ROUND 2: Ben Derdundat ,The Under Current & 30,000 watts.... The Evolution Continues

U C Truth · Nov 5, 2010

You are the man to beat my friend, but I'm coming to get ya..... Lol.... Ordered all my purgro grobots cameras ect ect ect gonna be fully automated working everything on my iPad by next week..... I wanna change out my airstones next round thou and for my other room now what are the airlines all about and your diffusers and how and where did u install them I don't quite understand the clip zip tie thing u showed can u ellaborate before those bad boys get to big? Also how do u maintain your ppm all day or do you have to constanly add nuts to increase daily as I do (hence why I ordered the purgro system mainly and to maintain ph the other feature are just added bonuses but not necessary in my book...

OZUT · Nov 5, 2010

Sweet set up...Front row and center for this one

UCMENOW · Nov 5, 2010

Ben's miles ahead to tell the Truth

UC Truth....call CC and get some tutoring on the PPM tip.

If your nute level is dropping that dramatically it's an indication your ppm is a little low. Try bumping it up by 10% to 15% till the solution equalizes and your plants are using minerals and H2O in more equal proportions.

This should allow you to use a top off that you can set your ppm at about 10% higher than what's in the system to account for the plants increased needs as they grow larger.

U C Truth · Nov 5, 2010

UCMENOW said:
UC Truth....call CC and get some tutoring on the PPM tip.

If your nute level is dropping that dramatically it's an indication your ppm is a little low. Try bumping it up by 10% to 15% till the solution equalizes and your plants are using minerals and H2O in more equal proportions.

This should allow you to use a top off that you can set your ppm at about 10% higher than what's in the system to account for the plants increased needs as they grow larger.

I put my nuts at 1200ppm yesterday in my system and today they were at 700ppm 24hrs later....... I'm only 5 weeks into the grow how freaking high should I be putting my nuts at.... And the fact I am running the resevior at 1500 ppm has little impact on how much the nuts are still dropping I think I could put it at 2000 in the resevior and I don't think it would make a s&@$ of difference.... I have to daily put in nuts to the epicenter and increase it that way or I would keep losing ppm daily.... So I'm not quit following u or any advice I was given by cc guys.... Could you or Ben who runs the sme nuts as I do elaborate on this for me it would be greatly appreciated cause I'm at a loss..... I mean I think I'll get there regardless by the looks of them but still ur thoughts are appreciated

And btw Ben is miles ahead of the truth for sure but we have to have someone to aspire to beat huh.....lol. :passingjoint::rasta2:

jimmyhoffa59 · Nov 5, 2010

Ah I did not even think about all the condensation from the buckets when using the chiller good call man I will be sure to wrap them up.

UCMENOW · Nov 5, 2010

Passive Aggresive Solution Management

It's clear your ladies are nutrient whores and vigorous to say the least. There is no preset game plan other than to react to your plants.

The actual PPM/EC thresh holds are largely strain dependent, it seems you've got yourself some fertilizer nymphos on your hands there big guy and a well dialed environment.

If you didn't have your CO2 dialed, temps in the pocket, humidity on lock down then they wouldn't be asking to get pushed this hard......but since they are pump up the nutrient volume till they they start slowing down on over all solution consumption, then back off to a comfortable level.

Are those bitches blooming yet?.....if not you'd better flip that shit like a pancake. :)

mrdizzle · Nov 6, 2010

are you sure the nutes arent dropping because your topping up the res with plain water and not a nuted res? I dont have a top up for my res MPB and my PPM have never really moved, maybe rise a little bit if anything from the plants drinking out water, I dont believe that plants eat 500PPm out of the water over night

U C Truth · Nov 6, 2010

mrdizzle said:
are you sure the nutes arent dropping because your topping up the res with plain water and not a nuted res? I dont have a top up for my res MPB and my PPM have never really moved, maybe rise a little bit if anything from the plants drinking out water, I dont believe that plants eat 500PPm out of the water over night

Not my first BBQ kid! These bitches are dirty whores!

