DIY chiller

[Poseidon]

Ya, that too!

 

[josephv]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Creative thinking . you eather have to develop creative solutions for the problems you encounter in this hobby or pay through the noise and follow the pack. I have a heat problem my tank. I can also see potential in my own refrigerator. In my frig there is a coiled flex tube that chills the water for drinking.I'm ready to run the tank water through that line and hope no one try's to get a drink from my fridge.

 

[waxy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14873644#post14873644 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by josephv
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Creative thinking . you eather have to develop creative solutions for the problems you encounter in this hobby or pay through the noise and follow the pack. I have a heat problem my tank. I can also see potential in my own refrigerator. In my frig there is a coiled flex tube that chills the water for drinking.I'm ready to run the tank water through that line and hope no one try's to get a drink from my fridge.

HAHAHA that's a knee slapper!

I've done that before...something similar.

I had the 5gallon bottles of water filled with fresh saltwater.

I left them near the water dispenser.

My girlfriend wanted me to refill the water so she got my friend to do it because I wasn't home.

When she took a drink, I'm sad to say that she had a stomach reaction hahaha.

Since then, I label the containers with "SALTWATER" or "FRESHWATER"

 

[Jim96SC2]

Saw one guy run plastic line through his beer fridge.

 

[chimmike]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14873644#post14873644 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by josephv
This is exactly what I'm talking about. Creative thinking . you eather have to develop creative solutions for the problems you encounter in this hobby or pay through the noise and follow the pack. I have a heat problem my tank. I can also see potential in my own refrigerator. In my frig there is a coiled flex tube that chills the water for drinking.I'm ready to run the tank water through that line and hope no one try's to get a drink from my fridge.

that's not going to work as well as you think it will. In order for it to be effective at your water volume, you may fill up the entire freezer section of your fridge with tubing and it still may not provide enough cooling for the water as it's pumped through. If you pump the water through slowly, it'll be cooled, but you won't pump enough flow thru to affect the tank temp significantly. If you pump the water through fast, you get good turnover but won't get the cooling effect.

I have a hood on my tank with the halides and some computer fans to blow cool air in and on the other side to pull warm air out. It's controlled by my AC Jr.

I have a tank in my garage with a chiller.

I think at this point in the game, there isn't a whole lot of innovation left to be done that will be effective. Chillers can be found relatively inexpensively in the classifieds section on here. Shoot, I picked one up for $250, with a pump!

As for the ice in a bucket........that would be good if you didn't have to drain the bucket and refill with ice every 4-6 hours here in FL :lol:

 

[chimmike]

you could do geothermal cooling, but you'll have to bury copper pipe probably 4' deep and have probably 50-100' of it, and of course sleeve the inside of the copper with plastic. That much length will help offset the heat generated in the water by the circulation pump which will be required

Then of course, you could use a controller to control when the circulation pump turns on to geothermally cool the water.

I can't say how effective this will be, but I can say you'd want to bury that pipe at least 4' deep here in FL.

 

[tatkinson]

I made mine out of an old dehumidifier and it works like a champ. I made a downdraft cylinder out of pvc and put 5' of coiled titanium tubing inside. I made a little acrylic tank big enough for the evaporator coil of the dehumidifier and recirculating pump which circulates dexcool through the titanium in the downdraft cylinder then back past the evaporator coil. I put a valve on the output of the cylinder and adjusted the flow down so that the water that exited the cylinder was 60 degrees. I already had the pumps and pvc so not counting those I think I had about $70 in the thing total. I was bored and thought why not try it, but it actually worked!

 

[grallster]

You could build a swamp cooler--basically a trickle filter with a whole lot of fan power directed into it.
It might get too humid in FL in summer for it to work real well though. I guess if you kept it inside with your air conditoning...

 

[waxy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14874467#post14874467 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chimmike
that's not going to work as well as you think it will. In order for it to be effective at your water volume, you may fill up the entire freezer section of your fridge with tubing and it still may not provide enough cooling for the water as it's pumped through. If you pump the water through slowly, it'll be cooled, but you won't pump enough flow thru to affect the tank temp significantly. If you pump the water through fast, you get good turnover but won't get the cooling effect.

I have a hood on my tank with the halides and some computer fans to blow cool air in and on the other side to pull warm air out. It's controlled by my AC Jr.

I have a tank in my garage with a chiller.

I think at this point in the game, there isn't a whole lot of innovation left to be done that will be effective. Chillers can be found relatively inexpensively in the classifieds section on here. Shoot, I picked one up for $250, with a pump!

As for the ice in a bucket........that would be good if you didn't have to drain the bucket and refill with ice every 4-6 hours here in FL :lol:

I'm in favor of the bucket of ice. It's traditional!

Sure that chiller is only $250+ but you're looking at the cost of electricity for it constantly running, especially during summer and here in CA the utility bill comes out to vast amounts.

With the bucket of ice, your fridge is always running, ice can always be made in a matter of hours. You just need the patience to repeat the process over and over during those warm days.

With 6 Ice Trays Circulating, you can dump the ice in the bucket and refill it with the same water from the bucket. You never have to empty or refill the bucket. Sounds nasty? Well, do you plan on drinking the water or use the ice cubes for human consumption?

You can say, it's a $5 chiller. Ice is free with purchase.

 

[29reef]

Umm, there really isnt a cheep diy chiller. The compressor and coil are going to cost you. If you aready have these things then great ill be happy to help you construct something. Otherwise your floating frozen water bottles in your sump lol. Best of luck

 

[waxy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14878325#post14878325 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 29reef
Umm, there really isnt a cheep diy chiller. The compressor and coil are going to cost you. If you aready have these things then great ill be happy to help you construct something. Otherwise your floating frozen water bottles in your sump lol. Best of luck

Floating the bottles in the tank works but not as effective since it's all from the same source of energy.

You want a small amout of water to travel through another source to disperse that heat. Reason for a coil of somesort.

I'm getting lazy to explain... -_-

 

[truebeliever71]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14874795#post14874795 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tatkinson
I made mine out of an old dehumidifier and it works like a champ. I made a downdraft cylinder out of pvc and put 5' of coiled titanium tubing inside. I made a little acrylic tank big enough for the evaporator coil of the dehumidifier and recirculating pump which circulates dexcool through the titanium in the downdraft cylinder then back past the evaporator coil. I put a valve on the output of the cylinder and adjusted the flow down so that the water that exited the cylinder was 60 degrees. I already had the pumps and pvc so not counting those I think I had about $70 in the thing total. I was bored and thought why not try it, but it actually worked!

Do you have any photos and/or diagrams?

Thanks...