DIY chiller

[theyammieguy]

Has anyone ever modified a small mini fridge to act as a chiller.

A simple thermostat sensor attatched to the water inlet could kick the fridge on and off and a few coils of clear tubing on the inside to chill the water.

 

[Jared J]

There was a write-up I read where a guy drilled holes in the upper sides of a 'dorm room' sized fridge and coiled about 10ft of tubing inside and had an inlet/outlet and it seemed to work fine. I'll have to look it up.

 

[theyammieguy]

Good deal, I'd like to read it.

 

[Poeticlydead]

This wouldn't work the way you describe since a fridge does not reach temperature quick enough. Now if you leave the fridge on all the time at a constant temperature and use the water temp sensor in say the sump to turn on a pump that feeds water to your coil in the fridge that would work.

Of course I'm not sure what kind of temperature exchange you would get with this setup though the fridge would serve double duty keeping aquarium food mixes as well as a relaxing drink or two cold.

Oh and as for modding mini fridges the best I have done is turn one into an extremely well cooled CPU case.

 

[theyammieguy]

Ok, how about taking it apart and running some small tubes through the condensor?

 

[bhammer]

I did it using one of the small dorm fridges some time ago. I used some of the 3/8th tubing and wound something like 50' in the fridge. I used a couple different sizes of the concrete cardboard tube so that I had three coils of tubbing inside each other. Just use hot melt glue to keep the tube together...

It took a couple weeks of fussing with it to get the temp right. I also placed a bunch of 1 gallon zipper top bags filled with water in the fridge to help to stabilize the temp as at first, it kicked on and off to much. All the water helped a bunch. I used some of the great stuff expanding foam to better insulate and to fill in the holes around my plumbing. I used a quiet1 1200 to run the water.

 

[Poeticlydead]

Ok, how about taking it apart and running some small tubes through the condensor?

Are you just trying not to run the fridge constantly? If running the fridge constantly isn't an issue then just set it up the way I listed above to control the flow to the coils not the fridge it's self.

Just fyi the more coils and slower the water flow the greater the temperature exchange.

 

[Cuby2k]

I have to admit, at one time it was a fun idea. But in actuality, there is simply not enough capacity in a dorm refrigerator to do much more than cool a six pack over a 48 hour period.

If you look at the cooling capacity of a small fridge it is no here near the required capacity to cool a tank.

 

[uncleof6]

http://www.beananimal.com/articles/dorm-fridge-aquarium-chiller.aspx

 

[Neogenocide]

Two words, Electric Peltier

You can do some pretty cool stuff with them. I've super cooled computers before, to the point that the cpu pins frosted and shorted out.



Scott

 

[uncleof6]

Two words, Electric Peltier

You can do some pretty cool stuff with them. I've super cooled computers before, to the point that the cpu pins frosted and shorted out.



Scott

Well that is not a good advertisement, kinda reckless ifin ya ask me.......

Jim

 

[Neogenocide]

Bah.....it was a throw away processor, was just trying to see if I could do it. Mind you this was a few years ago when I was younger and I admit a little dumber. I could overclock the hell out of it till it went poof. Hmmm....I wonder if I still have those, may have to break them out and see what I could do.

Nah....LED lighting project comes first.

Scott


Oh...and I should add it was running with no type of thermostat, just wide open as cold as it could go.

 

[skunkmere]

you can gets chillers cheap this winter.

 

[bergzy]

Peltier cooling is very inefficient in both electrical use and cooling effect. it is 'cool' though. hahah, get the pun...ah, never mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling

they are also very expensive to purchase. fin's reef carried a thermoelectric line for awhile. you can still see the pic of it in their banner. i forgot the name of the thermoelectric chiller but it was something like $1500 to have the ability to chill a 100g tank. and i think the temp pull down isnt even that great. dont quote me on that, i have to do it from rusty memory. it is expensive compared to a compressor chiller.

building your own chiller is definitely doable.

$100 for a 5000 btu a/c unit (1/2 hp or so) if you get them in the summer on sale
$300 - $400 or so for the titanium exchanger
$200 or so for an ac guy to attach the ti exchanger to the ac coils (unless youre pretty handy yourself or have a friend who can do it for a couple of beers)
$200 for a temp controller (assuming you dont have a controller already)


bottom line $800 to $900 for a 1/2 hp diy chiller...which is about 2/3 of the cost of a new 1/2hp aqualogic.

 

[uncleof6]

Peltier cooling is very inefficient in both electrical use and cooling effect. it is 'cool' though. hahah, get the pun...ah, never mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_cooling

they are also very expensive to purchase. fin's reef carried a thermoelectric line for awhile. you can still see the pic of it in their banner. i forgot the name of the thermoelectric chiller but it was something like $1500 to have the ability to chill a 100g tank. and i think the temp pull down isnt even that great. dont quote me on that, i have to do it from rusty memory. it is expensive compared to a compressor chiller.

building your own chiller is definitely doable.

$100 for a 5000 btu a/c unit (1/2 hp or so) if you get them in the summer on sale
$300 - $400 or so for the titanium exchanger
$200 or so for an ac guy to attach the ti exchanger to the ac coils (unless youre pretty handy yourself or have a friend who can do it for a couple of beers)
$200 for a temp controller (assuming you dont have a controller already)


bottom line $800 to $900 for a 1/2 hp diy chiller...which is about 2/3 of the cost of a new 1/2hp aqualogic.

I still have a couple aquanetics chillers sitting around.... I tried the DIY chiller thing as above, was easier to buy them.

Jim

 

[bergzy]

I still have a couple aquanetics chillers sitting around.... I tried the DIY chiller thing as above, was easier to buy them.

Jim

yep!

 

[theyammieguy]

I'm gonna try something. I have about 11 years experience with automotive a/c, and I can braise the crap out of copper.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I did it using one of the small dorm fridges some time ago. I used some of the 3/8th tubing and wound something like 50' in the fridge. I used a couple different sizes of the concrete cardboard tube so that I had three coils of tubbing inside each other. Just use hot melt glue to keep the tube together...

It took a couple weeks of fussing with it to get the temp right. I also placed a bunch of 1 gallon zipper top bags filled with water in the fridge to help to stabilize the temp as at first, it kicked on and off to much. All the water helped a bunch. I used some of the great stuff expanding foam to better insulate and to fill in the holes around my plumbing. I used a quiet1 1200 to run the water.

Sorry, but the "all the water" does not help anything. If you cooled your tank with a "dorm fridge" then the tank didn't need a chiller to begin with...

You can't cheat simple physics folks. A dorm fridge does not have enough capacity to chill an aquarium. A nano... maybe.

http://beananimal.com/articles/dorm-fridge-aquarium-chiller.aspx