Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Now he have prices like this chiller is made from gold. 381.01$+$998.59 shipping to Ireland.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
abyss
Now he have prices like this chiller is made from gold. 381.01$+$998.59 shipping to Ireland.
Still plenty of cheap repairable ones i just took a look, hes got 6 or 7 of them for $74.95 plus shipping, and i see a couple in the $180-200 range plus shipping as well.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Ive used a fridge. drilled a couple of holes in the side for the pipes and placed a tank in the bottom with 5mtrs of inlet pipe coiled above it. Works great. Cost one used fridge @ £40 and doesnt rely on fans :) 40 watts or so of cooling power, plenty for a water cooled spindle.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
I grabbed one for $50+$20 shipping. Thank you for the info, I appreciate it a lot. This will certainly keep my 5 gallon bucket of water cool. For my 2.2kw spindle and 40watt laser.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jon.N.CNC
Ive used a fridge. drilled a couple of holes in the side for the pipes and placed a tank in the bottom with 5mtrs of inlet pipe coiled above it. Works great. Cost one used fridge @ £40 and doesnt rely on fans :) 40 watts or so of cooling power, plenty for a water cooled spindle.
I tried that, worked great for short jobs, but anything over say 20 minutes and the water temp would start climbing. Takes a lot to cool water thats coming into the fridge at room temp. I thought about using a chest freezer to attempt the same thing, but then i found these chillers.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jfong
I grabbed one for $50+$20 shipping. Thank you for the info, I appreciate it a lot. This will certainly keep my 5 gallon bucket of water cool. For my 2.2kw spindle and 40watt laser.
Ahh you must have been the one that bought the other working unit with a dryer failure. I was sorting through to decide on buying another one, that one caught my eye because i'm sure it works just fine except the dryer. He has another one that says it powers up but goes into watchdog, i might make an offer on that one, from what i can tell playing with mine the watchdog can be defeated.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kb0nly
Ahh you must have been the one that bought the other working unit with a dryer failure. I was sorting through to decide on buying another one, that one caught my eye because i'm sure it works just fine except the dryer. He has another one that says it powers up but goes into watchdog, i might make an offer on that one, from what i can tell playing with mine the watchdog can be defeated.
That would be me. Hopefully the dryer is the only thing bad. FedEx says it will arrive on Friday. I'll update the thread once I get it installed.
I never used a chiller, does this compare at all to the cw5000 types selling for about $350? Right now I'm just throwing in frozen blocks into the water. Anything is better than that. I forget to take them out and freeze them again.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jfong
That would be me. Hopefully the dryer is the only thing bad. FedEx says it will arrive on Friday. I'll update the thread once I get it installed.
I never used a chiller, does this compare at all to the cw5000 types selling for about $350? Right now I'm just throwing in frozen blocks into the water. Anything is better than that. I forget to take them out and freeze them again.
You MIGHT find a CW3000 for $350, a CW5000 will be close to twice that.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jfong
That would be me. Hopefully the dryer is the only thing bad. FedEx says it will arrive on Friday. I'll update the thread once I get it installed.
I never used a chiller, does this compare at all to the cw5000 types selling for about $350? Right now I'm just throwing in frozen blocks into the water. Anything is better than that. I forget to take them out and freeze them again.
Ok first off... comparing these to a CW3000 or CW5000 is TOTALLY WRONG...
The CW3000 and 5000 are nothing more the an over glorified radiator with a fan, water pump, and reservoir. I had a CW3000 taken apart, and i saw pictures of a 5000 taken apart. They ARE NOT ACTIVE COOLERS.... If you want the same performance as one of them get a couple PC radiators and some fans and a PC cooling water pump, it would cost you $150-200 for the same thing as those cheap POS's... I had a CW3000 for a while, it started rusting inside the water tank so i took it apart to clean it out, and there ain't much inside! There is a water flow switch, which only works on days when the earth is at the right rotation to the sun and the magnetic ju-ju comes into collidance and your tin foil hat is on straight... LOL... Yeah they suck. I had to modify my CW3000 so it actually worked out of the box, and then its nothing more then a radiator and a fan for the cooling, no compressor, no TEC's, nothing.
The CW5000 i saw torn apart looked the same inside as the 3000 just bigger reservoir, bigger radiator and bigger fan. Unless i'm missing something i didn't see active cooling them either??
Those units will only cool the water down to room temp, thats it, so if your room is say 74 degrees and the water coming out of the laser is higher it will cool it down to room temp, but thats it.
