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DIY Chiller for $60.


taekwondodo

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Glass really is a poor conductor, a pain of glass is nothing insulatively compaired to a wall with 6 inches of fibreglass in it but glass still doesnt conduct heat well, if youve ever done glasswork you know that you can hold a piece of glass just a few inches from were you put it in a flame and be quite comfortable for a long while. How much does it cost to get something gold plated these days? Its relatively cheep isnt it, and gold is perfect for this application, non corrosive and an excilent conductor. that or you could take a copper rod and wrap that in aluminum and get the aluminum teflon coated (because aluminum is the one thing that teflon sticks too and teflon, PolyTetraFlouroEthylene PTFE, is a good conductor and completely non corrosive)

 

Oh, another thought, you could get your hands on some titanium tubing, like the unbreakable heater deals and fill one of those with copper and punch it through a hole drilled through the side of your tank.

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  • 7 months later...
  • 2 months later...
OK. Holy Grail time.

We've all looked at ways to continue our passion of DIY for many of the things we do. One thread that seems to be consistant is that no matter what you do, it's just cheaper to buy an ICA or an iceprobe and be done with it (heck, I'm on the edge... looking seriously at the iceprobe for my 20G).

The obvious choice would be using a Peltier, as does the ICA and the Iceprobe. The two problems we as DIYers have that are not yet solved -

1) an effective heat (cold) transfer method that is safe and non-toxic to our reef.... and

2) A temperature controller for the Peltier.

So - setting 2 aside for now, as one can have a timer turn it on and off and have the system's heater fight to keep the tank warm if the cold is working, and keep the heater set at 78o.... and diddle with the timer until the battle between the heater and chiller is mimimal. Not the best choice, but there are other ways to skin this cat and it does have a work-around for now....

But people have been racking their brains out trying to figure out how to effectively solve #1 without killing the reef. The IceProbe looks like it uses a metal rod with some type of coating, and places the (short) rod directly into the water flow.

The ICA uses a modifid (apparently) VGA adapter used for watercooling PCs that appears to be coated on the inside of the heatsink with something saltwater safe. Something like this may or may not be out of our reach (the coating part), but a little VGA WC-HS isn't really going to scale well (an assumption).

So - how do we build this safely, and better yet, cheaper (by ~50%, or only pride becomes the DIYers motivator) than an ICA/Iceprobe?

Well, for $25, you can get a TEC at Frys,

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/1968938?s...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Another $15 for the HSF

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4175033?s...CH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

and an 8x8x.125 piece of aluminum as the Heat Transfer device.... $2.50

Cheap Power Supply - $15.

So we are up to about $55-60. Close to the ICA price... so it's getting to be a pride thing.

Put the heat exchanger in the tank? No.

Coat it? No.

Because glass transfers heat fairly well (not great, but well enough) making a good contact of the heat transfer device (the aluminum plate) to the glass will essentually transfer the cold to the wall of the fuge (see picture) which in turn is "radiated" (OK, so I'm speaking in reverse) into the water as it passes through the fuge.

Any thoughts?

- Jeff

 

 

 

Why would you put it on the back of the glass just get a small piece of aluminum flat stock 18 ga from home depot along with some aluminum round stock 1/2 to 3/4 thread one to the other so you get a T shape clamp the cpu cooler on top of the flat plate. Buy some plasti-dip you find it in the tool section of home depot or in the paint section its a liquid plastic used for dipping tools non toxic and non reactive when dried. Then dip the bottom of the t there you gpo no corrosion prob decent heat exchange then secure it to the tank so only the dipped probe is in water.

 

Power supply could be an old pc atx supply. Control could be a small PID loop control you can find them on e-bay as cheap as 20 bux dip the probe and you’re good to go

 

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Universal-Digital-PID-...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

 

This is all just a thought I am going to try it I have most of this on hand already so I will try it soon

 

Liam

 

 

Ps

 

I am new here

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  • 12 years later...

I really don't want to resurrect this thread, but i wanted to let people know the dangers in this project of putting a cold plate on glass.

Unless its tempered glass or pyrx you should never put a cold plate on glass. 

 

The way glass is and its crystal lattice structure, when subjected to cold at a extreme rate, it will shatter.

Glass has better tolerance to heat then cold. This is why heaters don't shatter, which proves the OP's theory as a fail. 

Again a heater shatters when the glass gets hot due to no water, and it goes into water to cool it rapidly... 

 

This is why you usually don't hear people shattering glass when its cold and they pour hot water.

What you do hear is the other way around when the glass is hot and its subjected to cold. 

 

Glass is a poor thermal conductor and TEC's are heat instantaneous pumps, meaning they get COLD really fast depending on how efficiently you can cool the hot plate.  

I have been working with TEC's for almost 7yrs to know what they can and can't do, so the OP's advice to attach a TEC to glass is asking for your glass to shatter.  

 

This is one of my projects i had with TEC's in building a custom water chiller for a Personal Computer to show you guys, that i have some experience with TEC's and what this DIY suggests is very dangerous and asking for a cataclysmic end.  

 

 

ntc22ss7-1.JPG

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, nanoreeFan said:

Naekuh, do you know of a waterblock that is not ALU which would be reef safe for saltwater? Thanks

unfortunately no...

 

they are all mostly made of copper / nickle plated / or silver, which i believe are all no no.  

 

You could essentially buy a sheet of titanium and probably cut it out to size, and then tap your own holes.  

But there is no titanium water blocks, and most liquid to liquid heat exchangers unless you can get one off a retired reef chiller, are made of brass.  

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  • 6 months later...

I know this is an old post, my 65 Gallon was going over Temperature at plus 82 F. The basement is 73.4 F warmest I've ever seen it. I put a small personal Fan on the floor, blowing up into the cabinet contacting the bottom and back glass. Dropped the temperature to 78.4 F in eight hours. Switched the Fan to the lowest setting, it's maintaining 77.4 F to 78.1 F basement is just under 74 F. I'm not increasing the evaporation rate. Next year I'll look at clip on fans. The over temperature is from the Submersible Pumps. Soon we will be posting Heater ideas. 

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