Water Chillers

[Rich Harman]

Rich is lucky to have a well, but factoring in the well pump power use it may not be that economical to run.

We pay about $0.30 per 1,000 gallons in electricity or 0.03 pennies per gallon*. If electricity was 100 times more expensive that would still only be 3 pennies a gallon. I would not expect to use more than a gallon per minute to keep the laser cool - much less I think. That puts my water cost at about 15 cents for a full day.


*1,200W well pump. Two hours to pump 1,000 gallons (1,000 / 9 gal per minute = 111 minutes) uses 2.4 KW hours. At $0.12 per KWH that is 28.8 cents per 1,000 gallons.

[Rich Harman]

Wouldn't work for me at all as my cold water in the summer is about 85 sometimes hotter, no such thing as a cold shower

Yeah, that would be a problem. Our water is about 45 degrees year round.

[Bill George]

We pay about $0.30 per 1,000 gallons in electricity or 0.03 pennies per gallon*. If electricity was 100 times more expensive that would still only be 3 pennies a gallon. I would not expect to use more than a gallon per minute to keep the laser cool - much less I think. That puts my water cost at about 15 cents for a full day.


*1,200W well pump. Two hours to pump 1,000 gallons (1,000 / 9 gal per minute = 111 minutes) uses 2.4 KW hours. At $0.12 per KWH that is 28.8 cents per 1,000 gallons.

Heck If I had water that cold it could be used for AC. I worked at a old restaurant one time here in town. they had a deep well that was allowed to stay running even after the city moved in. They had a pre-cooling copper coil in the return air of the AC unit that took the well water in and then the discharge of that water was used to feed the water cooled condenser. Not sure where the water went from there, but they could put a tank outside up high and used that water to flush toilets.
It was a pretty trouble free and efficient system, I don't recall ever having to service other than belt and filter changes.

[Jerome Stanek]

I have seen people use the drinking water coolers like you put the 3 or 5 gallon bottles on. Wally world sell them pretty cheap

[Rich Harman]

Heck If I had water that cold it could be used for AC...

In the interest of accuracy I measured the temp of my water. At the pump house it is 53 degrees. That's after traveling 250 ft through warm ground from the well. It was 45 at the well a couple years ago when we had it tested before buying the property. Our previous well was over 220ft deep and it's temp was 38 degrees.

I couldn't use it for AC I don't think. That would require a large constant supply - the previous owner had run it dry when filling a pool a few years ago - they put in a 9 gpm restrictor to prevent it happening again but since this well is only 50 feet deep it relies on rainfall to replenish. Towards the end of the summer it might be risky. Our old deep well used an ancient aquifer - 20 gpm all day long with hardly any drawdown.

[Bert Kemp]

Some here built one with a 99$ water cooler from wally world, can't remember who of how they did it, maybe a search will bring it up.

I have seen people use the drinking water coolers like you put the 3 or 5 gallon bottles on. Wally world sell them pretty cheap

[Ian Johnson]

I also tried the fridge and it didn't work. I even had a radiator and fan from LightObject that I put into the fridge with the hose running through a hole I drilled into the side and it wasn't enough. I tried a water cooler, but my pump wouldn't fit inside. CW3000 wasn't an option since the space isn't air conditioned and the ambient is often over 80F. Running a loop through the soil wouldn't be good enough since summer time tap water in Southern California is also too warm. I ended up getting an aquarium/hydroponic chiller as well for around $400 and it is perfect.

[Jerome Stanek]

couldn't you use it like a ground source heat pump circulate the water through the system and back to the well

[Rich Harman]

couldn't you use it like a ground source heat pump circulate the water through the system and back to the well

Yes, that would work - if not for it being illegal to do so.

[Keith Winter]

I know an old thread here...

I read the 17-19c you posted Dave which is right where I have my water temp at 17c. The 5200 water chiller has no issue holding that with my 130watt tube. Is there any advantage to dropping it even lower to 16c, or 15c?

[Joe Walmer]

This has all been discussed thousands of times for over ten years now. PC water cooling is a huge business with millions of users worldwide. Anything and I mean anything you can imagine has been done and tried. The old fridge, window air conditioner, bags if ice, etc you name it. What has it come down to? Unless you plan on going subzero cooling there is no real need to "Chill" water cooling. And most importantly using even a large home freezer does not work right and is less effective than a radiator and pump.

Basically type in PC water cooling and check out the thousands of videos on youtube or hundreds of stores that sell the parts. Finally pulling the trigger on a Glass Tube machine I just bought a 240mm radiator and a pump and a little reservoir. I have tons of pc fans here some that can blow up to 240cfm a piece.

So to put that in perspective the cw-3000 at 300$ I could buy 3-4 large PC cooling radiators and have enough power for 300$ to cool a small car engine let alone a 40w laser. But at the same time the cw-3000 itself I trust way less than what you can build for 100$ in pc water cooling terms. In fact for 100$ you dont even need a reservoir it would cool so fast you dont need one. It will keep the laser water at room temp or 3-5 degrees less. And if you had 500$ like the cw-5000 I would say you could build one literally 20 times more powerful out of PC radiators and 120mm fans.

All you have to do is type in "water cooling" into a google image search and you will see these people are completely obsessed with cooling and just as serious about the science.