Water cooled co2

[Bozo]

posts 30 and 32 adress the fan issue as i see it ,also I agree the side vents are not to be covered ,but I was able to tape top with no ill effects to flame
I hope our little talk here helps people glad you popped in please feel free to add or comment on my set up just do me the favor of reading through all my posts I think you will find I have peoples safety in mind also

 

[Cotyledons]

Thanks Bozo...We work really hard to be innovative and look for ways to make gardening easier for everyone.

Regarding your Marey unit, if you exchange the air in the grow room at least once a day you should be ok. This would need to be with fresh air from outside though. Also of course the less it runs the better off you will be too.

The Ice Box for the HydroGEN is not made with a plastic housing, so no worries on it melting. It's all metal and much smaller than the heat exchanger that you have pictured. It is 3.5" x 3.5" x 2.5" and has 3 1/2" duct flanges attached on both sides. Pretty inexpensive addition and worth it on the grand scheme of things. This idea has been "in the works" since the beginning, actually the guys from Best Coast Growers gave them the idea originally, but b/c the cost of development was so high on the HydroGEN there was no money left so the idea was put on the back burner. Now that sales are going good there is a little more room in the budget.

I'm not knockin your idea..that was creative of you to install the system like you did, the truck radiator was a good idea...I'm sure your cooling system for it works great.

 

[BlindDate]

Cotyledons......How much water has to run through the unit per minute. And, can it run without water?

 

[Bozo]

happy to hear sales are up shame I couldnt get one before 22 and i had so much time on my hands

If you mount the HI brand ice box made for the hydrogen all metal construction like the bozo box ...and mounted it on top of hydrogen ,wouldnt it condensate like crazy to the point it dripped ? I would venture to say yes it would .Mine had enough condensation i concidered tapping a drain into it .Fan on all the time took care of that so far

 

[Cotyledons]

BlindDate

Good questions. On the lowest setting on the water valve (and with adequate pressure), this unit uses 1.5 GMP. So in a small semi-sealed grow room you are not going to use much water at all. For example the H.I. testing facility is 24' x 24' x 8' with 12k watts and a couple hundred plants. The generator runs for about 6-8 minutes an hour and we use about 100-125 gallons a day using drain to storage. That's not much for a grow room that size...to fill a standard size bath tub is about 40 gallons. Most people assume the units uses lots of water, and if it were constantly running it would, but what people don't consider is how much co2 this unit creates in a very short amount of time. Bozo's post mentioned that his unit for example runs for 45 secs to reach 1500 ppm...this was a little over a gallon of water. He also mentions he is using roughly 16 gallons PER DAY, so for a semi-sealed, average sized grow room you could estimate consumption at 15-25 gallons per day.

Because environmental friendliness is one of our top priorities, H.I. does not recommend drain to waste unless absolutely necessary. Of course using A/C to cool the heat from a standard burner is much more wasteful than draining to waste, so even using this method you are saving energy. Once electricity is used it's gone forever, but the water running through the HydroGEN can be reused in any application. Some additional cooling tips...if anyone is using RO water like us, save the waste water in trash cans and use it to cool the unit THEN put it down the drain. You get to use your water twice. We never use fresh water for the HydroGEN, only RO waste water. Save rain water and use it (run it through a filter if necessary). We have even used our old nutrient water with out any problems. Sometimes the inlet screen on the unit gets clogged, easy to fix.

Or if you want to recirculate your water...

Anyone lucky enough to have an inground swimming pool? If not buy a kiddie pool for $80 at Wal Mart and use this outside as a reservoir. Used barrels are cheap too. The water will have the opportunity to cool during the dark cycle (everyone knows not to run co2 during the off cycle right?). Even if at the end of the cycle if the water gets warm or even hot the water will still cool the burner, just not quite as efficiently. The best way to do this is to get a sump pump (at least 1/6 HP minimum) and two quality water hoses...sump pump in reservoir, hooked to water hose, run inside hooked to HydroGEN, from HydroGEN back to the reservoir. Plug your pump in to your co2 monitor and you are all set.

