Water Cooled hps

[Coxie]

Does anyone have actual experience using either Fresca Sol or Liquid Lumens, water-cooled hps's? Only reply if you either; have experience or directly know someone who has.

 

[scoobydoo]

No actual experience here, Ive never seen these products in the wild. but Im very experienced in water cooling computers. Imho the drawbacks will outweigh the advantages (even with computers). Both glass and water absorb light energy as well as heat, wtaer is NOT perfectly clear. This reflector also has 2 pieces of "glass" meaning even without water the losses will be higher then normal. Curved glass is also thicker then flat again meaning its less efficent. Another scary thing is your going to have alot of water very close to your lights. A leaky fitting could cause a fire or worse. You will have to change to water constantly as your going to be giving it lots of light and algae will form. Unless the water is circulating its just going to heat up, your gonna need a very powerful pump to pump that kinda head, your going to need to hook a heat exchanger in another room and alot of plumbing. Your better off with ac right now, this product is mostly marketing.

 

[Widowmaker]

Have had a Liquid Lumens for 1 1/2 months love it. Started using it when I flipped to flowering and my room doesn't get hot................ Yes the glass and water knock down the light level, but it is more than made up by moving the light closer. Using 1000W HPS and it will heat up a 50 gal drum of water so I suggest a chiller or a radiator with a fan. Have a pump for the chiller (it’s in the attic) 12’ head 800 GPH $220 and a pump for the fixture 500GPH. Using hose on everything its very quiet, unlike air cooled lights and everything has been sized to expand. I’m hanging the fixture vertically with 6 plants around it. Two plants have a 4 lamp t5 fixture on the other side from the 1000W. The 200W T5 heats the room. There is humidity but no real heat (82 degrees max). Looking to buy Fresca Sol for my next run when I expand.
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[Mr.Therapy Man]

Water and electricity srare me.I just dont trust them because Im not that well informed and they are fairly new...

 

[Malachi]

I have a friend that had one and he hated it, said that he would rather run an AC with air-cooled lights, the biggest dis-advantage was the cleaning of the lens i guess

 

[Widowmaker]

I have a friend that had one and he hated it, said that he would rather run an AC with air-cooled lights, the biggest dis-advantage was the cleaning of the lens i guess

Both water and air need to be clean or you get dirty. Not really a problem if you take steps to be keep clean. Filter your air or add Physan 20 to the your RO water.
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[mrhappy]

I tried running fresca sols and woke up this morning to 150 gallons of water on the floor and broken glass, I am over them. Thousands of dollars of punishment for a tripped circut breaker is not the way I am going! a chain is only as strong as its weekest link. Too many week links to fail. Chiller, chiller pump, water pumps, fittings & pipe etc. Thousands of additional dollars for chiller, hardware, pipe and for what? less lumens and I still need an AC. I have grown traditionally with a properly sized AC and it is so much simpler and better. Perhaps for a 1 light setup they are ok, but for many lights there is too much potential for failure and disapointment.

 

[Widowmaker]

Mr Happy, Sad news, I had a GFI pop and caught it after an hour and a half, but luckly no damage.
Liquid Lumens and Fresca have a safety flow switch that turns off the power to the lights. But its special order nobody seems to stock them.
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[Mr.Sputnik]

Liquid lumens has them in stock for $11.95 a piece. Cheap, cheap insurance.

 

[Widowmaker]

Liquid lumens has them in stock for $11.95 a piece. Cheap, cheap insurance.

There website sez $79.99 for a sensor, which part costs $11.95? TIA!
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[blahman]

I dunno, but water and high voltage hmm even with gfi's and sensors I still wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole. I've worked with a electrician for quite a few years and i've seen the weird things that can happen with water.

 

[chranotik]

i looked at this route before i decided to get 3 iceboxes for my 3 600's .. i started out with a 1/4hp chiller but decided to upgrade to a 1/2hp and now i seem to be able to handle the heat no prob.. i toss in a couple frozen milk jugs in the 60 gal reservoir every now and then .. but it has been in the 80-90's here lately.. it's really the only way i can grow in this climate during summer. best thing about this way is if anything messes up, theres no risk of bulbs bursting from hot water around them.

 

[RichieRich]

I tried 6 Liquid Lumens with a 1HP Chiller running 3k at a time with a 100 gal rez and even if I threw ice in the rez to keep water at 50F the big ass glass tubes filled with cold water still had my rooms hotter than me running 3 DayStar's 6" with 1 8" Can Fan blowing air from outside through the lights and back outside, the house AC Was on cooling the room also.

