Ice maker as chiller

nakoma

nakoma

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Any idees as to why yes or no thats just stupid. and if yes how to go about this
 
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it would work, but not as efficient at a cheap cost, might as well look at a chiller...
one reason being a freezer is not a chiller, turning it on and off wont do much as the ice will still keep chilling the water and heater will turn on and the vicious cycle will repeat.

unless of course you kept it running and bypassed the flow etc
 
dallasg said:
it would work, but not as efficient at a cheap cost, might as well look at a chiller...
one reason being a freezer is not a chiller, turning it on and off wont do much as the ice will still keep chilling the water and heater will turn on and the vicious cycle will repeat.

unless of course you kept it running and bypassed the flow etc
Click to expand...


Yes i agree on that if you bypass it it will not last very long indeed i have found this with diy chillers i made using fridge compressors
 
Maybe if this is tried it might work for a nice small sized nano tank . I stood in chekkers staring at this cheap ice maker while waiting for some people . And i thought to myself hang on this thing maskes ice rapidly , faster than a fridge and cools more than a water cooler mmmmm ...... maybe this might be a diy for somone . I am to lazy today to think of doing something like this myself my tank runs cool as it is in the summer .
 
mmmm im always one for DIY and having made chillers out of freezers and even uitilized coldrooms in the past i cant say this wouldent work, the main thing is the time you would take to get this unit to achieve accuracy may take longer and more expense than if you bought the proper chiller..

there are so many avaiable these days unlike in the begining when we were forced to DIY alot of our stuff..
 
Could work, but I agree it will cost the same if not more in electricity, money and time in the end and also be much more unreliable and inaccurate, as just finding a second hand chiller. Also we loooked at bar fridges and drinking water chillers a while back and one of the issues is that some of them run the water through copper pipe which is a big no-no.
 
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As per @leslie hempel and @gavster.
It may work but how do you get it to regulate the temperature?
As far as I know these things only make cold and then stay cold for quite a while afterwards.
So the problem would be;
Yes it will make your water cold but compared to a regular chiller that kicks in say at 27deg and brings your water back to 25deg and then switches off. This unit will kick in at 27 Deg, bring your water down to 25 deg switch off and your water temperature will keep on dropping as it retains the cold air inside the machine.

A better solution may be to look at building yourself an evaporation tower kinda thing.
It will keep your temperature low if you have a small enough tank but will chew water at quite a large rate...

If you plan on building it, please open a new thread for this as it could be a very interesting build to watch and I for one would like to follow this purely out of interest.
 
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evaporation towers are definatley the answer on a budget but i would definatley add an ATU into the mix as your salanity will fluctuate without RO addition..

when working for the abalone farm we looked at a coal evapourator tower, apparently the coal /charcoal keeps the water extreemly cool but i wasnt too involved in that project..
 
leslie hempel said:
evaporation towers are definatley the answer on a budget but i would definatley add an ATU into the mix as your salanity will fluctuate without RO addition..

when working for the abalone farm we looked at a coal evapourator tower, apparently the coal /charcoal keeps the water extreemly cool but i wasnt too involved in that project..
Click to expand...

Yes, wet coal with wind blowing through it works well as it's very porous. I know someone that built a cold room on his farm where 1 or 2 walls were made in this way. Wont be freezing but definitely a lot cooler than ambient air.
 
We can always consider Einsteins fridge that runs off no power :biggrin:
Einsteins idea avoids the need for freons. It uses ammonia, butane and water and takes advantage of the fact that liquids boil at lower temperatures when the air pressure around them is lower. 'If you go to the top of Mount Everest, water boils at a much lower temperature than it does when you're at sea level and that's because the pressure is much lower up there,' said McCulloch.
At one side is the evaporator, a flask that contains butane. 'If you introduce a new vapour above the butane, the liquid boiling temperature decreases and, as it boils off, it takes energy from the surroundings to do so,' says McCulloch. 'That's what makes it cold.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/sep/21/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
 
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Quintin said:
As per @leslie hempel and @gavster.
It may work but how do you get it to regulate the temperature?
As far as I know these things only make cold and then stay cold for quite a while afterwards.
So the problem would be;
Yes it will make your water cold but compared to a regular chiller that kicks in say at 27deg and brings your water back to 25deg and then switches off. This unit will kick in at 27 Deg, bring your water down to 25 deg switch off and your water temperature will keep on dropping as it retains the cold air inside the machine.

A better solution may be to look at building yourself an evaporation tower kinda thing.
It will keep your temperature low if you have a small enough tank but will chew water at quite a large rate...

If you plan on building it, please open a new thread for this as it could be a very interesting build to watch and I for one would like to follow this purely out of interest.
Click to expand...


Agree this might be a very good idea but another idea for the ice maker is to let it run during the day and let a timer turn it off at night time dont know if this might work
 
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