H.I. is about to offer a HydroGEN heat exchanger for cooling the water in recirculation system (not an Ice Box). This is a heat exchanger 6" x 9 1/2" x 2.5" and has two 4.5" 12v muffin fans attached. The way this will work is you mount the heat exchanger OUTSIDE your grow room. The exiting hot water would be circulated through this heat exchanger before reentering the storage reservoir. The fans could either run constantly or could be plugged in to your co2 controller so that they come on and off with the HydroGEN. When hot water is flowing and the fans are running this heat exchanger removes loads of heat without using much power at all. This would eliminate the chiller and would use .5 amps vs 5 amps to get comparable results. The two important things to remember is that the heat exchanger must be mounted outside your grow room and must be installed in the exiting hot water line to be most effective. Cost will probably be $200 or less.

No BlindDate the HydroGEN unit will not run without water. We will however be offering a MiniGEN soon that can be used with or without water. This unit makes 1k btu and can cool 95% of the heat, and is specifically designed for huts and closets.

 

[Cotyledons]

Bozo,

There are and were units still for sale, some stores ran out but some still have stock, I talked with a storeowner yesterday that had two left, Infinite Season, if anyone is looking. The shipment that was intended to be delivered on the 22nd has not arrived yet. So the stores that were out of stock will remain out of stock for a few more weeks unfortunately. No manufacturing issues, just logistics--all the shipping going on over the Christmas holidays got our shipment hung up.

Regarding the "sweating" of the mini Ice Box heat exchanger. One thing to consider is that the water should not be flowing through the heat exchanger unless the HydroGEN is running. We will suggest that customers attach the cold water line in to the mini Ice Box first...then down to the water inlet of the HydroGEN. This way water is only flowing when co2 is needed. Running cold water (lower than the dew point) through water lines and heat exchangers constantly will cause condensation, no doubt (by the way dew points in grow rooms are usually much higher than outside because of elevated humidity). With the mini Ice Box having water circulated through it only when the HydroGEN is running...then no condensation will occur. The heated air moving though it keeps the exchanger dry...just like the heat exchanger built inside the unit.

Thanks for the opportunity to answer your questions.

 

[Bozo]

Hope you dont mind but open discussion is better I think for everyone
I dont agree with you about condensation on mini icebox .Altho your is smaller I think if you have very cold water as I do,and my water flows through the icebox before it gets to the heat exchanger,when water stops and cold water is in the icebox it will condense then.My water lines in my room were doing it @ 75 degrees 50% RH,and when I took front off of my icebox there were 4-5 table spoons in there laying on bottom .My water does not run through these lines when heater is off just like yours.Yours wont condensate during the non burn times?
Know what I have found to condensate the least so far?....the clear reinforced tubing you see on the bottom outlet .I belive this is the happening from light heating it up faster .Every metal peice sweats ,the solenoid valve the valves i put in the copper line that feeds whole thing all sweat like a pig till you insolate them.The black heater hose on top condensate worse than the metal peices

Can we agree old nutes for alot of us =salt water? if so
Be carefull not to mix salt water with 2 different types of metal you will create a battery and in doing so electrolisis (i know i spell bad sry)will occur and the electricity you create will eat weakest metal .that would be the heat exchanger in my set up or the heater core would be a toss up .And if your is threaded wont it be thinner in between the threads giving the electolisis a better chance of creating a hole faster
Althou I respect the recycling aspect of that aproach ,but as a boat owner I dissagree with using old nutes (if we can agree my old sensi bloom is salt water)

 

[Cotyledons]

