Water cooler

[Piero]

inside of mine one, there is a thermostate attached to a manual control knob, 9from 0-10)
But I have no way of knowing what that relates to in temp (degrease)

I was thinking the electronic one had no bounderys, so I could tailer it to my needs via the simple screen

 

[the snooper]

yes but lets say you were tacking something together then started to weld it up the sudden change in tig torch temp would switch the compressor back on but the temerature wouldnt drop in the tank for maybe another 10 minutes

 

[Piero]

this is only a question, so dont take offence,

But how does the namual thermostate work then???

It is set to a set temp, when the water gets to the set temp, thermostate stitch is active and starts the fridge, taking as long as it does to cool Right.

how is that any differant to a electonic one?????

at least with a electronic one, the limits of the temp are not limited as they are in a manual one.

the water cooler would have been optomised to cool the beer/water to a chill.

I dont want the water in a tig tourch to be chilled,

 

[the snooper]

if you dont want the water running through the torch chilled then how do you propose to use it

 

[Piero]

I dont get what you mean??????????????

we know its a cooler right, but its only a cooler because the thermostate contolls when the cooler works,

If the thermostat was a lower temp thermostat, what ever is running through the cooler would be close to ice cold.

If the termostat was a higher temp termostat, the fridge part might not kick in till say 40 deg, but its not just what temp she kicks in thats inportant, its also the temp that is shuts off at.

I have googled fridge thermostates, they are all rated differant.
This is the type as fitted to mine
http://tom75wang.en.made-in-china.c...ina-Thermostat-Refrigeration-Spare-Parts.html

The electronic ones can be tailered to my own needs.
I am not saying I will be turning it up and down every time the water gets hot.

I am saying I can optomise it to a tig set up and not a beer set up. thats all

 

[the snooper]

i was saying more along the lines of

if you controlled torch temp by water flow and you suddenly needed a lot more cooling you would have a tank full of very cold water for the job.

it would be worth you running the cooler and checking the temp with a thermometer before you spend just incase it will do the job as it is

 

[hotrodder]

When I chatted with a supplier, the proper units have a refridgeration unit in them to cool the water, as simply recirculating it just pumps warm water back to the torch as it doesnt have enough time to cool unless the tank is massive.

Or you weld another fitting near the bottom of the tank and attach it to a cold tap and have an overflow valve off the top to remove the warmer water !!

Did the supplier mention any brands? Seen and used dozens of different watercooled TIGs, AFAIK all of them comprised nothing more than a pump, rad and sometimes a fan. Mine has a capacity of less than 2 litres, the heat exchanger is a copper tube/ally fin type layed out as a double row about 20cm long with approx a 10cm stack height. 200A AC for extended time* and the torch power line doesn't get uncomfortably warm let alone properly hot.


* Obviously not 'proper' non stop like someone doing price work with MIG but we're talking as close as you can get to that with TIG i.e. stopping only to grab the next length of wire and/or the next part

 

[Piero]

To be honest.
I think the beer cooler is over kill.
I was going to use it for my spotwelder, as she does get really hot if you work fast.

Any one read any of my water cooler threds will know I was building on much along the lines of what hotrodder has.

As to a £18 electronic thermostats, I think its well worth the money,
For what ever job I use the cooler for, I can pre set it for my reqirments,
The original thermostat is set to open and close by the manufacture.
It's set to there opptimum to cool Luke warm beer.

It might turn out that the setting is ok for welding, but seeing as I have it all apart, for only 18 pounds, I feel I will end up with a far more versitile cooler.

Once its all back togeather, I will let you all know how she does.

 

[Paul G]

This is my home made effort.

It's a box with twin 100mm fans, and a heat exchanger mounted above them.
The 3L ally tank has a submersible pump inside and the pipes are 6mm nylon.

To be honest a single fan would have been adequate.

Cheers,
Paul G

 

[Piero]

And a VERY good effort at that LOL
looking good Paul,
were did that heater exchange come from

 

[Paul G]

And a VERY good effort at that LOL
looking good Paul,
were did that heater exchange come from

Thanks.

It was on a stand selling car parts at a Kit Car Show.
I can never resist a bargain. £10, and it's brand new.

Cheers,
Paul G

 

[Wedg1e]

Our premises are a former golf clubhouse/ social club; when we moved in the bar, burger kitchen and dancefloor were still in place!
We ripped everything out but the boss told us to stack stuff in the cellar 'just in case'. A couple of years later we had a client in Saudi who persisted in using mobile x-ray sets for field radiography when every other NDT firm stuck to isotopes.
The trouble with x-ray sets in hot climates is that the water coolers (exactly as used on welding sets) can't create enough temperature difference between the hot water coming off the x-ray head and the ambient air, so the cooler trips out on thermal and the set won't work till everything's cooled down. We knew that would happen, they knew it would as well but still they cracked on. We tried bigger coolers but to no avail. Then someone suggested we use a refrigerated cooler, that reminded us of the beer cooler in the cellar and eventually it was dragged out for a looksee.
It was a tank full of some sort of gel with several (three or four) cooling coils passing through it plus one from the fridge compressor. We linked all the coils in series, piped the whole unit in after the main cooler and hey presto: as far as I know the whole shebang is still out there working somewhere

 

[pedrobedro]

And a VERY good effort at that LOL
looking good Paul,
were did that heater exchange come from

It looks like a classic mini heater matrix.