Water Cooler

jacksonbrown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDl1i3mpKwM

grim

@jacksonbrown - Tried finding anything even remotely close to that motor that would be a bolt-for-bolt fit, powered with DC or AC, but can't find anything. It's an odd beast, even that shaft sizing.

However, instead of that fan you posted, why not just use a simple square axial fan? They are usually a whole lot cheaper, and you can usually find them in a bigger variety of sizes. You won't be able to find anything as big as 400mm, but if you have room for your plywood adapter plate, you could probably mount 4 smaller (cheaper) fans.

Heck, you could probably even find the kit that people are using for their hot-rod computers. Last time I was in the PC shop they had all manner of axial fans and slick little fan speed controllers for next to nothing. You'd be able to dial back the speed for when you want to run quiet, and kick up the speed for something like a stripping run.

That hole kicked my ass, btw.

jacksonbrown

Thanks for looking into it for me, I figured it was a long shot.
I'm still leaning towards the exhaust fan for bang for buck but I'm heading off the the spark shop tomorrow for another project so I'll see what else they've got.

Couldn't resist with the Castle quote. My wife was watching it while nursing a hangover yesterday (it's her favorite movie). I couldn't find the one where it was filling with water.

Kapea

Maybe you should just bury your heat exchanger pipes to take advantage of the ground temp? Might be more efficient than a 4' x 4' x 4' cube.

grim

If I ever build a building, I will absolutely do it.

badbird

@jacksonbrown - Maybe the cheapest and easiest way would be to grab a non inverter outdoor condenser unit from the recycles, then you only need to retain the motor start capacitor (just remember to note down how the wires attach :-\" ) and fit a lead. The one I have cost 20 bucks and they will probably give you something for your existing one. Here are photos of the current version, The 12vDC pump costs less than 20$ on ebay, it puts well over 4l (maximum of my flow gauge) per minute which is more than adequate for my system.

jacksonbrown

Looks like your flowing 'down' through the coil. It probably doesn't make much difference at those flow rates but was there a reason for that? Have you tried it the other way?
Grim, is there any chance of heating up the dirt and losing performance doing that? I'm just thinking that heat has to end up somewhere.

badbird

I have run the cooler the other way around, The plumbing was modified a while ago so that the pump was moving cool water after the radiator. I was in a bit of a hurry and put the tubes on the wrong way around, It made no difference.

Meaningful convection just doesn't get a chance in a series cross-flow radiator like that.

jacksonbrown

I was thinking more about trapping air in it but at 4l/min it should bast everything out anyway.
Thanks for putting up the pics :-bd

grim

I'd like to try this during the winter. Set this up on the roof, run it as a high % glycol loop (50%) with a pump to a small brazed plate heat exchanger. Use the heat exchanger to cool a reservoir. You shouldn't need a whole lot of glycol to fill the radiator, lines, pump, and plate exchanger. Or, alternatively, drop a copper cooling coil into the reservoir, and just skip the heat exchanger entirely. I bet you'll have no problem freezing up the coils and tank if you live in a chilly region.

Just set the thing up to run on a timer. Turn on in the middle of the night, when the temperature is coolest, and once the reservoir is within a couple of degrees of outside ambient, shut it down. This way you get the biggest bang for your electricity dollar spent. Higher delta-t, better efficiency.

Doesn't need to be anything fancy, and I bet it would have no problem cooling a reservoir of a few hundred gallons. Would probably work like a charm for something like mash crash cooling.

jacksonbrown

One $25 exhaust fan, one sheet of corflute and half a roll of gaffer tape.
:D
Still need to try it on a hot run but it sux enough to pull a lighter flame into the fins so I can't see why it wouldn't work.
I'll probably tidy it up a bit more but it's usable as is.
Best bit is it cost under well under 50 bucks including fittings and uses under 10W

punkin

beautiful

CothermanDistilling

yep, it may seem dirt simple, but such a thing could be one of the most useful pieces of equipment for a home distiller if offered for sale as is..

punkin

Certainly i would have designed my recirc system differently than i did if it was common back when. On HD it was considered unsafe to even mention using a radiator for coolant water for the possibility that the condensor could spring a leak and the coolant water could have minute traces of lead in it from the solder used to construct the radiator. That if that happened and you didn't notice that the distallate was a lower proof than you expected that you could drink it and not know the difference until you died of old age with an unmeasurable minutely higher than normal lead content in your body.

Smaug

That is the kind of snark that will get you identified.

punkin

@Smaug said: That is the kind of snark that will get you identified.