Bozo,

If we were to place the mini Ice Box farther away from the unit I think that condensation would be more of an issue, for sure. That might be the difference between our setups. The air is cooled down some before it reaches your Bozo box. I would assume this because first off all you are changing from a concentrated heat from a 3 1/2 outlet and diluting it into a 6" duct ( I think that it is 6" that you are using), which is cooling it off some. Also since you are using uninsulated metal ducting you are cooling the gas even more b/c the metal pipes acts as a heat exchanger too. If your ducting is 75 degrees and you pass hot gasses through it the ducting will absorb some of the heat. On our mini the concentrated heat from the 3 1/2" duct is passed directly over our heat exchanger before the co2 gas flows in to the ducting, or directly in to the room. The concentrated heat from the unit is what dries the potential condensation on our mini. There is a very similar heat exchanger built inside the unit that would also sweat if this were the case. Are you running your fan with the HydroGEN only or does it run constantly? What is your water temperature...must be cold! The braided tube is the only way to go with...we highly recommend to all of our customers to use this type. It's expensive but well worth it...your right we do not have much condensation issues from using it.

Not sure if you know already but burning propane releases a small amount water vapor which can make the humidity slightly rise in your grow room too. As this water vapor cools it separates from the air, making it feel more humid. This humid air, after is cooled down some, is passed over your Bozo box and the water is collected. This isn't a bad thing though...the water collecting on the exchanger means that is removed from the air in your grow room...reducing the humidity from burning propane instead of raising it. If you were to leave the water supply flowing through the Bozo box and left your fan running constantly you could actually dehumidify your grow room with it. 50% is not bad though...most guys here are at about 65-75%.

You are right about the salts and corrosion, with the constant use of heavily salted water over time this would be an issue. Wouldn't you agree though that the amount of salt in reservoir water is much lower than that of ocean water? Making this less of an issue? We typically abuse our equipment... running any water we can through our unit trying to get it to fail. Over a year of testing no problems,..we still haven't even changed the batteries. We do not constantly run nutrient water through our unit and I would not recommend to do this day in and day out. We feel like briefly using nutrient water and resuming using fresh water, flushing the unit, would not cause much or any harm. Our threaded tubing does offer more surface area for corrosion you are right about that too, but at the same time this tubing has extra material making it thicker on top of the ribs. To better explain...the interior of the tubing is wavy...so at the top of the wave the material is thicker than typical tubing and is only as thin at typical tubing in the bottom of the waves. Making it ultimately thicker than typical copper...making it more durable against corrosion. Good point to talk about.

 

[Bozo]

I can see your point about the mini icebox not condensating because it is closer to heat source.I may concider moving it later and try it as you said the H.I. model will mount directly on top.
The pipe you see is 4 inch single wall stove pipe I had a few stix handy and it fit over the outlet and into the opening in case .
I agree the ocean is may more than the 1300 ppm i dump out in my old nutes .You could put a zinc in the line somewhere a take care of the electolisis .
Thank you again for staying and discussing this with me ,I wish you and yours a happy new year and hope it is a prosperious one H.I I really like there ideas (I dont blame ya for not showwing a pic of new aircooled model I would probably steal it and try to reverse engineer it )

 

[yamaha_1fan]

Cotyledons, hope you are still watching this thread


I read somewhere, if you mount the unit outside the growroom, you loose a small amount of CO2. Do you have any idea how much small is?

I will be running two CO2 generators, one per 18x20 room. Heat is my biggest concern. If I could mount this outside the room, that would be great. But I dont want to loose alot of CO2. If its mounted outside the room, how important is water cooling? Could you just use a small res and pump warm/hot water back into it to activate it?

Yes I know I could get creative and run one generator for both rooms by using ducts and closing flaps but I just want to KIS and use two controllers and two gen

 

[inefectualize]

when will the mini ice box be ready for sale?

 

[Cotyledons]

Yamah 1fan,

If mounted outside of the grow room you would loose some co2 and that really depends on what setting the unit is on. The outlet on top is not completely sealed (on purpose) so naturally some of the co2 will escape.

Honestly I don't think this will be much of an issue for you b/c the unit creates so much co2, losing some will not effect the performance that much.

To correct this minor issue you can use a small duct booster fan...this will slowly draw air through the unit and prevent almost all of the co2 from escaping.

