Air cooled?

sizzilky

Well-Known Member
Im not sure if this is a stupid question but..... does anyone know why they dont have air cooled led like they do hps?
 

Budzbuddha

Well-Known Member
Probably due to way the form factor is designed - flat panels.
Most radiate heat passively from heat sink fins however many growers do put small fans to blow across heatsinks.
Many of the newer offerings are more efficient in design including heat … even those panels that have conformal coatings on the LED side.

Nothing to stop you from DIY
 

Budzbuddha

Well-Known Member
I remember when early DIY COB rigs used modded computer chip fan / heatsinks with individual fans.
I built one years back , got idea from custom computer rigs I used to make for gaming. Eventually good pin fin heatsinks came out.

30996994-C6AA-4798-84F3-2A17C92E0D32.jpeg
 

PopAndSonGrows

Well-Known Member
I don't think it's as necessary. With HID lighting, you have 400 to 1000 watts glowing in one spot, VERY bright and hot. LED lights are spread out over a board or bars, no single spot getting so hot. The fixture itself is usually a heat sink because of that
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
Way back when most leds used to be aircooled, fan over heatsink. But its somewhat problematic when the sinking itself isnt enough without thw fan: fan failure (very common in older designs) would mean leds burning out. Also if you get pm it can get into the light/fans and get really hard to clean. So naturally everybody tried to turn away from aircooled.
 

sizzilky

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the replies ive been out of the grow game for a long time... about to start a grow with a hlg 650rspec... was a lil worried it would get too hot in 4x4
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the replies ive been out of the grow game for a long time... about to start a grow with a hlg 650rspec... was a lil worried it would get too hot in 4x4
The heat will be a little more than 600w HID. The big difference is you can run low to mid 80's with LED. They don't raise leaf temp with infrared, HID does.

Modern LED are air cooled, they just don't use fans and cool tubes.
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Im not sure if this is a stupid question but..... does anyone know why they dont have air cooled led like they do hps?
Hps is air cooled to help remove the heat directly from the space. Not to cool the bulb.

ChilLEDs first LED designs were air-cooled in a similar way.
I thought about adapting an old hood for the same purpose but really most us are greatful for the heat rather than fighting it.

They were air-cooled in the blurple times because heatsinkx added cost so it was cheaper to attach fans and minimal heatsink because they were made out of shite and wanted every penny they could off growers

The heatsink will certainly get hot on a hlg but less so than a cheaper version with less heatsinking. But itl still put the same heat out if the wattage is equal.
 

dropshot

Active Member
I havnt set the tent up yet but about 10 years ago i bought some expensive blurple leds and it was much hotter in my room compared to hps
I'm running a different light in my 4x4, but using using a temperature and humidity controller with an exhaust fan and humidifier you should be able to dial in your environment.
 

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
I havnt set the tent up yet but about 10 years ago i bought some expensive blurple leds and it was much hotter in my room compared to hps
Only if your blurple light pulls more watts than the HPS light, would that would be expected. The heat (energy) generated is measured by watts.

E.g. A 100w HPS, a 100w LED, and a 100w computer all generate the same amount of heat (341 BTU).
 

sizzilky

Well-Known Member
Hps is air cooled to help remove the heat directly from the space. Not to cool the bulb.

ChilLEDs first LED designs were air-cooled in a similar way.
I thought about adapting an old hood for the same purpose but really most us are greatful for the heat rather than fighting it.

They were air-cooled in the blurple times because heatsinkx added cost so it was cheaper to attach fans and minimal heatsink because they were made out of shite and wanted every penny they could off growers

The heatsink will certainly get hot on a hlg but less so than a cheaper version with less heatsinking. But itl still put the same heat out if the wattage is equal.
I just
Only if your blurple light pulls more watts than the HPS light, would that would be expected. The heat (energy) generated is measured by watts.

E.g. A 100w HPS, a 100w LED, and a 100w computer all generate the same amount of heat (341 BTU).
Makes sense.. yeah i matched the watts... never produced anything like the hps hoping the 650 will do work
 

Rocket Soul

Well-Known Member
This HPS heat versus LED heat is a tricky subject. Being scientific minded its hard to argue against the "a watt is a watt" arguement. But it doesnt really reflect what ive seen with my own eyes: we dropped our lights watts with maybe 1200w and had to add much more in watts in space heaters. If it was all watt for watt then 1200 shoulda been enough, right? That gas burner is about 4200watts of heating. But it wasnt really under any precise scientific conditions so who knows.
Thermodynamics seem very easy in theory but is very difficult to take to real world practice. Also a watt is technically not the same as temperature. It is only when the two thermal systems are exactly the same that this watt will create the same temperature difference. And once you changed out the lights this is not true, the two systems are not the same anymore since the light is part of that system. I agree fully that it should be a watt is a watt, but doesnt really mean that it allways will be...
 

