Watercooling Sealed Room W/ Pond Does Anyone Know How?

[fluffygrrrl]

Hi,

 

I need help designing pole barn cooling. I will be installing 30 1000w lights in the barn, so I need major help with a/c. I need at least 10 tons of cooling, and have read articles about controlled growing environment (cge: sealed room) about using a heat exchanger in your pond and run water through it to cool the grow room. I also have a well and could do it that way (run to waste), but I don't know anyone around here that has knowledge on how to do it. If anybody has any ideas or knows anyone that can help, please let me know. Or if anyone knows where I can find a large a/c that works when ambient air temps are cold outside. I would prefer to save electricity and use water as it is supposedly more efficient.

[Guest Wayne]

Need electricity to run the pump but your talking about geothermal cooling. Just need a water source, hose, pumps, and heat exchanger. Not sure how much of a do it yourself project this might be but Google and research, then call the experts if necessary. Good tax credits available for those that qualify.

[solabeirtan]

Ever consider water cooled lights? I Have 4 now, 3 on Light movers, only one running currently. Its been below 70 all summer, till I just moved a 100gal res for this light into an adjacent room an today I hit 74 in the room. No Chiller on the Light Res, either. Got the Air running upstairs too, at about 76. You'll need 50 - 100 gal res per light /w distilled or RO water for clarity.

[fluffygrrrl]

Yes wayne, geothermal is a great tax credit, friends of mine did it with theire house, but it cost them $30,000. If I ever make enough money, then that is my dream. You can heat the floors of your house & garage/polebarn too with that water. It heats & cools.

 

I've thought about watercooling lights when I only had 4 lights going. It would be too hard to water cool 30 lights with just a res, I would need 30 100 gal reservoirs if I didn't have a chiller. I've read all you have to do is run a water line to the pond and bring it back, but that sounds too easy. I am growing 1 1000 w light (bare bulb, no reflector) per plant, as I'm growing trees in an undercurrent system.

[Guest finallyfree09]

here ya go... try this.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260499630071&rvr_id=128977344617&crlp=1_263602_263622&UA=WXI8&GUID=a1f2b0d112a0a0aad2238933fc7b5727&itemid=260499630071&ff4=263602_263622

 

i have an artesian well so i dont have to worry about using electricity to pump the water to cool with. not sure if this would be worth it otherwise but who knows... maybe it'll work for you.

[Guest finallyfree09]

btw... i dont want to give ya a hard time or anything but isn't 30000 watts a bit much? lol thats gonna be an astronomical electric bill!

[FlyingHigh]

Sry dbl post

[FlyingHigh]

Here's a link to an aquarium site with some ideas about water cooling with the use of underground pipe and some guys do just what your talking about and use a pond/ inland lake

 

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1289277&highlight=Geothermal+cooling

 

And here I link to a grow room build that is using 16k in light it has lots of useful info on large grows.

 

 

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=168101

[AbsoluteRoyal]

btw... i dont want to give ya a hard time or anything but isn't 30000 watts a bit much? lol thats gonna be an astronomical electric bill!

 

30000W is so overkill you never need that much light ever. I have 4 plants under my 1000W and they produce 2-10 zips apiece depending on all factors. So even if you produce a meager little 2 oz per 1000 watt thats 60 oz. You will never be able to stay within the law. Not to mention the LEO attention you would get from dispensing that much medicine.

[+RevThad]

30000W is so overkill you never need that much light ever. I have 4 plants under my 1000W and they produce 2-10 zips apiece depending on all factors. So even if you produce a meager little 2 oz per 1000 watt thats 60 oz. You will never be able to stay within the law. Not to mention the LEO attention you would get from dispensing that much medicine.

hehe, at least she would have enough overages to possibly pay the $1400 a month for lighting and hire a decent lawyer...

 

As you said, having just under 4 pound yields every 10-12 weeks might just get some unintentional attention, and that is if the yield is on the low side, I would think it probably would come in much higher with a 1k dedicated to each plant.

[boroboro]

10 tons * ((3.5 KJ/sec) / 1 ton) * (kg deg.C / 4.187 KJ) * (2.2 pounds / 1 kg) * (1 gallon / 8 pounds) * (1 / 4 deg. C) = 0.57 gallons / second * (3600 seconds / hour) = 2068 gallons / hour

cooling capacity * convert units * specific heat of water * convert to pounds * convert to gallons * 1/water temp rise

 

I would estimate around 2000 gallons per hour, assuming you're using water and cooling with a 4 deg. C rise in water temperature.