These ThermoTek units are a CHILLER, not a cooler. They use Peltier's to actively chill the water, not just cool it to room temp. You can actually refrigerate below room temp with these. I ran my laser again tonight, cut about three hours at 10mA and the temp of the water coming out never went above 65 degrees, the temp going in was roughly 61 degrees with the ThermoTek set to 16C. I was playing around with it and just kept setting it lower and lower to see if i could push the output water to below 68 and its clearly quite capable of doing that!! Only a 4 degree difference between the manifold temp of the chiller and the output temp after running through the tube while cutting. That's pretty darn good! My CW3000 that i had could only get it to room temp, so it would sit around 73-74 degrees, sure it kept it at room temp regardless of cutting length as long as the room was also kept cool, but that's just not acceptable because the warmer the tube is the shorter the life.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
I was just running my laser through it, i've gone through about four different cooling systems in the last year. A fridge, a CW3000, a 240mm PC radiator and fans once i found out the CW3000 was nothing but a radiator with a fan and a pump and reservoir and the reservoir started to rust and put crap through the lines. I can see the fridge setup keeping up with a spindle easy, that's a great setup for that use, the laser puts a lot more heat into the coolant, i don't know the actual wattage we are talking about here in terms of thermal transfer to the coolant but it sure will heat up a 5 gal reservoir of water pretty quickly, maybe an hour cutting time tops before your going over room temp without adding ice.
I run antifreeze in mine to, its the pink RV antifreeze which is propylene glycol, from what everyone told me the regular auto antifreeze is ethylene glycol and it can have growth in it, normally not a problem in an automotive use because of how hot the coolant is in a car, but at room temp setting for a long time apparently it can get growth when exposed to light. I've been running a mix of RV antifreeze and distilled water for just about a year now, no problems whatsoever, it does slightly stain the plastic tubing but thats no big deal.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jfong
That would be me. Hopefully the dryer is the only thing bad. FedEx says it will arrive on Friday. I'll update the thread once I get it installed.
I never used a chiller, does this compare at all to the cw5000 types selling for about $350? Right now I'm just throwing in frozen blocks into the water. Anything is better than that. I forget to take them out and freeze them again.
One more thing i forgot to mention, go order your male water fittings for it. It doesn't come with anything. They are CPC, aka Colder Products, male valved 1/4" fittings. I got mine from a water/marine parts place online, they weren't too badly priced, like $6 each plus shipping. McMaster Carr also has them but my local vendor didn't have them in stock so i was going to order them online but the shipping was more from MC.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jon.N.CNC
Not a laser person but still peltiers kick off as much heat as they do cool, so you operation relies on what is a chinese fan so no idea of quality and is dust sensitive. If I was to use one of these again I'd replace the fan with a quality 48v one and build it in a filtered enclosure with its own independent fan.
This chiller has two 120mm fans, and its filtered... No worries. Its even a removable washable air filter on the fan input. And yes, they do kick out a fair amount of heat, but, as long as the laser tube is cool i don't mind. The fridge was just as bad in heating the room, and the CW3000 was just as bad, at least with this Thermotek it has such a strong pump in it i can put it in the opposite room and run the water lines through the wall if i wanted. Right now its sitting so the heat from it is pulled off by my room fan, with the AC running in here i don't even notice it.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
That certainly sounds better that they have considered filtering in that model. And running in a separate room is definitely a good idea.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Its a nice filter on it, no worry about it sucking in junk. The connections to the water lines are really nice having those CPC fittings, lossless coolant connections if i need to unplug the lines and take the chiller outside to blow out dust buildup on the removable filter, or even just to move stuff around to service it, change the coolant, etc.
I'm thinking of running the lines through the wall to the next room if it starts heating it up in here, but so far i can't even tell its running, i have 2 3d printers in this room also so the AC is always running to cool me off. The last modification i'm planning on making is getting some insulation to put on the water lines just to further improve their isolation from the room temp and them bundle them up nice so its just an umbilical from the laser down to the chiller, make it all nice and tidy.
I had my 240mm radiator in the coolant return line when i started running the ThermoTek, i have since removed it, testing with and without the added radiator inline was was not making any difference, well maybe a half a degree difference in the water going in and out of the radiator unless i placed the radiator in front of the AC. So it wasn't worth keeping that inline. Its just the ThermoTek cooling it now, finally have my cooling system done!
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
kb0nly,
Thanks for the info. I'm really glad now to have purchased one.
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kb0nly
Still plenty of cheap repairable ones i just took a look, hes got 6 or 7 of them for $74.95 plus shipping, and i see a couple in the $180-200 range plus shipping as well.
Can you send me a link to particular auction, please? From any reason I have NO cheaper offers than ~$380+998delivery.
(See https://photos.google.com/share/AF1Q...ZJcWpUSnZPa3F3 - this is what I have, sorted by lowest Price+P&P)
Re: Cheap Water Chillers!!!
Cheap and cheerful do it yourself version I saw a while back worked really well and cost around £30 or $50 to build. A refrigerator salvaged from a refuge tip, shelves removed and a 40ltr plastic container of distilled water and Mono Propylene Glycol stored inside, two holes drilled through side and container cap for the piping and a salvaged central heating pump for circulation, space versus cost, the guy had used this with a 100w Co2 laser for last 7-8 years and it works like a dream.
Cannot think of a simpler or cheaper way to make a chiller that works and extremely cheap to run!