ICE Box Heat Exchanger

Nvr2Stond said:

I am currently working on a new op in a sealed room, running a 1000 w hps gets the room up too 96 degrees with two basic fans running.

I am wondering if anyone has used one of these ICE Box Heat Exchanger

If anyone has or used a similar product,

do they work well?

Or if this product is total garbage, can someone recommend something better?

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grow plenty said:

i have 2 in my room and i like mine but you need a chiller to cool the water down. i took a fridge, made it water tight, filled it with water and put a pump in it and its all good.
the condensate gets pretty bad sometimes but thats mainly cuz i keep the temps pretty low. with out a cooling system my temps went from 70 up to 95 in less than 24 hrs.(thats water temp) now my temp is 45 when lights come on and around 70 when my lights go out a cool down over nite and my temps are at 44 or 45 degrees. but again...these temps will create lots of condensate so a drain hose might be needed. now if you really want to do air tite, i would suggest you go with fresca sol water cooled lights. plantlighting hydro has them for 235.00 delivered.you can cool your lights with the same chiller.thats the system i run and its worth the buy. ihave 2 600 watters in a 4x8x8 and i had to ,raise my water temps to get my room temps up so my c-o 2 would be more effective/ any ways...i like mine and my el,ec bill went down cuz my fridge and pump is much cheaper than my a-c......good luck...............

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robert 14617 said:

To use the Ice Box heat exchanger efficiently, you will need a high quality chiller, appropriately sized for your application, a 30-50 gallon reservoir, a properly sized pump, Ice Boxes for each of your reflectors, quality tubing and miscellaneous plumbing parts.

........................................
sounds very expensive once all the parts are perched

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grow plenty said:

i have 2 in my room and i like mine but you need a chiller to cool the water down. i took a fridge, made it water tight, filled it with water and put a pump in it and its all good.
the condensate gets pretty bad sometimes but thats mainly cuz i keep the temps pretty low. with out a cooling system my temps went from 70 up to 95 in less than 24 hrs.(thats water temp) now my temp is 45 when lights come on and around 70 when my lights go out a cool down over nite and my temps are at 44 or 45 degrees. but again...these temps will create lots of condensate so a drain hose might be needed. now if you really want to do air tite, i would suggest you go with fresca sol water cooled lights. plantlighting hydro has them for 235.00 delivered.you can cool your lights with the same chiller.thats the system i run and its worth the buy. ihave 2 600 watters in a 4x8x8 and i had to ,raise my water temps to get my room temps up so my c-o 2 would be more effective/ any ways...i like mine and my el,ec bill went down cuz my fridge and pump is much cheaper than my a-c......good luck...............

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phillipchristian said:

Hey man, I have a ton of experience with Ice Boxes and water cooled gardening. Actually started a thread on it. https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/511767-water-cooled-grow-rooms.html

In your case it's kind of a tossup. If your only running one light you might as well just get a portable A/C. By the time you get the Ice Box, fridge, pump, tubing, and build your coil you could have just bought and portable A/C for less money. If you wanna go for it though they do work great. If you have your temps right on the water then it will take all of the heat out of your 1000w hood and exhaust the air at ambient room temperature. Sometimes people use them as spot A/C's. When they are used like this they can put out 8,000btu of cooling. If you put it on your hood though you still might have cooling issues cause all it's doing is cooling your light. You dehumidifier and other equipment makes heat plus you might have a high ambient heat outside your grow room. Not sure what your setup is like. I have seen people put 2 of them on a hood back to back. The first one will bring the air coming out of your hood down to ambient temperature and the second one will actuall refrigerate the air. Pretty cool. If you do just one or two you don't need to worry about all that stuff Robert said. You could get away with your fridge build, a decent pump (250gph) and some 1/2" inner diameter solid tubing. Might need to get a fan speed controller and tweak the output a little if it gets too cold in the room. Don't buy the cheap tubing though. You want the reinforced stuff. As far as condensation goes; you just have to use a dewpoint calculator to see what temp to keep your reservoir at. The lower your humidity the lower you can keep your reservoir temp. Room temp plays a role in it to. Hydro Innovations has a Dew Point calculator on their website under Support. Also, if you are cooling a hood you always put the Ice Box on the exhaust end and pull the air through it. If not you might get condensation splattered through your hood and on your bulb. Made that mistake the first time.

Good luck.

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Bublonichronic said:

thanks for the info man, unfortunatly i already went out and got the freezer http://www.walmart.com/ip/Black-and-Decker-5.0-cu-ft-Chest-Freezer-White/16681003

right now i have 40' copper coiling running through the freezer b4 it gets to my icebox... and i noticed that it wasnt really workin all that well, seems like the coiling would heat up fast, and then the water soon after.....i was thinkin of either puttin in more copper coiling, or just filling the freezer with water and using is as a res like the previous post suggested,....but im on my way to your thread now man, peace

EDIT, also i have the icebox b4 it gets to my lights, my thoujght was the cool air will keep the lights cooler, ultimatly keeping the room cooler? but like i said, this dosent seem to be working

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