The water-cooling is the most important function of the unit in fact it will not work w/o water-cooling. Sounds like you have a large grow room and that you will need lots of co2, which means lots of hot water. There is a co2 calculatorhttp://www.hydroinnovations.com and charts that will help you figure out how much water-cooling that you need. For your setup a small res with NO chiller just won't cut it.

inefectualize,

The Ice Cap (mini Ice Box) will be available soon...but still a few weeks out. We have been testing the heat exchanger and it works fairly well...but we wanted to make it better. On the lowest flame setting the exiting air is is around 90 digress which we were happy with, but we were not happy that the housing still got warm.

To correct this we have added a high temp, low speed muffin fan that is mounted directly to the top of the Ice Cap heat exchanger. This fan slowly draws air through the unit which cools the HydroGEN housing and more efficiently cools the exhaust. We also had an engineer make recommendations on fin pitch, fin width, and fin spacing for it. Theses changes made an incredible difference in the performance. It's almost to good to be true...we are seeing 86 degree air with the unit on the highest setting (36,000 btu) and the housing is cool to the touch. We are having it tested to be sure but we estimate that this brings the efficiency to near 95%.

We apologize for the delay but it will be worth the wait. We are constantly experimenting with everything we have manufactured to see if we can make it better. In instances like this one we were able to improve the idea before its release which makes things so much easier on everyone in the long run. I will have these on the website in a couple of weeks along with several other new water-cooled items we are launching. When they are on the website they should be available to your retailers.

 

[Cotyledons]

In a month or so there will be a new company that will emerge that is called Icehouse Distribution. This company will be distributing items that are not currently sold in our industry but need to be. Products like window mounted chillers (made from window a/c units) from 1/2-2 HP, outdoor chillers (made from outdoor a/c units) from 2-10HP, insulated reservoirs, and large inline pumps.

Just trying to help spread the word.

 

[Bozo]

You dont notice heat bleeding from side vents on high setting ?Reason I used a bigger fan on my set up was you lose alota draw pulling through the heat exchanger on the icebox(smaller fan I tried first didnt work as well) .My ice box mounted the way I have it (not directly on top ) is so cool I had to insulate it to stop it from condensating
If you use very cold water in these you will need to set up a drip pan directly under the burner, because like I said when i thought the mini icebox would condensate it will .My heat exchanger on the unit itself drips on floor ,and it is directly above flame,how is the Ice Cap going to not condensate?Fact is it will condensate and add to a drip that already exists
I ended up putting a drain in my bozo box it yeilds pint of water a day.
With that said these exhaust coolers work very well and I wouldnt run one with out it 95% heat scrub on low is no bull if cold water is used .I think your Ice Cap is a great idea and anyone who buys your Hydrogen should use one cause the exhaust on these with out it is fairly hot .My bozo box is a bit bigger from the description you gave. bigger heat exchanger = better cooling .My exhaust helps cool my room ,dont get no better than that .

 

[Pirate]

All this sounds good,But I have a question about the Hydro-Innovations version.

If the temperatures coming out of the unit are 90* and the Ice Box only drops it by 4*..........whats the point?

Now I have been waiting (impatiently I might add) on these Ice Boxes for use in my lights. Hows it work for those? Am I waiting all this time for a 4* difference?

Thanks

 

[Bozo]

I will try to answer you .From my experience cooling things with water (all things not just grow room related)it depends on the temp of water vs how hot what you are cooling is /how effecient your cooling method is
I could go get another heater core build a cooler just like the one in my pictures ,use full flow city water and cool 1k light to the point it cooled the room not a 4 degree difference more like a 40 degree difference. But using city water to cool a light would be criminal so other methods are probably better but water may not be as cold and wont cool as well
There Ice Box coolers will work great if you put cold water through em .I would draw hot air through icebox to cut down on condensation
Hydro Innovations description is right on I have no reason to think it wont work as they claim
I am concidering doing this to my lights but I am running outa floor space and another 100 gall res and chiller just wont fit
Maybe a flow restrictor could make city water an option .I do need a project now that my controller trigger soleniod /day night ventilation flip flop project is complete
Lessing the load on my A/C is my biggest concern now and I would love to lose the ducting and fans it take to air cool my lights ,althou on cold northern winter nights the tops of my 1K hoods are cold and help cool room too but theres always room for improvement and its not always winter it just seems like it up here

