Hello all, I know I'm new to this game but there's some skills I have that might help me with a project, which is to build an 8' x 8' grow room, i'll sketch the layout later, but suffice to say I'd like to run 8 - 8' cob fixtures. Priced the stuff over at HeatsinkUSA and the total came out to close to $900 just for the passive heats sink. That's when my pipefitting/plumbinb background comes in handy. I started think of a way to water cool that, but now with the typical fan and fin setup. Instead my idea is, first to use extruded aluminum rectangular tubing, 1' x 6' x 8'. This stuffs not cheap, about $90 per length for a total of $720 but the then some of the extruded heatsink material I looked at was over $3.8 per inch, for a total of $1512 (these are rough numbers figured while I'm completly toked up, lol.)
So the essential design is to use one eight-foot piece to support the COB and act as active heat sink. The tubing will have been welded closed at each end, and centered in each end will be drilles/tapped fittings to allow 1/2" pex or cpvc to be connected. These light bars would have 2 Drivers attached to each end running and running 16 COBs on each bar. These tubes would be connected via a manifold at each end - one end will draw cool water through a Grundfos 1/25 hp circulating pump, the other will transport athe heated coolant from the discharge manifold into an enclosure, first passing the coolant through a used car radiator and box fan, then into a reservoir. The discharge side will have a filter and a bleeder valve which constantly removes air from the system.
I believe the initial material cost is cheaper, and IF the water cooling works on this scale, I think it would provide a lot of advantages. But I'm happy to receive an criticism or advise or better ideas. I just like the idea because it's simple and possibly provides better cooling, with the right tweeks ;?)
More details tomorrow, it's getting late, but does it sould doable? If each 8' fixture had 8 COBs