grotbags

Well-Known Member
This HPS heat versus LED heat is a tricky subject. Being scientific minded its hard to argue against the "a watt is a watt" arguement. But it doesnt really reflect what ive seen with my own eyes: we dropped our lights watts with maybe 1200w and had to add much more in watts in space heaters. If it was all watt for watt then 1200 shoulda been enough, right? That gas burner is about 4200watts of heating. But it wasnt really under any precise scientific conditions so who knows.
Thermodynamics seem very easy in theory but is very difficult to take to real world practice. Also a watt is technically not the same as temperature. It is only when the two thermal systems are exactly the same that this watt will create the same temperature difference. And once you changed out the lights this is not true, the two systems are not the same anymore since the light is part of that system. I agree fully that it should be a watt is a watt, but doesnt really mean that it allways will be...
yer i think its down to the heat from hps is in IR which is directly heating objects in its path rather than the air between them, where as space heaters ect rely on convection to heat ie they warm the air and then the air transfers the heat to objects in the room.
with hps the IR heat is coming from the bulb reflected down right on to the thing we are trying to heat ie the canopy, very little is wasted heating the walls, ceilling, floor ect. with convection the heated air will circulate around the room and warm up everywhere evenly thats why i think its less efficient for our use case scenario.

as a side note i seen a company selling IR wallpaper as an alternative to radiators for heating rooms in your home, not sure if it works out more effective or cheaper than gas central heating or if its being pushed as greener but i thought it was pretty cool...
 

coreywebster

Well-Known Member
Well the argument always comes back to it all turns to heat and energy cannot be destroyed or created .

My counterpoint would be if you put 100w of incandescent vs 100w of led. The biomass outcome would be vastly different and as such that's where the energy that wasn't heat went, since you can't create nor destroy energy!

You could say it will turn back to heat eventually either by fire or decomposition.

Also the term heat does not necessarily mean temperature
 

OldMedUser

Well-Known Member
LEDs convert more energy into light than the same watts into an HID or so they've been claiming all along.

And if IR is such an issue why can I run a 600W HPS 12" above the canopy with no heat issues but an LED running at a real 600W seems to have to be more like 24" above to prevent problems. I can run my 1000W 12" above when it's on my Light Rail 4.0 no problems either.
Hps is air cooled to help remove the heat directly from the space. Not to cool the bulb.
Not so. If you're using an air cooled hood with the glass in it it's cooling the bulb too which prolongs it's life. Ever see one of those cool tubes with water circulating thru it? A little overkill imo but should do a great job of keeping the heat down.

Heat isn't an issue for me other than lack of it in my basement grow room. It is tho in the 2x4 tent in the spare bedroom on the main floor. I just have a 5 bulb COB light that pulls 200W from the wall and in the summer it's too much. No AC here so just open the window and have the dark period during the day. Only do veg in that tent so light leaks aren't an issue.

:peace:
 

grotbags

Well-Known Member
Well the argument always comes back to it all turns to heat and energy cannot be destroyed or created .

My counterpoint would be if you put 100w of incandescent vs 100w of led. The biomass outcome would be vastly different and as such that's where the energy that wasn't heat went, since you can't create nor destroy energy!

You could say it will turn back to heat eventually either by fire or decomposition.

Also the term heat does not necessarily mean temperature
yer the rabbit hole gets deep real quick.

if you think of the extra light produced by a led over a hps, a portion of that extra light that doesnt hit the plant canopy is absorbed by everthing else in the room turning to heat, and the portion of extra light produced by the led over the hps that does hit the canopy i think only around 25% is captured by the chloroplasts to power photosynthesis. the other 75% of the extra light is wasted as heat.

then of the 25% that is captured by photosynthesis only a fraction of that is turned into actual extra biomass, the rest is used for powering all the different physiological process that make a plant grow which ends up as heat.

so if your a reasonable gardener and can actually convert the extra light you get from a led over a hps watt for watt to actual biomass then yes i think the energy locked away in it does not add to the heat of your growroom, like you say that stored energy is released as heat at some point in the future when someone lights up a fat one! :bigjoint:.
but i think because its such a small percentage of the total photons that get stored as extra biomass that i doubt it has much effect on the overall heat difference we see in led vs hps rooms.
 

grotbags

Well-Known Member
if you think about it everytime you go in your growroom or unzip your tent to have a look at your plants, the photons that enter your eyes that lets you see your plants is removing heat from your grow!, hmmm but then the core temp of your body is adding to the heat in the room....

fucking rabbits...
 
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