3000 chiller, quickie hot weather fix

[Kev Williams]

When I got the Triumph I went as cheap as possible. Since I don't cut much of anything I just got the cheapie 3000 'radiator' cooler.

Most of the time I can keep the air cool enough in the garage to keep temps at 24 or less, which I figure is fine for engraving.

However, yesterday was 105°, today is going to be the same, my garage AC is a floor refer unit and a 'swamp cooler'... the swamp cooler is only raising the humidity to near 100%, and the little 15k btu roll-around AC just won't keep up...

Yesterday at 5pm with both both AC's going, the water temp in the chiller got to 28.9 just sitting there, and I have a bunch of outlines I need to put on a bunch of stainless operator panels. These outlines are a continuous island-fill vector that runs 22 minutes straight at about 40-50 watts worth of power. This heats up the water...

Replacing the swamp cooler with a window refer unit would take several hours and a new power circuit, and I ain't got that kinda time. And it's getting hot out! So I made a quickie water cooler cooler.

-- and it works great!

Bless my old man, if I need ANYthing, it's probably here someplace- sure enough, I found a nice coil of brand new 3/8" copper tubing, perfect. I compressed it down so it would fit into a small storage container. I put enough water in the container to cover the coils, maybe 2 or 3 gallons. Just used tap water from the front yard faucet. I put the container on top of a shelf thing next to the chiller, being close enough I just cut the incoming water line, and slid those 2 ends onto the ends of the copper tubing....
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Before connecting up the copper tubing, the chiller temp was 24.9.

After running it about 2 minutes--
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So I grabbed a handful of ice (half a 32oz cup full) and put in the water--
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I then took to Cermarking the first big panel. Took about 5 minutes.
By then---
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A nice 21.8°

I ran the outlines-- at the 12 minute mark temp was up to 23, so I added another half cup of ice.
Temp dropped down slightly, and came up slowly.

Panel finished at 22 minutes 11 seconds, this was the temp-
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only a 1.8° rise in 22 minutes- and I could've easily dropped the temp with a little more ice-

Not as convenient as a refer unit, but hardly a lot of effort either! Took 10 minutes and I was working again-- This is the first time in 2-1/2 years I've had cooling issue, and I haven't missed paying the upcharge or for the extra electricity for a refer chiller

Hopefully this can help a few others

[Bill George]

Kev, I thought you are in Washington state, hardly a place for a swamp cooler. If so the added RH% was dragging down the AC effectiveness.

[Kev Williams]

Utah-- and I'm at a loss as to what's up with the swamp cooler, has new pads, water's pumping fine... right now my weatherstation sez it's 99° and 13% humidity, which is a 40° dewpoint... the LAST thing it should be doing is filling the garage with wet 80° air, but that's what it's doing. Pretty sure the weatherstation is at least close to accurate too.

[Bill George]

What is the outside RH% or is that the Weather station reading? Never mind I see Salt Lake City is 97 Deg and 12% RH. Your swamp cooler should be in its prime.