Full Apache Tech Garden...8x12...1900w

[tags420]

Oh ya your garden looks great tags...

I know a guy who runs 14 1000w with plain old bare bulb wings and only has a 10" intake fan and a 12" exhaust fan.

 

[ttystikk]

C
Chillers? I'm asking ;-}

So here's the layout; 4 zones, each with a 12 site rdwc system, 4 x 1kW Plantmax, sealed and vented hoods, sealed and climate controlled spaces. Each space has one 8" Icebox for cooling, and another for dehuey. Each rdwc has a cooling cool. All cooling coils and Iceboxes are plumbed into one chiller system, all cooled with one ChillKing 2 Ton window mountable chiller. Two zones run for 12 hours, then flip. The chiller pulls 8.5amps @240V... when it's running. It shuts off whenever it's all caught up, cycling regularly day and night.

So, in other words, not only am I COOLING those spaces, but I'm DEHUMIDIFYING and even CHILLING all rdwc, all with just those same two tons!! I'm not even sure how to calculate the overall energy saving of my approach, but I know it's absolutely gigantic compared to the conventional wisdom of AC, separate dehuey, and separate chilling.

I've only been screaming about how well this works for two fucking years now- you'd think sooner or later, people would start to catch on!

 

[Swany]

So, in other words, not only am I COOLING those spaces, but I'm DEHUMIDIFYING and even CHILLING all rdwc,

Cool! (pore pun intended). How does dehumidifying work with a chill coil? Does the coil condense moister and let's it drip away into a drain? And how do you get the zones to flip? Does the ChillKing have a two zone capability built in or do you have some kind of automated valve on the chilled water?

Also, a nod to Tags. I'm watching this thread to learn what he is sharing about about LED - thanks Tags! I think I want to combind HID and LED, which will still require cooling and Tyy's way of cooling sounds great. Hope it's ok to go into cooling here...

 

[ttystikk]

Cool! (pore pun intended). How does dehumidifying work with a chill coil? Does the coil condense moister and let's it drip away into a drain? And how do you get the zones to flip? Does the ChillKing have a two zone capability built in or do you have some kind of automated valve on the chilled water?

Also, a nod to Tags. I'm watching this thread to learn what he is sharing about about LED - thanks Tags! I think I want to combind HID and LED, which will still require cooling and Tyy's way of cooling sounds great. Hope it's ok to go into cooling here...

Let's keep things on topic here. It's easy enough to go look at the New threads and pick the one that says 'water cooling Q & A. I'll start the thread now, in advanced techniques & problems.

LED may not require as much cooling, but it's essential to properly ventilated plants and spaces to prevent air stagnation and the mould and mildew that can allow to form.

 

[tags420]

^^^Exactly about the air exchange. That's why using CO2 with led's is great cause that is the only way you can not use fans like everyone wants. I rock a 10" to keep the air moving, just not as much power/on time when the LED's are in action. For HID it's pretty much all the time. But if I had CO2 it would allow the usual stagnation of air and used up co2 to be replenished from the tanks and thus don't have to use air exchange very much if at all during the light.

I don't have CO2 but just saying I see how/why LED's in a sealed room system with supplemented CO2 would really work well.

 

[ttystikk]

^^^Exactly about the air exchange. That's why using CO2 with led's is great cause that is the only way you can not use fans like everyone wants. I rock a 10" to keep the air moving, just not as much power/on time when the LED's are in action. For HID it's pretty much all the time. But if I had CO2 it would allow the usual stagnation of air and used up co2 to be replenished from the tanks and thus don't have to use air exchange very much if at all during the light.

I don't have CO2 but just saying I see how/why LED's in a sealed room system with supplemented CO2 would really work well.

Sealing and adding co2 to an LED lit garden that has a very low heat load is easy to do, since the amount of heat that needs to be transferred out is small. Consider a small chiller to cool both your rdwc, and the space.

 

[tags420]

 

[tags420]

I never update here anymore but this round basically finished. I burned the shit out of them early in flower with moab. But they survived and came pulled through pretty good.

 

[Kebz]

Very nice work tags, lots of people talk LED, you my brother deliver.
Real nice calynx development and stacking. I'm loving the purpling.

 

[tags420]

Jillybean harvest at day 61

 

[ttystikk]

VERY nice! I'm expecting great things from this smoke report...

 

[Kebz]

:wideyed: Very, very nice finish ma fellow farmer. Not sure about the smoke report?
........ Maybe I should somehow be involved in that!
Nice work.

 

[jfizzle2cmu]

Man I wish I had money to add LEDs to my grow. Love how the different spectrums really help the bud develop.