GreenForrest · Nov 6, 2010

Hi there Ben, very nice work. What brand dehumidifier do you have in there?

HannaMan · Nov 6, 2010

Chiller / Cool coil question:

What is the advantages of running a large chiller with these coils?? If you only cooling 60 square inches of the cool coil tubing surface area, and you have a chiller capable of cooling 500 gallons of water, wouldn't this be less efficient? Obviously its cooling the water in the line, but the only surface area that is transfering the temperate is the stainless steel line correct?

I would assume it would be just as efficient to run a much smaller chiller/reservoir?

Wouldn't it be similar to running an outside A/C to cool an entire house, and instead of splitting it through 10 or 12 inch ducting throughout the house you're running 1/2 inch line drawing the heat out of the room??

RMCG · Nov 7, 2010

You are still chilling several hundred gallons of water. Just the transfer device is different (external coil). An undersized chiller would not keep the small res at the temperature required to actually cool the systems as it can't remove it fast enough. Given enough surface area, the water temps (UC res and coil) will try to reach an equilibrium. You need to be sending water BELOW the temp that you want to keep your UC res temps through the coil.

It is just a heat pump. Transfers heat from one place to another.

HannaMan · Nov 7, 2010

If the chiller is capable of cooling say, 500 gallons, but you're only cooling the water in the cool coil lines and a 15 gallon reservoir, he's only cooling about 20 gallons of water with a chiller capable of cooling 500 gallons.....

I don't see the logic in this, and am trying to get a better understanding of why he would need such a large chiller to cool such little amounts of water.

Shady · Nov 7, 2010

Sup HannaMan... The logic is that the epicenter is part of the entire Under Current system which is moving all the connected buckets and nutrient solution several times per hour from the return pump, therefore all of the water will be chilled as it passes from the epicenter to the connected buckets... The cooling coil is placed in the epicenter and as the warm water is passed over it from the return pump, it is removing the heat from that water... :thinking

HannaMan · Nov 7, 2010

LOL. I understand that...but why such a large chiller for such little amounts of water? :passingjoint:

RMCG · Nov 7, 2010

Because it has to remove large amounts of heat quickly, not necessarily 'high' heat just lots of it.

If it can't keep up, the EWT starts to raise, then the T* differential goes down and the transfer is not as efficient. 80* solution - 60* chiller res = ~70* nutes

A small chiller won't be able to keep up and you start sending warmer and warmer water through it. Let's say your 1/3HP chiller can remove 3500BTU's/hr, that can drop 80 gallons of solution 10* in an hour. That is without additional heat 'load'.

Your little chiller is going to be cranking trying to drop 15g down 30*, 35*, 40* etc as the water heats up from the lights/growroom and your 15g res is no longer 60* but now equal to what your nute res temps are, lets say 80*. So now not only do you need to get it DOWN to 60*, you also have to fight to maintain it.

