Fan for air cooling cooling water

[Odin]

I just saw this picture on the Dutch distillng forum. I am thinking of using a similar divise to air cool my cooling water before returning it to the 200 liters container I keep my cooling water in ...

[Distilaholic]

The contact area is so small, I doubt it is very efficient. You are better off getting an used car radiator and some computer fans imo.

[Prairiepiss]

It would be better then nothing. You mite take a look at one of the swamp cooler setups. Like the one hawkingrage made. Pretty simple to make one. Or a radiator style cooler with a fan. They can come from many applications. Old air conditioner. Oil or transmission cooler. Anything with fins added to the cooling tubes will be more efficient. You could even let it dribble down a towel with a fan blowing on it.

But what's in your picture will at least drop the temps a little. The bigger the fan and coil. The more it will cool. I've seen a couple examples around here that used a box fan and a coil of copper on it.

[HolyBear]

Here Odin... http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=31859

[Odin]

I have a hard time getting what this swamp cooling is about.

Is it something like a bong cooler? Like in this picture?

Odin.

[HolyBear]

Yep that's it Odin, except the bottom is in the water reservoir. Also the column is packed to slow the water flow down to allow the air more time to cool the warm water...

[Prairiepiss]

Sory wacabi1 your name is just hard for me to remember for some reason.

[HolyBear]

Sory wacabi1 your name is just hard for me to remember for some reason.

No need ta be sorry Mr P. I think there is an oriental hot sauce called Wacabi. That's how you say it but in my case, that's not what it means. Its Osage name for a certain type of black bear. Look at my icon nowadays... anyway hawks example looks much better than mine, and it sounds like the cooler pad works better too. We should be sending folks to his version...

[rad14701]

I think there is an oriental hot sauce called Wacabi.

Wasabi...

[Durace11]

Off topic but yeah, wasabi

I need to build this rig for cooling on a limited water supply
Where the heck did you get that swamp cooling material, I can only find the carboard looking stuff?

[Prairiepiss]

I think there is an oriental hot sauce called Wacabi.

Wasabi...

Don't eat the pistachio ice cream. It has turned.

[rumbuff]

I think Odin was on to something there, with the shower head idea. if your pump could build enough pressure to spray the water, it would increase the surface area enough to do the job of a great deal of packing. you'd lose a little more to evaporation, but that would just make it more effective by dropping the temperature more.

[Prairiepiss]

If I'm not mistaken that's what wacabi1 and hawk have done with theirs. Maybe not a shower head. Buy some sort of sprinkler sprayer at the top.

[Hawk_]

I think Odin was on to something there, with the shower head idea. if your pump could build enough pressure to spray the water, it would increase the surface area enough to do the job of a great deal of packing. you'd lose a little more to evaporation, but that would just make it more effective by dropping the temperature more.

If you use the right material the water will hit the material and spread out like wildfire. I did 2 runs the other day and took 9 hours to do it. My temp never rose above 80f. I am using a honeycomb swamp cooler pad.

[Odin]

That's the idea Rumbuff,

The water falling in droplets cools itsself by traveling thru the air. I guy I know over here uses just this to recirculate his cooling water. No big vessel underneath.

Odin.

[HolyBear]

Durace, That's some funny shit right there!!! That's exactly how ta say it!!! Bet y'all won't forget how ta say my name now after watching that vid...

Odin, that's the idea. I don't have the honeycomb packing that hawk has just screen. But I think that his packing works better. I'de like to have some, wonder where we can get it? Hawk?

BTW, finished yer package this evening Odin. I'll put in mail tomorrow afternoon...

[Hawk_]

Durace, That's some funny shit right there!!! That's exactly how ta say it!!! Bet y'all won't forget how ta say my name now after watching that vid...

Odin, that's the idea. I don't have the honeycomb packing that hawk has just screen. But I think that his packing works better. I'de like to have some, wonder where we can get it? Hawk?

BTW, finished yer package this evening Odin. I'll put in mail tomorrow afternoon...

