DIY Water reservoir chiller

DesertHydro · Dec 2, 2016

here is what i was thinking about lately. it would only work well in the winter months but i would put a 55 gal drum full of water outside. i would then use an inline pump to pump water through a radiator submerged in the freezing cold water in the barrel of water outside and then out the other side and back into the grow room. simple and very little power consumption. why pay for cooling when you dont have to. i know this is kind of ghetto tech but im sure it would work well. one could do the same concept and have multiple radiators indoors and create "icebox" chillers for the room itself. again, only in the colder months when your outdoor temps could keep the barrel of water frigid.

Budley Doright · Dec 2, 2016

DesertHydro said:
here is what i was thinking about lately. it would only work well in the winter months but i would put a 55 gal drum full of water outside. i would then use an inline pump to pump water through a radiator submerged in the freezing cold water in the barrel of water outside and then out the other side and back into the grow room. simple and very little power consumption. why pay for cooling when you dont have to. i know this is kind of ghetto tech but im sure it would work well. one could do the same concept and have multiple radiators indoors and create "icebox" chillers for the room itself. again, only in the colder months when your outdoor temps could keep the barrel of water frigid.

I use a copper coil buried in the ground (well kind of lol) and pump glycol through tube in tube heat exchangers that have water circulating to each Rez. The only power is the circ pumps (.6 amps). Yes it stops working at around 50f but I'm outside by then

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TeamSuperman · Dec 27, 2016

So I pumped fluid out of a reservoir and into a aluminum reservoir from a computer liquid cooler. I slapped three peltiers on the side of that and stuck an aluminum heatsink on the opposite side of the peltiers. Then I put a 120MM cooling fan directly into the heat sink. I think a part of my problem was that my testing reservoir was just an aluminum pot, and while it did fine getting hotter and hotter, it probably transferred too much of the cooling to the ambient air. My problem was that when the water was already 5 or 6 degrees below ambient temps, and I put the system on.. the water just kept getting warmer. So I cut my losses and called it a day.

WpgJetsFan · Jan 8, 2017

TeamSuperman said:
So I am looking at ways to cool my nutrient reservoir. My ideal solution would create a snap-in water temperature regulator that simply uses a temperature probe, 110VAC outlet, and a pair of hoses to connect to any system. Here's what I've got planned so far..

* Controller $38
* Elements $17
* Chilling block $15
* Active heat sinks (x2) $26
* Pump $10
* DC Power supply $35

My plan is to thermal glue three of the elements onto the water chilling block. Then use the two heat sinks to actively cool the reverse side of the elements. I would then mount this chilling reservoir to the side of the nutrient tank, connect the pump to pull water into the cooling block from the resevoir. When the pump is turned on, it would suck water from the top outlet of the chilling block, which would create a reverse pressure system pulling fresh nutrient solution out of the reservoir. The block would be slightly tilted so all the water will drain from the bottom inlet back into the reservoir when the pump is turned off.

Are there any better solutions out there? Any feedback is welcome.

This is what i did to alleviate my root rot problem...http://rollitup.org/t/first-grow-in-a-filing-cabinet.931604/

DIY Water reservoir chiller

DesertHydro

Well-Known Member

Budley Doright

Well-Known Member

TeamSuperman

Member

WpgJetsFan

Member