[andyh]

I've been working on a similar project, but easier because I'm not trying to transfer heat from a solid - that's pretty hard. I'd be careful about flattening the copper tubing - the metal thins out and you don't know if you'll get leaks a month or a year from now.

Take a look at CPVC tubing - it handles high-temperature situations really well and doesn't crush easily.

 

[andyh]

And electrical fires won't burn down the whole house if they were to catch fire without a water-cooling system? People have been using water-cooling system on PC's for a long time.

I wouldn't go about opening the cases of the ballasts, but I think his idea has some merit. It's tougher than the one I'm working on, which is to mount 3W LED's onto an aluminum square pipe and run cooling water through the pipe. In my situation the voltages are only 24V, but assuming you're careful and really isolate the water and the electricity (use a GFCI for sure!) I think it's a worthy experiment.