21Likes
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Reply With QuoteThat is a great design. Not many people here would build something like that, although I would, if I had the need for one. Nice find my friend.
cheap and EFFECTIVE DIY water chiller
Thought I would share this as I finally got around to giving it a try and man of man, it is the fucking bomb! Similar units have been described so I didn't invent it but thought I would post it up as it really does work well and only cost me around $150.
You basically use a dehumidifier and a cooling coil for making beer (wort chiller).
A dehumidifier works like an air con, using the phase change of liquid to gas and back again to get rid of heat. A dehumidifier works by passing air through a very cold radiator. The water in the air condenses and drips into a bucket.
So what do is take the shell of your dehumidifier. There are two radiators in there, one for cooling and one that gets hot to dissipate the collected heat.
I had a 40 pint dehu that I used but I'm sure you could use a smaller unit as it was soo effective. So what I did was take the shell of the dehumidifier off and GENTLY bend the cold radiator into a medium sized cooler. Then I filled the cooler with water and placed a stainless steel wort chilller coil in the cooler. You can find them on e-bay. You could probably use plastic pipe instead of the wort chiller but it won't be near as effective. This is what I'm talking about..http://www.amazon.com/Super-Efficien.../dp/B004D4QPQW
Then I have a SMALL pump and plastic tubing that pumps water from my rez, through the wort chiller, and back again.
So my 50 gallon rez was at 73 degrees. The water in the cooler was at 67. I turned the dehu on and crossed my fingers. I came back an hour and half later and my rez was at 61!!! There was actually a block of ice around the radiator in the cooler. That is a 12 degree drop in one hour!! The ice stayed around for several hours, I actually had to shut the pump off as the cooler water was in the 50's and I didn't want my rez and colder. About 7 hours later my rez was up to 70 so I turned the dehu on for 30 minutes and the rez dropped down to 65 within the hour. SO at this point I'm going to put the dehu on a timer to turn on for about 30 minutes every 3-4 hours and call it good. That is not a whole lot of power to cool 50 gallons. I'm pretty fucking stoked as chillers are very expensive and typically have to be run all the time.
In order to avoid posting pictures I did a web search and found a cool website that explains exactly what I did.
http://www.jonolavsakvarium.com/eng_...r/chiller.html
Cheers!
Everything that I write in this forum is true. I grow marijuana in my basement and all those pictures I post are from my house. It is not fictional, it is not for entertainment, it's real.
That is a great design. Not many people here would build something like that, although I would, if I had the need for one. Nice find my friend.
"It's a plant. It just grows like that, and should you so happen to set it on fire.. there may be some effects." -Katt W.
If people spent $400 on an ecoplus chiller that was a power hog and didn't work as well they would.
Everything that I write in this forum is true. I grow marijuana in my basement and all those pictures I post are from my house. It is not fictional, it is not for entertainment, it's real.
can you still use the dehumidifier in the room?
The dehu works by sucking air across ice cold coils. The air temp drops and water condenses and falls into the bucket.
Since that ice cold coil is now sitting in a bucket of water...no.
Everything that I write in this forum is true. I grow marijuana in my basement and all those pictures I post are from my house. It is not fictional, it is not for entertainment, it's real.
Heres an idea, a fridge could be fitted with lots of tubing running through the inside and i mean lots of tubing, and then bore 2 holes and run the 2 ends of the tubing out and attach a water pump to one peice of tubing and run the other into your hydro tank, and there ya have it folks a cheap and very effective water cooler!
Ya could prob get an old fridge for well nothing so all ya would have to do is pay for a water pump and a few rolls of hose pipe, what yas think?
And im pretty sure a fridge could cope no problem with the extra cooling and be left on constantly without breaking down,
I poster this elsewhere but thought it seemed more suitable on here
i picked up a deep freeze freezer and tried to make a chiller out of it and the problem i had was that the copper coil i put in the freezer would melt the block if ice faster then it could freeze back up. i think the wort chiller coil might work better but not sure. i think for the amount of time i have spent trying to get it to work i could have just bought a chiller.but thats just what i think
The fridge idea is no good because the compresses are not designed to run non stop, they are expensive to run, will not have as effective of heat transfer without water immersion plus, who the hell has space for an extra fridge?
My whole dehu set up sits under my nutrient shelves. I forbit the other day and left it on for 1.5 hours. There was 1" of ice on the coil. Oopsie.
Everything that I write in this forum is true. I grow marijuana in my basement and all those pictures I post are from my house. It is not fictional, it is not for entertainment, it's real.
Originally Posted by legallyflying
I have to disagree with ya there and lots of people have room for a few fridges in there grow rooms if not more, and the fridge wouldnt be blasting none stop it would probabley cool down the inside a little more that normal, and if you where to use a lower powered water pump and tons of hose pipe by the time the slightly warmish water worked its way through all the nice cold hose pipe(60s atleast) and back into the tank it would take a few degrees of it!(im thinking a good 10-15 degrees)
I mean its not like im running boiling water through the things ffs, its only 70-80 degrees and water at that temp running through a fridge most defffinatly would not have the thing turning on 24/7 and burning itself out, at most it would turn on several times extra per day depending on how cold you set it to be!
If that was'nt the case then there would'nt be no fridges in desert countrys because the compresser would over heat when the fridge turns on because the air surrounding it and the fridge is much much warmer than what the water passing through an already cool hose pipe would be, which means in a desert country the fridge would turn on alot more due to the intense heat and burn out(but thats not the case), and I live in a temperate area so the outside air will easy cool it before it turns on again!
Or just like my air pump that heats to the point it near burns the hand of ya, just get a small fan and keep it blowing on the compressor thing on back of fridge and it will help cool it just like it does my air pump, to the point were its actuall cold in most places to touch and at its warmest its luke warm!
And when ya never open a fridge door it rarely turns on to cool down, so there straight of, is a load of times less than it would normaly turn on!
Dehumidifers arent exactly cheap why would you butcher 1 to make a cooler if ya have that sort of money to do that what can i say.......... go and buy a real cooler you cheap bastards llf
Dude your wrong. Not going to sit here and try and convince you about it. Ask yourself this..is food in your fridge a constant source of heat? No it's not. Once your fridge and food is at a given temp, the only thing the fridge is fighting against is outside air temp.
What transfers heat better? Water or air?
I bought a used dehu on CL for $30, threw it in the back of my car and when i got home, made another cooler for my veg rez in
about 20 minutes.
Go ahead, buy a fridge. Borrow your friends truck, haul it into your basement and then put 100 feet of hose in it. You'll soon discover that it doesn't work for shit. That is, if you don't rupture the cooling coils when driinh into the side of it. People have tried it and documented that it doesn't work.
It's not about being cheap, it's about being smart. Your logic is fairly sound but they lack an understanding of physics, mechanics, and practicality. I would love to see you buy and fuck with an old fridge though.
Everything that I write in this forum is true. I grow marijuana in my basement and all those pictures I post are from my house. It is not fictional, it is not for entertainment, it's real.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks