Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Anything cooling/condenser related.

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Chauncey
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Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

Think if you had pre chilled air coming into the intake side of a wet dry vac then out the blower side into a shotgun type condenser where the water in/outs are instead air I/O's with the input sized to the shopvacs blower side hose and the inner tubes are finned. Inside the dirt chamber would be frozen icepacks, the shop vans air intake would be drawn through a cooler full.of ice or something for prechill.

Just kinda spit balling here but I was thinking about this while cooking gumbo today because I have a still room I'm setting up and don't wanna have to tie up the only.nearby sink and piss off SWMBO. Plus the water pressure in our building can dip way down several.times a day. We live in an old mansion converted to apartments in new orleans where we can't have nice things.

I wanted an air.cooled cooling that can knock down 5500w stripping runs that I can sort of build into a remote unit that basically plugs into the still like a water pump would and not be some weird contraption externally but rather keep the same outer appearance of my still.

Give me some thoughts here guys while I go buy a new notebook and draw some stuff up. Hope that made sense btw.

Edit: just thought of this...floor unit or window unit AC with a manifold to put the air into the system. Replaces prechiller and shopvac. This may need additional fans inline to increase airflow but the bottleneck created by a manifold on the ACs output would likely do it.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by bcook608 »

Chauncey wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:21 pm Think if you had pre chilled air coming into the intake side of a wet dry vac then out the blower side into a shotgun type condenser where the water in/outs are instead air I/O's with the input sized to the shopvacs blower side hose and the inner tubes are finned. Inside the dirt chamber would be frozen icepacks, the shop vans air intake would be drawn through a cooler full.of ice or something for prechill.

Just kinda spit balling here but I was thinking about this while cooking gumbo today because I have a still room I'm setting up and don't wanna have to tie up the only.nearby sink and piss off SWMBO. Plus the water pressure in our building can dip way down several.times a day. We live in an old mansion converted to apartments in new orleans where we can't have nice things.

I wanted an air.cooled cooling that can knock down 5500w stripping runs that I can sort of build into a remote unit that basically plugs into the still like a water pump would and not be some weird contraption externally but rather keep the same outer appearance of my still.

Give me some thoughts here guys while I go buy a new notebook and draw some stuff up. Hope that made sense btw.

Edit: just thought of this...floor unit or window unit AC with a manifold to put the air into the system. Replaces prechiller and shopvac. This may need additional fans inline to increase airflow but the bottleneck created by a manifold on the ACs output would likely do it.
I was thinking about making a condenser with essentially duct work that tapered down until it would fit a 6" flexible duct tube, then creating a board that I can place into my window with an inlet and outlet (one covered with steel mesh and the other hooked up to a dryer vent cover) then using a 6" duct fan to pull in cold outside air, run it over the finned element, then exhaust the heat back outside. This would keep the ambient temperature of the room stable while allowing for cooling of the distillate below room temp in the fall/winter/spring months before outside heats up too much.

I don't know how it is in NOLA, but if you have cooler weather, that might be something to try. It would prevent the need for a noisy shop vac being run and you could build an insulated box to shroud the noise from the duct fan rather easily.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

It's a hot, humid sticky subtropical swamp. I like that idea for like 3/8 of the year.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by bcook608 »

Chauncey wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 12:34 am It's a hot, humid sticky subtropical swamp. I like that idea for like 3/8 of the year.
you could also do that idea with a cooler filled with ice packs. have an inlet on the cooler for drawing in room air, then an outlet leading to the PC, then from the PC to the duct fan (in an insulated enclosure for noise), then from the enclosure to an exhaust in the window.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

bcook608 wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 1:06 am
Chauncey wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 12:34 am It's a hot, humid sticky subtropical swamp. I like that idea for like 3/8 of the year.
you could also do that idea with a cooler filled with ice packs. have an inlet on the cooler for drawing in room air, then an outlet leading to the PC, then from the PC to the duct fan (in an insulated enclosure for noise), then from the enclosure to an exhaust in the window.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by NZChris »

Build a preheater setup. Uses less heat, uses less cooling. Your air cooled condenser would only have a fraction of the work to do.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Dancing4dan »

It might work better if air was pulled through rather than blown through. Shop vacs heat air eventually when running as a blower. Look at a computer cooling fan to pull air through the cooler.

