Chilling Water

[mkosem]

I've been seeing a lot of people having tons of luck with water chillers these days as I'm sure you have also. I'm just curious if there's anywhere a chiller can be obtained cheaply(<$75 or so). I also saw someone take the cold rad from a dehumidifier to chill their water. Anyone have any experience with this?

#Rotor, your assistance would be greatly appreciated if possible.

--Matt

[jtroutma]

I had an idea on making a pelt chiller......

Take a pipe and cut a section out of the side. Fit an old PII heatsink into the hole and seal the sides. Put 2 or more 156W pelts on the back of the PII heatsink and cool the pelts with a PII waterblock. The water will come in from the top of the tube, sit in there for a while and get chilled by the pelt cooled PII heatsink and then go off to the water block. The other block cooling the hot side of the pelts can be run in a separate water line that is cooled by a radiator.

It was an idea....

[bigben2k]

Try E-bay.

Pelts are not very efficient, at anything they do. You could use your idea, but substitute phase change parts. It would be far more energy efficient.

[mkosem]

I would never make a pelt chiller. pelts are super inefficient for tasks like that. #Rotor posted a link to a dehumidifier mod on the [h]forum that I think I may do.

--Matt

[#Rotor]

good thing I save all my drafts.... hehehe

(as on [H] )

Water chilling is more or less the most extreme you can go.. I said this before and I say it again. I am of the opinion that someone running chilled liquid, is someone that is in it for the long haul.... they are not interested in FLASH-CLOCKS. ala LN style... and that makes them more extreme than all that has come before.

I found the easiest and cheapest way, though not cheap, to get a respectably looking high performance liquid chiller, is to do the de-humidifier conversion, as I've shown on my site. It is by far not the most powerful solution possible, hence the cheapness of it..... But if the cost of parts and effort is to be included in the performance equation, then you would be hard pressed to beat it. the box shaped dehumidifiers is the easiest. 98% of the unit as you get it in the box, is reusable in the converted form, basically all you do, is relocate the evaporator, so it sits inside the already there water-bucket. Insulate the bucket, make a lid for it and add a pump. I have gone a lot feather with the units I Produced, by adding PC controlled thermostats and fan speed regulation.I even went plexi glass on my last one... I'm sure people will eventually even surpass that, with some nice LCD displays in the front...and what-not.

[Cova]

I have most of a pepsi fountain machine at home (my uncle repairs pepsi vending/fountain machines for a living) that I plan on using as a waterchiller one of these days. It will keep about 2 liters of water right at the point of freezing.

It has a small tub of water with the evaporator wrapped around the outside a few times. Behind that is a good sized rad and a large 120V but very quiet fan - under those is the compresser. The evaporator actually freezes the water in the tub and there is a sensor on the side that shuts off the compressor after the ice around the outside is 1" thick. When enough of the ice melts (at about 1/2" left I think) the compressor turns back on. At the very bottom of the tub there is a small mixer that makes sure all the water is evenly cooled (without it it would freeze solid).

During operation as a fountain machine, the tubing for the pop just runs down into the tub of icewater, and back out the top and out of the machine. In the time it takes for the drink to flow through there it is cooled to a good drinking temp. I still haven't decided if I want to do a similar thing when cooling my computer (just run the tubing down into the chilled water and back to the computer - exchanging heat right through the tygon tubing), or if I should use that tub as a type of chilled res (though then I have to worry about evaporation of my coolant, which stinks of waterwetter). I could even empty the tub of water (with the whole thing off) and put a spiral of copper tubing around the edge on the inside of the tub (so it would be at least partially inside the ice-block), re-fill the tub with water, and run the coolant through the copper, keeping a closed loop system, but I worry I might actually freeze-up my system then.

I also talked with my uncle a bit, and he can modify the system a little if needed. eg. I could run antifreeze inside of the cooling tub, and he can alter the ice-sensor and keep the coolant temp inside there perhaps as low as -20C.

[#Rotor]

Go with the least amount of thermal junctions. the pipe going into the liquid and out the other end, is a thermal junction and they are always a negative to performance. use the fluid that is being cooled in the thing (not the freon.... ), that way you have only 2 junctions for the heat to get out of the block and into the evaporator.... make sure to ventilate that compressor well, it sounds like it won't have enough of that for a 24/7 stint, if it was designed to shut off and on at interval

[mkosem]

#rotor, it was a paralell post. I got good responses both places!

--MAtt

[Cova]

Efficiency loss from one more thermal junction is not something I worry about with this water-cooler - especially if I use copper tubing for the section that sits in the cold water bath.

Now that I think about it more, it's probably best to use a copper loop submerged in the cold bath. If the coolant in my system isn't moving around enough it could freeze when it's near/in the water-cooler part of the fountain machine. Only the turbulence of the mixer in the cooling system keeps it from freezing solid now, I don't know if my little ViaAqua moves enough water to keep it liquid. If I run antifreeze or something in the entire coolant mix I have to modify the ice-sensor for the compressor, and still I worry that (at least very near the evaporator) I will get at least some freezing happening. But, I can run a bit of antifreeze in my cooling loop, and keep it a closed loop. Run that through a copper pipe that will be almost completly encased in ice, and tap-water in the cold-tub.

And maybe I didn't explain it too well before, but the compressor is ventilated. "Behind that is a good sized rad and a large 120V but very quiet fan - under those is the compresser." The fan sucks it air over the compressor, and blows it out through the rad (or I could reverse the fan, either way both things are cooled). When I get home I'll try and take a pic or two of it.