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View Full Version : Anyone using an aquarium chiller to cool their laser?



Peter Jones
07-06-2012, 12:22 AM
Aquarium chillers are designed to be fairly quiet, and most decent ones run for years with very little maintenance. Has anyone successfully used one to cool their laser? Since these type of chillers do not have their own pump, the plumbing will be a little more complex; The flow rate into the chiller may be too high or too low for the laser, so you may have to have one pump that circulates water into the cooler at one rate, and another pump to circulate the chilled water into the laser.

Why do this instead of using a CW-5000? It should be quieter, maybe more reliable, more choices, and the cost could be a little lower too.

Rodne Gold
07-06-2012, 1:55 AM
You would have to check the aquarium chiller can cope with the heat load , the laser puts out a LOT more heat than a warmish tank of water and in all likelyhood requires a much more "industrial" unit. I can assure you , if the chinese could save a few $ supplying an aquarium chiller , they would. The low end chinese lasers DO use an aquarium pump in a bucket of water as a "cooling" device - its actually a little useless as key to getting consistent engraving is keeping a lowish and constant temp at the tube , just circulating water is really not good enough.

Peter Jones
07-06-2012, 2:29 AM
Actually, many of these fish tank chillers are used because the tanks have a lot of lights.... Multiple 400watt lamps to simulate natural sunlight, so the water gets pretty warm, pretty quickly. Also, large pumps (2000-3000 gph) dump a lot of heat into the tanks as well. I think a 1/4hp chiller is about the same btu/h rating as the cw-5000.

Another fish tank trick to use a very large sump to increase the "heat capacity" of a tank. I wonder if a 55gal drum of distilled water is enough to keep the laser cool for extended periods without the a chiller?

Rodne Gold
07-06-2012, 5:13 AM
You can give the aquarium chiller a try if its similar to a cw5000.
Sump should work - we spray Ferric Chloride etchant at about 38-40 degrees C, cant really go out that range otherwise we cant estimate depth/time. We use a 30 litre sump with 300w Aquarium warmers to preheat the sump contents and it works for long duration etching , with a small 3-5 litre sump the temp dropped too much.

Craig Matheny
07-06-2012, 10:42 PM
Just a thought with all you guys using chillers with antifreeze in them I was just thinking, I run a product in my truck to keep it cooler it is called waterwetter http://www.redlineoil.com/product.aspx?pid=74&pcid=10 this is the link to the manufacture you can buy it in a lot of places it can reduce temps by 20 deg. Mod if the link is not aloud please remove.

stefano panusa
07-06-2012, 10:46 PM
Why not use a frozen bottle of water in your water reservoir ? (laser, not truck)

Craig Matheny
07-06-2012, 11:00 PM
Why not use a frozen bottle of water in your water reservoir ? (laser, not truck) Stefano the concept of removing heat is all the same why do you put antifreeze in the coolant? it is to keep it cool and be able to remove heat this adds in that process

Rodne Gold
07-06-2012, 11:47 PM
The antifreeze in engines (or water wetter or whatever) is actually less efficient than pure water and is used more to raise the boiling point of the water than anything else , water under pressure and containing 50% antifreeze raises the boiling point of the water to way in excess of 212 .. also stops corrosion
The antifreeze we add to our cooling liquid for the laser mainly stops algae etc and the colour also indicates its flowing thru the tube , it does raise boiling pt , but in a laser , if it gets hot enough to cause the coolant to boil..you already have issues...