Any Ideas on how to chill my water temp, without a chiller??
- Thread starter MeanBean
- Start date
Numboard
Member
Haha okay man. Ill be surprised if this is a viable solution but oooookayI guess i will see how quick this thing can chill a bottle of wine. It's actually a heater to!
You can actually see exactly how long it takes right there in the picture, It says the current wine temp is 56 its target is 48 and it says theres 10 minutes left. Rofl
Thats a bottle of wine thats already pretty chilly and no heat load. What makes you think this will cool your res? I don't get it...
appox one quart of liquid 8 degrees cooler in ten minutes. No. just no.
MagdaAndBernie
Member
Small 12v computer fans. Cut hole slightly smaller than fan diameter in rez lid, tape the fan to lid, blowing onto water in rez. Drops water temps by transpiration, works really well.
Use a 45 degree pvc / abs elbow to direct blown air, tape fan to one end, other end to rez lid.
Use a 45 degree pvc / abs elbow to direct blown air, tape fan to one end, other end to rez lid.
Motta-Tokka
Member
I did a water to air cooler out of a mini-fridge. Just like he said, it will not handle loads. Meaning it will cool something, no problem. But when its constantly radiating heat, forget about it.
Numboard
Member
I tried doing this https://www.icmag.com/ic/showpost.php?p=3566177&postcount=44
So far I haven't noticed any res temp changes. I think my heat load is far to high for a system like that to cope with. And its not fan strength truuust me.
MagdaAndBernie
Member
Put some reflective material on your buckets lids (bounce the heat off), and try putting smaller fan onto each bucket blowing in. Your light is heating those lids/buckets, gonna overpower the chilling on rez. I have some of those 120mm fans, they move some serious air. The ones I mean should be smaller, much smaller, older cpu type fans, on the individual buckets, blowing on each. Works like a charm, in my experience. Your mileage may vary.
I think if you have anything like this http://countertopwaterdispenser.inf...d-Cold-Countertop-Water-Cooler-VWD2636W-2.jpg you can convert it into a water chiller hope this helps.
Numboard
Member
Yeah I know. I need to insulate the whole building. Right now its shed status theres absolutely no insulation. My plan is to insulate all the walls with reflectix>fiberglass>panda plastic to keep it all in the walls. Then im going to convert an ac unit to be a water chiller.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=155
Great forum on that sort of thing, I wouldn't post unless you are specifically making one for computer use I dont want to be responsible for a massive influx of people trying to make chillers for their pot grows. so just look to help yourself get ideas.
Definitely going to make a closed loop chiller to cool both of my res's
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=155
Great forum on that sort of thing, I wouldn't post unless you are specifically making one for computer use I dont want to be responsible for a massive influx of people trying to make chillers for their pot grows. so just look to help yourself get ideas.
Definitely going to make a closed loop chiller to cool both of my res's
Numboard
Member
Well guys, I decided to just go for it.
I will be moving this to my grow space very shortly. After being on for less than 5 minutes the entire rad was encased in a block of solid ice. Cant get that kind of cooling out of a chiller. Muahahaha I am going to use denatured alcohol to prevent freezing then circulate that through two copper coils one each in my res's :3 Took me a total of about 10 minutes to throw together. Will be getting a nice thermostat too.
If you do this. Make sure you have plenty of extra tubing built into your ac or bending it too much will cause it to rupture and spray gas everywhere. If this happens your ac is now useless.
Also I just found the most amazing and perfect thermostat ever for what seems this exact application
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mini-Digital-Te...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41503ed991
Input voltage can be 240 or 110 no prob
output voltage can be 110 or 240
current handling 5amps 110 10 amps 240.
This is so perfect!!!
my ac uses about 4 amps so im totally golden, remote digital temp probe and ONLY 20 BUCKS YEAH!!!!
I am totally making a link-o-rama quality tutorial for this. I am just way too excited about this. I am going to have a fantastic chiller for next to free. I seriously think this thing could give a 1/2 hp chiller a run for its money. we use these things in computer cooling to get sub freezing temps.
I will be moving this to my grow space very shortly. After being on for less than 5 minutes the entire rad was encased in a block of solid ice. Cant get that kind of cooling out of a chiller. Muahahaha I am going to use denatured alcohol to prevent freezing then circulate that through two copper coils one each in my res's :3 Took me a total of about 10 minutes to throw together. Will be getting a nice thermostat too.