 

I'm no HVAC expert, but can't resist a good problem of unit conversions. Not sure if 4 deg. C is an appropriate temperature rise for the coolant water, I pulled that out of thin air. The rest of the numbers are just unit conversions and the physical properties of water.

 

With those assumptions, you would need a big enough air handler to move enough air to cool it with only a 4 deg. C rise in the coolant water temperature, and also taking into account that the coolant water might be pretty warm in the summer. If it's a small pond that heats up to 70F in the summer then it probably wouldn't work in the summer without a heat pump. If it's a cold river that's 50 deg. F year round then it might actually work.

 

Oh, and don't forget the sunglasses, or welder's goggles...

[THC-Farmer]

What I would do is this -

 

- Obtain 30 6" Air-Cooled reflectors. Run them in-line @ 3 rows of 10. ( http://cgi.ebay.com/...DefaultDomain_0 )

∙ $73.95 per reflector

∙ $24.95 S&H per reflector

∙ $2,967 TOTAL

 

- Obtain 3 6" High Velocity Inline Fans. ( http://www.htgsupply...productID=52583 )

∙ $100.95 per fan

∙ $27.96 Total S&H

∙ $330.81 TOTAL

 

- Obtain a bunch of 6" Flexible ducting. I'm not sure how big of an area this is but you can buy the ducting in 25ft sections. They run about $30 each.

 

* Connect all the light reflectors in-line per row. Connect one end to an area outside the grow area. Connect the other end directly on the other side of the grow area with the fans pulling the air through. This ensures that the light-systems ventilation doesn't interfere with the grow room environment.

 

** Running the lights in this manner would be the most cost effective method of doing this.

 

- Calculate the cubic volume of the grow area and purchase an A/C system capable of cooling the entire area.

 

* By using an A/C to cool the grow area environment and having the lighting system completely sealed off and exhausting all the heat directly outside you save on cooling requirements BIG TIME. During the Winter you may not even need to run the A/C system because you can pull air in from outside.

 

- With the cubic volume of the grow area calculated you can also design an air-exchange system to bring in air from outside and then exhaust it back outside. As mentioned above this can aid in cooling the environment.

 

* ALWAYS filter in coming air!! This ensures no unwanted debris or pests are sucked in...

 

- Seal the barn/grow area off as thoroughly as possible with 2-4Mil Poly Plastic; White side out. I would even seal the floor off by covering the floor black side up.

That should do it.

 

Best of luck to ya!

 

PS- If and when you get this all up and running, you've GOTTA take some pictures! Me wanna see!

PSS- If you need help with constructing anything, let me know!

[solabeirtan]

My Ultimate Configuration: Liquid Cooled Lights, Mounted Vertically /w No Reflectors! Mylar on the Cieling ,

 

3000 gal Res of Distilled or RO water for Circulation through the Lights w 1 hp Chiller ,

 

PEX Coolant Lines Running Through the 3k tank to your pond for the Summer Only. (Cheaper than chiller)

 

Install Radiant PEX Heating Lines in Basement, Garage for Supplemental Heating or even Heated Walkways -means no shoveling required in Winter...

 

Good Luck ! Keep us Posted !

[BubbleBerryKush]

30 1k lights!!!!!!!!!!!! are you not seeing what is going on in the courts right now? This is the stuff people are talking about.....you will be harvesting nearly 30 lb's every 10 weeks.....good luck to you, and I hope you dont get in trouble....

 

I wise man once told me, "just because you CAN do something, does not mean you SHOULD do it".....you are going to be drawing a TON of unneeded attention.....

 

as far as cooling goes, I would suggest sealed reflectors and you could even lead the roof and just put an attic fan up there....

[RobTheGrower]

30 1k watt lights wow lol i would not even post something like this thread on a medical based forums lol

[boroboro]

Well, it might not be impossible to do that legally. For instance: assume 20 of the lights are for flowering, and the rest for veg. growth, lighting up a stadium etc. Grow Room Designs based on growing large plants, like KBS, Krusty Buckets, MPB call for lots of vertical lighting, around 1 light per plant. So you could end up with 20 plants flowering in this setup. If you had an impossibly-perfect perpetual cycle (not usually included in those grow room designs.....) you might only harvest 2 plants a week or so. These would be big plants, though, so that could easily be 2 pounds or so a week. Oh, heck, that's too much for 5 patients, but maybe it would work with a multiple-caregiver-cooperative.

 

Or, if concentrates prove to be legal, you could save some of the bud from the harvest, and throw the rest in a 55 gallon drum of solvent, for Simpson oil or something similar.