barderer Posted May 18, 2009 Share Posted May 18, 2009 Can anyone recommend a cheap temp controller? I made my own chiller and I have a unexpected problem. It works too well! I just need something that will turn a small pump on and off at a specified temperature. Can this ice probe controller be used to control any arbitrary switch? Those sell for like 40 bucks. Any suggestions welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted May 18, 2009 Share Posted May 18, 2009 so tell us more about your DIY chiller. I'd like to know how you did it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barderer Posted May 18, 2009 Author Share Posted May 18, 2009 I will post pics later. Basically I made a cooling coil out of RO poly tubing hooked up to a lower power desk water fountain pump. I put effort into making sure the coil construction quality was good. Then I used a old mini fridge some one off the club gave me for free and submersed the coil in a bath of cooling water. You could also use one of those little portable 12v 40 buck car fridges. Right now its about 24' of tubing in the coil. And it drops the water temp a staggering 3 degrees average in one round trip. That is temp taken at intake, 5sec trip through 24' coil and 3 degree drop at output. Compound that over and over and it does a good job cooling. I'd imagine this type of chiller could handle up to a 50-60 gal tank if I wanted to devote the entire mini fridge to coil. The fridge could prob hold 150' feet of coil if I needed that kind of capacity. But I wanted to save some room for beer. So this tank used to get up to 86-88 now it stays down at 76-77, thus the need for the controller. I also changed the essentially crappy design of the nano tuners fan layout. They basically ship their hood with one fan blowing in and one blowing out right next to each other. Which makes for 0 air flow over lights. Simply making both fans blow out and moving their "fuge" mod to the back of the tank makes the hood MUCH more efficient at removing heat off the lights. I also removed there TEC cooling solution as its totally useless because of its lack of insulation. I am in the process of making a shaving jig which I can use to shave the poly tube down to minimum thickness making the heat transfer even more efficient. I think I found my cheap temp controller. This guy with a sealed test tube over the sensor should do the trick. http://www.heatsink-guide.com/content.php?...t=control.shtml N Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barderer Posted May 19, 2009 Author Share Posted May 19, 2009 cooling coil cooling coil in water bath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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