Good idea or stupid? Just thought of it, seems to be pretty good!

Heres an idea for a grow cabinet that I came up with. I was thinking about the heat that HPS and MH lights give off, but the wonderful spectrum they produce is just too much of a benefit. SO naturally everyone works around the heat. Well, If I created a cabinet that had a method of separating the lighting section from the growing section, while not effecting the lumens per foot, and be able to maintain the temperature of the grow room without having to also counter the tremendous heat of the lights, then indoor growing with such hot lights would no longer be such a problem. The method I came up with uses cool water running on a couple of fish tank pumps, setup in a sealed tank (which would actually be quite inexpensive to make) which would be mounted in between the lights and the plants. Using glass and water would not block any of the light, and would actually probably magnify the rays considerably. Not to mention, since theres a constant supply of cool water running in between the glass and the plants, it would actually be cool enough to have plants grow right into the top of its compartment so you would literally never have to worry about burning your plants. I just thought this up, thought some people might be intrigued, heres a drawing of it:

well, it shows 'ingenuity', but it sure is overkill ... the layer of water is bound to absorb lumens, I should think (even air blowing over a bulb reduces the lumens) ... if you move enough air, your cabinet should be at room temperature, which most people hold to around 72 F ... great diagram, by the way :smokin:

It's a neat idea but luckily you can pick up air-cooled hoods nice and cheap and save hassle/space/lumens.

Good few years back folks were trying to use water jackets around the bulb- worked pretty well, once you got the electrics waterproof. The water would then drain to waste. Water volume was an issue, unless you were off muni supply. Don't see commercially marketed fixtures, so I'm guessing it wasn't ready for prime time.

Only issue that I see- isn't a relatively small sealed tank going to heat up pretty bad? The pumps will equalize the temp throughout the tank, but they're not going to actually remove any heat.

Seems like you'd need some kind of heat exchanger to cool the water, in order to prevent boil-over.

Prob also have to vent the tank- temp changes=volume changes. Not a huge volume increase before water vaporizes, but still there... and once vaporized, pressure builds pretty quick. Seems like you'd want a blow-off. ( To avoid blow-up).

it IS a good idea but to me just involves too much work to get what you want. For me the key to being "good" also involves being easy. ;)

Texas Hydroponics :: Grow Lighting :: Liquid Cooled Lights

kind of like your idea. and i have seen this being used with a 1000watt hps and i could touch the cooled hood and not burn my hand at all

Hey, there ya go.

Thanks for the link- didn't know that anybody'd actually brought them to market.

I saw a post about a dude that did the same basic thing at overgrow. He used a huge pickle pickle jar around a 1000w HPS, and had a stream of water going over it to absorb the heat, He was even able to get a light meter reading of thw bulb with/ without the water cooled jar. I dont remember the exact reading, but I remember thinking it wasent too bad of a loss.

i would think the water may magnify some of the light and create hotspots and possibly burn the plants? like a magnifying glass in the sun?

I would definitely get the Water Jacket cooled Vessle, 93% of the radiant heat is removed! I wanted to do this more or less because I thought it would kill two birds with one stone: Water magnifies the light and removes heat at the same time, but clearly this is not the case and energy would be lost. If they sell a practical instrument such as that one then i just might go for it, but if I could figure out a way to get the separator working without boiling over it would be nice because you could use a variation of different lighting rather than just HPS lighting. Having MH and HPS has always turned out nicely for me, so I might start doing a little work and figure out whether or not this would work. THanks for all your input guys!

PS: To make sure the water stays cool and keeps the glass cool, I could create a resovior tank that the main system bleeds into and sucks from which could be refridgerated with a little ingenuity. Have it separated into two compartments with a one way valve in between, have one tube connected to the open side of the valve for warm water to bleed into, and once the 2nd "cool" tank has been emptied the warm water could then go through the valve into the cooling tank and begin its temperature decent. Once the main tank reaches a certain temperature it would be bled again and refilled with cold water, after bleeding its warm water into the resovior tank to be re-cooled. Thus creating an unending cycle of cooled water.

PSS: Or better yet, have the warm water drain into a different tank which is connected to an automatic watering system, so the water would then be used to keep the plants cool and keep them alive! :thumbsup:

Heres my idea for a resovior tank, which would ultimately solve the problem of the water heating up. Blow off valves sound like a great idea, I could have one in each corner of the tank and have a tube routing the vapors outside the grow cabinet so it wouldnt have the possibility of fogging up my expensive lights and possibly cause short circuiting something should I let it go un-noticed for too long. And I want to change my original plan from a tank 12" in width to a tank 6" or less in width, that way the light doesnt have as much to go through and losses in lumens would me down to a minimum. I'm going to do some more research and put together a final diagram of everything and all my plans in a little bit, after thinking about the lights one could buy versus my idea, I think a separated grow room would end up being easier in the long run. It might take you a few hours to setup, but a few hours is worth it if you are guaranteed a good grow area with absolutely no risk of burning your plants. I'm thinking of making it entirely automated, have a thermometer in the main tank and resovior tank so once it reaches a certain temperature it can be flushed from the main tank, then once it reaches a certain temperature in the resovior tank you know its ready to be flushed back in.

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Originally Posted by radefactor

a variation of different lighting rather than just HPS lighting. Having MH and HPS has always turned out nicely for me,

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Seems like the only limitation to the jacket system would be the bulb profile. The traditional halide bulb wouldn't fit, but there are a couple halides out that use a more tubular shape, more like an HPS- My personal fav of the moment, the Hortilux Blue, included.