DIY Water Cooler for Opticlimate/GAS Top Climate 10000

waring192

Active Member
Hello all,

Hopefully, some of you should follow my new sealed room thread as the build starts tomorrow! Big plans and most of the gear has been bought, just need to construct the 3m x 3m x 2.4m room side my double garage. Going to be filming the entire build and I am using the best of the best equipment. No this is not my 1st grow like someone on reddit asked! I have been growing for around 8 years now. But am stepping up from 600w LED units to 1000w LED units.

If your not sure what it is, its a all in one, AC, Air purifier, deumifier and heater.

I have gone for a water-cooled TopClimate Supreme 10000 (overkill as will do 10 x 1000w but will suit me later) which is pretty much identical to the Opticlimate water-cooled range. Opticlimate have their own Water Coolers but they are not cheap at all. They are just a copper radiator with a few fans (depending on the size) keeping the water in a closed loop instead of using 3-6 per minute from the tap! Below is a photo of the Opticlimate 4 fan version which is suitable for my TopClimate. As you can see, you are paying a lot for the brand when I can purchase air to a water heat exchanger with fans (fans turn on as the intake temp increases).

This is the Opticlimate unit which retails at £3299:

opticlimate-compact-vertical-water-chiller-650x650_0.jpg

Below is what I intend on buying (£200) and adding the sheet metal and fans:

fe68979b-2208-41ce-a567-23b218927302.jpg

As its plain water (with Glycol) its not pressurized or anything so can easily be installed/drained and tinkered with. I will be making my own temp sensor unit that turns on the fans etc as the intake temp builds up. There are also things like a light sensor so it knows if its day or night for example. The AC unit has 25mm fittings so will use 25mm to 15mm reducer and as the garage has zero radiators installed at present, I was going to add a normal 'passive' radiator into the garage (remember, the grow room is a 100mm insulated room inside the garage. wel you shall start seeing videos tomorrow!) so that not all the water heat is wasted and then have the pipes go outside and attach to the DIY Water Cooler which I call 'active' as its got fans etc. During normal operation, the fans wiol be off but as it heats up they will start to turn on and each fan (from this make) has 3 speed settings giving loads of flexibility. Oh, there will be a pump in the system to push the water through the cooler and then back into the system like in the PDF below: https://cdn.webshopapp.com/shops/273113/files/280029511/installation-manual-english.pdf so there is a few more bits to pick up like the ball valves and gauges etc.

Dimlux who are partners with Opticlimate have their Maxicontroller which takes temp readings etc. and turns the fans on so I may pick one of them up for the time being as the controller will not know if it's a TopClimate of Opticlimate system. It also benefits as a Co2 controller and as I am using 4 x Lumatek 1000w (same size unit as the 600w) Co2 will be needed.

So, any input on creating the water cooler would be great but my intention is to purchase the unit like above, add the sheet metal, and then the fans. I think I can create the same or better than Opticlimate sells for well under £1000 as the radiator is £200, sheet metal (free) and then on one side I was going to add 4 x 20" box fans (£50 each) from the USA which are 20" x 20" like below:


Cheers
 

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
Don't think box fans will have the static pressure to do much good in this application. Name brand seems overly expensive for sure, but some of that is the fans.
Universal electric car radiator fans are cheap! Small, medium, large, whatever you need.
1697323595070.jpeg


I would probably opt for a single squirrel cage\blower type fan though. Make a large enough plenum that mates up to the heat ex-changer. Bulkier, but less noisy, & more efficient.
 

waring192

Active Member
Last edited:

1212ham

Well-Known Member
Yeah, the top ones look fine but look what I just found at around 1/4 of the cost: https://www.thermofrostcryo.co.uk/refrigeration/capital-equipment/air-cooled-condenser/eco-lce/3mm-fin-spacing

Going to order model 234 on Monday, even if I need 2 they are £244.00 each!! I thould be ok with one though as the fan on this is 300mm and the OPticlimate is 350mm so slight difference. I could look at upping the motor that comes with this one. I mean, at £244 they are begging to ripped open!
I think that might be for freon refrigerant rather than chilled water?
 

Drop That Sound

Well-Known Member
It says its available in copper or aluminum for the coil on that above link. Aluminum is usually way cheaper btw. Best to make make sure you don't go mixing copper and aluminum parts within the loop though, as they can react with each other along with the coolant and cause corrosion. Better to stay with copper only...
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
Ahh I see. What is the exact name of what im looking for? outdoor part of air-to-water heat exchanger?
I'm not familiar with that system so I really can't say what is a common name or terminology. In the US people normally use a Window AC or a mini-split for sealed grows with co2. Most can heat also.
 

waring192

Active Member
Yeah, I know the real AC unit external unit is called an invertor I think but that works differently using charged gas (don't really understand) while my Water Cooled thing im not 100% sure how all the insides of the main unit are but the external unit are easy. Finned copper piper going back and forth with a 300mm+ fan blowing over it surrounded by sheet metal. Thats honestly all it is. Water to Air heat exchanger maybe?!
 

Nizza

Well-Known Member
to me it looks like a water coil that is designed to be used with the compressor instead of an air cooled design it uses a water cooled jacket around the compressor and u pipe that jacket coil to this radiator to get rid of the heat from the compressor+refrigerant. I don't know much about chiller systems but it is a good idea I think to use fittings that can be dissassembled for mainanence perhaps hose type fittings with flexible tubes.

I think the first thing to do is identify what exactly this coil is, which I would think it is to expel heat from the compressor/ condenser coils so basically you have a non-split water chilled package unit. This coil can be put where you want and be used to expel heat except..
you are spending extra money having a smaller coil with fans pushing air thru. This is an active fan design which is bound to fail at some point. If you want to eliminate the fans you could add coil size and make some mods but understanding how it works in my opinion is the first step and then u go from there
 
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