Hey all,
Well, here are the pics of my new contraption. It's working out great! The old water cooler idea didnt work out cause I think my setup is too large now. Anyway, now that I have about 12 liters of water in the res, it takes a long time for the water to warm up, and therefore the AC hardly ever turns on. It's turning out to be really effiecent. My AC only runs once or two an hour at the most for a 2-3 minute interval. The water temps are holding strong in the cooler. Yesterday it was about 33C while the tank was a cool 23c. Moreover, during the evening the temps were about 26c in the room, while the temp of the tank was 14c
. Temp drop is gradual too which I think the plants are really enjoying compared to last year, when I had the AC coil directly in the tank (it would drop the RH a lot and the temps would change +10c in less than 5 minutes lol). The plants lived but I dont think they enjoyed their summer last year. The new cooling setup it great! The RH hardly drops when the cooling kicks in and the temp drops are slow enough that the plants are shocked.
Anyway, onto the pics
Here's a pic showing the general setup. I need to get longer tubing and some new tube insulation. I had cut the current tubing to length for use with the water cooler, but now that I'm using the AC I need longer tubes. So for now the whole setup it really close to the window lol.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273084590/" title="cooling setup by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7240/7273084590_47cca5f5a7.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="cooling setup"></a>
Here's the setup from another angle.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273080752/" title="New cooler by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7234/7273080752_cea0eb35f8.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="New cooler"></a>
The water temp in the cooler. It's usually 5c-10c.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273081884/" title="water temp by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7236/7273081884_a366795271.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="water temp"></a>
The thermostat setting for the AC/cooler.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273082834/" title="water thermostat by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/7273082834_bd7472d51f.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="water thermostat"></a>
Here I cut a section out of the cooler so that I could close the lid with the element inside it.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273083698/" title="cooling element in cooler by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8149/7273083698_50edf55d6f.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="cooling element in cooler"></a>
Here's the whole setup. Like i said i need longer tubing, plus I;m getting some new chain to hang the lights right above the top of the tank. They're a little to far for my liking at the moment.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273085716/" title="whole setup by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/7273085716_eb9f12a1b3.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="whole setup"></a>
Temp in the tank about 10 minutes ago.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/robthered/7273086662/" title="tank temp by robthered, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8002/7273086662_1bea8ccf50.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="tank temp"></a>
As you may know already I'm not one for clean looking setups lol.