Al B. Fuct
once had a dog named
Cooltubes sorted. Mostly. 
The stuff is up but duct taped. I need to go buy some big honkin' hoseclamps to suit all the 150mm connections. Works, tho, for now.
Testing in mockup on the garage floor with 21C ambient intake air indicated that exhaust temp from the first lamp is 28.8C, a 7.7C rise. This is an optimal figure, with only one lamp in line and no bends. I expect more rise in practise when installed. Some bends and squishing of the duct are necessary to make it fit.
If 29C air is then series fed into another cooltube, the exhaust air temp is about 34C.
The tube sockets are ceramic, so at those temps, I didn't feel too bad about running the tubes in much mechanically simpler series instead of parallel, nor be terribly pedantic about orienting the tube socket towards the airflow. Works.
I did opt for a closed loop, drawing cooling air for the tubes from outside the room's airmass and also dumping outside. Since it's closed, no scent control is needed on the cooltube air circuit. Got an Allvent 150mm axial pushing it for now (in upper left of above pic), but I think there's a 150mm centrif in the future if but for lower noise. The axial will do the job for moving air through this system, but there's lots of bends and obstructions, noticeably reducing flow rate compared to other Allvent 150mm fans I have in use around here.
Input air during tests after installation was 22C. Output from cooltube 1 was 28C, output from #2 was 34C, rising about 6C for each 1000. I only tested it for about 15 mins as it's sposed to be nighttime in there now, but I'll get a look in later on when everything has properly started as usual and has been running for a couple of hours. I put a remote sensing thermo probe in the output duct to monitor the 'EGT' (Exhaust Gas Temperature for you non-jet jockeys
), as it were.
These cooltubes came with a built-in semicircular reflector which would have interfered with the batwings' even distribution pattern. Out came the tin snips and the built-in refs are gone.
The cooltubes' blower is on a timer, set to start at lights on but keep running for about 30 mins past lights off, assuring the lamps and sockets are dead cold before shutting down.
Of course, I expect my peak temps to be lower, but I'm especially looking forward to seeing what the RH does. If the main exhaust blower has to run less often because it's not solely responsible for removing heat from the lights, I bet I'm better able to control humidity. My dehumidifier is presently on a timer, set to run on lights-off only, but it may now be useful during lights-on. Without the cooltubes, the nicely dried air is blown right out because the heat from the lights triggers the main exhaust blower. Quite often recently, the intake air has been over 70% RH, and if the exhaust blower is running all the time, that's the RH in the grow room, too. I really want it to stay between 30-50%.
We'll see how we go!
The stuff is up but duct taped. I need to go buy some big honkin' hoseclamps to suit all the 150mm connections. Works, tho, for now. Testing in mockup on the garage floor with 21C ambient intake air indicated that exhaust temp from the first lamp is 28.8C, a 7.7C rise. This is an optimal figure, with only one lamp in line and no bends. I expect more rise in practise when installed. Some bends and squishing of the duct are necessary to make it fit.
If 29C air is then series fed into another cooltube, the exhaust air temp is about 34C.
The tube sockets are ceramic, so at those temps, I didn't feel too bad about running the tubes in much mechanically simpler series instead of parallel, nor be terribly pedantic about orienting the tube socket towards the airflow. Works.
I did opt for a closed loop, drawing cooling air for the tubes from outside the room's airmass and also dumping outside. Since it's closed, no scent control is needed on the cooltube air circuit. Got an Allvent 150mm axial pushing it for now (in upper left of above pic), but I think there's a 150mm centrif in the future if but for lower noise. The axial will do the job for moving air through this system, but there's lots of bends and obstructions, noticeably reducing flow rate compared to other Allvent 150mm fans I have in use around here.
Input air during tests after installation was 22C. Output from cooltube 1 was 28C, output from #2 was 34C, rising about 6C for each 1000. I only tested it for about 15 mins as it's sposed to be nighttime in there now, but I'll get a look in later on when everything has properly started as usual and has been running for a couple of hours. I put a remote sensing thermo probe in the output duct to monitor the 'EGT' (Exhaust Gas Temperature for you non-jet jockeys
), as it were. These cooltubes came with a built-in semicircular reflector which would have interfered with the batwings' even distribution pattern. Out came the tin snips and the built-in refs are gone.
The cooltubes' blower is on a timer, set to start at lights on but keep running for about 30 mins past lights off, assuring the lamps and sockets are dead cold before shutting down.
Of course, I expect my peak temps to be lower, but I'm especially looking forward to seeing what the RH does. If the main exhaust blower has to run less often because it's not solely responsible for removing heat from the lights, I bet I'm better able to control humidity. My dehumidifier is presently on a timer, set to run on lights-off only, but it may now be useful during lights-on. Without the cooltubes, the nicely dried air is blown right out because the heat from the lights triggers the main exhaust blower. Quite often recently, the intake air has been over 70% RH, and if the exhaust blower is running all the time, that's the RH in the grow room, too. I really want it to stay between 30-50%.
We'll see how we go!
well ya i know that. im talking about the co2 that we are injecting into the room from a tank
, lol
