ttystikk
Well-Known Member
I'll see what I can do.
Water cooled COBs
- Thread starter loftygoals
- Start date
Organic Miner
Well-Known Member
Well, like @ttystikk , I would like of all of my cooling needs met by using a water chiller (maybe not such a grand scale as he has done ). This includes room cooling, cob cooling, hydro (rdwc), etc. This way I use one efficient unit to achieve this, versus separate air a/c, water chiller for hydro, heat sinks active/passive for lights. Seems like I can kill multiple birds with one stone AND it's scalable as my grow increases in size. That's it in a nut shell.
Oh, and don't have to hire an hvac guy to install, I can plumb the water lines myself without questions!
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
My work here is done!
Geyapex Technology
Well-Known Member
It's so cool! some companies started to try this technology on led lights, just the cost is really hight...
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Quantum boards are making this kind of complexity obsolete.
Still need to know what kind of lighting setup you want, how big your room is to get any idea of what kind of cooling you might need.
Its about as "scalable" as any air cooled setup,
dont know who you really mean by that.
Also, from personal experience, I would consider using fans and radiators to cool your cobs rather than your chiller. It uses less electricity and you dont have to worry about condensation on your COBs.
Yeah, maybe if you had posted that diagram you talked about posting. LOL
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
@brewbeer
Hi 
I can give you some data of my coolmac-300W
room-temperature: 21°C
ingoing water-temp (red bucket): 23,7°C
outcoming water-temp: 25,5°C
waterpump 40 L / hour 2,3W (cool down up to 2000W... and more)
lamp power: 296,8W
The heat power you can store in the cooling water depends a little bit on the chips used in the system ( you can nearly order and use all kind of high power led chips on this system !),
differences of temps between room and lamp, cooling-water and chip also influence.
I measured with above ^ chinise 50W cobs ~ 160W of stored heat power.
This is 53,9% of 296,8W and pretty much.
Time to change led-lamps from "only lighting"
to ---> waterheaters + lighting.
This can double easiely (> 100%) the efficency of your lamp-system.
Only the difference in power between a 2,3W waterpump and dozens of cooling-fans
in a 2000W system can be significant. Average lamp life should rise in theory and
the worlds coolest chip-platine herself produce up to 15% more lumen, thanks to a very
low junction-temp.
You can calculate and measure your systems with the help of online-calculaters: eg.
https://rechneronline.de/chemie-rechner/heat-capacity.php
for more details select your language and have a look here:
http://www.lumen-laden.de/products/coolmac-300-w-wunschspektrum-wassergekuhlte-led-lampe-6-x-50w-cob/
What do you mean by this? The pump doesn't really do any "cooling" per se. Do you have a radiator or anything to actively remove heat from the system?
Also, this is a pretty bold statement... especially if you're talking just the lamp system and not the setup as a whole.
Unless you are comparing to HID which is a testament more to the eficiency of LEDs, not the method of cooling.
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
Is 1 US$ / real W of lamp power really expensive ?
In the moment the coolmac-system-kit is avaiable up to a 1200W led-lamp basic-version and it`s prize is less than 1000 US$.
The system is easy to copy and if you buy all single components you pay even less.
(me: ~ $ 550)
Cree-chips & Mean Well drivers are avaiable but more expensive.
// OK. nobody knows what
your blond, brandnew super-leader will do in future with exchange rates US$ <---> EURO and import tax. //Using it every day for 15 hours it will generate as a gift
3500 kwh of heat power every year.
With a reasonable need of 40L hot water / person you can run a
9 person
family household and save in your regular energy costs.
I guess cheap energy prices are the only resistance to this new tecnology.
In my country I pay more than double the American Energy Prize and running a 1200W system 10 years long, can save me 8750,- EURO.
Enough money to invest in heat exchanger, tubes and installation, - and still having savings.
Smoke-A-Cola
Well-Known Member
What the hell kind of grow tent is that???
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
@Shugglet - only lower chip-temp is a fact that shows that led-light has much more posibilities and potencial to win the race against HID. I see no way to watercool a HID-light. And so watercooled led-light now doubles speed
and efficiency at the end of the race and will substitute HID-light much quicker.
Without heat-exchanger to save primary energy the watercooled light system can`t double
efficiency, but rise it a 10 - 20% only using waterpump instead of fans and increasing lumen
by low junction temp.
