TEK water chiller

[BachOn]

I bought a group of 5 commercial water chillers a few years back. This was an eBay purchase. Last night, just for giggles, I decided to check one of them out.

Description: (sorry no pics) They have a roughly half-gallon sized plastic tank. There is an aluminum heat sink mounted on the tank's side. The heat sink has a 120mm fan exhausting away from the heatsink. The fan is fairly quiet - maybe 30 db. A sticker on the base of the unit states that it draws 65 watts +or- 5% at 13 volts. Then there is a figure showing operating temperatures of 10-38 degrees C. The tank has input (top) and ouput (bottom) nipples that takes 1/2 or 3/8 inch ID hose. Then there is a hole of about 1/2 ID on top. I assume this is for filling the tank. Finally, there is what appears to be a thermister mounted inside the tank. The thermister has a small molded two-pin socket with red and black wires. I haven't checked the ohms rating on that.

These are not fully complete units. They seem to have been salvaged from units taken out of service. The worst news is that there is NO controller. Thus, they run at full power as long as the power supply is running.

I decided to try one out last night. I plugged the input/output holes. Filled the tank with water. Connected the fan and the TEC wires (both are black and red) to an automotive 13 amp 12 volt power supply. It puts out around 13.1 volts.

I inserted the probe from a meat thermometer into the fill-hole before starting. The temp of the water showed as 71.2 degrees F. Then I ran the unit. There was no insualation - the unit was just propped up on my tool bench. The thermister was not used.

Results:
after...
30 minutes - the tank water temp was 62 degrees F.
60 minutes - water tank temps were 53 degrees F.
90 minutes - water tank temps were 46.1 degrees F.
120 minutes - water in the tank had reached 44.1 degrees F.

I terminated the experiment because it was late. The fan seemed to cool the heatsink pretty well. The heatsink never got really hot. And the water temps in the tank was dropped significantly (roughly 27 degrees F), though the cooling pace wasn't what I'd call robust. Obviously a 65 watt TEC just doesn't have a whole lot of cooling capability.

I water cool one overclocked Intel Core I5 2500K. My water cooling system is an external home-brew setup. It's currently being revamped. I was waiting for some parts for it when I decided to perform the above test.

Part of me wanted to use one of these chillers to cycle on to give me water cooling reservoir a 'shot in the arm' when the system is under stress.

My guess is that the cooling offered my these chillers is too small to be useful. I got all five for under $20 - with the shipping. So I don't feel cheated. I'm sure the guy who sold them was disappointed that he didn't get more for them. I never got around to trying them out until now. I just wish I could think of some way to make use of them - besides for cooling refreshments.

Anyone have any practical ideas? (I'm talking for my water cooling system.)

Bach On

 

[ivanlabrie]

Another thread where I get to say this... Bong cooler! xD
You can always try modding a window ac to put the evap -that frosty radiator thingy- inside your Res and use mixture of distilled and antifreeze as a fluid. -You can either keep the thermister or cut it loose to make it run 24/7 for extremely low temps-
Only thing is, beware of condensation! insulate tubing, wb, socket area and res.

 

[Bobnova]

Depending on how much of a boost you're after you could use one of those reservoirs as your reservoir and have a microcontroller track water temp vs ambient temp and fire the TEC up when (if) the water temp got meaningfully higher than the ambient. It would be helping the radiators at that point rather than being counteracted by them, and you could tell it to stop when ambient water temps (or close) were achieved again. That'd prevent condensation and keep your power bill down.

That said, with proper radiator sizing you're looking at only a degree or three between ambient and water temp anyway.
The moment the water temp goes under ambient the radiators start picking up heat from the air rather than dumping it into the air.

 

[ivanlabrie]

Depending on how much of a boost you're after you could use one of those reservoirs as your reservoir and have a microcontroller track water temp vs ambient temp and fire the TEC up when (if) the water temp got meaningfully higher than the ambient. It would be helping the radiators at that point rather than being counteracted by them, and you could tell it to stop when ambient water temps (or close) were achieved again. That'd prevent condensation and keep your power bill down.

That said, with proper radiator sizing you're looking at only a degree or three between ambient and water temp anyway.
The moment the water temp goes under ambient the radiators start picking up heat from the air rather than dumping it into the air.

Word!

I didn't mention cooling the water in the res with chillers cause it's rather ineffective -1-3c worth of extra cooling for quite some wattage-
But, yeah, can be done...

 

[BachOn]

Thanks guys. As I expected, I sense the general consensus is that there isn't much to be gained. Oh well. Some more used junk I've bought that's cluttering up my workshop.

I think the controller would be the biggie. I can do pretty simple electronics. I suspect this type of controller might be beyond my level of proficiency.

I'm hopeful my new 120x3 radiator with six fans will do the trick. The 2500K isn't a HUGE heat producer - but I'm aiming to get it over 5 Gighz. Then I'm gonna see what the prices do on the I7 2600K and 2700K when the new Ivy Bridge CPUs hit the market around the end of the month.

Like they say - The main difference between men and boys are the prices of their toys.

Again - I appreciate the feedback.

BO

 

[Bobnova]

I really need to drag my pelt back out and play with Arduino control over it. That has been on my list for a while now.

 

[BachOn]

I haven't spent much time in this forum. Mind if I ask what Arduino is?

BO

 

[Bobnova]

This thing: http://arduino.cc/

Essentially, a fairly inexpensive microcontroller plus life support for said microcontroller and a programming interface, plus an IDE for writing the code itself.
It's cool.

 

[dtrunk]

Cool thread BachOn; I too am playing with this sort of idea. Did you say that the commercial units you bought are simply a TEC mounted to a small Reservoir? wow, really, that's it? (besides controls of course.)

 

[BachOn]

The TEC is mounted in an aluminum heatsink fitting. It's maybe the size of an older Pentium 4 heatsink. Some part of the heatsink is open to the interior of the case and comes in contact with the water. There is something like an 80 mm fan attached to the outside that removes the heat from the heatsink. The heatsink never gets very warm. The wires are solid and insulated lightly - maybe #18 or #16 gauge.

I don't see this as something for drinking water. At least I don't think I'd drink water from it. I suspect it had to have some industrial purpose. But I don't know what it would have been.

I bought them from a guy on eBay five or six years ago. I actually bought one. Seems like I paid something like $15 with the shipping. And get this: He was so disappointed in how little people were willing to pay for them that he threw in the other three that he had. I didn't complain.

BachOn

 

[ivanlabrie]

You could put some cold figures with three of them
Those are actually pretty good for freezing older gpus for example...