well-Known Member
ive been looking for a few UVB bulbs for a while now with no luck. if you come cross any drop me a PM and let me know please. all i can find are the 6" and those would be pointless to try on a large area without haveing 20000 of them. im looking for atleast 2' but 4' would be better
 

th3bigbad

Well-Known Member
i took a look at that site and didnt find any UVB lights at all, but i may have over looked them. but thanx for the link ill look at it more when i get the chance
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
eBay.co.uk: 240VAC IONIC BALL AIR PURIFIER IONIZER BREEZER W OZONE (item 220113811487 end time 22-May-07 07:00:00 BST)
I got one of these when i started growing.

I think it works along the same lines to what your saying and for its little size it is quite effective in odour control and so far I havent felt compelled to buy anything else, I may well invest in a carbon scrubber aswell once i start flowering all these clones i got growing.
The item you cite is a corona type. As mentioned up this thread, corona types produce HNO3 and should not be used in grow room air, only in the exhaust ducting- and then only if air is vented directly to outdoors to avoid any corrosion damage to steel building parts.

However, these really small corona units don't really make much O3- or HNO3. Probably not enough to worry about for humans, plants or steel. They're actually usually rated to produce less than 50ppm O3 as part of being safe to use around people. They'll de-scent ordinary room air but can't usually handle a lot of airflow.

It's easy as pie and VERY cheap to cook up a SERIOUS corona ioniser, something which may have -50kV on the emitter and perhaps even a positively charged dust collection plate nearby with some filter paper on it. Just build the diode & capacitor stacks as shown in the link. Just gotta vent the thing straight to outdoors.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
One bit of scientific terminology which is getting corrupted through the often tawdry marketing efforts for small ionisers is the term 'negative ions.'

Ionisers work by adding an electron to an O2 molecule, giving it a negative charge and allowing it to form O3 (ozone)- temporarily. O3 is a negative ion of oxygen. There's no particle by itself known as an ion; 'ion' describes temporary electrical charge states of molecules or atoms. The 'negative ions' emitted by ionisers are mainly negative ions of oxygen- ozone.
Corona ionisers also ionise nitrogen, producing oxides of nitrogen (NOx), which we know mixes with humidity to form nitric acid (HNO3) as an aerosol.

It's hard to believe that these items are otherwise sold for improving human health. Ozone itself is poisonous to humans, in fact, it is a carcinogen. Ionisers for use in living spaces are thus limited by product safety regulations to making less than 50ppm O3. There's a legal limit on the very 'negative ions' said to be beneficial.

It seems silly to pay for a device to aid your health with the claimed benefits of being 'showered with negative ions' when those ions, aka ozone, are actually a known carcinogen.

Ionisers are very good for de-stinking and disinfecting areas where people generally are not hanging around breathing for too long.

Other claims about ionisers' assistance to human or plant health are highly doubtful pseudoscience, out there with pyramid power, magnetic blankets and copper bracelets.
 

th3bigbad

Well-Known Member
im not trying to jack your thread or anything like that, but you seem to have looked into UV lighting quite a bit. haveing said that im sure you know what/why im lookin for a lamp with a good UVB reading.
i really havent found many weed grows or weed growers that use extra UVB lighting, and there may be a reason for that. but on the other side of the coin i havent found any research on UVB lighting for general plant use either. so maybe its kinda over looked.
ive read a bunch on how plants grown outside is stronger than the same strain grown indoors. and how UV rays are what cause this. UVB are mostly responsible as they are the stronger of the UVB rays. UVB is what you get sunburns/tans from. the plant makes resin to fight off the UV rays, so outside makes for stronger pot.
assumeing all that is right, if you added a UVB light source to a grow room where it would just come on for alil while each day of the flowering phase you might be able to get stronger buds indoors. and if that did work whos to say by makeing the light stay on alil longer each day than the day before the plant wouldnt just go crazy and turn into a huge pile of THC??? lol
anywhoo, what do yall think? worth a shot or not?
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
i really havent found many weed grows or weed growers that use extra UVB lighting, and there may be a reason for that.
I think the reason for that would be lack of any double-blind, conclusive study that UV-B increases resin content.

HID lighting by itself produces a fair amount of radiation across the entire UV spectrum segment. My 1000W HPS lights make enough UV to destroy UV-unstabilised plastics in the grow room in a few months.

With HID lighting at least, I wouldn't bother with UV enhancement. If I was looking for more UV, I'd certainly not choose that incandescent IR/UV floodlight from a couple of posts back. The IR would be a pretty bad thing for the plants.
 

Al B. Fuct

once had a dog named
Right, I've had some inquiries lodged with a lighting supplier about ballasts and UV tubes... but while I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I recall that I have some spare 35 watt UV tubes for my Ozonair 5000 units and I bought a twin 36 watt workshop fluoro fixture some weeks back which I have yet to install.

Seems to me that the 35 watt tubes wouldn't be too bothered by the extra 1 watt per tube that the workshop fixture ballast would allow through the UV tubes.

Gonna have a go at running the UV tubes on the workshop light ballast and see how they work.
 
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