on demand water cooler for maintaining stable coolant temp

[austontatious]

Has anyone tried using a regular office water cooler to keep your coolant at a stable temp? What obstacles did you find or can you foresee? Would this, or a similar method work better or more efficiently ($$$) than just running my tap water through the rig and in to the drain?

[rad14701]

Similar ideas have been discussed... The crux of the matter is that most coolers, refrigerators, freezers, aren't intended to dissipate the amount of BTU's produced throughout even a short distillation run...

[F6Hawk]

That makes sense, Rad. I have not ever explored the BTU threshold of a water cooler. But... I'd be willing to bet that a counter-top ice maker would be able to handle it just fine! Intake and output lines in the water cavity, ice run-off keeping it cold... don't see why it wouldn't work.

[Maritimer]

The ol' broken record: The condenser is a heat transfer device. The boiler's vapour contains the energy of the boiler's heater. This energy is transferred to the coolant. So instead of thinking of the vapour, think of the boiler's water going directly into the refrigerator and returning to the boiler. The refrigerator would have to keep the boiler's water from boiling. That's a lot of energy that the refrigerator has to extract.

M