Has anyone tried liquid cooling?

[Zimzum]

For your lights?

If it can super cool a PC, I wonder if it can have some benefit to cooling a hot bulb or reflector. Or possibly adding some heat sinks. Any ideas?

[dejayou30]

A friend of mine is a Comp Sci major and said he built a liquid cooled computer once, but it was only a matter of time until it started to leak. It probably isn't feasible to cool and HID light with liquid because if you get one drop of liquid on a hot bulb, the bulb is done. HID lights also get a lot hotter than computers so they would probably heat the liquid to a point where it was at an equilibrium at some point.

[rimbaegeus]

There is a reflector unit very much like the air cooled "cool tube," but the bulb is in a pocket of air which is surrounded by a jacket of water encased in a tube. The unit requires a rather large reservoir, if I remember correctly (something like 20 gallons for a 400w), and the water can easily reach temperatures above 100 degrees F (I remember 120 degrees being mentioned). You'd probably need a water cooler. I have a 600w HPS in an air cooled reflector and my lamp sits 8 inches above my tops (some of my plants are as close as 6 inches from the lamp). As such, I don't think the technology is as of yet advanced enough to be cheap enough to be effective (you get wonderful results with a single centrifugal fan cooling a light, or even several). Furthermore, cool air is generally abundant for indoor growers. Growers basically just have to replace air in the reflector area with air outside the grow area. Usually that is enough to provide an effective cooling system for lighting. Even in the tightest of situations, the grower can always just exhaust their reflector rather than draw in cooler air, thus causing the lamp to be cooled by the grow room air. With the inclusion of an extra fan exhausting the grow area, this set up can even be quite effective. With the water cooled lamp in question, you only have access to water in your reservoir, which is recycled quickly, and has very little opportunity for cooling once in operation without the addition of extra equipment. Furthermore, the extra equipment, an air cooler, is generally going to take more wattage to get the job done than would air cooling.

With LEDs getting cheaper by the year, air exhaust prices remaining fairly stagnant, and HID bulbs getting better and better, I can only assume that growers will keep spending money on CFLs, increased spectrum HIDs with air cooling, and eventually, LEDs or some alternative form of grow lighting before water cooling becomes cost effective enough to be a popular form of lamp cooling.

[keeko]

Texas Hydroponics :: Grow Lighting :: Liquid Cooled Lights :: Liquid Lumens "HydroFlector" Reflector Insert (http://www.texashydroponics.com/shop/Liquid-Lumens-HydroFlector-Reflector-Insert-p-2642.html)

[aardvark445]

Yes, this is a proven technique, and relatively easy. Simply dislodge your remote ballast from the wall during the light period and place it with both hands into a bucket of water. slosh it around a bit to make sure the water is nice and liquidy. You should be stone cold within about 45 minutes, depending on the temperature of the room. Sorry, I just couldnt help it. actually, i saw some liquid cooled ballasts but they were quite pricey.:thumbsup: