Cold box

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rayman034

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Anyone out there make a cold box? I want to build something to hold 4-6 carboys and/or buckets. What I really need to know is the cooling source and how low it can go? Any comments would be appreciated!! Thx
 
Hi R and welcome to HBT! You'll find lots of info and threads on this in the DIY subforum, and I've moved your question there.

What I have for a fermentation chamber is a chest freezer that I bought used off of Craigslist and a digital temp controller. It sounds like you want something bigger than that.

In any case, welcome!
 
Howdy. I have a 3 chambered cold box that is controlled by 2 ranco controllers and a CoolBot. The top chamber has its ranco plugged into a ceramic pet heater for heat and a fan pulling air in from the cold chamber. The middle chamber has its ranco plugged into 2 fans to pull in warm air from above or cold air from the cold chamber. And then the cold chamber has its CoolBot hooked up to a standard window air conditioner. This setup seems to work pretty well. I can set any of the chambers to about anything really. Generally around 62, 50, 36F to ferment an ale in one, ferment a lager in another, and lager a lager and carbonate in the other all at the same time. The CoolBot basically fools the AC into keep cooling to what ever you set the temp to with out frosting over without needing to modify the AC wiring at all. I think a lot of people can modify the wiring of an AC to work without the CoolBot pretty easily but I just didn't want to mess with it. It seems to work for me pretty well. It also can double as an extra refrigerator if you need. As for how low it can go, I've gotten it safely down to 35F and maybe could go a degree or two lower but that might be pushing it before it would freeze over. I usually keep the cold side around 36 or 37F

Good luck.
Kyle.
 
Kyle, this seems very interesting. Do you have a schema picture where the vents for each chamber are displayed? What kind of fans are you using between each chamber?

Johann

Howdy. I have a 3 chambered cold box that is controlled by 2 ranco controllers and a CoolBot. The top chamber has its ranco plugged into a ceramic pet heater for heat and a fan pulling air in from the cold chamber. The middle chamber has its ranco plugged into 2 fans to pull in warm air from above or cold air from the cold chamber. And then the cold chamber has its CoolBot hooked up to a standard window air conditioner. This setup seems to work pretty well. I can set any of the chambers to about anything really. Generally around 62, 50, 36F to ferment an ale in one, ferment a lager in another, and lager a lager and carbonate in the other all at the same time. The CoolBot basically fools the AC into keep cooling to what ever you set the temp to with out frosting over without needing to modify the AC wiring at all. I think a lot of people can modify the wiring of an AC to work without the CoolBot pretty easily but I just didn't want to mess with it. It seems to work for me pretty well. It also can double as an extra refrigerator if you need. As for how low it can go, I've gotten it safely down to 35F and maybe could go a degree or two lower but that might be pushing it before it would freeze over. I usually keep the cold side around 36 or 37F

Good luck.
Kyle.
 
Is this the correct understanding Kyle?

ferm-chamber2.png
 
Hey there Johann... I keep telling my self I'm gonna put together a build thread, but so far i just haven't gotten around to it... Here's a photo of it about half way built that may give some what of an idea of what i did.

attachment.php


The fans are the black square looking things... there's another one on the left that you can't see that blows cold air up. It's the reverse of the one on the right that blows warm air down. I did add a partition in the middle on the bottom to make 2 chambers on the bottom where as the top chamber is all one big chamber. The fans themselves are kind of like computer fans but just a little bit bigger and are 110 volt fans for ease of wiring to the Ranco temp controllers. (Guessing 220volt in your case perhaps?)

Functionally, it's certainly not perfect, but I've been very happy with it. I keep it out in my garage where it can get into the 20's or 30's F in the garage in the winter to the high 90's F in the garage in the summer and it seems to still do pretty well with just a few minor adjustments to the AC fan settings. I think if you had it somewhere where the temp fluctuations weren't quite as much, it would be even better, but i still can't really complain...

Hopefully this helps...
Kyle...

DSC01156.jpg
 
Hello.

I'm unable to see the picture - could you try again?
My garage has indeed 220V electricity and the temp should be pretty stable in there, so I think it would work well.
Can you send me a (amazon?) link to fans like you used?

