The Abominable Chiller dyi 2hp 12,000 btu equivalent

two2brains

Well-Known Member




Its been done before but i just thought i would share in case anyone is having high water temps and would like to cool down! It will cool a the heat exchange container (about 7.5 gallons) from 75f to low 50's in less than one hour.
 

waterdawg

Well-Known Member
Actually the hp of the compressor does not directly relate to the btu's of the unit. The eer of the unit is the factor used as well as COP.
 

two2brains

Well-Known Member
You going to show us how to do it or nah?
Its really easy if you have a dehumidifier. Just take off the back cover and the front cover.

There will be what looks like two radiators on the inside. The one in the front is the cooling part. Carefully cut loose any zip ties holding the wiring in place and remove anything else holding the front radiator in place. There will be some real sticky gewy type tape to cut off.

After that just carefully work and bend the long copper tube to the front radiator so that it comes down to the ground so that you can put it inside a cooler or container.

Thats it put the covers back on fill the cooler/container to submerge as much of the radiator as possible. Put a small pump inside there with radiator and hook up the cooling wort in your rez.

The tubing and clamps comes with the wort. You can get them on amazon for $40-$50. Run the pump 24/7 and the chiller 30-45 min on / 5 hours off (will depend on size of rez) and you'll stay around 60-65 degrees all the time. Just be careful it will freeze the water to ice! The 70 pint de humidifier is around $230 new.

If you build and need help i can help out as much as possible.
 
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CoughyTime

Active Member
I'd be checking that set of coils from the dehumidifier pretty closely. Any lead solder is going to be leeched out of the welds due to the acidic nature of beer wort. You do know lead is bad for you, right?
 

waterdawg

Well-Known Member
Snaps is right, no lead, silver solder. I just wonder about the heat that is put back into the room. The heat extracted from the water plus the compressor heat will all raise the room temp unless it is outside the room. Does this not prove to be an issue? I have water pipes run to a deep lake and am hoping to use that for a watercooled condenser but been kinda busy lol.
 

two2brains

Well-Known Member
Modern hvac equipment linesets are brazed or soldered using a non lead based product like stay brite.

Also, the chilled fluid is not the nutrient solution, that passes through the stainless coil.
Yea this. The water the coils are in never touches the rez water. Its pumped through the cooling wort and back into the heat exchange container.
 
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two2brains

Well-Known Member
Snaps is right, no lead, silver solder. I just wonder about the heat that is put back into the room. The heat extracted from the water plus the compressor heat will all raise the room temp unless it is outside the room. Does this not prove to be an issue? I have water pipes run to a deep lake and am hoping to use that for a watercooled condenser but been kinda busy lol.
The heat off the compressor is warm but it only runs for 45 mins every 6 hours so its not an issue. It has a powerful fan above the compressor so you could hook up some ducting if you needed it out of the room
 

two2brains

Well-Known Member
Another thing is you can put a T or multiple hook ups on the pump and chill multiple rez's without having to run the dehumidifier longer. Just add additional worts to the other rez's
 

waterdawg

Well-Known Member
The heat off the compressor is warm but it only runs for 45 mins every 6 hours so its not an issue. It has a powerful fan above the compressor so you could hook up some ducting if you needed it out of the room
Heat is my biggest obstacle so I'm always conerned lol. But yes ducting would work.
 

SnapsProvolone

Well-Known Member
The heat off the compressor is warm but it only runs for 45 mins every 6 hours so its not an issue. It has a powerful fan above the compressor so you could hook up some ducting if you needed it out of the room
Or you could set the whole contraption in an adjacent space and pipe the nutes?
 
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