5500 W is a lot to knock down with an air cooled PC. Someone can probably calculate how much ice you will need. It will likely be a lot though.

This idea would likely work better here in the frozen hinterlands than in your environment.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Ben »

Sneak a tee and valve in the cold water line under the sink. Landlord will never notice :)
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by squigglefunk »

Chauncey wrote: Mon Oct 17, 2022 11:21 pm I have a still room I'm setting up and don't wanna have to tie up the only.nearby sink and piss off SWMBO. Plus the water pressure in our building can dip way down several.times a day. We live in an old mansion converted to apartments in new orleans where we can't have nice things.
for what it's worth, I use the same 55 gallon barrel of water and a pond pump, recycle it over and over, no worries about water pressure, wasting water or tying up a faucet. You return the water to the top of the barrel nice and hot but gently as to not stir up the rest of the water and it will stack on top of the cold water, I have never had an issue running out.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by BlueSasquatch »

Sounds like space is an issue, but could just make your classic Worm tube and flake stand condenser, replace the flake stand with a deep freezer. Add fins to your coil to help dissipate heat.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

BlueSquatch: Freezer wouldn't keep up with that and probanly wouldnt perform as well as a swamp cooler setup or radiator setup. Cold air on the intake would only exchange heat with the ambient air passing over it. Them ice boxes, well they aren't as efficient as one would think.

Squiggle: I've done all forms of recirc water and barrels but that isn't as feasible in this new room.

Dan: The shop vac idea came from me just think tanking about things I already have around, a jumping off point of you will. 5500w doesn't need to be the knockdown capability but I need to be able to strip fast enough to fit my hobby time in my schedule.

Ben: there's already a leak under the sink they need to come fix but new orleans landlords, lmfao. Don't get me wrong my place isn't a dump but it ain't the fuckin Ritz and the landlord is a slumlord and the maintenance men are afraid of my old lady haha.

NzChris: I'm definitely working a preheater into my system but I'd like to be able to get off the ground and running with an air cooled condenser first because I'll need it anyway.



Thanks for the replies guys but I have a new design using a large tube bank and a squirrel cage blower combined. I'm going to set my PC up finally after a year In the new place I'll post a diagram of the new idea sometime tonight. Meanwhile more research. You guys keep them brains storming ima try and break some new ground in the condenser world.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

Put something like this in the window.
Airconditioned air from the room will blow across the cooling fins.
And the heated exhaust air gets blown outside.
If you want to get fancy, add a mister for evaporative cooling. :ewink:
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by squigglefunk »

Chauncey wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:37 am ima try and break some new ground in the condenser world.
ah I see :thumbup:

like coolers of ice being sucked on by a shop vac that then spews it's ice cold load all over your huge air powered condenser. Definitely some ground I have never thought of treading on! :clap:

speaking of ground breaking...

how about you dig a 20 foot hole and bury some pex in there! geothermal powered condenser! I know some have had success with that method!
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

squigglefunk wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 6:47 am
Chauncey wrote: Tue Oct 18, 2022 11:37 am ima try and break some new ground in the condenser world.
ah I see :thumbup:

like coolers of ice being sucked on by a shop vac that then spews it's ice cold load all over your huge air powered condenser. Definitely some ground I have never thought of treading on! :clap:

speaking of ground breaking...

how about you dig a 20 foot hole and bury some pex in there! geothermal powered condenser! I know some have had success with that method!
Your sarcasm is almost as good as mine. Isn't it painful being so clever? I always have headaches

Really though despite the joke I'm going to give air cooling a whirl. based on most research I've been doing I think I have a feasible air cooler design.

Also you can't dig 2 feet down in new orleans and definitely not twenty. All our Graves are above ground even.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by elbono »

Chauncey wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 12:01 pm Also you can't dig 2 feet down in new orleans and definitely not twenty. All our Graves are above ground even.
After a foot or so I imagine it's more like pumping than digging but once you get there just get a coil of copper down in the muck to run hot cooling water through. More like aquathermal than geothermal.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

Here's an idea I haven't tried yet, an aircooled liebig.
Instead of a water jacket. Use a long finned tube inside some vent tubing like this..
Have a fan blow cool air in one end of the vent tubing and hot air out the other.

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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by bcook608 »

shadylane wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:21 pm Here's an idea I haven't tried yet, an aircooled liebig.
Instead of a water jacket. Use a long finned tube inside some vent tubing like this..
Have a fan blow cool air in one end of the vent tubing and hot air out the other.