Johann

Hey there Johann... I keep telling my self I'm gonna put together a build thread, but so far i just haven't gotten around to it... Here's a photo of it about half way built that may give some what of an idea of what i did.

attachment.php


The fans are the black square looking things... there's another one on the left that you can't see that blows cold air up. It's the reverse of the one on the right that blows warm air down. I did add a partition in the middle on the bottom to make 2 chambers on the bottom where as the top chamber is all one big chamber. The fans themselves are kind of like computer fans but just a little bit bigger and are 110 volt fans for ease of wiring to the Ranco temp controllers. (Guessing 220volt in your case perhaps?)

Functionally, it's certainly not perfect, but I've been very happy with it. I keep it out in my garage where it can get into the 20's or 30's F in the garage in the winter to the high 90's F in the garage in the summer and it seems to still do pretty well with just a few minor adjustments to the AC fan settings. I think if you had it somewhere where the temp fluctuations weren't quite as much, it would be even better, but i still can't really complain...

Hopefully this helps...
Kyle...
 
Hey there Johann..... Sorry about the photo... i'm not sure what i did... heh.. i think i updated the post above with the photo. Please let me know if i messed it up again. :)

As for the fans, here's an amazon link to one similar to the ones i used.
115V-AC-Cooling-Fan-120mm

Keep in mind this is a 115volt fan, which may or may not work for you perhaps if you need 220 volt.

Kyle...
 
It worked, thank you.

Two questions:
1. The went to the left on the picture and the one at the top - what is the purpose of them?
2. The purple colored boxes (shafts) on the top left, and bottom right. What do they do?

Thanks again.

p.s. I found similar 220V fans on amazon - thanks for the link.
Johann

Hey there Johann..... Sorry about the photo... i'm not sure what i did... heh.. i think i updated the post above with the photo. Please let me know if i messed it up again. :)

As for the fans, here's an amazon link to one similar to the ones i used.
115V-AC-Cooling-Fan-120mm

Keep in mind this is a 115volt fan, which may or may not work for you perhaps if you need 220 volt.

Kyle...
 
Ahhh great... glad to hear your found some 220v fans...

I'm not sure i totally follow the first question... sorry about that... so i'll start with #2, and then come back to that one...

The material itself is a polystyrene insulation board. I used it as the insulation for the walls, floor and ceiling. I had some left over, so i used it to make a duct, or shaft for when the fans are on. The top chamber is generally warmer, and the bottom chamber is generally cooler, so for example, if the bottom chamber was getting a little too cool, the fan on the right hand side would blow the warmer air down the duct so the warm air came into the cool chamber at the bottom and would have a chance to rise. The same goes for the other one on the left to blow the cooler air up and out to the top. They very well may not be needed, but it seemed like a good idea at the time... or you could use actual air duct tubing too... :)

Ok... now back to question #1.... i'll try and describe a few other things, and if i don't hit what you were asking, just let me know....

So for fans, there are 5 of them. 2 are for the purple boxes. 1 you can see on the right, and 1 you can't see on the left because it's on the ceiling of the lower chamber. The left blows up to cool the top when needed and the right blows down to warm the bottom when needed. The fan on the wall on the left is wired to the ceramic pet heater so that fan runs when the heater is on. That heater is the only heat source for the whole thing. The fan on the very top i think i have just running all the time to circulate the air in side. That was also the plan for the fan on the bottom then that photo was taken, back when i was only planning on 2 chambers. Shortly after that, i added a wall in the middle on the bottom to make 2 chambers on the bottom for 3 total. so i moved the fan on the bottom into the middle wall to transfer cold air from the lower chamber on the left, to the the lower chamber on the right when needed. The big device on the lower left is a window air conditioner that is used as the cooling source for the whole thing. It's hooked up to a CoolBot to fake out the air conditioner without having to rewire it. That thing is awesome! You can do the same thing without it if you know how to rewire it, but i just didn't want to mess with it and it works great. The cold side of my box is currently 35.8*F.

It's all being controlled by 2 Ranco Temp Controller. I used 2 stage Ranco's for heating and cooling... i'm not sure if the one in the link is 1 or 2 stage, but you get the idea.