What does that mean? I'm not fluent in ninja today.

punkin

ahhh, you mean identified as a shitstirrer? :))

Smaug

:)

grim

What lead in hvac? Isn't all hvac brazed with high temp alloys and not soldered?

Smaug

Punkin is more specifically lampooning some of the rhetoric found elsewhere. It's the "radiator" word.

grim

Reminds me of a thread I saw somewhere that was talking about using leather to make flapper valve plates.

Will work just fine, just as long as you don't mind Angus flavored vodka.

Smaug

Garnish that with a burger on a pick!

Kapea

I used to enjoy seeing The Radiators play at Tipitina's back in the day.

FloridaCracker

I'm using a minivan radiator right now to cool my reservoir and it works great but I am getting sick of having to pull that minivan into the garage every time I want to use it.

vooharmy

I have been researching aluminium car radiators and there are lots of options. My exit water is very hot towards the end of the run and I wonder of the ability of the radiator to keep up. My goal would be to fully by pass any tank and recirc from radiator. There are numerous new all aluminium radiators with 12v fans attached. Will something like described work better than an old AC?

grim

The fact is, there are too many differences in systems and operating environments to say there is a single ideal solution. What works great in one solution may be suboptimal in another. Ambient temperature is going to be a huge player.

The simplest implementation that I can think of, that is somewhat universal, is going to have an air-to-water heat exchanger on the dephlegmator coolant return line.

Why? It is the hottest return line, and will have the greatest difference in temperature from ambient. The difference (aka Delta T) is critical in air-to-water heat exchangers. The problem is once that Delta-T falls and starts approaching ambient, the required heat exchanger will start to get massive in size, coolant flows will need to be very high, and airflow rates higher as well.

You eventually hit a limiting ambient temperature. Realistically, you'll have a hard time cooling any more than 5-10F (3-5C) above ambient. And that's for ideal sizing, that's not for using found/scrap/surplus gear. Also, given that you can't control for the ideal flow-rate, probably 10-15F is more likely for us, maybe even higher.

So if your ambient is 90F, realistic situation is your return water is 105F. If your input coolant needs to be 75F for example, a single pass option with no reservoir is an impossibility, it's not going to matter how big the radiator is.

Now imagine a situation where your product condenser output temperature is 100F. Your heat exchanger would basically do nothing, waste of energy to pump it through.

Now if you have a 40F ambient, you are sitting pretty.

Why not run the combined PC and Dephlegmator through? Sure, if the combined outflow temperatures are well above ambient, go for it. But if your PC outflow temp pulls the combined temperature near to ambient, you are going to lose effectiveness.

The other factor that I've always harped on is that the reservoir serves as a kind of interface, when you a dealing with multiple flow rates. You maybe have a PC with an ideal flow rate, and an RC with an ideal flow rate, and a heat exchanger or chiller with an ideal flow rate. 99% chance that those flow rates are all different. Trying to use only one pump for all of these? You may find that you are trading efficiency/headroom for the simplicity, no free lunch.

A good example of why you want to use the reservoir as an interface is in very cold ambient temperatures. Imagine a situation where your ambient temp is 35F. In a single pass solution, you might find that you are taking the coolant down too low. Imagine trying to manage this during a run - manually bypassing? Maybe? Automatic bypass? Maybe. Sure seems easier to just plumb the cooler into the reservoir and let it run as necessary to keep the reservoir temp stable. The other reason is to cool the reservoir when it's an ideal time to cool the reservoir, which might not be at the same time as you run. Today, my ambient temp is forecast to be 97F. Heat exchanger will be pretty useless. The temp before sunrise was 68F, which is much more effective. Perhaps I could have taken my reservoir down to 80f in the time before the run. I stand no chance at coming anywhere near that come noon.

CothermanDistilling

yep, a radiator in a fan in a nice housing that looks normal for your neighborhood like what JB did is perfect.. that will work for anyoen with a 4", and if tweaked for flow and a reservoir, I could use it on my 8"... sure it may be too much for a 2", but it don't hurt to use it on one...

And even at 100F outside, cooling 150F dephleg water to 120F for reuse in the dephleg is possible... use the same water for your PC, and you only have to use a small chiller, domestic, or ice water in a small condenser or liebig to bring it down to ambient..

Kapea

What is the liqiud/gas phase change temperature of ethanol?
Does ambient air ever come within 10-15 degrees of that?

grim

@Kapea - Ahh, the elusive air cooled still.

Harry

@Kapea said: What is the liqiud/gas phase change temperature of ethanol?

79-80 degrees C at STP sea level.

@Kapea said: Does ambient air ever come within 10-15 degrees of that?

Hope not. Will fry yer ass.