HG23 · Nov 7, 2010

Yea I agree RMCG, I think it has to do with the total heat transfer necessary. Its not just the total amount of water to be cooled by the chiller, but how much it needs to be chilled. Saying an X HP chiller can cool Y amount of water isn't the whole story. Its how much heat(BTU's worth) needs to be moved. Its just like trying to rate the size of the AC you need for your room based solely on square footage. You can't just say "well this 1 ton a/c can cool a 200 square foot area(or whatever), so I should be good." You need to think about how many KW or BTU's(total heat load) your working with and size the a/c based on that. If I have double the amount of lights as you in the same space, ill need a larger a/c. Yes, the 1 ton might take the room from 90f to 85f, but thats not enough. With the chillers its a little different for various reasons, but pretty similar. The smaller chiller would be running constantly, and the water in the coils wouldn't be cold enough to transfer enough heat out of the UC system. If you know cars, the chiller is just like a radiator. The amount of coolant in the engine is constant, so imagine what would happen if you used a radiator thats way too small. The engine would overheat cuz you can't transer enough heat, but if you triple the surface area of that radiator(or chiller) you'd be good. Also, keep in mind when Ben says he has a 15 gallon reservoir, I'm pretty sure he's talking about the res that's self contained in the chiller itself, not an external one. I thought early on that the chiller systems were limited somehow by the number of turns in the cool coils the growers were using, or in other words the amount of chilled water that is actually in contact with the heat source. But as shown in the large UC grows in the forum, the setup the guys are using work just fine, maybe cuz of the high circulation rates or something. CCH2O knows how to size them correctly. Can't wait for the next update Ben, round 2 looks sweet, that skywalker is a hot ticket item. I was also wondering, why did you decide to double up the air pumps? I know the more DO the better, but doubling up seems like a big increase.

f1ydave · Nov 7, 2010

Perhaps its your perception of heating and cooling. For example, a refrigerator is designed to be a cold box. But it just has to maintain a cold state. Once the items in the fridge cool down they stay cool, because they aren't constantly heating up.

Now if you were to keep putting hot food from the oven into the fridge every minute, do you think the fridge would be cool? No. You can even think about doing this to a freezer. You would still have the same problem.

What you need to understand is that you need a water chiller that can maintain a lower temperature. The heat in water/air is perpetual. When grow lights come on, the temp of the room rises over time. It perpetually increases, the warm air becomes warmer. It is the same in water. As the water becomes warmer, it perpetually heats up more and more.

What you are left with is the need to exchange the warm water for cool water. You need to counter with cold water. Which takes you back to what RMCG said.

Going beyond that, aquarium chillers, for example, are designed to work similar to a fridge. It brings the temp down and it stays cooler. But in a grow room, you have lights that give off heat constantly, submersed water pumps that use the water to cool, releasing the warm into the system and since water is so efficient, it will absorb heat from the air too. An aquarium chiller is not designed for the load of perpetual heat.

Water chillers are specifically designed to run under constant load. This is why they cost more and are more efficient.

HannaMan · Nov 8, 2010

Thats exactly correct... It has to do with the total heat transfer needed.

So, once the cool coil reaches its desired temperature to draw the heat out of the UC system, thats exactly what its going to do ... draw it out ....

My point is, once the coil is to desired temperature, the heat transfer is going to be exactly the same between two exact systems with two coils of equal temperature.

Say you have TWO SYSTEMS, same room, different chillers.

(1)One is a UCXL16, chiller+cool coil combo.
(2)the other is a UCXL16, chiller+cool coil combo.

The first system (1) has a 1/2 hp chiller.
The second system (2) has a 2 hp chiller.

They're both going to cool the coils (closed circuit, 20,30,40,50 gallons), and once they do, both coils will draw heat out just as efficiently..

SO WHY THE 2HP CHILLER? It's not going to take 2HP worth of chilling power to cool the amount of water in the closed circuit...

Edit: I dont mean to hi-jack the thread, either!! Sorry!

RMCG · Nov 8, 2010

2HP would be overkill for one system IMO, 1/2HP would be underwhelming as well.

HannaMan · Nov 8, 2010

Hypothetically speaking, RMCG..... lol.....

NEVERMIND EVERYBODY. Continue on.

ROUND 2: Ben Derdundat ,The Under Current & 30,000 watts.... The Evolution Continues

ROUND 2: Ben Derdundat ,The Under Current & 30,000 watts.... The Evolution Continues

U C Truth

OZUT

UCMENOW

U C Truth

jimmyhoffa59

UCMENOW

mrdizzle

U C Truth

GreenForrest

HannaMan

RMCG

HannaMan

Shady

Chillin' in the Shade...

HannaMan

RMCG

HG23

f1ydave

HannaMan

RMCG

HannaMan

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