P.S. Don`t forget:
the real race is against climate change cheario
ttystikk
Well-Known Member
Fresca Sol was the name of the water jacket light fixture for HID lights.
I see no way to watercool a HID-light. And so watercooled led-light now doubles speed
and efficiency at the end of the race and will substitute HID-light much quicker.
Without heat-exchanger to save primary energy the watercooled light system can`t double
efficiency, but rise it a 10 - 20% only using waterpump instead of fans and increasing lumen
by low junction temp.
P.S. Don`t forget:
The light shone through a layer of glass, then water, and finally through the outer glass layer. Those who ran them said they were prone to leaks. Scary is an understatement.Having run my own design water cooled COB LED, I can attest that it's very effective and far more practical than the aforementioned solution.
Ignore those who have no direct experience with the technology, as they're still wondering why their horse drawn carriage won't keep up with your automobile.
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
A water-bucket with 10L water / 100W of lamp power is enough heat-capacity to have a basic cooler without any radiator. There are a lot of natural (pasiv) cooling methodes like metall-buckets, clay vessels, room fountains and evaporative cooling have great potencial.
Just add some water from time to time...
and 1001 more options to bring heat down. You dicide if you put your hot bucket in- or outside your growroom.
The heat is easier to manage - you can produce humidity -or close the bucket. No need to pay aditional fans.
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
very pleased to meet people running that "car".at the end we drive with a bigger joint in our hands -
The thing is, really, water cooling isnt even really necessary at wattages that low. Passive heatsinks do just fine.A water-bucket with 10L water / 100W of lamp power is enough heat-capacity to have a basic cooler without any radiator. There are a lot of natural (pasiv) cooling methodes like metall-buckets, clay vessels, room fountains and evaporative cooling have great potencial.
Just add some water from time to time...
and 1001 more options to bring heat down. You dicide if you put your hot bucket in- or outside your growroom.
or close the bucket. No need to pay aditional fans.
Im curious though, so youre just running it from your bucket to your light back to your bucket with about ~150w of heat being added, right? That should add about 13*F an hour to that rez(assuming 5gal of water).
These numbers are with the system at equilibrium? How long had the light been running to achieve those temps?
Those numbers are surprising to me that just the bucket and light would be that effective at radiating the heat out of the system.
I also assume english is not your native language so if you dont understand something let me know and I can try to rephrase it
Last edited:
And to clear a couple things up. LEDs are going to replace HID eventually regardless of what cooling options are available.
Also, water cooling solutions are typically much more expensive to implement (especially if you are planning on reclaiming the heat) so the initial cost is a barrier to entry as well as cheap energy prices.
Also, water cooling solutions are typically much more expensive to implement (especially if you are planning on reclaiming the heat) so the initial cost is a barrier to entry as well as cheap energy prices.
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your offer - same for you (the use of different physical units is a mess)The thing is, really, water cooling isnt even really necessary at wattages that low. Passive heatsinks do just fine.
Im curious though, so youre just running it from your bucket to your light back to your bucket with about ~150w of heat being added, right? That should add about 13*F an hour to that rez(assuming 5gal of water).
These numbers are with the system at equilibrium? How long had the light been running to achieve those temps?
Those numbers are surprising to me that just the bucket and light would be that effective at radiating the heat out of the system.
I also assume english is not your native language so if you dont understand something let me know and I can try to rephrase it
OK. the little red bucket in the pic is not what I use " at equilibrium ".
In the growroom I use 11gal (40L) of water with improved evaporation (pyramid of waterbottles and old sockets to get a huge, moistured surface.)
Now - in winter I have my bucket inside the growroom and yes there are fans, to move the air and rise evaporation of my sockets.
This maintains temps at 35°C at the end of the day.
During the night the water cools down, because the lamp change his function into a radiator and bring the stored heat to the growroom. The pump should work 24h - your lights not.
My light-cycle is 15 / 9
Watertemp in the morning 17°C (62,6°F)
I guess in summer I will add more water to the bucket during the hotest days -
put the bucket outside the growroom and - maybe install a little fan near by.
a heat-exchanger starts at 300$
burn your green bucks before Trucking Fumpput his hand in your pocket.
Smoke-A-Cola
Well-Known Member
Thought I'd share my water cooled COB build here.