So basically the Liquid Lumens actually caused my rooms to run hotter than just venting the air cooled hoods didn't matter how cool the water was running through the lights because the radiant heat still heated up the aluminum wings they come with with inturn heats up the air in your room so you still end up needing to run AC, even if you cover up the hoods with that bubble reflextix insulation.

The Guys at Liquid Lumens were pricks to deal with also. Save your self some time and cash and just cool your room with A/C.

Maybe the Ice Boxes Work alot better, they seem to be a better cheaper way to go. You have to buy the proper commercial grade chiller if you want it to work right also.

 

[Widowmaker]

RichieRich,
I run my Liquid Lumens vertically with no reflector, water is at 68F and and theres almost no heat coming off. Seems at 50F you would have condensation on the lights and hoses. Was the chiller in the same room. What you are describing just sound like something a miss. Maybe pumping the water threw the lights too fast or too slow? Agree that the guy at Liquid Lumens doesn't seem to helpful.
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[bicycle racer]

No actual experience here, Ive never seen these products in the wild. but Im very experienced in water cooling computers. Imho the drawbacks will outweigh the advantages (even with computers). Both glass and water absorb light energy as well as heat, wtaer is NOT perfectly clear. This reflector also has 2 pieces of "glass" meaning even without water the losses will be higher then normal. Curved glass is also thicker then flat again meaning its less efficent. Another scary thing is your going to have alot of water very close to your lights. A leaky fitting could cause a fire or worse. You will have to change to water constantly as your going to be giving it lots of light and algae will form. Unless the water is circulating its just going to heat up, your gonna need a very powerful pump to pump that kinda head, your going to need to hook a heat exchanger in another room and alot of plumbing. Your better off with ac right now, this product is mostly marketing.

exactly water is 600 times denser than air lumens are lost fast. plus all your other points just plain a bad idea when air cooled hoods work well enough anyways once proper cfm's are reached.

 

[Mr.Sputnik]

nuff said, props to coxie.

 

[fatman]

Use a water flow control switch. You wire your lights through the switch circuait. If the water quits running the lights dgo out. Pretty simple.
This one is likely to sell for $20 or less.



Water Cooled bulbs can have their tubes even touching the plants, air cooled need usually 6" of spacing and uncooled tubes (especially 1000 watters) require spacing of over 12". That is a lot of wasted lighting as intensity drops exponentially at distances. IE there is a hue difference in lighting inetensity between a tube two inches a way and one 12 inches away. Plus heat gai is minimal with water cooled lights. Plus you can grow taller plants with water cooled lighting as with a closer bulb you get deeper penetration of lighting.

To keep the lighting clean use RO water and add some copper sulfate to the water. it will stop all bacterial and algae growth. Buy it at any tropical fish store.

 

[fatman]

exactly water is 600 times denser than air lumens are lost fast. plus all your other points just plain a bad idea when air cooled hoods work well enough anyways once proper cfm's are reached.

Chemically pure water is transparent as far as light waves are concerned as is undoped glass. Considering that RODI water is about as pure as one is going to get and it is often referrred to as ultra-pure, light absorptin in general is not a concern. Comsidering that the galss is boro silicate glass that is undoped then light loss is also not a real issue. The only real issue (besides $)involved is bacteria and algae which can be controlled with a negligible difference in water tranparency.

The water cooled lights are a winning proposition over simple aircondidtioning if one can absorb the cost of buying or buiding a good chiller rather than settling for a cheap aquarium chiller as is commonly used. Most often this is not an option for a hobby grower, there fore cheaper methods such as air cooled lights are more often used.

As far as a pump. Yes a higher pressure pump handling a larger static head works better. I simply buy Iwaki MD-30RZT pumps off of eBay.

As far as comparing out door growing to indoor growing and such argument is moot. Only a very small amount of mj growers see out door growing as an option so that is a moot link.

 

[another_sellout]

I have a question. If everyone agrees these things leak, like the link Sputnik set up, then why in the name of whatever deity you have would you bring them into your house? I mean, holy shit! That's the most expensive session of Russian roulette I've ever seen. (MAO!) That's seriously terrifying to me. Seriously.

 

[Widowmaker]

Its not for everybody, thats for sure. You need to be good at assembling plumbing and understand that seals need to be properly torqued. IOW if you over tighten stuff it can make it leak. Flow and temperature sensors are a must for safety and property damage. Unless you plan to watch it 24/7.

Were talking about broken glass and water on the floor. Unless you grab the broken bulb with your hand while its plugged in, I just don't see the danger.

If your looking to be safe, don't grow at all. Our governments are way more dangerous then a broken light bulb.
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