dry ice for cooling lights?! wild idea

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

edit: agreed. Not a good idea. Won't work.

Throw some comments up about other methods. I'm sure if we put our brains together we can come up with some really good ideas for cooling down our HID systems even more.

 

[HydrO PasSiOn]

hmm. isnt dry ice quite exspensive?

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

I have no idea.

 

[Bubby]

I'd sooner research how my refrigerator works, or car radiators.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

Eh, I already checked out how refrigerators work. I guess probably the best way to do it is to hook an air conditioning unit up to the duct hose so it draws cold air constantly.

 

[Insane]

Using any kind ice to cool your lights is a bad idea. Extreme temperature change in any kind of glass will cause the class to break/shatter and could potentially start a fire, or just kill your plants. Sorry to be the bringer of bad news, but that is nearly a recipe for disaster.

 

[Fretless]

I remember the dry ice in a bucket idea in the original Rosenthal bible. An extremely expensive way to add CO2 I remember him writing. Even back in the late 70's, Ed recommended using CO2 in a tank system.
But I must heartedly agree with Insane above. You don't want vapor, or ice, around your HID light. If someone named Insane is against it, well...
Surely there is a way, but why? If you are using a HID in an enclosed space, the technology already exists to vent the heat very efficiently.
Due to condensation, you really don't want anything that cold in the airflow anyway. Just a droplet of water can explode a bulb.
Not that I'm against new ideas at all, but the dry ice idea is as old as a Cheech and Chong movie. Another old technology that I am still interested in though, and relates to this thread, is the using of low-E coated glass in a HID fixture. There is one guy selling low-E glass on the bay, but I haven't found any threads in any forums yet from anyone who's tried it.

 

[HydrO PasSiOn]

i never tried low e glass. it sounds like it is worth a try to someone with HID lights. wonder how it works.

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

yeah, I was just throwing **** out there. If it's no good, it's no good. I just haven't seen anyone else really throwing out ideas for better ways to do things.

 

[BushyKush420]

that sounds like it would make sense and could work..

i member when i was younger i used to make dry ice bombs at the bus stop, nowadays you would be called a terriorist or sum crazy stuff... lol

lol

 

[Bleek187]

i dont think Low E glass will make a diferance... Low E is just a glass that has gas in it.. the gas is made to keep hot/cold on whichever side its on... it doesnt let it pass thru tha glass... so id think it would actualy keep it hotter inside the lamp... and i think yea dry ice isnt cheap... and Ud hafta get alot of it rite... cuz ... it would melt? or something

 

[LaserKittensGoPewPew]

eh, we've moved on from the dry ice idea. I checked into the low-e. It would keep heat from coming through the glass which would be good for your plants on the other side because it wouldn't be so hot right at the surface. That heat would be kept inside the fixture and that's where you would need a good ventilation system to exhaust all that hot air. The thing I'm wondering about is if it takes away an amount of the light's intensity.

 

[Fretless]

Well no, the gas isn't the low-E treatment. The low-E treatment (standing for low emissivitity) is a coating. It can be a 'soft' coat or a 'hard' coat. Residential windows are given the soft coat and so they face each other to protect the coating and the gas keeps things happy.
There is an ebay vendor who sells glass lenses for his lights with the hard low-E, its just a single pane of glass. What the low-E does is, it blocks infrared. Light goes through, heat stays on the other side, and theory is you can have plants right up to the glass. Then you either move a lot of air across the glass, or use it with a closed hood and vent it mightily.
It's quite interesting, but I don't think I will try it unless its mighty cheap to come by. With plants that close, you wouldn't have much coverage area, and I'm not really having heat problems with a 600-watter anyway.
The specialty glass could be useful in an enclosed, stealth application though. In those types of setups one is inclined to go for high-tech anyway.
Just another crazy idea to mull over while the wheat is growing.
If you're further interested though the vendor is 'Great Lights Cheap', the one that sells the mirror-finish hoods that are about 3 foot long. I just checked and don't see any of the lenses in his store, but they keep popping up, and I guess he makes them custom sized as well.

 

[55DAYZNCOUNTIN]

I just use an indoor a.c. unit it is all self contained you just plug it in and sit it in the middle of the room but it was pretty expensive 700$ I think?
Take care, 55

 

[DankCloset]

lol dry ice is 20cents a pound. about as expensive as mylar.

i used to work for cardinal glass, as a lami cutter, and glass handler, he's right the low-e coating you can simply screw up with a finger smudge. on the other hand, look into the low-e2 smart glass, i think u might have something there.

what about pumping it via ducting to the hood and have a flow through ventilation, doing it that way you give enough time/space to let the cooler air warm up a bit, i know my grow room is about 10degree's higher than outside in the summer, depending. now only tempered glass would break from that kind of heat/cold, regular glass expands and contracts. i have not done this, but its a theory, besides, even with flow through venting, alot of the heat is sucked right up and out the door.
just a suspicion, albeit i wouldnt chance the fire hazard, although i do brew wine in my grow room(turbo yeast).

edit: the gas ur talkin about is argon. and the low-e coating will do exactly that, it will absorb alot of energy, thats what its designed for. i.e leaving the argon(the heavier substance) is supposed to curb whats left, i.e content of argon. aye, and for u to get ahold of a piece of low-e glass, raw is going to be expensive.