Air pump pumping HOT air into buckets??

[TheColt]

So my system has been running for about 2 weeks now and I have placed all air pumps and chiller outside the grow room. I checked touched the air line just now and it is VERY warm. I felt the pump, and the pump itself and it was super hot. Is this normal? I dont feel like hot air should be pumped into the cold water in the buckets....and i bet my chiller is working way harder to keep it cool. Is something wrong with the air pump or does everyones do this?

 

[Innov8tr]

Yes for them to be warm/hot is usual. I use a ice cap heat exchanger to cool the air before I put it the UC. Check out the thread for more info

 

[deacon1503]

yes they all run hot. if u have a clean environment where the air pumps are housed, u can unscrew the lid and filter and it runs a bit cooler i think. ive done the ice cap mod to my hi-blow 200 and its does help considerably. im working on a air/water heat exchanger for this very purpose as even post ice cap, and after 10 feet of 1/2" pvc, the line is still warm. i basically had to upgrade chillers bc of it.

 

[TheColt]

well running the plastic line though a chilled pvc pipe is not going to accomplish anything in such a short distance deacon. It may help a little bit, but the plastic sheath on polyurethane tubing is an insulating material, so transfering the thermal energy through it will take a prolonged amount of time. If you throught a stainless steel stint in the tubing for a few feet that was wraped in water or ice, that would do the job for sure, since the metal transfers thermal conduction so well. And stainless steel wont corrode or rust

 

[TheColt]

what about attaching the hose to a small wort chiller and placing it in the epicenter so the air is contantly flowing through the chilled thermal conductive piping, which would take a lot less energy to maintain than if the air was pumped directly into all the buckets hot as crap. The coil will stay cool for the most part no matter how much hot air you pump through it, and it really wouldnt be putting that much of a heat strain on the water compared to without it. This way would surely cool the air down to water temp of 68 degrees.

 

[woodsmaneh]

Put a small fan on the pump.

 

[Innov8tr]

what about attaching the hose to a small wort chiller and placing it in the epicenter so the air is contantly flowing through the chilled thermal conductive piping, which would take a lot less energy to maintain than if the air was pumped directly into all the buckets hot as crap. The coil will stay cool for the most part no matter how much hot air you pump through it, and it really wouldnt be putting that much of a heat strain on the water compared to without it. This way would surely cool the air down to water temp of 68 degrees.

If the goal is to avoid introducing hot air in the UC system then sending the hot air through a wart chiller in your UC still adds all the heat to the UC, just a different path.

The air pump is only capable of making "x" amount of heat...that all depends on the watts that it uses. 1 watt = 3.412 BTU. For and example the Alita 80 uses 85 watts, so if all of its power was converted to heat that would only add 290 BTU...so very little overall.

 

[deacon1503]

well running the plastic line though a chilled pvc pipe is not going to accomplish anything in such a short distance deacon. It may help a little bit, but the plastic sheath on polyurethane tubing is an insulating material, so transfering the thermal energy through it will take a prolonged amount of time. If you throught a stainless steel stint in the tubing for a few feet that was wraped in water or ice, that would do the job for sure, since the metal transfers thermal conduction so well. And stainless steel wont corrode or rust

the current set up is hiblow to rubber hose to ice cap to rubber hose to pvc to OS1's.

what about attaching the hose to a small wort chiller and placing it in the epicenter so the air is contantly flowing through the chilled thermal conductive piping, which would take a lot less energy to maintain than if the air was pumped directly into all the buckets hot as crap. The coil will stay cool for the most part no matter how much hot air you pump through it, and it really wouldnt be putting that much of a heat strain on the water compared to without it. This way would surely cool the air down to water temp of 68 degrees.

im not sure this came across as i intended. a water to air intercooler like they use in forced induction cars. its an air radiator with a water cooled jacket. inlet/outlet for air and an inlet/outlet for water. account for the heat when the chiller is sized for the system. most of my work is doing entire rooms at once so im running into certain problems on the regular and have to develop solutions on the fly to complete the installation and this will hopefully be one that may benefit us all to one extent or another.

If the goal is to avoid introducing hot air in the UC system then sending the hot air through a wart chiller in your UC still adds all the heat to the UC, just a different path.

The air pump is only capable of making "x" amount of heat...that all depends on the watts that it uses. 1 watt = 3.412 BTU. For and example the Alita 80 uses 85 watts, so if all of its power was converted to heat that would only add 290 BTU...so very little overall.

my hiblow uses 225 watts so almost 800 btus. i cant even pick it up when its running.