Breakover
Member
Yes!
We hope to slam together our flat plate over the next couple days. If that works as hoped, I will be making a PO request for a 404a charged remote ice machine condenser unit and a counterflow HX.
I love r&d. So much fun!
Building an IC69 Heat Exchanger
- Thread starter Thread starter Hydrosun
- Start date Start date
Yes!
We hope to slam together our flat plate over the next couple days. If that works as hoped, I will be making a PO request for a 404a charged remote ice machine condenser unit and a counterflow HX.
I love r&d. So much fun!
I'm excited to see where this leads!Yes!
We hope to slam together our flat plate over the next couple days. If that works as hoped, I will be making a PO request for a 404a charged remote ice machine condenser unit and a counterflow HX.
I love r&d. So much fun!
GH
They will custom bend you coils so you don't have to cut the bottoms and re-bend them yourself. I think it's good to have a piece of virgin straight tube at the end where you compression fitting goes.
With the "sweaty betty" we were using, we got to like -17 in pure pg. It was 18000 btu I think and needed a piston pump to move the pg. I just honestly don't know if it's worth the electricity for small time hobbyists but if you guys are in a warehouse getting good prices on power, might be different. I honestly feel that a larger pg reservoir as a cold sink would be good. We had a big cooler, put a bunch of bricks in it and like 12 gallons on pg. Had to wait like an hour or so between runs to let the cold recharge.
The rest of the stuff you guys are along about I have no idea. I have officially hit the ceiling, you guys are way out of my league.
Breakover
Member
Pg by itself is way too thick for conventional pumps, for sure, but I think thinning with a combination of h2o and EtOH, we can keep the mix below flammable thresholds and get it thin enough to pump with conventional submersible pumps.
Going right to refrigerant as a cooling medium eliminates all that speculation, but opens up another box of speculation to suss out.
Going right to refrigerant as a cooling medium eliminates all that speculation, but opens up another box of speculation to suss out.
Blazzin' it Northern Lab!! Furthers GW's idea of a simple Ma and Pa CLS. No exotic components, just commercial off the shelf stuff even a third worlder could jocky together.
Pure777Extracts
Member
loving this thread. PG is used to thin concentrates/VG in ecigs to make it wick better because is so viscous ...?and i dont have any hand but when I use to store it in the fridge it was still very viscous if I remember correctly? Was really hoping to use my pump instead of stirring every so often, I have pg coming in the mail but are you speaking from personal experience with it? Does it change below 0?
Breakover
Member
I've never tried to pump subzero pg, but judging from what Sunfire posted, pure pg won't pump at subzero. Pg also transfers heat poorly compared to water and alcohol, so we need to thin it with either/or so it will pump with a conventional low head hydroponics pump as well as transfer heat better.
Chonkski
Member
It would seem that we would need a pump with a large diameter input/output or else the water may slush up and build a blockade. I can see why you are interested in having Etoh in the mix.
Very stoked on this particular project. I'm going to start researching pumps that can handle it.
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I'm telling ya, we first tried like a 500 gph little submersible pump, no way. Then a 1/3 hp sump pump, nope. Luckily I had a piston pump sitting around from a burningman mister system I havnt used in years. That worked barely and I bet a pump wouldn't last long pushing shit heavier looking than 90W oil. A paddle pump won't move it at all. A diaphragm or piston will barely but they expensive and arnt made for that viscosity. Maybe a little water wheel setup that goes inside and is turned by a roto - hammer drill or motor you can acquire at a restore or thrift shop for cheep?
Thinning with just water caused ice frost to build up on the fins, acting as an insulator, and screwing up the heat transfer of the system.
This is just my experience, hope this helps.
Thinning with just water caused ice frost to build up on the fins, acting as an insulator, and screwing up the heat transfer of the system.
This is just my experience, hope this helps.
Breakover
Member
Ok, so final verdict on the original configuration - sweaty Betty and ic69
We added 10 minutes on recovery times vs dry ice in a 60/40 pg/h20 mix.
Not bad compared to time lost running for and storing dry ice, if you can even get it.
Hooked up the flat plate in place of the ic69 pot. it's a b3-36a 30 plate from dudadiesel on eBay. 1/2" male npt in and out both sides. Just over a square meter of exchange surface. Stainless steel with copper solders. Also plumbed fluid return line to a spray manifold made of 1/2" PVC. This will circulate the warmed fluid back across Betty's evaporator hopefully reducing or eliminating frosting.
We added 10 minutes on recovery times vs dry ice in a 60/40 pg/h20 mix.
Not bad compared to time lost running for and storing dry ice, if you can even get it.
Hooked up the flat plate in place of the ic69 pot. it's a b3-36a 30 plate from dudadiesel on eBay. 1/2" male npt in and out both sides. Just over a square meter of exchange surface. Stainless steel with copper solders. Also plumbed fluid return line to a spray manifold made of 1/2" PVC. This will circulate the warmed fluid back across Betty's evaporator hopefully reducing or eliminating frosting.
montroller
Member
942.87 sq in
DragonMack
New member
I get the same, 943 sq. in.
Love your tech.
Thanks for sharing your great work.
Love your tech.
Thanks for sharing your great work.
Breakover
Member
I get the same, 943 sq. in.
Love your tech.
Thanks for sharing your great work.
Thanks guys.
So 942 sq inches is .608 square meters. The flat plate we're using has 1.08 square meters of contact surface. I am assuming they are counting both sides of each plate, so in comparison the flat plate would seem to have less contact area than a 1/2"x50' coil if we count both sides of the coil like they do the flat plate, but I could be way wrong about that.
First try with sweaty Betty and flat plate scheduled for tomorrow. Can't effing wait!
What a compressed air driven option (way above my mechanical rube goldberg pay grade)? This would dove tail in nicely with moving to Haskels.
Breakover
Member
What a compressed air driven option (way above my mechanical rube goldberg pay grade)? This would dove tail in nicely with moving to Haskels.
I like it! I bet haskel makes a liquid pump. We use gas pressure driven pumps in the natural gas industry all the time, both piston and diaphragm style. They pump some pretty thick oil with some of those diaphragm pumps.
Something else I've been pondering...
What if you could harvest the heat of vaporization and compression of the process gases and use that to heat your collection pot?
This could potentially be accomplished by simply dunking sweaty Betty's condenser in water as well and circulating that warm water around, say, your jacketed shatter platter, or your heated stock pot...
It wouldn't likely be 100% efficient but you're already creating the heat, why not use it?
Tubing size is OD, so assuming .030 walls, about 829 square inches.
Breakover
Member
Thanks GW! I hadn't thought about wall thickness.
So the outer SA = 943sqin
Inner SA = 829sqin
That's 1772sqin total which is about 1.14 sq meters. So about 10% more SA than that flat plate HX we're trying out at 1.03sqm...
