Home made TIG cooler

[squazy84]

cooler made from car radiator

last week I got a brain wave (or so I thought lol) i thought about using the complete cooling system from a car to cool my tig torch! so i promptly stripped radiator, electric cooling fan and header tank and associated hoses from an opel astra, now for the last few months i have been using a 5 gallon drum and a water pump from a fish tank or water feature from ebay, the cooler works the water circulates about a liter a minute and the torch stays cool welding at 200 amps for 30 mins, has anybody else used a car rad for the cooler?

 

[hotrodder]

Cool. Not surprised the coolant temp only reached 2 degrees above ambient given the size of your cooler Ed- i sprung for Lincolns coolarc 20 when i bought my v205t (mainly because everything remains portable one handed), holds less than 2 litres of coolant and has no fan. FWIW the pump specs are 2.5l/min unresticted flow although the bigger Lincoln coolers (talking for 400A plus machines) are up around 6l/min unresticted

 

[Wedg1e]

I had a BOC TIG cooler that I flogged on the 'Bay... it was basically the same design as industrial x-ray system water coolers. They usually run at around 4-6L/min and rarely more than 1-2 Bar... in fact for Philips panoramic heads the pressure has to be limited to 1 Bar as the anode target is held inside a copper tube with very thin wall (0.25mm?) and excess water pressure can either rupture or distort it so as to render the x-ray head scrap - and at £15K a time you don't want to be the one responsible for setting the pressure incorrectly
For comparison (maybe), an x-ray set running 160kV at 10mA produces 1.6kW of heat (1600W) - equivalent, I imagine, to a 150A welder at 10v or so...

Typical x-ray coolers run Procon Type 1 brass pumps; sliding graphite vane designs that don't like being run dry - the BOC cooler was the same so I suspect it would be common to find them in TIG coolers. Standex in Eire supply new ones or England Worthside do reconditioned units.
Just in case anyone needs to know

 

[Engineer]

Hi Engineer, cranked up the TIG today to about 240 amps and did a pass on both sides of a 12mm steel T joint 200mm length each side, the fluid temp rose by 2 degrees above ambient, and the head was just warm up to the where the cup fits in, did a further 4 hours welding at about 130 -140 Amps and the fluid temp got to 25 degrees which was 2 degrees above ambient by that stage, so it all works as it should at my pressure and volume output. Hope this helps.

That sounds fine.....................I will bear it in mind when I have my cooler together and check the flow rate and pressure. This looks a nice way to go about a home built cooler, other than the rather large motor, and the way its mounted: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-6YxrGU6Ok

 

[Maloztralian]

Hi all, this interests me and as a newbie, i am wondering what I need to do to fit one up into my uni-Tig 200? There is no provision for a water cooled torch on this and obviously I need to change the euro torch out for a different water cooled type, but I am afraid to say that is about the limit of my tigknowledgy!

Any advice will be greatly appreciated, and once I have my little projects finished in my very equally small shed, I will set about converting / lining the carport to a garage and get serious.. I have a kit car to build!

 

[Ed.]

Hi, I can't say that I have ever seen a Euro fitted TIG torch but a water cooled TIG torch will have an extra 2 tubes coming out which will connect up to the water cooler. The only Euro fittings that I have seen, have been on MIG torches. Can you post up a picture of the front of your TIG showing the connectors.

Cheers

Ed.