Just built a new room, thought I'd share the specs:
1. Size of room? Bloom 16x9. Veg 10x11. Nursery 7x11.
2. How well insulated is it? Quite well, it's all in a finished basement
3. Total wattage in the room(s)? Bloom: 8x1k HPS, all in 8" vented magnum xxxl hoods, the 'ochos'. Currently running just two of them, will be adding more stages of plants at 2 week intervals. Veg: currently 2 x1k sealed 6" hoods vented outside, on a light rotator. Nursery/clones; shoplight 2x40w over ez cloner, and 2x90w UFO LED and 1x130w LED over preveg stages
4. Burning gas for Co2? Tank, on Sentinel CHHC-4. So far, it's just sipping the stuff.
5. Ballast in the room? If so digital or magnetic? Magnetic ballasts in adjacent room, not coincidentally the room where the air is pulled to cool the hoods before it's exhausted outside. Eventually the plan is to install flipboxes and run another similar 8k bloom room, cooled with same chiller.
6. Dehu? What size? How often is it running? HAve a 70 pint dehuey, set it to 75% humidity, haven't seen it run yet.
7. What size, brand, and seer rating is your a/c or chiller system? 2 Ton window mount Chillking water chiller. Do chillers have SEER ratings? What is it and what's a good rating?
8. How often does it cycle (turn on and off)? Right now all it's chilling are 2k of lights and chilling 24 site RDWC in bloomroom (100 gallons), and 24 site RDWC in veg room (75 gallons). Running maybe 20%. As I add more circuits and turn up more hoods, surely it will run more.
9. What is the highest and average outdoor temps? What the climate like? This year's August was hottest on record for Colorado; highs averaged mid 90s. Lots of people complained, I wasn't one of them. Winter temps can drop waaaay down, I've seen it hit -25 at the house. Usually 30s n up daytime, teens to low 30s nights. And yet, it's not unusual to see a 75 degree day in January! Oh, and turn your bones to dust while you're still walking DRY. Single digits not unheard of, it can be only 60% humidity in a driving rainstorm, don't ask me how! Altitude also contributes to low RH, and big temp swings day vs. night. Not unusual for temps to swing 50 degrees in just 12 hours, especially in spring and fall.
10. What is your grow room temps set at? Just sealed the room, set it at 80. Using a Hydro Innovations soft temp controller, fan changes speed to maintain a constant temp as opposed to cycling all the time. Sentinel says the room is nailed to 80. So far, so good... Have only the one chiller box and 8" maxfan running at the moment, will install 2 or 3 more as I turn up more hoods. All will run from same controller.
11. Is the system able to maintain the temp setpoint through the entire light cycle? So far, the system is maintaining temps better than I could if I didn't have anything else to do but watch it. Humidity is creeping up from 35%- seriously!- but I want it closer to 70%-75% day and night.
Had a nasty surprise when installing things; FREE ADVICE: use water in your chiller setup until you've run it for awhile and made sure there aren't any leaks! Why? The leaks I discovered were at the connections to the chiller coils in the RDWC units. One was leaking badly enough it overflowed and flooded the system by a few gallons! If I'd had glycol in the system, I'd have ruined the nutes, and maybe the run. I will put glycol in the system in a few weeks once I'm confident it's tight, not doing a Colorado winter without it.
Chiller system reservoir is 55 gallon drum, currently 2/3 full. The other third emptied into the RDWC system, lol. 1/2hp Flotec pump pushing water, definitely no shortage of oomph from that beast. MORE FREE ADVICE: the hose on the inlet side of the pump needs to be plenty stiff (I got the thick stuff with nylon threads braided in it, hydro store hose is inadequate for this application), otherwise a pump that's powerful enough to push all this water will suck the intake hose flat and start cavitating inside the pump. That buzzing, grinding sound is bubbles forming in the partial vacuum and hammering the impeller, and will wear it out fast if situation isn't fixed.
Front Range cities of Colorado are very fortunate in that usually the city water is very good; this city runs just 40-60 ppm out of the tap. Gotta add the
cal-mag just to get a decent base! Plus, the water runs about 60 degrees from the same tap in winter, up to 75 in summer. Bonus cooling!
Need to set up some kind of cooling coil under the ez-cloner. This is the small 30 site unit and they seem to heat up the most. Thinking of setting the entire cloner 2" deep in water in a shallow tub, and run 1/2" hose coiled under the cloner. My idea is the water bath will help transfer heat...