Wacabi, Ill get you some and mail it to you if you want. 20 bucks aught to cover everything to your door.

[midcarolina]

Really these swamp coolers are really cooling towers.........just very small versions of the ones you see at hospitals.... schools and manufacturing plants....

You can do an image search on google for cooling tower to give you an idea,

A good and inexpensive filler material is hog hair air filter media, it's cheap and worked well...... for a tower to be effective you don't even need a " spray head" you can mount a round plastic tub at the top of a 35 gallon drum drill a bunch of small holes in the bottom them let gravity drip the water down through your filler material, oh and you still need a fan....... my point being it would be really easy to look at pics of actual cooling towers and just scale it way down........

[Durace11]

I was trying to think of what else I could put in there to fill it up and the only other thing that came to mind was styrofoam peanuts. Super light and I get plenty of them when I get shipments and they would maintain spacing so as to not get too compacted for water and air flow. Maybe I'll start saving my used wine corks and see if I can fill it up with those a few years down the line.

[Prairiepiss]

Fish aquarium bioballs. I have 5 gallons of them doing nothing. Guess what I'm gona try.

yhst-127861755510203_2231_55607806.jpeg (7.24 KiB) Viewed 3432 times

[Odin]

I foresee a near future where we will be discussing optimal packing ... for swamp coolers. Hey Mr. P, now that ain't no plastic, I hope!?!



Odin.

[Prairiepiss]

Why yes. Yes it is plastic.

Oh and how I have wished I could find something like it in copper.

The best packing will be determined by the airflow coefficient compared to the water flow and pipe diameter. Length will just make the cooling water more pure.

But I have been sketching up my cooling towers. Yes I said towers.

[Odin]

I might add: there is for sure a rate of cooling water being cooled down by these devices. An optimal amount. Related to packing density and size and heat retention capabilities of the packing. We don't want to flood these swamp coolling towers, now do we?



Odin.

[Prairiepiss]

If your flooding it your using to much power.

[midcarolina]

There are only two purposes for the filler material in this application...... It is used to distribute the water over a larger foot print, affectively multiplying the sq ft of the structure. and to slow the rate of fall of the water to give the air time to remove as much as heat as possible.....

[HolyBear]

Air is generally pushed easier than sucked. Just like pumps can generally push water much further than they can draft. I would think that the above model would be more efficient if the air were blown through the falling water rather than trying to suck the heat off of it...

[Prairiepiss]

MidCarolina your pic resembles an idea I have been kickin around for some time. My thoughts were this.

Take a AC cooling coil from a central air unit. Or two larger oil coolers. Mount them angled in at the top. Like the AC coils already are. So if you look at it from the side it looks lol an upside-down V. Route the cooling water return so that it is split with a Y and goes to the top of each of the two coils. Then from the outlet at the bottom coming back up to the top to a drip rail along the top of the two coils. So the cooled water from the coil now drips over the coils and runs down to the reservoir below. With a fan blowing air in and through the to coils. it would need a shroud around it so water didn't blow everywhere. But no bigy.

Basically it combines the radiator and swamp coolers together.

Here is a very crude drawing. Yes I know it sucks.

[midcarolina]

I think that could work great........ I would prolly stay away from multiple pass coils and stay with single pass coils....... multiple pass coils would really increase the head the pump would have to over come........

For the sprayer I bet a couple of those flower garden misting heads would do the trick well......

[whiskeytripping]

Just throwing it out there, but has anyone tried the truck radiator with electric fan method? I REALLY think that would knock temps down quick. I have a swamp cooler design myself (thanks Wacabi for the idea) and it works fairly good, but in the middle of the summer and a couple of stripping runs with a MK5500, it still gets hot. Has anyone tried the radiator and fan? I've been wondering about this for some time now

[Hawk_]

Fish aquarium bioballs. I have 5 gallons of them doing nothing. Guess what I'm gona try.

yhst-127861755510203_2231_55607806.jpeg

Holy crap dude! That would be awesome!