If you do this. Make sure you have plenty of extra tubing built into your ac or bending it too much will cause it to rupture and spray gas everywhere. If this happens your ac is now useless.
Also I just found the most amazing and perfect thermostat ever for what seems this exact application
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mini-Digital-Te...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item41503ed991
Input voltage can be 240 or 110 no prob
output voltage can be 110 or 240
current handling 5amps 110 10 amps 240.
This is so perfect!!!
my ac uses about 4 amps so im totally golden, remote digital temp probe and ONLY 20 BUCKS YEAH!!!!
I am totally making a link-o-rama quality tutorial for this. I am just way too excited about this. I am going to have a fantastic chiller for next to free. I seriously think this thing could give a 1/2 hp chiller a run for its money. we use these things in computer cooling to get sub freezing temps.
superultramega
Member
Might want to use ethylene glycol instead of alcohol. Less jugs of flammable liquid the better. Also the water will be more efficient at removing the heat.
Numboard
Member
Yeah antifreeze is fine too. My computer modding brethren use alcohol so thats just what I defaulted to. (also pretty sure that denatured is even more efficent at transfering heat than antifreeze due to its "air chilling" effect, I don't know any of the science behind this so..) Antifreeze is going to be alot cheaper than a couple gallons of denatured. so ill likely go that route.
hehe
Yhep this thing works purty darn well.
Definitly needs anti freeze
MeanBean
Member
I don't need those type of temps. I am hoping to have 71 or 72 down to like 67 or 68. The system is only 8 gal. this wine chiller is the biggest peltier cooling deal I could find. Also I believe what I was told, insulation/deflectors work. Still wondering how much power it uses though...
as far as a chiller, no. just no.
cannatastic
Member
Try keeping your air pump out of the grow space so it sucks cooler air that will also have an effect on your water temps.
Copper in contact with low ph acidic nutes may cause issues. Stainless coils in the 3 res`s fed from a central chilled res may be a better option.
Numboard
Member
What kind of issues? Heavy metal absorption into the water? I'm not going to be drinking this stuff. Besides copper has the best heat transfer properties of all the common metals. Finding stainless steel tubing is gonig to be pretty hard too. Bending it into a coil is going to be difficult without a tubing bender vs copper which will be pretty easy.
MeanBean
Member
Thanks bud, I will. At least I got ya thinkin I may just pull it off haha!! No doubt though I am gonna go for it so we'll see! Well first i gotta make sure those things dont use to much electric.
Numboard
Member
They wont use much power, Which is actually part of the problem.
How much water are you trying to chill
What are your average res temps
What do you want your res temps to be
You aren't going to get any results from your wine chiller. A mini fridge would actually work better I think, which is saying something...
Im tellin you man, That wine chiller is just going to be a big fat waste of money.
Watts directly correlate to how much you can cool the water.
Assuming 100% efficiency the 90 or so Watt pelt in there is only going to cool the water with 300~ btu's of power.
Think about how effective a 90 watt air conditioner would be.
I don't know what else to say. Its just not going to work.
edit: I now realize that your system is 8 gallons. I cant say for sure one way or the other if that wine chiller is going to work.
Personally I wouldn't risk it and go a little bigger.
If you somehow modded this to cool water by using waterblocks/heatsinks. I bet it would keep your res nice and chilly. but still it uses 500 watts.
http://cgi.ebay.com/USA-GIANT-62mm-...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415028d50f
How much water are you trying to chill
What are your average res temps
What do you want your res temps to be
You aren't going to get any results from your wine chiller. A mini fridge would actually work better I think, which is saying something...
Im tellin you man, That wine chiller is just going to be a big fat waste of money.
Watts directly correlate to how much you can cool the water.
Assuming 100% efficiency the 90 or so Watt pelt in there is only going to cool the water with 300~ btu's of power.
Think about how effective a 90 watt air conditioner would be.
I don't know what else to say. Its just not going to work.
edit: I now realize that your system is 8 gallons. I cant say for sure one way or the other if that wine chiller is going to work.
Personally I wouldn't risk it and go a little bigger.
If you somehow modded this to cool water by using waterblocks/heatsinks. I bet it would keep your res nice and chilly. but still it uses 500 watts.
http://cgi.ebay.com/USA-GIANT-62mm-...tem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item415028d50f
Spanishwilly
Member
That's a lot bigger than I thought we were talking about.
Numboard
Member
What?
