Fan for air cooling cooling water

[Prairiepiss]

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

There are a couple threads around here about this. When we check to see if a radiator is working we look for at least a 10 degree drop from the inlet to the outlet. But I'm not sure what you would get in this situation. And a hefty fan would be needed to replication what's in a car or truck.

[Hawk_]

Just like your reflux tower you want to make sure that the water goes down the center of the packing and not on the walls of the tower. I did a test with mine and found the water was still hot when going down the walls. I use wood shims to make a funnel of sorts till I get this prototype perfected. going down the center the water is warm but not hot. I have run multiple runs a day and the temp never got over 80F. I am also using 32 inches of packing with a 50CFM bathroom ceiling fan. I would like to get a fan from a range hood and get my cfm up to 150 or so and see how that does. Using a 4 inch pvc pipe I doubt Id get any pooling. This is also running about 40 of my 55 gallon capacity.

I like the idea of PP's bio balls but wounder if the water would travel too fast less you had some serious air. Maybe 200+cfm would do the trick. I would love to try it. But I need to get power control for 220 on the boiler first.

This is an awesome thread.

[Prairiepiss]

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......

I had the same thoughts about the multi pass ones. That why I've been holding out full I find a couple good oil coolers to try them.

I had a chance to pick up a AC coil a while back. But man all the tubes it had was crazy. Would need one hella pump to just run it.

[whiskeytripping]

One of these days I'm going to use cold tap water with the discharge going in the barrel, just to see really how much water you would really go through during a run. Too bad we didn't have a swimming pool That would be the best way to recirculate

[Prairiepiss]

Hawk what do you think about centering rings? Much like what is suggested for a reflux column.

I'm thinking about using one of my 55 gallon drums. They have two 2" NPT bungs. Get a 2" NPT PVC adapter and adapt it to 4" with one of those funky Ts then the section of 4". But having 2 of these one on each bung of the drum. Have a 4" Y connecting the 2 Ts and one fan supplying the air for both towers. Fill the towers up with bioballs. And some homemade sprinkler at the top. Split the return water to both towers. I'm gona build it all to one lid. My drums have removable lids. So off I wanted to make multiple runs in one day. I could just take the lid off with towers and all. And slap it on another drum full of cold water. If it ever got to that point.

The idea of two towers after thinking what the flip am I gona do with a whole stick of 4" PVC.

[Prairiepiss]

One of these days I'm going to use cold tap water with the discharge going in the barrel, just to see really how much water you would really go through during a run. Too bad we didn't have a swimming pool That would be the best way to recirculate

I have always used tap water. My last house I tan it in the bathroom. I drained it in the bathtub. I would plug the bathtub and have a nice hot bath when I was done. A 12 hour run with my still would fill the bathtub.

KS use to use his swimming pool. I really thought about it while I had mine up. I didn't have a pump for it.

[HolyBear]

Centering rings would be a good idea to keep it from running down the edge. Much like our columns, I think packing is extreamly important. Copper mesh would be awesome but expensive. The window screen that I use works ok, but I think I need more of it. Hawk is working on getting me some of the stuff he uses. I bet it will be much better.
It would be nice to develop a reliable, closed loop system. Mine works fine but I'm sure it could be improved...

[Hawk_]

Hawk what do you think about centering rings? Much like what is suggested for a reflux column.

I'm thinking about using one of my 55 gallon drums. They have two 2" NPT bungs. Get a 2" NPT PVC adapter and adapt it to 4" with one of those funky Ts then the section of 4". But having 2 of these one on each bung of the drum. Have a 4" Y connecting the 2 Ts and one fan supplying the air for both towers. Fill the towers up with bioballs. And some homemade sprinkler at the top. Split the return water to both towers. I'm gona build it all to one lid. My drums have removable lids. So off I wanted to make multiple runs in one day. I could just take the lid off with towers and all. And slap it on another drum full of cold water. If it ever got to that point.

The idea of two towers after thinking what the flip am I gona do with a whole stick of 4" PVC.

Ooooo, what if you ran your fan into a third hole in the lid. Then you wouldnt have to have a pipe going into the water. seal the lid shut and have water going down both pipes. Youd have to have a hell of a fan though. 200cfm. I thought of putting a funnel on top of the pipe and drilling a couple holes on the pipe itself just below the lid of the funnel so the air could escape. This would center the water. I also think that running the product condensor and the reflux condensor into a Y to combine the water would help. The cooler water from the product condensor would help cool the reflux line before it got to the tower. Honestly I think that one tower would do the job but try it and tell me what you think.

