I have to say, one of the upgrades is working really nice, it was expensive, more than the cost of the laser, but it is great not having to worry about having ice.
Nice but pricy.
We should once and for all create a maker build of one of these!
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Are you thinking of repurposing an old dehumidifier?
I don’t think that would cool for what we need.
Ideally we need to lower from an ambient of 100F to about 60F.
That will take some kind of refrigeration…
The unit @PrintinAddiction has is an actual refrigerator.
I am guessing that a small refrigerator is the place to start. I think they go on sale for $70.
I also think that I have seen hacks like this.
Well, that’s what a dehumidifier is. It just has an evaporator coil that might be easier to couple to a cold water coil than the one in a refrigerator.
Are you saying a dehumidifier is a refrigerator…not???
A big coil that circulates the laser coolant inside a refrigerator might work , I think that is the hack I was thinking of.
The other method is using Peltier modules but I be that ends up as expensive as the LO unit by the time you have enough modules and power supplies.
Take it easy! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that you don’t know how dehumidifiers work.
A refrigerator just has to keep a well-insulated space slightly cool, so small refrigerators are very low-power. A dehumidifier has to keep evaporator coils cold without that insulated space, and so tends to be more powerful. I know that you live in a dry climate and probably don’t need them at all, but in moist climates, a problem can be if they are run when the air is damp but cool (say, moist basements in northern winter) that the evaporator coils turn into blocks of ice. They often have warnings not to use them below a certain temperature for that reason, or have thermostats preventing them from running below that critical temperature.
If, instead of blowing room air across the evaporator coil, you thermally couple a water line to the entire evaporator coil, I would expect it to be more powerful a cooler than running a water line through a fridge. You could do that by physically coupling it, or submersing it in a thermal transfer bath; I can imagine multiple ways to do it.
Probably discarded dehumidifiers are less common in your climate than in moister climates. Unless people move with them and then don’t know what to do with them once they get there? But $50-$75 isn’t unusual for a working unit around here, and ones with bad humidistats that you want to override anyway for this hack are probably free.
I am always "taking it easy" but apparently not easy enough, sorry if my challenge to your assertion was viewed as to direct.
No, I did not realize that dehumidifiers used a refrigerant. If had not challenged your assertion I would not have learned that they do. Now I do… thanks.
Anyway, thinking through this again, I always get back to my end point and that is I do not want another big unit taking up space next to my laser. Guess the bucket with cooling blocks is just to efficient.
For a K40 the ice bucket will usually be enough , especially for short jobs. However if you start using it for hours a day, you may want to consider some type of refrigerated chiller.
Wow, I didn’t mean to start a war, for me the chiller is nice because it allows me more time running the laser. Before, I had to stop once the ice melted, this allow me to go as long as I want. Yes, it was an expensive purchase…
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Hi Michael, would you have a pointer to some of these ways of thermo coupling the cooling pipe. Seems a feasible solution for my K40. Dehumidifiers are easy to get from a local second hand shop I help with. Thanks.
I bought a (slightly larger) Q800 so it’s all theoretical on my side.
At the time, I was probably thinking of something like bending a length of copper pipe to track the coil and doing something like using zip ties to hold it. However, that’s probably a bad idea because of corrosion from dissimilar metals. And aluminum as I think is often used for dehumidifier coils is tricky. As far as I know, they make coils of it by annealing it, and it work-hardens quickly.
Dehumidifiers are designed for a single air path for both evaporator and condenser coils, and the tubing wasn’t really meant to be bent into a different shape.
- Because aluminum work-hardens, it would be easy while bending the tubing to create small cracks that let out the refrigerant, at which point you have a pile of spare parts I guess.
- If you submerge the evaporator coil in water, you block airflow to the condenser coil.
In any case, you would also have to hack the controls, I would think.
So I think it would definitely take some experimentation, and you would want a temperature alarm to protect the laser tube in case the experiment wasn’t working.
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