I have almost finished building my water cooler for my TIG which should be arriving in the next week or so. There are a few problems with choosing the right pump in that you have to consider the pressure they can deliver (head height), the volume of water per minute and the duty cycle of the motor powering them.
Most of the aquarium water pumps have high volume but low pressure, so If you get a pump that says it does 2000lt per hour (33lt/minute), that usually means that volume at zero height on the outlet side and using the hose diameter same as the outlet size, you may find that it may only have a head height of 1.5mt, what that means is that if you raise the end of the outlet hose to 1.5mts that pump will only just manage to get the water up and maybe literally just dribble out and your 2000lt/hr just went down to zero with no pressure. To put head height into perspective, 10 PSI would raise the water height to approx. 20 ft.
The larger aquarium pumps have maybe 4 or 5mt head heights which should do the job but they also do three or four thousand liters per hour (50-67lt/minute).
Your TIG torch I think only needs about 2 or 3lts/minute and no more than 50 PSI otherwise damage may occur, usually not a problem in an open water system unless you kink a hose, so you have to divert off the excess. Next the hoses in a TIG torch inside are probably about 4 or 6mm ID which further restricts the flow of water through them. You need just enough pressure to have the water flowing through the system to provide the 2-3lt/minute volume and also if you raise the torch a couple of meters then the water flow/volume won't cut out.
Most motors are designed for a duty cycle, so some may be rated for intermittent use and some continuous use. So if you are going to weld 8 hours a day and 5 days a week, then you may want a motor that is rated for continuous use, otherwise you can do with an intermittent use one if you only weld say 10 or 20 minutes per time.. lastly, is the choice of impeller type, if you restrict the outflow of the pump so that you can get the increased pressure and the limited volume you may find that running the pump like this all the time may also damage the impeller blades or blow the diaphram in diaphram pumps.
For a heat exchanger I used one from a old air conditioner which is more than adequate size wise to dissipate the heat and used the fan from it as well, vehicle transmission coolers would also work well, also added a pressure and a temp guage. Mine will be set up to run at about 7-10 PSI. I will post pics up when I finish it in case any one is interested. Just my 2 cent worth and hope it helps.
Most of the aquarium water pumps have high volume but low pressure, so If you get a pump that says it does 2000lt per hour (33lt/minute), that usually means that volume at zero height on the outlet side and using the hose diameter same as the outlet size, you may find that it may only have a head height of 1.5mt, what that means is that if you raise the end of the outlet hose to 1.5mts that pump will only just manage to get the water up and maybe literally just dribble out and your 2000lt/hr just went down to zero with no pressure. To put head height into perspective, 10 PSI would raise the water height to approx. 20 ft.
The larger aquarium pumps have maybe 4 or 5mt head heights which should do the job but they also do three or four thousand liters per hour (50-67lt/minute).
Your TIG torch I think only needs about 2 or 3lts/minute and no more than 50 PSI otherwise damage may occur, usually not a problem in an open water system unless you kink a hose, so you have to divert off the excess. Next the hoses in a TIG torch inside are probably about 4 or 6mm ID which further restricts the flow of water through them. You need just enough pressure to have the water flowing through the system to provide the 2-3lt/minute volume and also if you raise the torch a couple of meters then the water flow/volume won't cut out.
Most motors are designed for a duty cycle, so some may be rated for intermittent use and some continuous use. So if you are going to weld 8 hours a day and 5 days a week, then you may want a motor that is rated for continuous use, otherwise you can do with an intermittent use one if you only weld say 10 or 20 minutes per time.. lastly, is the choice of impeller type, if you restrict the outflow of the pump so that you can get the increased pressure and the limited volume you may find that running the pump like this all the time may also damage the impeller blades or blow the diaphram in diaphram pumps.
For a heat exchanger I used one from a old air conditioner which is more than adequate size wise to dissipate the heat and used the fan from it as well, vehicle transmission coolers would also work well, also added a pressure and a temp guage. Mine will be set up to run at about 7-10 PSI. I will post pics up when I finish it in case any one is interested. Just my 2 cent worth and hope it helps.
