anyone used a transmission cooler as a water chiller?
- Thread starter Roger A. Shrubber
- Start date
b4ds33d
Well-Known Member
i used a radiator i had for an old watercooled pc i built awhile back. works fine. just have to be careful and check to make sure your nute solutions aren't reactive with the base metal of the radiator. another option would be setting up a radiator loop with antifreeze, and have a copper pipe run through your reservoir like a geothermal system. instead of directly cooling your nute solution with the radiator, you'd cool it indirectly.
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
I run a closed glycol loop through heat exchangers that cool open loops circulated through each res. Works great when ambient temps are below 60 and keeps res's at 67
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
It was cheap but I had access to a bunch of free copper tube, and the heat exchangers were pulled out of GEO units that we replaced, pumps to circulate the glycol are about 100 each, to buy the shit would have been more than a good used aquarium chiller. If doing it again I would just buy a used chiller that worked and had a coopernickle exchanger
.Copper and nutrients don't mix... technically they should but more than a few people have tried using copper wort chillers/coils of copper tubing only to run into issues... stainless has been the go to material for either soaking in nutes or nutes flowing through aside from the titanium coils the grow company's rob u for even though the heating/cooling transfer via titanium is awesome to say the least but too expensive compared to stainless wort chillers for beer making... they're like $50 each if u find the right place to buy them... I've installed many heat exchangers on heating/cooling/geo systems and one of those nice square 2" thick taco ones would be mint but I think you'd run into issues but if u had one definitely worth trying... I personally always thought glycol lowered heating/cooling efficiency compared to plain water but I've been out of the new technology heating/cooling game for about 7-8 years now so I could be wrong... but I used plain ole pex water pipe coiled up in a jam with a diy dehumidifier for a chiller and it's the best $/time I've put into my system bar none... it'll be improved by next summer big Time but I can't ever bring myself to buy a chiller as a hobbyist grower for the cost difference and knowing it's basically the same piece of equipment just configured differently and with about a half hour I can make a $200-300 dehumidifier including parts into a chiller that's on par with $800 1/2-1hp chillers...It was cheap but I had access to a bunch of free copper tube, and the heat exchangers were pulled out of GEO units that we replaced, pumps to circulate the glycol are about 100 each, to buy the shit would have been more than a good used aquarium chiller. If doing it again I would just buy a used chiller that worked and had a coopernickle exchanger
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
I don't use copper in the res, my outdoor coil is copper filled with glycol and the heat exchangers are coopernickle, the res water travels through PEX. Yes you are correct that glycol is not as good (485 versus 500 multiplier I think, yup been a bit) but negligible considering I'm dealing with -30 C lol. If growing indoors with a flooded root zone it really does pay to get some sort of chiller and yup dehuies and window units can be used but I would never suggest it for fear some one would kill themselves doing it
.I honestly wouldn't attempt hydro at all without some kind of chiller, there's no way under 1k lights and a properly temped grow room to keep res temps in check in a halfway warm climate, winter time (in normal places, lol) it isn't so bad n you can get away with it even possibly need an aquarium heater to keep it from going too low.. .. but damn man... -30c, where are u? Antarctica? Jesus that's crazy... colder than a witches tit doesn't cover it... but yeah glycol is a necessity to say the least there...I don't use copper in the res, my outdoor coil is copper filled with glycol and the heat exchangers are coopernickle, the res water travels through PEX. Yes you are correct that glycol is not as good (485 versus 500 multiplier I think, yup been a bit) but negligible considering I'm dealing with -30 C lol. If growing indoors with a flooded root zone it really does pay to get some sort of chiller and yup dehuies and window units can be used but I would never suggest it for fear some one would kill themselves doing it
But honestly I was skeptical as all hell about ripping a dehumidifier apart and then my room setup fund ran low so a real chiller was out of the question and once I saw temps start getting crazy real fast I said fuck it and went at it... but if you've bent some soft tubing in your life you can do it easily.... they route the tubing so you have plenty to get it where you want but you can only go so far.... I'm a plumber/heating guy so I've bent more than my share of soft tubing and still managed to break a line on the first old unit I played with to see how it's done, but I was being a bit excessive trying to make the bends all nice rather than leave it be n that's where I got into trouble... but a little 45-50 pint dehuey will turn the 18 gallon res of water it sits in, into a block of ice if I let it within 2 hours of constant running without the pumps circulating to the resis... but that's not what we're going for obviously.... but I can't say enough good about it... however I do like your setup better... only having to run circs/pumps is a sweet setup...