 

[Pirate]

I will try to answer you .From my experience cooling things with water (all things not just grow room related)it depends on the temp of water vs how hot what you are cooling is /how effecient your cooling method is
I could go get another heater core build a cooler just like the one in my pictures ,use full flow city water and cool 1k light to the point it cooled the room not a 4 degree difference more like a 40 degree difference. But using city water to cool a light would be criminal so other methods are probably better but water may not be as cold and wont cool as well
There Ice Box coolers will work great if you put cold water through em .I would draw hot air through icebox to cut down on condensation
Hydro Innovations description is right on I have no reason to think it wont work as they claim
I am concidering doing this to my lights but I am running outa floor space and another 100 gall res and chiller just wont fit
Maybe a flow restrictor could make city water an option .I do need a project now that my controller trigger soleniod /day night ventilation flip flop project is complete
Lessing the load on my A/C is my biggest concern now and I would love to lose the ducting and fans it take to air cool my lights ,althou on cold northern winter nights the tops of my 1K hoods are cold and help cool room too but theres always room for improvement and its not always winter it just seems like it up here

I have a creek running through my yard. 8 feet wide x 1 to 2 feet deep with cold ass water from upper mountain springs I can pump from and too.

 

[Bozo]

Yer set then, and now that I have used this type of co2 gen I would use it to enrich a non sealed no A/C room with your type of water supply .You would use a bit of propane but the more heat you scrub with water the less you have to vent room/the less the burner is on
My problem with outside water storage is it would freeze in october and wouldnt thaw till april/may
I love the co2 but I am hating the A/C

 

[Cotyledons]

Bozo,

The fan that we used has a lot of static pressure but not that much CFM. static pressure for fans is similar to torque from a motor. The more static pressure the more air flow under resistance. The duct booster fans do not have much static pressure at all. Because of this additional static pressure from our fans we have enough air flow to capture the heat bleeding out the sides.

I understand that your radiator condensates. Yours is a car radiator and ours is a heat exchanger designed by engineers for this application. Bigger does not mean better...at all. A radiator and a heat exchanger or completely different designs too. We use a heat exchanger modeled after the heat exchanger inside the unit. Does your tankless hot water heat condensate to the point that you have a catch pan underneath it too? The answer is no. The same reason that you don't have problems with your tankless hot water heater dripping is the same reason that our Ice Cap doesn't drip. Why do you think that we would tell people that there wasn't condensation problems if there was????

Note:
Your water lines will condensate if uninsulated and the Ice Cap would also if there was cold water running through it with out the HydroGEN running.

 

[Cotyledons]

Pirate,

I think that you are getting the products confused.

First of all the Ice Box is ready for purchase now...so no more impatiently waiting. The Ice Box is made to attach to reflectors and has nothing to do with the previous posts about the HydroGEN and the Ice Cap. With this product the short version is that if you want to remove the heat from a 1000 watt bulb your water would need to be around 70 degrees and roughly 200 CFM and 500 GPH water flow. If you want to use the product for a/c too then you would cool your water to around 55 degrees.

The Ice Cap is the heat exchanger exclusively use with the HydroGEN. There is much more than a 4 degree differenence, the first comparison I made was the unit on the lowest setting (12k btu) w/ the Ice Cap but W/O fan was 90 degrees. Using the Ice Cap WITH fan on the highest setting (36k btu) was actually 4 degrees cooler.

To give you a better example, on the highest setting (36k BTU) W/O an Ice Cap the exiting air temperature is about 120 degrees and with the Ice Cap the temperature is reduced to about 86 degrees.

Cold creek water...wish all of us were that lucky. I would filter the water...use it...and then put it back into the creek downstream.