[Prairiepiss]

I like the idea of mounting the fan in the lid. Less fittings to mess with. Plus the fan blowing on the surface will add more cooling. I could mount two fans to the lid. This is sounding better and better. I need to find me a good pump. And a couple good fans.

[cooperville]

I have been thinking about cooling water design since i started this hobby and haven't seen a lot of theory or threads on this subject I really like the swamp cooler design for the reason that its a pretty cheap option
I was using a 200ltr drum to hold my cooling water and found this not to be enough
i was thinking of incorporating the swamp cooler with the radiator design

I would have the water coming from the still cooled by the swamp cooler and have a separate system (same pump just directed from a standard 4 way garden manifold ) going to the radiator/oil cooler with an bathroom exhaust fan cooling the water also

in theory twice the cooling

I haven't bothered using a reservoir at the moment and actually don't believe there is a lot of waste water after a full run
but would like to recycle the water eventually just out of principle and having the cooling water at a constant temp is important also
I have 3 girls at my house and im sure on any given day they use more water than my still would if i ran it all day!!!!!

[pistachio_nut]

I've used something similar in the past. I just took a box fan and zip tied coils of copper on the front and back of the fan and used fittings to connect both sides. A cheap aquarium pump moved water from my tank to the coils and back to the tank. Since the most important thing is to cool the condenser, I ran from the tank to the fan to the condenser, and from the condenser back to the tank. There's no reason I couldn't run two fans in series with coils front and back. That removes as much heat as you can do on the front end, maybe outputting from the condenser to an evaporative cooler would do the job on the back end.

The thing is, it's really a heat pump. It's only going to drop the temp of the water due to the difference in the ambient temperature relative to the temperature of the coolant tank.

[Odin]

Haha, I went to a few shops yesterday. Informed if they have any fans left (you know, those fans you use to get some air when it is hot - 40 cm in diameter). I wanted to put the exit line of my cooling around that, to cool it before returning it to the cooling water container. It is like 8 maybe 9 degrees C. Winds howling. And me asking "do you have any fans left?" I got some curious looks.

Odin.

[Sungy]

Here is the fan coil I use. I came out of a pop cooler. I too have been looking at the cooling tower idea. My plan is to take this apart stand it vertically and have the fan blow into the coil and duct the outlet of the fan to a window. The bypass line from my still will spray over the coil. The outlet from my dephleg will supply the coils of the fan unit. The hole assembly will sit on the lid for my 45 gallon drum with the water draining threw the lid back into the drum.

The current arrangement works well on my 3 inch rig but my new rig is going to be larger. Current will take 65'C dephleg water to about 5'C above room temp. The problem is the room gets very warm. Thats why I want the evaporative cooling effect and ducting the warm moist air outside.

[Odin]

I like the idea of transferring the heat out thru the window. I distill inside. No need to warm up the room.

Odin.

[cooperville]

I plan to do the same have the heat exchanger outside and run hoses to the still giving me more room to play in the brewery less noise and cooler environment my room get plenty hot enough as it is

[midcarolina]

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...

Sorry I have to mostly disagree with you on this..... and the only exception would be in certain mechanical layouts....... lets look at the image I posted, it is kind of a box, if you blow the air in the box it has to hit the bottom of the box and then redistribute..... causes a lot of turbulance. plus it is much harder to get even air distribution across the entire face when air is blown. rather than pulled........of coarse vertical designs that incorporate a plenam or a volute are the exception..........

[Maritimer]

Here is my fan setup:

The radiator is actually a condenser from a car air conditioner. The local scrap yard had a wide choice, but this one looked ideal. Inside the box are two 16 inch oscillating table fans which I disassembled and attached to a piece of plywood in the bottom of the box. You can feel the heat difference between the upper long edge of the radiator (where the hot water comes in) and the lower edge (where the cool water comes out).

I only use a 25 liter pail of water and the coolant flow is powered by a pond pump. The water warms up a little on a long run, but pretty much does its job.

M

[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...

Sorry I have to mostly disagree with you on this..... and the only exception would be in certain mechanical layouts....... lets look at the image I posted, it is kind of a box, if you blow the air in the box it has to hit the bottom of the box and then redistribute..... causes a lot of turbulance. plus it is much harder to get even air distribution across the entire face when air is blown. rather than pulled........of coarse vertical designs that incorporate a plenam or a volute are the exception..........

