Recommended water flow.

[Jeff Body]

I just got my chiller hooked up this weekend.
It's a 1/4hp aquarium chiller with 1/2" fitting. I purchased a 160gph pump to flow from a 5 gallon bucket through the chiller and then through the laser to return to the bucket.
The problem I ran into was that my 160gph pump ended up only pumping about 25-28gph once it flowed through all the components.

I'm here asking what's the suggested flow for the laser. I'm sure the 5/16" fitting for the inlet to the laser is a big restricter.
Before I order a bigger pump does anyone know the specs for water flow for my SH-350?

Thanks

[Bert Kemp]

just curious why you just didn't get a real laser chiller then no problem with flow.

[Bill Carruthers]

I just got my chiller hooked up this weekend.
It's a 1/4hp aquarium chiller with 1/2" fitting. I purchased a 160gph pump to flow from a 5 gallon bucket through the chiller and then through the laser to return to the bucket.
The problem I ran into was that my 160gph pump ended up only pumping about 25-28gph once it flowed through all the components.

I'm here asking what's the suggested flow for the laser. I'm sure the 5/16" fitting for the inlet to the laser is a big restricter.
Before I order a bigger pump does anyone know the specs for water flow for my SH-350?

Thanks
Jeff - My Sh350 runs just fine with the little aquarium pump supplied with it. Your 25GPH translates to about 1.6 litres per minute which is generally sufficient for a 50 watt tube.There is one model of the CW3000 "chiller" that has a flow rate of max. 2 lpm. The more important variable is in the temperature of the water in your bucket and the size of the bucket. This is where bigger is definitely better as a 25 or 30 Gallon drum will maintain a cooling temperature longer than a smaller bucket. I found that while lasering in a hot climate in the summer I had to occasionally resort to freezing 2 or 3 liter bottles of water and tossing them into the drum to chill it down. Most tube manufacturers say to ideally keep the temperature around 20 /22C or 68-72 F. I found I lost power when the coolant temperature rose above about 27C or 80F.
I don't know whether it would always work but I also found that the water flow safety switch on the Shenhui tripped once and reported a flow error when the water supply tube got kinked and the flow was restricted but not stopped completely. You could check that out quite simply.
Cheers
Bill

[Jeff Body]

just curious why you just didn't get a real laser chiller then no problem with flow.

Well... because for the price of a CW3000 chiller I have an active chiller that can lower my water temp below ambient air temps. Since I had to move the laser to the garage it's impossible to get the temps down to where I want them. Yes I tried the frozen bottles but with a really long engraving I would run out of frozen bottles and I wasn't about to give up my icecream space in the freezer for more bottles. Plus I didn't like the idea of the temps raising and lowering during a job.

Now I'm able to get my water temp from 89*F down to 64*F (about 17*C) in about 40 minutes. Now when I engrave or cut any length of time the water temp stays exactly the same. It may go up about 1* when the chiller cycles but never more than that. The way I have it now I'm running 2 pumps, 1 for the chiller and 1 for the laser both being in the same bucket. I'd prefer to have just one running the whole system.

It's working AMAZING though!


Jeff - My Sh350 runs just fine with the little aquarium pump supplied with it. Your 25GPH translates to about 1.6 litres per minute which is generally sufficient for a 50 watt tube.There is one model of the CW3000 "chiller" that has a flow rate of max. 2 lpm. The more important variable is in the temperature of the water in your bucket and the size of the bucket. This is where bigger is definitely better as a 25 or 30 Gallon drum will maintain a cooling temperature longer than a smaller bucket. I found that while lasering in a hot climate in the summer I had to occasionally resort to freezing 2 or 3 liter bottles of water and tossing them into the drum to chill it down. Most tube manufacturers say to ideally keep the temperature around 20 /22C or 68-72 F. I found I lost power when the coolant temperature rose above about 27C or 80F.
I don't know whether it would always work but I also found that the water flow safety switch on the Shenhui tripped once and reported a flow error when the water supply tube got kinked and the flow was restricted but not stopped completely. You could check that out quite simply.
Cheers
Bill

I'm not to worried about the temp in the bucket because I can get that at a constant cool temp.
I'm just curious what's the recommended ACTUAL flow through the laser. A pump can say 160gph but once you add in restrictions like a chiller, smaller hose diameters, and laser height it can reduce that flow rate ALOT.
Some I'm wondering it anyone has measured their actual flow rate.

[Bert Kemp]

Well the prices that I was seeing for the chiller you bought were about the same as a cw5000 laser chiller which is much better then an aquarium chiller unless you got a really good buy on one.


Well... because for the price of a CW3000 chiller I have an active chiller that can lower my water temp below ambient air temps. Since I had to move the laser to the garage it's impossible to get the temps down to where I want them. Yes I tried the frozen bottles but with a really long engraving I would run out of frozen bottles and I wasn't about to give up my icecream space in the freezer for more bottles. Plus I didn't like the idea of the temps raising and lowering during a job.

Now I'm able to get my water temp from 89*F down to 64*F (about 17*C) in about 40 minutes. Now when I engrave or cut any length of time the water temp stays exactly the same. It may go up about 1* when the chiller cycles but never more than that. The way I have it now I'm running 2 pumps, 1 for the chiller and 1 for the laser both being in the same bucket. I'd prefer to have just one running the whole system.

It's working AMAZING though!



I'm not to worried about the temp in the bucket because I can get that at a constant cool temp.
I'm just curious what's the recommended ACTUAL flow through the laser. A pump can say 160gph but once you add in restrictions like a chiller, smaller hose diameters, and laser height it can reduce that flow rate ALOT.
Some I'm wondering it anyone has measured their actual flow rate.

[Jeff Body]

Well the prices that I was seeing for the chiller you bought were about the same as a cw5000 laser chiller which is much better then an aquarium chiller unless you got a really good buy on one.

Total to my door with next day shipping was $450 for both the chiller and the pump.
Amazon baby!!!!!

[Bert Kemp]

good deal:cool:



Total to my door with next day shipping was $450 for both the chiller and the pump.
Amazon baby!!!!!