Chiller In Lieu Of Air Conditioning?

[smokingrubber]

They're the same 1/2 hp but 2x the btu. So same power consumption but more efficient. I'm sure the ecoplus will perform adequately but I have not seen either one in action. Which chiller are they selling on ebay or craigslist? That's the one that'll be junk!

By split ducting, I mean just ducting off the back to take the heat outside. I would have to build a sheet metal box around it and duct it myself? And yes, I was thinking one rez and one chiller to run both sides of the room.

You've done your part, but nothing will work well if the chiller isn't doing it's job properly.

 

[Bob Smith]

Yeah, the power consumption is actually a little different - the ChillKing pullls 5.5 amps, whereas the EcoPlus pulls 4.5.

Also, with how cheap electricity is, it'd take a loooooong time to recoup that $1500 initial outlay for the ChillKing, assuming they can both do the job adequately.

I'm just not sure if an aquarium chiller (although the Eco is CLEARLY designed for hydro applications) can handle the workload of constantly having to cool, although with that super insulated reservoir, I think it would work fine.

Based on its stated cooling capacity, I'm guessing the EcoPlus is about a 4000BTU capacity - for a couple of hundred more, I can get the one below, which draws 5.1 amps and has 6000BTU of cooling capacity.

Really need to find someone who's actually running something like what we're thinking off of one of these chillers to make an informed decision.

http://www.aquacave.com/12-hp-arctica-commercial-brseries-titanium-aquarium-brchiller-115v-by-jbj-1859.html

EDIT: forgot about your ducting issue - in all honesty, I'm gonna wait to see how hot it gets before I worry about that - I mean, these things are designed to keep aquariums at 59F inside, so I can't imagine that it's like a little furnace or anything.

That being said, if it's not a big issue for you to duct the heat out, it'd probably be a good idea.

 

[watercooled@]

The HydroGEN's are hot water heaters.

Let me clarify that they seem to have some modifications which I have not verified. The main one being an oxygen sensor for safety reasons. I recommend a carbon monoxide sensor as a secondary safety as well....

Carbon monoxide is what comes out of cars and will kill you.

It is also released when propane is not properly burnt. This can happen if there is not enough oxygen.

 

[watercooled@]

Y
I'm just not sure if an aquarium chiller (although the Eco is CLEARLY designed for hydro applications) can handle the workload of constantly having to cool, although with that super insulated reservoir, I think it would work fine.
....

I thought about this and wondered how I came to the verry same concern you did. I concluded it was a marketing tactic from Hydro Innovations to get me to buy a Chill King.

... Really need to find someone who's actually running something like what we're thinking off of one of these chillers to make an informed decision.

http://www.aquacave.com/12-hp-arctica-commercial-brseries-titanium-aquarium-brchiller-115v-by-jbj-1859.html

I run a 3HP JBJ Commercial Chiller. So far so good. Will it outlast a Chill King? I don't know, but I have warranty and as far as anyone in my neighborhood is concerned (or anyone peaking over the fence) it's simply a chiller for my aquarium that I keep to myself (I'm a wierdo).

*Ninja edit*
Forgot to mention I paid 2k less then the chill king. They both pull 16 amps. They both are rated at 36k BTU. the JNB 1 year warranty beats the Chill King 90 day hands down.

Lay down another stack and get 2 3HP chillers...

 

[smokingrubber]

Nope... won't work.

The HydroGEN's are hot water heaters. Seriously hot water comes from them. In the garage I was able to replace a water heater for a HydroGEN. When someone takes a shower the CO2 levels skyrocket since the hot water comes from the hydrogen. So, having said that... If the water comes out hot enough to take hot shows with, you think you can cool it off?

I don't.

I drain to waste from the hydro gens and recommend you do the same... I feed it water, you can do this with a hose for example and on the hot side I use this valve:
http://cgi.ebay.com/1-2-Electric-Solenoid-Valve-110-VAC-Air-Water-B21N_W0QQitemZ290398480828QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item439d1929bc

The out put of that valve would go to your drain... The valve gets connected to any C02 controller that sends a 110V signal... if you need 12V just get the 12v valve from the same seller on ebay.

Seriously HOT water comes from those things!!!! waste of $ trying to chill it in my opinion and it won't even work unless you are grossly oversized on your chiller.

How many gallons a day do you think you waste (I know its probably hard to tell). How big is your grow area and would you recommend the hydrogen in a 4x9 tent (w/ drain to waste).

