Water cooled LED fixture

[Paul B]

No, it will not sweat unless a Supermodel is looking at the tank. The water in the tubes will always be warm and warm pipes do not sweat. By the way, that short piece of pipe is only soldered to the outside of the system so water does not go through it. I will also replace one of those Tees with a diverter valve to push water through the center tube. The drivers will be remotely mounted like the drivers on my existing fixture are. Today, if I get time I will test the flow to see if I get equal water flowing through all the pipes. I do that with thermometers by running hot water through the system and read the temperature difference between the three runs of tubing.
Here is my existing fixture. This is an older picture and now there are 4 runs of aluminum tubing. On top are fans that suck air through the tubing keeping it very cool. I want to almost double the lighting and this water cooled fixture (if it works) will do that. And do it very eloquently.

 

[jd371]

Because @Paul B is retired and he is a tinkerererer. That's what tinkererers do. They tinker with stuff.

Looks pretty cool so far.

Yeah, the type of person you want around in a Zombie Apocalypse. Looking good Paul.

 

[Paul B]

If you were stranded on a desert Island with a Supermodel, you would not want me there because I would make a cell phone out of two coconuts, a hermit crab and the headlight from an Oldsmobile. (which are very common on desert Islands) If I had 3 coconuts, I could build a flat screen TV, in HD. Maybe that would be a good thing, because you could get rescued, and I could stay and watch TV with the Supermodel.

 

[pickupman66]

Paul, if you happen to have access to an old chiller unit, you might could use that. I happen to have one in my garage. the condenser coil would work well id bet.

 

[Paul B]

That condenser coil would be perfect but in my long life I have thrown out countless condenser coils, heater cores, radiator's and 1/4" rigid copper pipe. Who knew? I am also not that close to TN. I have been cleaning out "junk" in my house for a while because some day we may down size and you can't keep everything. For the 40 years I worked in Manhattan we demolished probably dozens of very old buildings with all sorts of old stuff in them. I used to take home all sorts of stuff until I decided I didn't need all this junk and sold most of it for scrap. Any old small air conditioner would also work as that coil is also perfect. I am sure I will find or make something.

 

[Robthorn]

Joshkirkland I have been building heat pump / chillers for 15 years or so. Since you mentioned central heat and cool. They are split systems with the titanium inside near the tank and the condensor outside where it belongs.

 

[FcSteve777]

A computer size radiator would work perfect. A 2 fan one is meant to cool 200w worth of cpu plus a video card that is probably twice that. You wouldnt need much airflow at all. the quietest fans you could find.

 

[jarrod0987]

OP probably knows this already but if the copper and aluminum cooling block touch together they will corrode over time. There are non conductive thermal compounds that will prevent this.

 

[atoll]

Am like Paul in that respect, Those of us retired and into DIY our motto is" if it ain't broken fix it"

 

[Superrmario]

Best of luck with your endeavor. Here is my take.

Working with electronics for almost my whole life, the more functioning devices between point A (wall socket) and point B (the finished product, last node on the line, etc) equates to more possibility for failure.

Adding water cooling to electronics is inherently risky. I hope it comes together and functions great!

 

[TD13]

Because @Paul B is retired and he is a tinkerererer. That's what tinkererers do. They tinker with stuff.

Looks pretty cool so far.

Does that make him Tinker Paul? My daughter would love to know that a real fairy has a reef tank. Lol...

 

[C5thomas]

Absolutely love the idea? At first I thought what the heck? Water cooled LEDs? But the more I looked into it the more I loved it. What a great way to completely think outside of the box. Hurry up and patent the idea. Don't let someone else still the idea. It's so dang far out there but yet has always staired in our faces. Wondering if it would work for halide and t5's? It could eliminate the need for a chiller. Please please keep us updated. Of coarse folks will ask questions and question your method. Take it in stride. It's new and most people don't know how to socially interact and there inquiries come off rude or critical. But tube on. Coolest idea I've seen in a while.

 

[Paul B]

Josh, I have one of those systems on my house.
Steve, I don't have a computer size radiator, but I do have a lot of auto wreckers here so I will get a heater core (which is a computer size radiator)
Jarrod, I am only using copper, no aluminum so there should be no problems.
Atoll, you get it I know. This is not something I "need", It is something I "want" to build because I can, and that is the most important thing. I can, of course buy a light, that doesn't take any brains or creativity so it is something I would never do. I wouldn't even know where to buy a light as that would never enter my mind.
Superrmario, I like living on the edge. (also working with electronics, and plumbing all my life)
TD13, I am not sure I want to be known as a Fairy.
Thomas, it would not work very well with MH lighting because the heat the bulb generates is needed for the lamp to function. If you cooled off the lamp significantly, it wouldn't work. And I already have two patents and they are not cheap, so I won't be patenting this as far as I can tell right now. I am pretty sure it can't be patented as it is not that amazing an idea. But it is cool.
I just came back from Radio Shack to get thermal adhesive and they looked at me like I had two heads. They sell cell phone cases, batteries, robot dogs, MP3 players and headphones but almost nothing in real electronics. That is a shame. As a kid I could go there and get transistors, resistors, motors, solder, tiny light bulbs etc. now unless it is a stupid cell phone accessory, they don't have it so I have to get it on line. It drives me crazy that no one does anything anymore or knows how.

 

[FcSteve777]

I try to avoid rat shack due to prices and unfortunately live in a small town so i tend to order from Mouser. If they still sold a decent selection of stuff they probably wouldn't have gotten into the trouble they did.

 

[Paul B]

Steve, there are probably 3 or 4 Radio Shacks with in 5 minutes drive from my house but they are all now useless. I like to just pop in and walk away with something but that doesn't happen any more.
I had to order the thermal adhesive on line because Radio Shack now only sells I Phone cases and little else. So while I am waiting I am making copper disks out of flattened copper pipe and soldering them on to the tubing to give a flat surface for the LEDs.
I used to have a bunch of sheet copper but I can't find it so instead of driving for five minutes to get some, I am using copper pipe and stamping out copper disks with a Whitney Punch. It only takes a few minutes to make 10 of them.


Here are a couple soldered on with an LED laying on it.

 

[FcSteve777]

Very nice! And that was one of the few things they were still selling. I got my last tube of arctic silver from them when i built my current PC

 

[naecO rM]

Hi, I've been read that topic where one russian reefer did a LED light fixtures with water cooling system. Translate that topic through internet.
http://reefcentral.ru/forum/topic/1...man-piontik-balaboling-kak-vyzhat-iz-led-vse/

 

[Paul B]

That looks very cool and a lot more intricate then this thing I am building. I am going for simplicity and a steampunk look. I think I am achieving it. As soon as I find some thermal adhesive I am going to test this system on a small scale with the water flowing through it. I may have a little of it someplace. I just have to look through my stach of drawers. I have been collecting stuff for fifty years. Whenever we would demolish a building in Manhattan I would search out interesting things to bring home. Stuff from ancient elevators yielded the most interesting things.

 

[SeahorseSmile]

how about a water cooled metal halide??????

 

[Paul B]

I could do that but a MH light depends on heat to run the lamp as it has to atomize the mercury. But the ballast could easily be cooled with water. Or you could just drop it in the tank. Leave the house before you do that.