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idea for tower cooling?

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jason1973

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Oct 14, 2012
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was wondering if a peltier plate and cpu cooler mounted on top cap of tower would keep tower cool?
any one try this idea?
 
It sounds like an interesting idea. Any good size peltier would likely be able to keep the metal on the cap cold enough to frost up. The question I would wonder is how well it would dissipate down the tower? Logically it would seem that cold air would sink down the tower into the keggerator below. I'm not sure if it would work that way in actuality.

If you added cooling fins on the inside of the tower and a fan to draw air through the tower I think you'd manage it for sure. But in that case it would probably just make more sense to add a fan a "duct" to use the cold air in the keggerator anyway.
 
If you're going to all that work, why not just rig up a fan to blow cool air from the fridge? I would think that's more cost effective and will likely turn out better. Peltier is pretty neat though.

I've thought about cooling towers... one idea that came to mind was to slide a piece of plastic inside of the tower that could divide the space. Use a thin piece of plastic sheeting, could even be coroplast you can get at Home Depot. Don't slide the plastic in all of the way up into the tower, you need space at the top. Then have a fan blow air up one side of the divided space and the air will flow back down the other half of the divided space. This would also help the kegerator move air around within.

I actually just thought of another idea.... you could run smaller tubing, braided with the beer line that has constant flow. Use a thin walled tubing, maybe even copper tubing. Cool the fluid inside of the tubing from within the kegerator or use peltier as a way to cool the fluid.

I think the air flow through the tower is the most cost effective and cleanest method. I ended up doing door mount and plan to mount my mini fridge on a small platform.
 
I ran my lines through 1/2" copper encased in insulation and cross-braced the copper in the cooler with additional copper tubing for better thermal transfer. I'm very pleased with the results and there are no moving parts to break or make noise.

I have no foam issues, though I'm not sure if that has to do with the temperature of my lines or the fact that they are balanced for length, rise, and type.

For anyone who may be inclined to use copper I suggest grommets at the end of the copper that goes into the cooler to avoid line chafing.
 
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