 

[watercooled@]

How many gallons a day do you think you waste (I know its probably hard to tell). How big is your grow area and would you recommend the hydrogen in a 4x9 tent (w/ drain to waste).

A 4x9 would drain very little. I remember seeing a great thread on one of the forums where someone was measuring the amount of waste. If I get a chance I'll run it for 5 minutes and measure the water within the next week or two so I can tell you how much it uses.

The are is about 10x's yours, I use the HydroGen pro which is just a larger unit.

I would pony out the extra $ and get the hydrogen, but I'm a sucker for relabeled stuff, as well as paying for a good idea, but here is the same CO2 Generator... uh I mean tankless water heater from ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/MAREY-5L-LPG-GAS-TANKLESS-LP-PROPANE-HOT-WATER-HEATER_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem439b91b0c9QQitemZ290372825289QQptZMotorsQ5fRVQ5fTrailerQ5fCamperQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories

it's a Marey brand and claims 5.5L per minute.

Cheers!

 

[G33kDro]

i run a 1/2 hp active aqua chiller with now 4 iceboxes.
just got 2 today and hooked up
have 3 8"ers and one 6"
need to get a more efficient fan to run em all.
the ducting of a active aqua is pretty simple. and basically makes it into a window unit.
i have a dedicated res for just the iceboxes, the res is an old freezer. just less than 150 gallons.
i like to think it works awesome. but the crutch is definately the chiller.
i have to use my iceboxes as a sort of supplemental ac.
i run my lights linear, ducted from outside through the lights 4 lights (3k total) to another room when the lights are on to heat my house.
atleast for the winter.......
so most of my heat is already being removed via ducting, yet my chiller setup still rises about 10-15 F when lights are on.
the freezer helped a ton, and would outperform an igloo imo any day.

 

[Realclosetgreenz]

Wow guys so much energy being used in all these ideas. Here's an idea that could work great and cost less. The idea is a GIANT forced air Evaporative cooler, The kinds Usually used in Large scale green house application and live stock. basicaly a wall made of cardbord inserts with cooled water driping down them(via water cooler), with high powered fans behind it. On the opposite end of the room have an outtake of the same intake volume and velocity this creates massive air current (sometimes too strong). The out take in a green house is just an open wall with fans in front of it, which of course cant be the option here. So we build a large box(duct) very similar to a chimney were we can exhaust the outtake up into an attic space were it can be isolated into a smaller duct were we can increase static pressure and push all 10,000 cfm thru a MASSIVE filter. the problem is the system is that it almost always needs to run to keep up efficiency and can be very humid.

 

[roorsmoke]

I'm basically at the same point as most of you, want to switch to water cooled and trying to find out how. Everyone that ends up doing it should definitely document and post it somewhere so that there's more info available. DIGITALHIPPIE has a thread on ICmag with a water cooled room. I love SOG's 12" heat exchanger, badass for sure. I'll probably go with homemade type like that rather than Hydro Innovations gear.

EDIT: forgot about your ducting issue - in all honesty, I'm gonna wait to see how hot it gets before I worry about that - I mean, these things are designed to keep aquariums at 59F inside, so I can't imagine that it's like a little furnace or anything.

you have to remember that it's going to exhaust the heat from your growroom. Hot air is transferred to the water in the icebox, then circulated back to the chiller where it transfers that heat back to the air and sends the recooled water back to the icebox to collect more heat and bring it out of the grow area. If you put the chiller in the area that the grow room will be intaking air from(or the room its sitting in if its sealed), temperature wise its doing the same thing as just blowing hot air from the tent into that room. Hopefully that makes sense. What I'm saying is the heat has to go somewhere, it doesn't disappear inside the chiller.
I think people are able to run chillers for their aquarium inside because the aquarium isnt putting out heat like HID lights do. Their chiller is only removing heat from the pumps, fish and small lights or whatever, and blowing that out, instead of the heat of large grow lights.

 

[anonanonanon]

i'm running 2 1000's with a 6inch vortex pulling all the air from both ducted, lensed hoods and pushing it through a 6in ice box. i am using a 1/4hp chiller. i cant yet get the room temp right with both lights. my major battle right now is keeping the water temp in the resi down below 60-65. i am looking for a cheap dorm fridge/freezer for a DIY water chiller to be used as a supplement for my 1/4hp chiller. it seems like if i can get my water to stay @55-60, my room temps will be good. i am dedicated to making this water cooling thing work, so i will keep posting with results.