I've built 8 light bars with cheapo chinese COBs. The idea being to initially build them cheaply and then swap chips to something more efficient after a couple of grows. As this is a bit of an experiment I didn't want to spend thousands and thousands on expensive COBs from the outset (I knew there was a chance this would fail miserably as nobody else has jumped on water cooling yet).
Anyway I made a steel frame from 4cm flat steel sections. The frame is 100cm long and 25cm wide. I epoxied the water blocks onto a steel frame and then made "clamps" out of flat steel sections and 4mm bolts (epoxy alone was slightly dubious). The water blocks aren't going anywhere when clamped! I then used thermal glue to mount the COBs onto the water blocks. The glue can be separated with a razor blade easily which would make upgrading straightforward.
View attachment 3686113
I've used Meanwell HLG-600H-36A drivers because I have no interest in dimming the lights. They're just over 96% efficient at full power. Each COB is running at 0.835A (16.7A total for 20 COBs).
I've used 8mm ID (14mm OD) hose on the 10mm barbs with 12mm hose clips.
Here's the hoses mounted and wiring done:
View attachment 3686114
View attachment 3686115
I've alternated cheap warm and cool COBs. If I were doing this again I'd pick one and stick to it because the power draw of different chips is unpredictable when running off a HLG-600H in parallel. Certainly when I upgrade the COBs later this year I'll be going for 1 uniform type.
Anyway here's the money shot of the lights in action (excuse the lonely auto):
View attachment 3686119
I made an earlier version of these with voltage controlled drivers and current limiting resistors. That's the 8 COB bar you can see at the top. I learnt a lot from building those which I used to make better lights with version 2 (these 20 COB lights).
The water gets pumped around the system with an Eheim 1250 water pump. All the water flows through the water blocks and then into a car radiator mounted on a timber frame where it's cooled:
View attachment 3686110
I have a 16 inch 1800cfm car radiator fan running off a 12V PSU.
The main advantage of this setup is temps inside the tent are dramatically lower than when running air cooled lights as I'm not relying on the air in the tent to remove the heat any more. When running an 8x4 tent at full blast at 2100W (2x600W and 2x450W lights) the tent stays at 25C under lights and 20C in the shade (room where the tents are located is at 19C). If I run only the 2x600W lights so 1200W total, the temp stays at 22C in the tent under lights. COB surface temp is around 45-55C (measured with FLIR camera).
I could make some improvements but this will do for now
Edit: I should probably mention cost. £167 for the Meanwell HLG-600H, £60 for water blocks, £10 for hoses, £5 for hose clips, £20 for wiring and terminal blocks, £44 for COBs, £10 for steel, sections, £10 for bolts (inc eye bolts for hanging). £326 approx for each light bar.
£15 for car radiator, £15 for radiator fan, £12 for PSU, £65 for water pump. £107 total for radiator and pump.
WHAT KIND OF GROW TENT IS THAT? It's massive.
brewbeer
Well-Known Member
@mahiluana thank you so much! Love to see data on this as I think about what I want in a light for my modest space. I would think a reservoir of water would store plenty of energy while radiating it to earth through the concrete in the basement. I'm curious what @ttystikk and others are seeing for dT's and flow rates in relation to light system power consumption. Im giving serious consideration to water cooled lights.
I have been researching lights and I'm thinking about 200 watts of softly driven cobs mounted in 2 rows serving a space that is -1.8 feet wide by 4 feet long long. Haven't decided which cobs to use. Efficiency is a primary design consideration of the light. I am thinking that the bar mount filled with water is the right setup for pump efficiency. Using larger conveyance piping also reduces pump power consumption. The hydronic system that heats my house uses a 9 watt pump to move 4,000 watts at 3 gpm, so it's clear that a very small amount of energy would be needed to move less than 200 watts of heat out of the grow space.
Thanks to all who have provided insight !
I have been researching lights and I'm thinking about 200 watts of softly driven cobs mounted in 2 rows serving a space that is -1.8 feet wide by 4 feet long long. Haven't decided which cobs to use. Efficiency is a primary design consideration of the light. I am thinking that the bar mount filled with water is the right setup for pump efficiency. Using larger conveyance piping also reduces pump power consumption. The hydronic system that heats my house uses a 9 watt pump to move 4,000 watts at 3 gpm, so it's clear that a very small amount of energy would be needed to move less than 200 watts of heat out of the grow space.
Thanks to all who have provided insight !
mahiluana
Well-Known Member
just couldn`t find a smaller pump than 2,3W