I was recommended this for control which I haven't gotten around to getting yet (winters coming so I run it on a timer 4 times a day for 30 minutes n it's keeping over 100 Gallons of res water at or just below 65 so I'm good for the moment...
But one of the below for the dehuey, and one for each res/pump will make it work perfect...
https://www.amazon.com/WILLHI-WH1436A-110V-Temperature-Controller/dp/B00V4TJR00
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
I have all digital controls for each res with a 2 degree differential, water is on 24/7 for waterfall effect and glycol pump main is on 24/7 to allow for a bit less glycol but not much lol. I was more referring to someone else killing themselves not me, I teach HVAC principles and have pretty much every licence there is except electrician but refrig guys know more lol. Been a tech for like 30 years 
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
Just kidding about the plumber thing, Kind wish I was one when I get involved in a big boiler job 
.
.Hey man we all fuck up... I've literally bent 1000's of feet of soft tubing (mostly 3/8 oil line but pretty much every size up to 2" k) and I managed to break 2 dehuey lines, 1 exploded and leaked out all over the place (sorry world) and the other i managed to stick under the water in the res I was bending the cooler into and it wasn't as bad but as I said we all mess up... but I can't imagine Joe homeowner that has a tough time with a philips screw driver doing it, but I don't think anyone without some kind of mechanical inclination would attempt it... I hope not but as I said in this thread actually, u gotta expect the biggest moron in the world is gonna be trying it so.....your right...I have all digital controls for each res with a 2 degree differential, water is on 24/7 for waterfall effect and glycol pump main is on 24/7 to allow for a bit less glycol but not much lol. I was more referring to someone else killing themselves not me, I teach HVAC principles and have pretty much every licence there is except electrician but refrig guys know more lol. Been a tech for like 30 years
But I got lucky for quite a few years n worked for a company that let me do some of the most amazing heating systems you could think up... I've done from single zone rip outs to running 5 guys doing 186 heating zones and the same # of cooling zones in a giant apartment building... then throw in the geo here n there but hydronic is actually enjoyable when u aren't under the gun in the middle of winter but you feel like u actually built something when your done.... that isn't gonna get covered up with Sheetrock... I didn't do enough geo to know the systems but piping them is pretty simple once u lay it out and tie the wells in... but it still kinda doesn't make sense to me HOW it works...but it works so...
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
It works by producing some thing cold to suck the heat out of something hot, it's that in a nutshell. The hotter the hot thing is the better it works
. I work on GEO's a lot, quite a few here but no one to fix them, it's called job security lol.I understand the basics but I couldn't get past the part about getting heat out of 50-something degree water... I know obviously there's heat pumps n compressors involved n that's where plumbers shake their heads n say naahhh... I'll pipe it...lol..It works by producing some thing cold to suck the heat out of something hot, it's that in a nutshell. The hotter the hot thing is the better it works
I wish I got into the hvac side of it cuz plumbing/hydronic heat is a coin toss lately to say the least... freeze ups are a thing of the past when we used to make $20-50k a year on them... people just don't have the $ like they used to and the conglomerate company's are the ones eating up the small business work n raping the people senseless all while doing way below sub par work... unless people have $ I'll lose a job for $25 where I would've done a quality job for the exact #, the other companies go in lower but put the "in the unlikely event X happens it's gonna cost this that and the other" when this that n the other was included in my price already... it feels like people wanna get fucked for some reason... we go the extra mile and a half for people and always state everything honestly and up front... it seems like the good guys don't even finish anymore, never mind last...
I swear the more honest and up front about things we are the less likely we are to get the job... that's why I want out of the family biz or at least take it in a different direction.... my grandfather started our company in the 1950's and had over 70 guys at one point, now it's down to me n my pops and the company is literally in its final death throws so I've taught myself how to grow over the past 7-8 years hoping we'd migrate our family biz into a medical mj biz but it's looking like the big $ guys are gonna beat us to the punch on that as well... however I feel in the mj market and from what I've seen as far as end product in 4 different states, I grow a better product that I made a group of other people do the testing and got the same answer from all of them so hopefully quality still has a place in this world...