Cooling Temperatures With Foggers

[theshed430]

Hi, Hopefully someone on here has the experience or can think laterally enough to solve my problem. I have tried many things which I will explain now. Firstly I know the setup is complex, probably too soo but I think it is the best and I know it will work if I can just dial it in.

I have a 10L hard Res (Made from a garden sprayer) hung from my ceiling feeding my Fogger box which is a sealed lunch box (Probably holds 1L of water at a time but refills auto) which has 8 Inducers in which then fills a 100L Prop. I can not seem to keep the temps down. I have wired in a TEC cooler which keeps it down to 1 degree C when the inducers are off but can only stall the climb at 27C. I need an additional way to cool the water in the fog box. I have turned off 4 of the inducers at this point and im still struggling. Water chiller obviously can not be added to the system as it need to be pressured to allow the box to re fill automatically. If I place frozen water bottles in the hung up res how long will it last? Any help is appreciated

 

[TorturedSoul]

I can suggest a concept, but not the actual mechanics. Some years ago I read of a somewhat horrible Soviet-era automobile. But one feature it had was that it used the radiator's heat to warm the windshield washer fluid. I assumed at the time that this was done by running a coiled coolant line around the windshield washer lines. There is no reason (that I can think of) that this cannot be used to cool a line instead of warm it. Additionally, having a segregated system like this would allow you to use a coolant mixture that freezes well below the freeze point of water, so in theory you could run coolant that was a good bit colder than your current 1°C in coiled (copper, presumably) lines all the way up to your foggers.

One possible issue that I can think of right off the bat is that you'd have residual nutrient solution in your fogger lines that would be in danger of freezing after you shut off the foggers. So some timing/coordination would probably be required.

Another would be that there'd be some expense involved, lol.

BtW, what system pressure are you running? I just did a web search for

low pressure foggers

and got about 1.9 million results. Perhaps the technology exists to produce the small droplets ("fog") that you are looking for without having to pressurize the system so much that you get extreme heating of your solution?

Would going to a significantly larger reservoir help, do you think? It takes far more heat-energy to raise 1,000 liters 26° than it takes to raise 10 liters the same amount.

 

[theshed430]

when I say its pressurised its a hard plastic bottle hung upside down with a plastic pipe feeding into my fogger box and desired fill level. So as water is used by the foggers the water automatically fills the fog box and maintains the water level. The Tec cooler is in this fogger box but is losing the battle and im already running too much current through it. I had thought of a bigger box but I was trying to not have to take it all to bits for what I think will be the same result over a longer time. I like the cooling. I have drawn up a plan for a water jacket that circulates through a small radiator outside my room.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Oh. You don't have some sort of pump, pressurizing from it to the foggers at, IDK, 60+ PSI? I might have wrongly assumed that part, thinking that was the source of your (substantial) rise in temperature from your reservoir to your roots. Apologies.

 

[TurboBucket]

Why so many emitters? Are they little 13mm ones? Or big 21mms? That's a lot of mechanical energy in a little box. There's a handful of ways you could cool that down. TS hit some hot buttons. More water volume would be a big help. You could use a couple cold jackets for the res and fog box. Drop them in another larger sealed insulated container of ice. The biggest key is actually removing the heat from the setup not just moving it around. Cooling the res won't be enough your emitters will quickly heat that back up.

 

[theshed430]

thanks for your comments. I have managed to sort it. Used a Relay switch to cycle the foggers but maintain the TEC cooler. I have won this battle now for the rest of the war.. Yes they are the 13mm ones. The reason so many cos I want density. Once I am happy ill out some pics up cos its an engineering masterclass if it do say so myself