Can an Ice box be used with just a blower fan as a form of AC for a Veg tent?

[goleboy]

Hi all, just curious if anyone has an experience with running an ice box hooked to a blower fan ONLY! I have a 4x4 veg tent and i am trying to get my environment stable. I only have a 4' 8 bulb T5 fixture and a couple dangling CFL contraptions to cool. I am trying to keep it low budget and simple. I was wondering if i hooked up an ice box inline with a blower fan that is the "intake" of my tent, if it would provide efficient cooling for my veg tent(currently i have the intake pulling fresh air from the window, and at night when the temps are lower the tent is at optimum temp). I am shooting for around 78-80* in the tent. I would use approx. 25 gallon rez hookerd to the ice box and pump. Ihope this doesnt sound crazy...i am in the desert climate right now and things are warming up and i need to get this stable asap. PLease chime in if you have any ideas or thoughts on my idea peace love and doja!

 

[krunchbubble]

yes, this works......

 

[Bloodline]

Get some dry ice for c02 to help the plants handle the heat until you have a fix.

 

[moejammin]

Hey Goleboy- Are you using a chiller with your ice box. You will be able to use it as ac, if you have it connected to a chiller or direct to a faucet(wasteful)or if you have a well you can draw cool water from and then drain back to it. The icebox is a heat exchanger so if the rez is not being kept cool the heat from the room will be trapped in the water making it warm, making the heat exchanging capacity super low. Get A CHILLER! I have a 1/10 hp and a 6" ice box that keeps a 4x9 room at whatever temp i want between about 57 and 83 degress.

 

[goleboy]

Check out my cool drawing skillz YO!

i understadn the point of the ice box but what i wanna know is, i have a grow lab tent with a blower fan hooked up (on the exterior of the tent) blowing fresh air in, i keep the room the tent is in at 75-77* with a cieling fan and an oscillating fan both going speed 3 in the room. If i took an ice box and mounted it on the exterior right at the vent opening at the tent? here is a little drawing i compiled while sitting here bored off my ass at work LOL

 

[goleboy]

sorry i cant figure out how to turn the pic sideways. but hoepfully this whill help you guys understadn what the heck im talkin about! haha thanks in advance im used to growing in an entire seled room with 10,000 BTU window AC...no prob keepin that shit under control.

 

[CelticEBE]

I spoke with the guys at Hydro Innovations about different ways to use the Ice Box and from what they say its something you just have to experiment with. If you can keep your res temps 20 degrees lower than the ambient room temperature you will create cooler air. The only thing you have to worry about then is condensation, which should only occur if the humidity is above 50%.

I will be running one icebox on two magnum hoods with a 6" fan. My chiller should keep my water temps ALOT lower than the 20 degrees so I bought the temperature control for my fan, which idles the fan when the temp is reached and then cranks it up when things get warmer.

If you look on there website you will see how they utilize an icebox and a fan to act as cooling, so yes it can be done, but you may want to look into something other than jsut having a res. Water Chillers are expensive, so I am making a DIY chiller out of a 7 cuft chest freezer.

Hope this helps you out bro.

Here's a link to a watercooled room.

 

[bowlpacks]

So, basically, your asking if the icebox would work for just pulling cool air into your tent as opposed to hooking it up to your reflector INSIDE your tent? If so, then yeah, I don't see it being a problem at all, and will probably be better at making sure your tent doesn't get too cold. Good luck. K+

 

[goleboy]

myother thought was hooking up an igloo icechest inline with about 15' of tubing coiled inside to chill the water as it passes through the igloo ice chest on its way to the "ice box"....which woul dobviously be hooked up over a res so i could drain off the melted water from the cooler and recycle it to make more ice for the cooler...i think this is another good option. so 20* coooler is what im shooting for ay. this should be fun. thanks celticebe

 

[Loudblunts]

do you pay for water?

if not, i would go with drain to waste water cooling...

imo, with passive cooling, you are just asking your icebox heat exchanger to be turned into a really efficient heater...lol

if you cannot keep that water cool it will just compact your problem

being as though pressurized tap water comes out around 50-65F, i would highly suggest you do this method (drain to waste from tap water/incoming source house water) instead of putting those thermal btu into res/water and expecting it to cool via passive cooling.


furthermore, you only listed t5s and cfl...while they still get hot, they put off no where near the amount of heat even given a 400 watter.

my advice would be to follow these solutions... 1st being simple, cheapest while the others get more complex and more pricey

solution 1. 86 the icebox and passive reservoir cooling idea. forget about it. Get you a 200-400cfm fan. that will handle any heat given off by your t5...just extract that air. will be way cheaper and less headache

solution 2. get a small 1/10-1/4 chiller and actively cool the icebox

solution 3. if you are stuck on passive water cooling, forget the icebox and pick you up a marine watercooled a/c i think webasto and shit like that. however they are pricey




last but not least.... from reading your description...im guessing this is what you wanna do, correct?

[youtube]UmHp2ydAv1s[/youtube]

 

[Loudblunts]

oh yea.... calculate the total wattage of both the t5 and the cfl you have....

then multiply that number by 3.41...this number is important


for every watt produced, you give off roughly 3.41 btu. You always want to round up.... and extra headroom is always good.

i.e. 1k = 1000 x 3.41 is roughly 3500 btu. yea sure its not 3500 on the dot, but like i said give yerself some breathing room.


hope this helps

 

[goleboy]

LOUDBLUNTS- thanks man, that is exactly what i am looking to duplicate...i am at 432wats for T5 and about 100 wats on CFLs...so 532 wats or so. I will have exhaust hooked up to tent so extracting the hot air will definateyl be done. I have monday tuesday soff so i will be busy then, luckily my babies are safe with the doors of tent open duriong day when im not pulling in really cool outside air to the tent. thanks again.....and anyone else with briliant ifo please chime in!

 

[Loudblunts]

that is around 2000 btu or less

nothing central a/c cant fix and/or window a/c? portable a/c?

and no problem man....my pleasure :D

 

[purpleberry]

With that small setup maybe you can try freezing 2liter bottles and switch them out of the res and you freezer a couple times a day.

 

[Loudblunts]

^ or i would forgot about the iceboxes until i could get a chiller


and just use a fan/extractor to extract the heat.


t5 really aint nothing

 

[largepoppa]

I was thinking about doing this too. I had a question though. I am already running a chiller to cool my nutrient solution. Do you guys think it would be a problem to run the cooled nutrients through the ice box instead of having to buy another reservoir and chiller? I have central AC but it seems wasteful to run the AC just to cool my grow tent (2x4). I have an exhaust fan running 24/7 but it still doesn't keep the room cool enough. It still runs between 82-89 degrees.

 

[goleboy]

that is same problem i am having in my tent..temps between 83-90...i think ima say fuck it and get a nice used portable ac unit off CL and hope it makes it through the coming summer...if i had a protable ac unit in the tent i could simply exhaust the hot air and i wouldnt have to worry about bringing in air to cool tent....plus i found some prot. acs on cl for like 150...the ice box xcheapest i could find was $119 for a 6"...not including pumps tubing ect...portable AC is the weay yo gottta go..

 

[moejammin]

goleboy- the point of me explaining to you how it works and saying get a chiller is because the unit is a heat exchanger if your not exchanging the heat with something cooler than ambient temps the unit wont be an "ice box" i tried to do what you want to do. It doesnt work without a chiller. Ice cubes in a cooler are you kidding? They will melt in a hour or less. I just finally bit that bullet...buy a chiller!