hunter306
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Another stab at building a cheap Window-AC based Chiller. I snagged the Frigidaire Analog unit from the clearance section at Sears for 25.00 out the door... Add a 35 dollar cooler, a trusty STC-1000, and a aquarium wave generator and here it is.
First, build the cart, to keep the whole unit together - Added some basic caster wheels to move it more easily when it's loaded up with liquid:
Then tear the lid off and see what we're dealing with - Bend the chiller coil outward, and vertical to pass it into the cooler body. Throw away the whole face plate, that's not getting reused here. Remove the squirrel cage blower from the front of the blower motor to make room for the cooler. Rear fan remains intact.
There's not much to say about bending the copper- it needs to be done slowly and carefully and preferably not while the unit is cold. I eased it into this position with a lot of delicate bending.
Build a stand for the chiller coil, Using a little bit of aluminum angle bracket cut and bent by hand. If the coil inadvertently builds up ice, we don't want that extra weight stressing the copper tubing running back to the compressor. This should just help with some durability.
Assess the wiring situation. This was a manually controlled unit so it was fairly easy to retro fit with a digital controller (ITC-1000F from InkBird).
First, I removed the analog thermostat, and directly connected the control wire to the main 5 position switch to make sure this was going to work. By doing this, when the AC/FAN setting is switched on, the compressor will always run. This is the mode we want when we connect to the cold-side of our ITC, so the test seemed valid.
The two red wires are the controls: 1 runs to the compressor, the other to the High-Speed side of the fan. The white wire will not be used in our implementation, as that is intended for low-speed fan only.
Also worth noting, if you plug anything in to test-- that capacitor holds some juice when you unplug it, don't get willy-nilly with your screwdriver or fingers... or you'll get a nice little zap.
Next, I tied all my grounds together and added a 12ga wire tied to the body of the compressor and it's mounting stud. Easy way to maintain some level of safety afforded by the built in GFCI plug.
I used some crimp connectors and then simply screwed the group together incase I needed to expand later. Heat shrinked for good measure... Not totally necessary for the grounds.
Let's put the ITC-1000 in place: I simply traced out the hole with my square using the measurements directly off the temperature controller. This was pretty straight forward, a jig saw or Dremel and a decent file will make the job much easier.
Used the provided plastic attachment pieces to hold the unit once I got the fit correct.
I chose to mount the controller here because this area has a ton of open space once you remove the existing squirrel cage blower. All of our wiring will run to this point.
Finally, Move the capacitor and join the two red wires with some solder. These will both be switched by the cool-side of the ITC-1000. You need to run the neutral (black wire to one side, and the red wires to the other side of the Relay on the ITC).
I simply zip-tied the capacitor the fan-motor mount. Easy.
I also tied a few extra wires to both the hot and neutral using a wire nut for each. This allows us to distribute the power to our ITC-1000 controller, our Wave Maker, and The Relays to enable the fan and compressor. I used a few pieces of scrap copper and a large-gauge wirenut. A small zip tie helps hold these together so you get a positive engagement of the wirenuts.
I also added a few crimp on spades to allow me to attach the necessary hot and neutral wires to the existing capacitor for the compressor and fan, as well as for the lighted switch. Be sure to connect the fan to the right terminal on the capacitor, there are two different values (marked pretty clearly on my unit)
Install the Aquarium Wave-Maker. This is optional, but seemed like a good way to control my glycol bath temperature and improve heat transfer. I ran this to the lighted switch I installed next to my ITC-1000.
Attached to the inside of the bath using the suction cup, with a bit of silicone adhesive so I dont have it floating around in there half-way through a ferment.
While we're in here, why not make the wires neat and run the ITC's temperature sensor using those same mouting squares.
Finally, button it all back up and test it out:
Looks like it'll do the job. Total cost, 100 bucks and a day of fun in the shop. If you want to see it running, I've posted a youtube video of it here- 3 minutes of all of this goodness.
First, build the cart, to keep the whole unit together - Added some basic caster wheels to move it more easily when it's loaded up with liquid:
Then tear the lid off and see what we're dealing with - Bend the chiller coil outward, and vertical to pass it into the cooler body. Throw away the whole face plate, that's not getting reused here. Remove the squirrel cage blower from the front of the blower motor to make room for the cooler. Rear fan remains intact.
There's not much to say about bending the copper- it needs to be done slowly and carefully and preferably not while the unit is cold. I eased it into this position with a lot of delicate bending.
Build a stand for the chiller coil, Using a little bit of aluminum angle bracket cut and bent by hand. If the coil inadvertently builds up ice, we don't want that extra weight stressing the copper tubing running back to the compressor. This should just help with some durability.
Assess the wiring situation. This was a manually controlled unit so it was fairly easy to retro fit with a digital controller (ITC-1000F from InkBird).
First, I removed the analog thermostat, and directly connected the control wire to the main 5 position switch to make sure this was going to work. By doing this, when the AC/FAN setting is switched on, the compressor will always run. This is the mode we want when we connect to the cold-side of our ITC, so the test seemed valid.
The two red wires are the controls: 1 runs to the compressor, the other to the High-Speed side of the fan. The white wire will not be used in our implementation, as that is intended for low-speed fan only.
Also worth noting, if you plug anything in to test-- that capacitor holds some juice when you unplug it, don't get willy-nilly with your screwdriver or fingers... or you'll get a nice little zap.
Next, I tied all my grounds together and added a 12ga wire tied to the body of the compressor and it's mounting stud. Easy way to maintain some level of safety afforded by the built in GFCI plug.
I used some crimp connectors and then simply screwed the group together incase I needed to expand later. Heat shrinked for good measure... Not totally necessary for the grounds.
Let's put the ITC-1000 in place: I simply traced out the hole with my square using the measurements directly off the temperature controller. This was pretty straight forward, a jig saw or Dremel and a decent file will make the job much easier.
Used the provided plastic attachment pieces to hold the unit once I got the fit correct.
I chose to mount the controller here because this area has a ton of open space once you remove the existing squirrel cage blower. All of our wiring will run to this point.
Finally, Move the capacitor and join the two red wires with some solder. These will both be switched by the cool-side of the ITC-1000. You need to run the neutral (black wire to one side, and the red wires to the other side of the Relay on the ITC).
I simply zip-tied the capacitor the fan-motor mount. Easy.
I also tied a few extra wires to both the hot and neutral using a wire nut for each. This allows us to distribute the power to our ITC-1000 controller, our Wave Maker, and The Relays to enable the fan and compressor. I used a few pieces of scrap copper and a large-gauge wirenut. A small zip tie helps hold these together so you get a positive engagement of the wirenuts.
I also added a few crimp on spades to allow me to attach the necessary hot and neutral wires to the existing capacitor for the compressor and fan, as well as for the lighted switch. Be sure to connect the fan to the right terminal on the capacitor, there are two different values (marked pretty clearly on my unit)
Install the Aquarium Wave-Maker. This is optional, but seemed like a good way to control my glycol bath temperature and improve heat transfer. I ran this to the lighted switch I installed next to my ITC-1000.
Attached to the inside of the bath using the suction cup, with a bit of silicone adhesive so I dont have it floating around in there half-way through a ferment.
While we're in here, why not make the wires neat and run the ITC's temperature sensor using those same mouting squares.
Finally, button it all back up and test it out:
Looks like it'll do the job. Total cost, 100 bucks and a day of fun in the shop. If you want to see it running, I've posted a youtube video of it here- 3 minutes of all of this goodness.