So the peltier doesnt need to be in the water? Just on the side of the tank? Will it have enough power to cool through the side then? Will you need a venturi to distribute the water to ensure it's always flowing?I'll try and take some pics as I'm making it... but it shouldn't be very difficult.
60W Peltier:
£1.32 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281647941472)
80mm CPU Cooler:
£6.99 off ebay (can get one for about £3.40 shipped from China but I didn't want to wait) (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/401084730055)
12V 10A PSU (Peltier needs 5A at 12V and cooling fan uses less than 0.5A at 12V)
£10.49 off ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/191733870857)
Thermostatically controlled plug:
£7.84 on ebay (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381098253044)
Should go something like this:
1. Wire up the PSU (L, N and GND are marked as you can see on the picture on ebay)
2. Attach a plug to other end
3. Wire up peltier to DC + and - on PSU (if you get them the wrong way round it'll heat instead of cool!)
4. Attach peltier to heatsink with thermal cement
5. Wire up heatsink to DC + and - on PSU
5. Attach contraption to side of water tank to be cooled (probably using epoxy)
6. Plug in thermostatically controlled plug and dangle probe in water tank
7. Set temperature for peltier to be activated
And you're done Total cost £26.68 plus a plug and some wire. I'd definately strap the PSU high off the ground to avoid it getting wet as it has no protection against water splashes. If you wanted to be sensible you'd put the PSU in an IP68 box tied a couple of feet above the ground with rubber grommets for cable exits (can get one off ebay for £7.99 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161974044681).
As I said... I'll try and take some pics of my build
Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.So the peltier doesnt need to be in the water? Just on the side of the tank? Will it have enough power to cool through the side then? Will you need a venturi to distribute the water to ensure it's always flowing?
Trying to visualise how it'd work.
Sounds awesome.Yup, side of the tank should be fine. The principal of a peltier is that is takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other side. So one side gets cold and one gets hot. If u attach the cold side to the side of the water tank that should be fine.
In an aeroponic cloner the water is always flowing through the pump and gets mixed constantly. So there shouldn't be any need for extra mixing.
If you Google a bit you'll see other people have successfully done the same thing already. I'll let u know if my attempt works
Edit: Just had a little think and alternatively the water could be cooled directly. That would require a cheapo aluminium water block (which I have plenty of) and a cheapo 12V water pump (which I also have spare ). All the bits should arrive on Monday and then I'll post up some pics
Nah I havent had any electronics training apart from some basics at school aged 9-11 messing with batteries, LEDs and motors! Oh! and I remember wiring up a mains electric plug at school when I was about 15 tooSounds awesome.
Are you naturally a handyman like this or are you trained in electrics n shiz? I'd never think to do half the stuff you're doing. Probably why my grow cost soo much to start with
Thanks for the advice. I've just changed my cloner water again (am doing it every other day at the moment). I bleached out the container and used fresh water (again RO, ph 5.8, 200ppm). I've hooked up the Hailea HC300 chiller directly to the cloner and have it set at 17C so that should take care of things until monday when hopefully I can build a smaller less overkill chiller. I used H2O2 as suggested and gave the roots a quick wash in H202 while I was at it.@loftygoals Impressive work, you picked the correct screen name! Really cool, ambitious as hell. I'm a Keep it Simple guy, but my idea of simple is complex to some folks, and I have a feeling you're even farther down that scale. This probably is your concept of "simple." Great stuff, rock on. Try a bit of H2O2 in your reservoir to keep those roots white, 2TBSP per gallon of a 3% solution should do it.
Yikes! I guess that's the thing about scaling to this size out of the gate, when things go wrong they go wrong at scale. Good luck, just keep on top of it and you'll pull through fine, hopefully.Had a bit of a disaster over the weekend. I had cheapo chinese hose clips on all hose connections out of my chiller. They were zinc plated which I thought would be fine under water... wrong! On Saturday I noticed the pH had risen to 8.2 so added a bit of pH down... but the pH barely moved, so I added a lot more until I was at pH 5.8. Later I came back and tested it again and the pH had risen again with the seedlings now looking very very droopy! So I emptied the system and had a look for anything different... I found the clips corroded with a powdery coating (they were part of the water chiller loop). The plants look very sad at the moment. I pondered starting again but thought I'd give them a chance to recover and carry on. I think it's gonna be 2 weeks from now before I disturb the seedlings again. I'll just let them chill out and relax You learn from your mistakes eh? That's what the first run is for!
Luckily there were only about 2 places where I had planned to have submerged hose clips so I can easily change them to stainless steel jubilee clips or plastic clips (if I even bother to put clips on submerged connections... which I probably won't now).
Was planning to fill the whole RDWC system tonight and leave it running for 3-4 days to test for leaks. I had my cheapo water pump sitting in the water butt full of RO water, connected up the hose to the pump at one end and to the reservoir at the other end... started it up... and nothing! Then got a small trickle! Basically the pump is not powerful enough to send water from the ground floor up into the loft. I had assumed a 7m delivery height would be enough, clearly not! So I've had to buy another pump... this one is 1200w and has a 46m delivery height and should be able to empty my water butt in under 1 minute
Also had quite a funny encounter while picking up some buckets today. I often have stuff delivered to a collection point locally and go pick things up 2-3 times a week as I'm usually working during the day and miss deliveries otherwise. So I went to pick up some buckets I'd ordered off the net... she finds them, brings them over, asks me what I'm doing with 40 buckets? Not anticipating the question I tell her I'm planting tomatoes in my greenhouse and they works well as cheap pots I honestly couldn't think of anything I'd legitimately be doing with 40 buckets??! She starts to go on about gardening and clay soil I just smile and nod cos I've got no idea what she's talking about hahaha
I'm gonna wire up some fan speed controllers tonight hopefully. High speed RVK and Rhino fans are too damn loud! Low speed are just about acceptable but I'm still slightly concerned about the neighbours Although realistically I can only hear the low speed ones at night from rooms directly beneath the fans...