Diy chiller

[Nano_Man]

Hi members
Trying to get info if any members have made homemade chillers that work well . Any info would be appreciated. Thank you

 

[jda]

Fridges do not have enough BTUs to pull down a tank temperature - they are made to slowly get cold and then stay here. They are not made to just constantly pull out a large amount of heat.

Have seen folks make chiller out of window AC units. For saltwater you need titanium heat exchanger that I guess solders up to the AC unit in place of the evaporator. There are posts and videos on this the last that I looked.

IIRC, fridges are around 150-400 btu of cooling power and chillers and AC units are 3000 to 10000, or so. I might be misremembering this.

 

[KStatefan]

@BeanAnimal has a good article on why mini fridges will not work

 

[cilyjr]

Have seen folks make chiller out of window AC units. For saltwater you need titanium heat exchanger that I guess solders up to the AC unit in place of the evaporator. There are posts and videos on this the last that I looked.

I can't imagine this being cost effective. Not to mention it would require a certain amount of knowledge to be able to replace the coil with something that would go underwater.

IIRC, fridges are around 150-400 btu of cooling power and chillers and AC units are 3000 to 10000, or so. I might be misremembering this

This.
Window units anyway.

 

[Nano_Man]

Yep I thought not a easy thing to diy

 

[BeanAnimal]

Correct, compact refrigerators simply do not have enough cooling capacity. DIY is not impossible but you need a friend with hvac tools and some knowledge and a 3rd party titanium heat exchanger. For most people this is more trouble than it is worth.

If I was going to go through the trouble, I would convert a minisplit and keep the condenser outside ;)