If i missed anything, just let me know... I have been very happy with how the thing has worked.

Good luck!
Kyle...
 
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I think I understand everything now.

Regarding the Coolbot, I thought it was just a unit which you would plug in to a temp controller and it would handle the cooling. After your email I looked around and see it needs a air conditioner like you have installed. I don't quite get how the coolbot makes it cooler but I will read about it somewhere. I have a large fridge with a freezing box in the bottom and one idea I'm thinking about is having the lower part (where the freezer is) open into the box and have the fridge as the cooling unit. I'm not sure if it would handle it but it's worth the try.

I think the coolbot and the air conditioner would cost too much for me so I'm thinking about using the freezer for the same purpose.

Thanks for the detailed help.
Johann

Ahhh great... glad to hear your found some 220v fans...

I'm not sure i totally follow the first question... sorry about that... so i'll start with #2, and then come back to that one...

The material itself is a polystyrene insulation board. I used it as the insulation for the walls, floor and ceiling. I had some left over, so i used it to make a duct, or shaft for when the fans are on. The top chamber is generally warmer, and the bottom chamber is generally cooler, so for example, if the bottom chamber was getting a little too cool, the fan on the right hand side would blow the warmer air down the duct so the warm air came into the cool chamber at the bottom and would have a chance to rise. The same goes for the other one on the left to blow the cooler air up and out to the top. They very well may not be needed, but it seemed like a good idea at the time... or you could use actual air duct tubing too... :)

Ok... now back to question #1.... i'll try and describe a few other things, and if i don't hit what you were asking, just let me know....

So for fans, there are 5 of them. 2 are for the purple boxes. 1 you can see on the right, and 1 you can't see on the left because it's on the ceiling of the lower chamber. The left blows up to cool the top when needed and the right blows down to warm the bottom when needed. The fan on the wall on the left is wired to the ceramic pet heater so that fan runs when the heater is on. That heater is the only heat source for the whole thing. The fan on the very top i think i have just running all the time to circulate the air in side. That was also the plan for the fan on the bottom then that photo was taken, back when i was only planning on 2 chambers. Shortly after that, i added a wall in the middle on the bottom to make 2 chambers on the bottom for 3 total. so i moved the fan on the bottom into the middle wall to transfer cold air from the lower chamber on the left, to the the lower chamber on the right when needed. The big device on the lower left is a window air conditioner that is used as the cooling source for the whole thing. It's hooked up to a CoolBot to fake out the air conditioner without having to rewire it. That thing is awesome! You can do the same thing without it if you know how to rewire it, but i just didn't want to mess with it and it works great. The cold side of my box is currently 35.8*F.

It's all being controlled by 2 Ranco Temp Controller. I used 2 stage Ranco's for heating and cooling... i'm not sure if the one in the link is 1 or 2 stage, but you get the idea.

If i missed anything, just let me know... I have been very happy with how the thing has worked.

Good luck!
Kyle...
 
I don't quite get how the coolbot makes it cooler but I will read about it somewhere.

The best information I could find on what it is that the CoolBot does, and how, was in the installation instructions on their web site.

The CoolBot has a room temp sensor that is used to tell the CoolBot when it needs to make cold air by running the air conditioner.

It has a small heater that you attach to the thermostat in the AC unit. This heater is used to tell the AC unit when to run - no splicing wires needed. By heating the thermostat it can force the AC unit to continue to run even when the room temp is below the set point of the AC thermostat.

It also has a sensor to tell it when the AC unit is icing over. It adjusts the compressor cycle times to prevent the icing.


The advantages over other controllers are that it installs without modifications to the ac unit, protecting any warranty and eliminating the need for electrical knowledge, and it prevents icing.
 
Yea... the downside of going with the CoolBot with window AC for this particular application is definitely the price especially if you have some other options available to you. I was concerned that the compressor on a freezer may not be able to keep up with the demand on a larger area, so i went the CoolBot route, and have been very happy, but yea... Give it a shot with what you have available.

Oh, and yea... reynolds5520's description of how the CoolBot works is spot on. It's a slick little device.

Good luck with your build!
Cheers!
Kyle...
 
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