That's the fan I was recommending in my earlier reply. I was thinking about using that to pull cooler outside air over the condenser and push the hot exhaust outside. I think it would be a great option
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by zach »

An air cooled condenser is basically an air heater. The formula for the sensible heating of air is

Q = 1.06 x CFM x dT

Which can be solved to determine the fan volume

CFM = Q/(1.06 x dT)

Where;
Q is the heat (Btu/hr) The condenser capacity of 5,500 watts converted to US customary units is 18,771 Btu/hr.
CFM is the fan volume
dT = Air Temp Out - Air Temp in (F)

So if you have a 90 F ambient and the air out of the condenser is 100 F, the fan volume required can be estimated.

CFM = 18,771/(1.06 x (100-90)) = 1,771 CFM

So there are number of possible solutions to the problem, but I would expect the condenser in shady's photo is likely the close to what you need as a box fan can circulate 2,000 to 2,500 cfm. If you cover the face of the fan with the finned tube it will likely have enough surface area.

If you find a fan and a source for finned tube I can help estimate how much finned tube is required if you have the tube size, fin size and fins per inch of tubing.

I think the recommendation from NZChris for a preheater is great. I'm looking at building one to speed up stripping days.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

shadylane wrote: Wed Oct 19, 2022 2:21 pm Here's an idea I haven't tried yet, an aircooled liebig.
Instead of a water jacket. Use a long finned tube inside some vent tubing like this..
Have a fan blow cool air in one end of the vent tubing and hot air out the other.

That's what I was thinking but a shotgun.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

When you say shotgun.
Do you literally mean a shotgun or are you talking about several finned tubes in parallel?
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by Chauncey »

Several in parallel
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by juana_b »

shadylane wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:30 pm When you say shotgun.
Do you literally mean a shotgun or are you talking about several finned tubes in parallel?
If one made a very long mashrookie slyle helical shotgun(copper of course) with tight helices, I can see the hex(heat exchange) numbers working.
This may require "tuning" the helices to the same length(much like a formula one exhaust header).
At this moment, I'm not seeing a way to have parallel tubes finned while being perpendicular to airflow. I don't think fins are needed if the length is correct. And, it'll be directly dependent upon the ambient conditions it was designed for(length). Just as we have learned to throttle the water to our PC's, in different ambient conditions a small fan motor speed controller could benefit to slow the airflow down.
I see it working, but not without some tinkering.
Edit: I've also had this idea in the back of my brain for a while. Nobody is perfect, I'm not gonna beat myself up about it 8) .
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

Chauncey wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:50 pm Several in parallel
What are your thoughts on how to blow air over the finned tubes?
Here is how Pierrot Lunaire 55 did his air-cooled condenser.
He did a great looking job building the air plenums out of wood. :thumbup:
But I think cardboard and duct tape could also get the job done. :lol:


viewtopic.php?t=88094
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by NZChris »

Air doesn't have much thermal mass, so I reckon blowing it counter-current to the condensate wouldn't be very efficient and the condenser would have to be huge to be successful. Stick to what car makers have been doing for decades and blast the condenser with ambient air from top to bottom.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

NZChris wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 10:40 pm Air doesn't have much thermal mass, so I reckon blowing it counter-current to the condensate wouldn't be very efficient and the condenser would have to be huge to be successful. Stick to what car makers have been doing for decades and blast the condenser with ambient air from top to bottom.
I look at it different.
Heated air wants to rise, therefor blow air in the bottom to help the process along. :ewink:
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by NZChris »

I'm sure that the sizing can be calculated if you do the homework and the maths.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

Chauncey wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 7:50 pm Several in parallel
First thing to figure, is the fittings needed to plumb four condensers in parallel.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

NZChris wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 11:47 pm I'm sure that the sizing can be calculated if you do the homework and the maths.
Hells fire. :lol:
Sometimes it's easier to build something, then do the measuring.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by NZChris »

That's ok if you are building it out of materials you have already collected. I hate having spent money on building something that, in hindsight, was never going to work.
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Re: Idea for an air cooled condenser.

Post by shadylane »

That's logical. :thumbup:
But Chauncey wants to build an air-cooled shotgun.
It can be done, the question is how to best do it.
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