4-site / 5k watts vertical (DIY- UC x MPB)

[ttystikk]

dieselboy, thanks, that is exactly what I was thinking about. :cool:

ttystikk, how many items and what are you trying to cool with your Chiller? When the 2 rooms are up and running, will they both be veg/flowering at the same time or are you going to have them a few weeks apart? What A/C are you running or going to be running in the future?
I'll have to dig back through some of your threads again when I get this project done in a week. Haven't spent enough time around here lately and excited to get back to digging through threads again.

-ALLegal420

I know what it's like to search old threads for info, so I'll give you the rundown here:

2 Ton window mount ChillKing, pulls 8.5amps @240. Cools a 55 gallon drum reservoir, 1/2hp flotec pump circulates cold water through chiller and two 6 way copper Pex manifolds. Each 'circuit' from these manifolds has a 1/2" valve on intake and return side, to isolate it from the system for maintenance or removal without shutting the whole system down.

Each of the of the following is on its own circuit:

2 Ice Boxes cooling- and helping deheuy- a 16x9 bloomroom w/ 8kW of HPS in 8" magnum xxxl 'ocho' hoods. To be clear, these cool the ROOM air, air to cool the hoods is kept totally separate from the room and is NOT actively cooled, just pulled out of the house.

3 RDWC systems; two 100 gallon systems in the above room, one 75 gallon system in a veg room. Currently, this veg room is open and vented, running a swamper in there to boost humidity.

1 cooling coil under a 30 site aerocloner to help keep it cool. This wasn't effective, may place a short length of tubing inside the cloner to better control water temps.

During the 'day' cycle, the chiller runs 75-85%. At 'night' (my cycles are flipped so daytime is actually 9pm to 8am), it runs about 25% of the time cooling the RDWC systems back down to 60, to keep pythium and other rot issues at bay. They warm up to between 66 and 68 by the end of every day cycle, helps to keep up the metabolism of my girls. I may cover these buckets with refective material if this temp swing gets to be too power hungry, but I'm holding off at the moment because I like it and what it's doing for growth.

The mid-term plan is to add another bloomroom on the flip from the first, same setup or close to it. This summer, I will install Ice Box active cooling in the veg room and convert it to bloom, but it's only 4kW of sealed and vented hoods, this time Xtrasun 6". Also, I plan to add another Ice Box to the big bloom room, so that I can better control the dehuey effects of these units, and help out my poor overworked 70 pint Panasonic dehuey, lol. I also plan to install a couple Ice Boxes for human use; one each in an upstairs and downstairs living room, to condition the air. These will work on a speed control switch, running 6" centrifugal fans, so folks can keep cool this summer! This air finds its way through the veg room anyway, so it too will indirectly help cooling. ALL of this will easily be cooled by the current two ton chiller...

Longer range, I want to upgrade to Gavita's Proline 400v 1000w DE digital ballast and double ended bulb setup, to take advantage of its efficiency. This will require a cooling plant upgrade as 2 Tons wouldn't be able to handle 8kW unvented. I would still want remote ballasts, to run two rooms on the flip with one set of ballasts.

And, for those of you who remember my experimentation with light rotators, this is still in the works; details as I have them... The lastest wet dream lighting setup for my rotator would be one 1000W Gavita Proline reflector, and a 300w LEP running together, just like I did with my two reflectors in the pics on this thread; Built my own light rotator- wanna see?

 

[ttystikk]

dieselboy, thanks, that is exactly what I was thinking about. :cool:

ttystikk, how many items and what are you trying to cool with your Chiller? When the 2 rooms are up and running, will they both be veg/flowering at the same time or are you going to have them a few weeks apart? What A/C are you running or going to be running in the future?
I'll have to dig back through some of your threads again when I get this project done in a week. Haven't spent enough time around here lately and excited to get back to digging through threads again.

-ALLegal420

Looks like I forgot to cover a few of your questions from several posts above: I will stagger my rooms as follows; in each room there are two stages. These will be only 2-3 weeks apart, so they can use similar CO2 settings. The other bloom room will have two stages (the veg room conversion is a short term thing only), and those will also follow one another 2-3weeks apart, and will be staggered from the first bloom room as well. Goal is to have 4 bloom stages, all 2-3 weeks apart. Every time one is finished, it gets reloaded, this happenes every couple week cycle for one bloom stage- and all veg stages. This is why I'm reluctant to share CO2 and air between the two rooms, because I'm told CO2 aumentation should ideally taper off towards the end of the run. Also a good reason not to share water. One more reason not to share air/water between them; isolating a pest. infestation. How badly do you want to spread PM any further than you have to? :confused:

I don't want to build my own flipbox. I'll buy them, preferably from Olyver, if I can talk him into building some that are purpose built to handle up to 400v. Hint, hint... ;) Guys like him guarantee their work and then sleep well at night, knowing it will never come back for repairs. I buy from guys like him so I can sleep well at night, too! Always be happy to pay extra for top quality...

Just due to the way things are arranged, my flipped rooms are not quite adjacent to one another, so air ducting, etc would have to be longer, and perforce less efficient.

Lastly, did I mention each RDWC gets its own circuit, running a 15' coil of copper tubing to cool it? I run my chiller to keep cooling water at about 60 degrees, so the coils don't have to be temperature controlled. They run 24/7 and also act as a temp. buffer if for whatever reason the chiller is having trouble keeping up.

For the longe range future scenario I alluded to above, my plan is to upgrade my Chiller to a Hydro Innovations unit they were working on last winter; it's a 6 ton capacity unit with two sets of outputs; one at 60 to cool air, RDWC, etc. as I do now, and another output at 45 degrees, specifically for airhandling and dehumidification. This will then integrate ALL cooling and airhandling requirements into one unit- and they claim their unit is ridiculously frugal with electricity! I did the math and 4 tons would suffice, but I wanted the extra headroom in case I dream up something else for it to cool, lol. God knows it's happened enough already!

 

[DieselBoy]

@ttystikk Oh I totally agree, I thought you were only talking about room temp. I think one of the things that has kept me away from hydro in general, so far, is the need for a chiller in addition to the other environmental controls. I'll get there....

 

[ttystikk]

@ttystikk Oh I totally agree, I thought you were only talking about room temp. I think one of the things that has kept me away from hydro in general, so far, is the need for a chiller in addition to the other environmental controls. I'll get there....

I would recommend sticking with AC if your local climate is low altitude/high humidity- in part because of how well they dehuey an enclosed space. But if it's dry... these chiller things are da shizznit.

There's a lot of hydro options that don't require active cooling; coco, nft, ebb n flood. I run ebb n flood in my nursery and it's just fine without any cooling. This could easily be an intermediate step for you to get your green thumbs wet, to mix some cliches... Also, keep an eye out for a deal; I got my chiller used, along with a grip of goodies for ridiculously cheap! But- I had a plan and money saved and so I was ready when the opportunity presented itself.