Canada Grows to the 4 Plant Limit

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Why water cool LED's in the first place? I thought these things were efficient and ran cool?
If ya live in Canada it's a lot cheaper than heat sinks! About 25 to 30% of the energy an LED uses is turned into light the other 70 to 75% is heat and if yer running a kilowatt grow that heat can build up, water makes it easy to remove that heat from the grow. Also I can recover the heat from the lamps to use in the house most of the year.

Makes the grow environment easier to manage, especially in small spaces. Also there's no drilling and thread tapping for COB holders with this design, just an electric drill required to build it.

How much does a custom drilled and tapped pin heatsink cost delivered to the otherside of nowhere in Canada? I would need 15 pin heatsinks for the above lamp, the cooling tubes and end fittings only cost $24CDN.

This light is built with cheap leftover flood light COBs, the next larger lamp will use 21 Citizen CLU 048 COBs running at 50 watts each and will be a 6 foot long rebuild of my current 5 foot long water cooled light.
 
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ttystikk

Well-Known Member
If ya live in Canada it's a lot cheaper than heat sinks! About 25 to 30% of the energy an LED uses is turned into light the other 70 to 75% is heat and if yer running a kilowatt grow that heat can build up, water makes it easy to remove that heat from the grow. Also I can recover the heat from the lamps to use in the house most of the year.

Makes the grow environment easier to manage, especially in small spaces.
Saving money on cooling to save money on heating elsewhere in the house.

Terrible idea! Lol
 

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
Improving efficiency. This reduces cost, allowing more crops to be grown economically. This isn't just about weed anymore, bro.
How does adding complexity and more auxillary equipment..ie the chiller..reduce cost? LED is still alot more expensive than HID up front. Rooms still need climate control and cooling the room is more practical than cooling the equipment in the room.
 

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
If ya live in Canada it's a lot cheaper than heat sinks! About 25 to 30% of the energy an LED uses is turned into light the other 70 to 75% is heat and if yer running a kilowatt grow that heat can build up, water makes it easy to remove that heat from the grow. Also I can recover the heat from the lamps to use in the house most of the year.

Makes the grow environment easier to manage, especially in small spaces. Also there's no drilling and thread tapping for COB holders with this design, just an electric drill required to build it.

How much does a custom drilled and tapped pin heatsink cost delivered to the otherside of nowhere in Canada? I would need 15 pin heatsinks for the above lamp, the cooling tubes and end fittings only cost $24CDN.

This light is built with cheap leftover flood light COBs, the next larger lamp will use 21 Citizen CLU 048 COBs running at 50 watts each and will be a 6 foot long rebuild of my current 5 foot long water cooled light.
I do live in Canada. I thought LED's are much more efficient than that...25-30% isnt much better than HID?
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
I do live in Canada. I thought LED's are much more efficient than that...25-30% isnt much better than HID?
The HID lumens/watt is about the same for most leds, but LED spectrum and light distribution are much better. High end COBs are more efficient, but still only in the 30% 40% range when run at practical currents. Some folks are using bridgelux strips (see page 16 of this thread) and mounting the rigid four foot long strips onto light aluminum angle with cheap ebay double sided adhesive CPU thermal tape, this is one way to avoid COBs and heatsinks. I believe the efficacy for these strips is over 150lm/watt, your still stuck with the heat in the grow though.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
How does adding complexity and more auxillary equipment..ie the chiller..reduce cost? LED is still alot more expensive than HID up front. Rooms still need climate control and cooling the room is more practical than cooling the equipment in the room.
My single chiller replaced AC for temperature control, dehuey for RH control and chilling for RDWC temperature control. Show me where it's more complex?

The heat is then used wherever it's needed, saving even more.
 

mahiluana

Well-Known Member
For some stupid reasons - we are not allowed to grow our weed directly under the sun.
That`s why we are hanging around here, discussing our personal light-systems.

To imitate and substitute the sun tho means - to reproduce a little light heat cogeneration unit.
Because the sun is the first light heat cogeneration in our univers since billions of centuries ago.

1 year ago I finished my first watercooled led lamp and started to recognize, what is posible
with watercooling.
:idea:(:
1 year later I say: !!! WATERCOOLING (LED LIGHT ) CAN SAVE THE PLANET !!!

There is no other solution against the global warm up - and one reason for Jesus to learn how to " WALK OVER ^ THE WATER "

I see the future of a watercooled grow room more as a heating unit for buildings in general,
but also a big chance to take some pressure out of industriel agriculture, and grow your own clean food all around the year.

and @redi jedi - yes it`s a fact that even led light has 3 times better heat efficiency than light efficiency.
So energy efficiency of a watercooled set up with heat exchanger can triple easiely
compared to an aircooled led light. And Canada is a perfect place to rewin heat and use it during wintertimes.
Powered by wind and/or pv panels it`s also a big chance to compense the still ongoing
global deforestation - fixing CO² / producing O² by heating -
and eating and smoking it all up ... to shit it out again...:rolleyes:
 

mahiluana

Well-Known Member
WTF is the matter with me
I guess all your vertical growing makes you dizzy - loosing horizontal overview
climb down and talk to your local KKK:dunce::dunce::dunce: section-leader,
to touch ground with both feet ;)
He knows the antidote: Eating clean coal is the best - against mental diaria
 

redi jedi

Well-Known Member
My single chiller replaced AC for temperature control, dehuey for RH control and chilling for RDWC temperature control. Show me where it's more complex?

The heat is then used wherever it's needed, saving even more.
Well for one your not using a run of the mill chiller...most dont have a heat recovery circuit. And second, theres alot of plumbing involved which isnt all that complex but labour intense to install.

