Much Love to everyone in this thread!!!
And yes I am so Interested in Water cooling right Now Its not funny!! The idea It could even work is amazing and I didnt honestly think it was gonna ever get to the point where you could even have 8 lights in a room all without air cooling, or a riduclous a/c.
I put up that pic because I was hoping you could tell me if thats how you use them or if you do it different, I didnt Even Think it had become a Thing Until you and I first Met in that one thread, and I started looking into all your posts!!!
I have a small space for about 16 lights and I wanted to do a test room in the next couple of months using water cooling, but with so little info on the subject and No pics of any one over 2 lights out there using them Im hoping you can help me out with advice!
Size of resovoirs? Smaller rez's or 1 large one?, pump size per light chiller.
How many chillers per how many lights?? Are you using six/eight inch"fans to blow over the chillers?
Ive got a million questions for you my Friend!!!
Now we're talking. I love getting into this stuff.
They make chillers all the way up to 25hp. This would essentially cool 100 lights that are in air cooled reflectors. There are basic calculations on the first page of this thread for sizing a chiller but every environment is different. That picture that you posted is probably an older one. With that many lights in a room you would most likely be using a water cooled air handler. Anything over 6 lights and it's just cheaper to buy the air handler then to get all those Ice Boxes, fans, manifold lines, etc... In my room I actually ducted my lights back to the return on my air handler. They make specific plenums for the air handlers to accomodate 6" or 8" ducting. Ice boxes are really made for smaller applications. They are still extremely efficient but at $180 a pop after 4 or 5 of them why not just get an air handler for $1500. Water cooled air handlers rang from 1 ton to 5 ton.
Chillers now come in a few different styles and many different sizes. For 16 lights (1000w) you would need a 4hp chiller just to cool the lights assuming you were either exhausting the hoods back to the air handler or out of the room. If you have ope hoods or exhaust them back into the room then double that. Then you have to factor in the ambient room temperature that needs to be cooled. Roughly 40btu per square foot. Obviously this is different if you live in the Mojave and are growing in a tin shack with your light cycle from 8am to 8pm. But it's a good place to start. So if you had 500sq.ft then you would need to add an additional 1.5hp to your chiller. Know, getting a chiller without taking advantage of some of the other benefits would just be worthless. You can use them to chill your nutrient reservoirs, cool the exhaust on your dehumidifiers, and even provide Co2 with no extra heat to your room. The idea behind the most efficient water cooling is to remove ALL of the heat from your grow room and then you are left just cooling the ambient temperature. Now you could but an Ice Box on every light, and use the manifold to cool your Co2 generator, dehumidifier, reservoirs, ballasts, etc. This would remove all of the heat from your room except the ambient temps. Then you would just need a 4-5hp chiller and you could cool the room with wahtever existing a/c you have.
The water cooled air handlers are fantastic. They actually can be equipped with heating elements if need be and have a few HUGE advantages over A/C units. 1 is that they are much more efficient. They will actually work about 40% less than a similar sized air conditioner because water has 4 times more thermal conductivity than air. The other great thing is that for an air conditioner to dehumidify a room it has to be running. This created problems because during the lights off cycle most a/c's aren't running but you still need dehumidification in your room. Water cooled air handlers can actually continue to dehumidify without cooling the air in your room.
The whole system runs obviously around the chiller and that is the heart of the operation. They can be wired single phase or 3 phase. The commercial ones can be split into 2 units with the condensor seperate from the compressor. I really don't see the application for this but I guess if you wanted your system to be slightly more efficient by placing your compressor inside of your grow then that would be an option. They also make compressorless units that are designed for people in cooler climates (you need your outside air temp to never really get over 65). For now we'll talk about the commercial units. If you are using their air handlers and taking advantage of the other cooling options (dehumidifiers, resevoir coil, etc...) then you will need a unit that has dual tanks and dual pumps. Because your air handlers are hanging on the wall they are able to be fed directly from the chiller with colder water then the water being run through the manifold line into your grow room. I have 1 tank set to 45 degrees for my air handlers and another set to 60 degrees for my manifold line that feeds my reservoir cool coils, the dehumidifier in my drying room, my Co2 generators, and a few Ice Box I have around just because I had them left over. You can duct the air handlers just like you would the one in your house but with your flower room needing a lot more air sometimes it's better just to duct the cool air back onto the plants in your flower room and use Ice Boxes for the other areas. Or you could probably duct it to adjustable vents and figure out a way to restrict airflow or buy electronic damper vents linked to a thermostat in that area. Anyway, then my manifold line runs from the other reservoir to my water cooled equipment. The reason you need two seperate reservoirs is because 45 degree water running through PVC in your grow room will create a lot on condensation that you'll have to clean up. All of the commercial chillers you see have self contained pumps and reservoirs. No need to purchase these as they are built inside the system.
I hope this helps. Keep the questions coming. If you give me the information on your space (dimensions, doors, light sizes, windows, where you would place the chiller, what other equipment you will have in the room, will you be getting cool coils, water cooled Co2, etc...) then I can draw up a floorplan for you and give you a list of what you'll need.