 

[smokingrubber]

I'm seperating my 1000w lights off onto another fan. I'll blow that light's hot air out into the attic. The light's will have a seperate fresh-air line and it's own fan. That way foul air will not be allowed into the lights or into the attic.

Then, I'll take the 8" inline and attach the can-filter (inside the top of the tent) and the heat-exchanger. This way I do not need to cool the lights, only the room.

 

[Hotwired]

Any updates here?

 

[Bob Smith]

Any updates here?

Yeah, actually..........building out my garage right now and am gonna use two ice boxes to cool my growing area - check out my thread for updates.

 

[TheRuiner]

i'm running 2 1000's with a 6inch vortex pulling all the air from both ducted, lensed hoods and pushing it through a 6in ice box. i am using a 1/4hp chiller. i cant yet get the room temp right with both lights. my major battle right now is keeping the water temp in the resi down below 60-65. i am looking for a cheap dorm fridge/freezer for a DIY water chiller to be used as a supplement for my 1/4hp chiller. it seems like if i can get my water to stay @55-60, my room temps will be good. i am dedicated to making this water cooling thing work, so i will keep posting with results.

This is how Lucas from Hydro Innovations explained it to me; think of the btu's being created, it's just math.
1/4 hp chiller is about 3,000 btu's of cooling power, a light creates 3.41 btu's of heat per watt. Therefore one 1000watt light creates 3410btu's of heat. Two creates 6820btu's of heat. There aint no way in hell your gonna cool two 1000watters with a 1/4 hp chiller, you need a larger more capable chiller. I'd invest in another ice box as well if I were you.

 

[1mikej]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0uRrMvfucY&feature=PlayList&p=EEC2318ADEB1C3F8&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=32 look at this video

 

[wowzerz]

With all the money it would cost to adequately cool your room with water chillers and ice boxes, why not just invest in a portable (Dual hose) ac, or even two. No need to have a compressor outside making noise, just a place to dump hot air, ie attic etc.
I also have battled with heat, has been my #1 problem since I started growing. Now have a 14000 BTU wallmount AC that keeps my 4kw between 80-85 (can run it even cooler depending on outside temp)

 

[Bob Smith]

With all the money it would cost to adequately cool your room with water chillers and ice boxes, why not just invest in a portable (Dual hose) ac, or even two. No need to have a compressor outside making noise, just a place to dump hot air, ie attic etc.
I also have battled with heat, has been my #1 problem since I started growing. Now have a 14000 BTU wallmount AC that keeps my 4kw between 80-85 (can run it even cooler depending on outside temp)

Exactly the conclusion that I came to.

People don't realize that in addition to cooling, AC provides dehumidification (which is a necessity in a sealed room environment).

Even though you might save marginally (and this is after the massive startup costs involved) on cooling in the LOOOOOONG run (would take a while to recoup your investment), you're still gonna need to get a really large dehumidifier.

Just doesn't make sense to me - I could get a portable AC for $500 which will do the trick, or I could get a 1HP chiller, multiple ice boxes, a dehumidifier, pumps, etc. for $2-$3K, and have a much more complicated system to monitor.

I'm just gonna K.I.S.S. and get a portable.

 

[1mikej]

i use duel hose portabes myself. the main advantage to this in my opinion is that a ac unit running all the time to keep up with heat from lights will dehumidify your room. those cillers wont so you will need a dehumidifier anyway. a dehumidifier is nothing more than a cheap/small portable ac unit.

 

[TheRuiner]

What about then having the option to run a sealed room and administer co2 like a pro, are you guys forgetting that perk? I'd still love to do this if I have some money to burn I'm going to give it a shot, but I, like you too, will still have humidity to content with , running with a almost constant RH of 58% I would eventually be addressing this whether I'd want too or not...

 

[Bob Smith]

What about then having the option to run a sealed room and administer co2 like a pro, are you guys forgetting that perk? I'd still love to do this if I have some money to burn I'm going to give it a shot, but I, like you too, will still have humidity to content with , running with a almost constant RH of 58% I would eventually be addressing this whether I'd want too or not...

Ummmmmm..................what?

My AC allows me to "run a sealed room and administer CO2 like a pro" - I'm not really sure what you're getting at.