DIY Resovoir Chiller

[bdlt]

So in my medicated state I had an epiphany. I've been combating resovoir temps with my other grow and just don't want to drop 400+ dollars on a chiller.

I have a chest freezer in my garage doing nothing. It used to house meat from my hunting and fishing trips but since my injury it's just sitting there. It's about 4 cubic feet of space and I was thinking... Why not convert it into a resovoir/chiller!! Then I started doing research on how I could rig the internal thermostat so that it didn't turn my nutrient solution into a block of ice. Then I realized that I was in way over my head and decided to scratch that idea. Then I had my second epiphany. Why not just put the freezer unit on a switch that would activate the unit when it crossed a threshhold and deactivate it when it reached a set temp! Turns out these sorts of switches are pretty common. And just in my lil bit of research I've found quite a few solutions.

Aqua Logic Digital Temperature Controller - Dual Stage

Seems to be my best bet. So what are the thoughts? Am I crazy? Brilliant? Stupid? I was thinking of sealing it up really well with silicon and giving it a try. Can anyone think of a reason this wouldn't work?

~bdlt

 

[bongorilla]

I too have a chest freezer and was thinking along the same wave length. My idea is to take some 1/2'' coiled pond hose maybe 50' and put it inside the freezer and pump reservoir water through the hose..the freezer could cool multiple reservoirs by putting an individual hose coil for each res..3/4'' hose could hold a lot more water in the freezer if needed..for temp control I was thinking a speed control on the pump, or a thermostat hooked to the plug on the freezer or a cycle timer on the pump or on the freezer. I'm sure it will work its just a matter of getting it dialed to the right temps..

 

[darkhollo]

I took a note from this thread (link below) and bought a water cooler at a thrift store for 20 bucks. NO mods required except disassembly. The thermostat won't keep my temps high enough.. so I had to resort to a timer (30 min on/ 30 min off) but now my temps are in 66-68 range and for 20 bucks + 30 minutes of work... can't beat that.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=33123


-dh

 

[SkareCrow]

I was thinking about doin shit with a mini fridge...


I was gonna have the pump draw the water from around the top of the freezer tray and have the warm return lines running under it. I'm still undecided on weather to turn the lil fridge into a dryer or a rez..

 

[green_tea]

I'd stay away from the mini fridge idea... for a few reasons:

1) very inefficient - you are using an AC unit(basically) to cool the air in the mini fridge, then the air in turn cools the water that is in there. (where as a water chiller or water cooler directly cools the water by running the cool side of the AC unit through the water itself.

2) mini fridges aren't designed to be on all the time, you can blow the compressor if you over work them.

I've seen computer nuts try and mod their computer to get it all inside the mini fridge so the air that the CPU fan etc is using is cooler, and they have either blown the fridge or the computer shut down from over heating. They just aren't designed to be on "all the time" like a AC unit is, or a water chiller/cooler