I suppose that's why air boats suck their way around the bayou then? And its less work on a pump to have it on top of a well than having a submersible? And nuclear/ coal fired power plant towers have big fans sucking the heat off water at the top of the tower?

[midcarolina]

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...

Sorry I have to mostly disagree with you on this..... and the only exception would be in certain mechanical layouts....... lets look at the image I posted, it is kind of a box, if you blow the air in the box it has to hit the bottom of the box and then redistribute..... causes a lot of turbulance. plus it is much harder to get even air distribution across the entire face when air is blown. rather than pulled........of coarse vertical designs that incorporate a plenam or a volute are the exception..........

I suppose that's why air boats suck their way around the bayou then? And its less work on a pump to have it on top of a well than having a submersible? And nuclear/ coal fired power plant towers have big fans sucking the heat off water at the top of the tower?

Actually air boats suck thru the screen and blow out the back( although thrust and heat transfer are different ) most modern well pumps other than shallow well pumps are submersible.....I am limited in my knowledge of nuclear towers... but if you are talking about the very tall cone shaped towers they are natural draft..... mechanical draft towers do indeed have a fan pulling the air across the fill...... I did say earlier in my post vertical designs that have a plenham or volute will work too......

[Prairiepiss]

I went and got 5 gallons of my bioballs out of storage today. I found a couple computer fans in my stash too. But I think they will be to small for this. But I mite use them in my controller build. I will keep my eye out for a better fan. I would rather find one that is 110v that would work. Without breaking the bank. I have some really nice squirrel cage 12v fans. But I think they would be to much and I don't have anything to power them with. But I will find something. I need to get some 4" PVC and adapters.

[midcarolina]

Are you looking at using a round fan? I think a inline duct booster fan or a dryer booster fan would work...

I bought some 4" DWV from home depot couple months ago it was way cheaper than schedule 40......... well it might have been 3" i cant remember.......

[Prairiepiss]

I would like to find a fan I could mount directly to the top of my drum lid. I can cut out whatever hole it needs to be. But I would rather have something I can bolt to a flat surface.

Yeah when I say PVC I was meaning the black drain pipe. was just being lazy on the keyboard.

I'm hoping I can make a system that will supply me with 70 deg f water. At most. It's funny my tap water is running close to 80 f at this new house. I can't figure out why it is so high here. Only thing I can think of different is. The water lines here are ran under the street. And the last place wasn't. So maybe the blacktop is holding in the heat and warming the supply before it gets to the house. I figured it would cool off with the weather getting colder. But it hasn't. Has me dumbfounded.

If I have to I will use two drums. Pull from one and return into the other. With a pipe ran from the bottom of the return drum to the top of the supply drum.

[HolyBear]

Mr P, my 4" fan at Walmart was 6 bucks I think. Just a little office desk fan. Don't know the CFM but it pushes plenty of air.

Edit. They of course have bigger ones, I was looking for something to fit just inside 4". Look at the shrouds, generally they split in half, bolted together... unbolt front of shroud, mount with screws through the same shroud holes that held the two halves together...

[Prairiepiss]

I'm in the scrounging mode for these parts. Funding is going to something else for now. So its lower on the totem poll. If I find something free or extremely cheap I will get it. But its not a necessity at this point. I'm sure I can find me a fan somewhere. I mite even find the drain pipe. I run across all kinds of stuff daily. Just something more added to the list of things to look for.

[NineInchNails]

Prairiepiss you should be able to find some of these 4" 110v 12W fans like this at your local Walmart. That's where I bought these a while back. They are pretty small, but should be more powerful than your average PC fan. I can measure the OD when I get home in a couple hours if you like. You can easily remove the front cage and you should have no problem attaching/screwing it to any flat surface.





Don't let this pic fool ya ... those aren't 2x4s. These fans are small.

[Prairiepiss]

I've been thinking about those fans. What you got them in? Is that a fermenter box? Another one of the many projects on my very long to do list. I have a temp controller for it. Just nothing else.

[NineInchNails]

Yeah it's a big fermenter box that I made a while back. I don't recall these fans costing more than $5 or so each. I like them

[Prairiepiss]

I will check it out next time I'm at wallieworld. If they still have them on the shelves.

[HolyBear]

That's the exact fan that I used for my swamp cooler Wacabi style. I took the shroud off. The blades fit perfect inside a 4""clean out T....

[Prairiepiss]

That's the exact fan that I used for my swamp cooler Wacabi style. I took the shroud off. The blades fit perfect inside a 4""clean out T....

I thought that's was what you used.