...and we wont get into if it actually works ;)
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Four Foot Long Gen 3 Water Cooled LED Grow Light bench test
I finished bench testing the 4 foot long water cooled lamp today and I'm pleased with the results, here are a few pics
Here is the bench test setup with a 5 gallon bucket for a reservoir, I had the hose up near the ceiling to test the pump head height
20171127_185219.jpg

The new light is very light when dry or wet and I can use regular ratchet hangers with it
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Here is the 19 watt 12 volt circulating pump from ebay, it will run on a 1.5 amp wall wart, but here I'm using a 3 amp 12 volt adapter I got for a buck from a thrift store. I tested the pump on this bench test and it produced an impressive 8 liter/min flow rate with a 5 foot head, this version does not have threaded inlets and outlets which is easier for me. I figure this pump will allow me to move the reservoir to the basement floor and circulate water to the ground floor if I wished. Only a couple of liters a minute would be required to cool this lamp and I figure this pump should give ya 4 liters a minute at 10 or even 12 feet of head.
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This is the 5 foot long space in the flower room that the 4 foot long lamp will fill. I removed an unused cabinet and doubled the size of an area I call the "nook".
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No grow table for the nook, I'm trying out a new idea, I'm setting my milk crate air pruning pots on top of roughneck totes with holes cut in the lids for drainage and periodic pumping out. I'm just gonna move a couple of totes and milk crates from the veg room to the nook area.
The milk crate fits nicely into the tote lid and I use the cheap $5CDN ebay 12 volt pump to empty the totes into a bucket for disposal
20171127_151530.jpg

Harvest of the old mother tomorrow so I'll have to whip a couple of old farts, me and my buddy to harvest! I wanna put the next crop in the flower room around the first of the month for a bit more vegging before flowering. If the tote idea works out I might get rid of the grow table under the big water cooled light.
Here is the state of my veg room, the four plants with the grids should be in the flower room in a week, eventually two on the table under the large water cooled rig and two in the nook under the new four foot long water cooled light. Time for some lollipopping and training, 5000K works wonderfully for vegging.
20171127_151632.jpg
 
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DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Harvested the old mother a couple of days ago

Here is some of the bud she gave up
20171130_180022.jpg

Gonna give the OG Kush clone a few more days to ripen and I'm moving it under a new water cooled light tomorrow
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All that's left of the old mother, the root mass formed with air pruning is very dense and no root wrap like in regular pots. Roots grow out to the air, die back and dense root branching is stimulated that completely fills the pot with roots, more air is introduced in the medium as well. I usually use milk crates lined with weed barrier cloth and I'll measure the results against the bags to see what the difference is.
20171130_180000.jpg

You can see the roots growing through the sides of the metal mesh on the air pruning waste paper basket pot in this picture. Air pruning pots are worth using and give you much healthier roots, when you combine it with coco coir, you get great results.
20171127_151544.jpg
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Four Foot Long Gen 3 Water Cooled LED Grow Light
I hung the small water cooled LED light rig in the nook area of the flower room today and set up a small temporary cooling system for it with a 5 gallon bucket and heat exchanger. Tomorrow I'm gonna go buy another roughneck tote and move the remaining flowering plant off the table and into the nook. The nook light is configured to light one end or the other and is a better choice for a single plant. I'm gonna grow out the Kush another few days to ripen her up nice, then clean out the flower room and wash the floor etc.

Here it is before I hooked up the hoses
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All fired up and ready for action
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Here is how I'm temporarily cooling the small lamp, this will give me a chance to refit the main cooling system and I'll run both water cooled lamps with their own coolers and each off it's own pump in a common reservoir.
20171201_212516.jpg
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Four Foot Long Gen 3 Water Cooled LED Grow Light
I hung the small water cooled LED light rig in the nook area of the flower room today and set up a small temporary cooling system for it with a 5 gallon bucket and heat exchanger. Tomorrow I'm gonna go buy another roughneck tote and move the remaining flowering plant off the table and into the nook. The nook light is configured to light one end or the other and is a better choice for a single plant. I'm gonna grow out the Kush another few days to ripen her up nice, then clean out the flower room and wash the floor etc.

Here it is before I hooked up the hoses
View attachment 4051587

All fired up and ready for action
View attachment 4051588

Here is how I'm temporarily cooling the small lamp, this will give me a chance to refit the main cooling system and I'll run both water cooled lamps with their own coolers and each off it's own pump in a common reservoir.
View attachment 4051589
Is that a chiller or just a water pump?

Hot water in an open bucket will evaporate and shed a bunch of heat doing it. This effect can be maximized by just blowing air across the water's surface.
 

DIY-HP-LED

Well-Known Member
Is that a chiller or just a water pump?

Hot water in an open bucket will evaporate and shed a bunch of heat doing it. This effect can be maximized by just blowing air across the water's surface.
Just a temporary setup to cool the small light while I work on the main reservoir tomorrow, it will only be operating for a couple of hours. The new light is better suited to a single plant because I can shut down one end. Gonna make some cooling system changes and move the main reservoir down onto the floor where it's cooler. This coming grow will be the real test of the new water cooled design, I figure the 1" square tubing and brass standoffs are the way to go for water cooling. The $12 CDN ebay circulating pump I'm using now will allow a much higher pumping head and I'm really impressed with it's performance.
 

mahiluana

Well-Known Member
make some cooling system changes and move the main reservoir down onto the floor where it's cooler.
:peace: Don`t you need hot water in your grow house ?

S6002017vert.jpg
E-boilers with integrated heatexchanger are perfect in combination with watercooled led light or solar roof power to substitute oil or gas waterheaters.
The pic shows brandnew 80L boiler with integr. magnesium anode (anticorrosion) from ebay ~ US$ 180,-.
With my watercooled lamp power (350-500W) i produce ~30000L of hot water per year.
Enough for 2 persons (shower, kitchen and washing machine)
 
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