 

[ttystikk]

In search of cheap lighting with complete spectrum characteristics, I've been investigating using UVB in florescent lights to supplement HPS.

 

[tags420]

Floros are the best source for UVB. Led chip don't hit the right nm's and are very expensive. Stanford and NASA both use floro UVB tubes. I have been making a prototype the last couple weeks that will fit on to any hps hood(I know you're vertical). It hangs over the top and rest on the sides like pontoons.

If your not running the glass with your hps, your getting some uvb, but I like the idea of using the floros to really up the quality.

For a great full spectrum I would say CMH's. The 330w put out as much light as 600hps but no heat at all basically. There is a vertical version that's 860w's too. Since they run on mag ballast(or digitals with <60hz) they are cheap to put together. Bulb is the most expensive part.

 

[ttystikk]

Floros are the best source for UVB. Led chip don't hit the right nm's and are very expensive. Stanford and NASA both use floro UVB tubes. I have been making a prototype the last couple weeks that will fit on to any hps hood(I know you're vertical). It hangs over the top and rest on the sides like pontoons.

If your not running the glass with your hps, your getting some uvb, but I like the idea of using the floros to really up the quality.

For a great full spectrum I would say CMH's. The 330w put out as much light as 600hps but no heat at all basically. There is a vertical version that's 860w's too. Since they run on mag ballast(or digitals with <60hz) they are cheap to put together. Bulb is the most expensive part.

I like! I'm not fully vert, half is Magnum XXXL 'Ocho'. Build your first fixture and post some pics, I've been thinking about exactly the same approach! If yours gets results, I'm totally doing it ASAP.

 

[Jetset]

This is lame. 4 weeks and no one even cares about this grow. I thought people would have been stoked on this setup...maybe once flower start it will get some attention.
Update #4

Glad I found this, your trial is what I've been waiting for. Not brave enough to make such changes myself but very interested to see your results. All for saving energy not so keen on loosing quality or quantity. Keep us informed:-)

 

[Shamus]

just added a LED to my bloom room to replace a 1K.. dunno how its gonna work out really. it definitely looks like it orked out for you tho.
looking forward to a smoke report

 

[Wyckoff]

So here's the layout; 4 zones, each with a 12 site rdwc system, 4 x 1kW Plantmax, sealed and vented hoods, sealed and climate controlled spaces. Each space has one 8" Icebox for cooling, and another for dehuey. Each rdwc has a cooling cool. All cooling coils and Iceboxes are plumbed into one chiller system, all cooled with one ChillKing 2 Ton window mountable chiller. Two zones run for 12 hours, then flip. The chiller pulls 8.5amps @240V... when it's running. It shuts off whenever it's all caught up, cycling regularly day and night.

Thanks for posting this. A sealed room running LEDs could probably do this with 1/2 the chilling or less. I am working on a modular flip-flop LED setup similar to your own. I don't want to derail this thread but I can't find you posting about this elsewhere so if you could post or PM a link.

As for your setup tags - I have no doubt that you will work out the bugs (bad pun) and get great results. If you add CO2 to your system and your rooms are sealed I've heard you can jack your PPM up to 10,000 for 1/2 hour twice, one week apart and kill everything without damaging the plants at all. You would need to vent the space after doing this as those CO2 levels could easily kill you or any pets.

 

[ttystikk]

Thanks for posting this. A sealed room running LEDs could probably do this with 1/2 the chilling or less. I am working on a modular flip-flop LED setup similar to your own. I don't want to derail this thread but I can't find you posting about this elsewhere so if you could post or PM a link.

As for your setup tags - I have no doubt that you will work out the bugs (bad pun) and get great results. If you add CO2 to your system and your rooms are sealed I've heard you can jack your PPM up to 10,000 for 1/2 hour twice, one week apart and kill everything without damaging the plants at all. You would need to vent the space after doing this as those CO2 levels could easily kill you or any pets.

That's an old setup, I've moved on into the space age, lol- I went vertical and I'm now using less watts and covering much more trellis space with fewer bulbs.

My cooling is very efficient due to my use of a large water chilling plant to manage air temps, humidity AND the usual water temps in RDWC. LED would cost less to cool simply because it generates less heat to begin with, and I think your estimate is likely conservative.

It's my suspicion that a certain amount of that heat energy is desirable from the plant's view, as it aids metabolism and speeds up transpiration- and this may account for more of the perceived difference in performance between hps and led than people yet realize.

I've the done the high ppm of CO² thing and it did not work for me.

If you're interested in details of what I've been up to lately, stop by my thread on the Trees subforum; 'oh my God, he turned it inside out!'