Anyone use this 12v cooler as a glycol chiller?

[Sadmedic]

Been thinking of making a DIY glycol chiller but came across this today.

Thinking maybe fill with water and glycol. Would need an inverter also. Description says it can get to 36 below ambient.

Here is the link

Igloo 40369 Iceless Thermoelectric Cooler (Silver/White, 28-Quart) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ZYH4BM/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[Joseph G]

Following

 

[ProblemChild]

following

 

[day_trippr]

Peltier-driven coolers are unlikely to provide the BTU capability to cool anything other than themselves...

Cheers!

 

[LittleRiver]

Thermoelectric devices do not have anywhere near the cooling capacity of a conventional compressor. I would say you are going to waste your money if you try to chill glycol with this.

I've owned a similar Igloo thermoelectric cooler for many years. It works fine for road trips where I don't want to mess with ice, and need to keep some food hot or cold (it will do either). It works OK as long as what I put into it is already near the temperature I want to maintain. If I put warm beer into it, plug it in and drive for an hour, the beer is still going to be warm when I get there.

 

[tll77]

I agree with @day_trippr cooling capacity is going to be very minimal here,these coolers are made to keep cold items cold and not to cool items that aren't cold already. The peltier device is in the lid and the 'cooled' air is blown over the product. Your cooling ability here would be limited to the glycol solution/air surface, which might keep cold solution cold, but once that solution is warmer I can't see this unit dropping the temp.

 

[TechFanMD]

I agree that this is unlikely to work.....but I don't believe that a peltier cannot provide enough cooling. Brewjacket is peltier and does a fine job of maintaining ~30 degrees F below ambient. I think the main reason this won't work is that the transfer from air to glycol is going to be so poor that it would never keep up. The actual peltier is probably almost the same.

 

[tll77]

Yes, likely the same peltier. With the brewjacket, or even the morebeer peltier cooled conicals, the peltier device is in contact with wort or the conical itself. So, the peltier is directly cooling the product, where in this case the peltier cools air, which in turn would cool glycol solution, then the solution pumped to the fermenter(pump adds heat) and returns warmer needing to be cooled again. Efficiency is lost with each heat transfer step.

 

[Sadmedic]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

[Summoner12]

I did a peltier chiller for my keezer to cool just the tower. The chiller couldn't pull down all that well. There were ways I could make it work better, but honestly the power consumption was HUGE. I was at like 400watts running 4 peltier chips.

I could have made my setup work better by using two water plates sandwiched together instead of one to allow for more contact/volume at the chips and more insulation on the cold side and better insulation on the lines running back into the keezer to feed the tower. But in summer i couldn't get the glycol below 43* with the room temp in the mid to upper 70's. At night the thing pulled down to like 38* if the room temp was in the upper 60's. And really, thats what you'll find in researching things. Peltier can't pull temps down more than 30-40* than ambient.

I am relocating my beer setup to the garage and running a trunk line. My thought was to maybe, put the peltier cooler into the freezer of the new setup (going from freezer chest to a standing fridge). Knowing the ambient temp matters, this might work... But I believe running 400 watts of peltier cooling and the fridge likely having to work overtime to try and cool the peltier down would create a large and more than needed power use. My plan is to create an AC unit like the window units you see on the forum. I have on hand a portable AC unit I stripped down and intend to try using, but fear I may need to buy a window unit.

If the window unit can do the job and get cold enough to shut itself down, maybe my power use won't be as bad as a peltier running 400w all night and day with the fridge also running.

Sorry for hijacking!