basementdwell
New Member
ok just want to get the thread started but i am sure it gonna take me a couple day to get all the info written but i got pics to start. Well first out i ll tell u growing in pa out doors aint worth it so have to move inside. Well i decided to go hydro as i have had a couple out door and indoor soil grows and i wanted a change. So i chose to do a r-dwc in a 5 gal buckets. My ambient temp has been 74 with ac and about 75 in the bucket . Well as u know the higher the h20 temp the less dissolved O2 there is so i remembered that when we would go trout fishing the h20 hits 78 and their floating so i figured i got to do something as i have to move my grow to a non ac closet. SO on my home friday after looking all over the net to find a small h20 chiller and the best price was 160$. So i am driving home little discouraged i see a neighbor has a water cooler sitting at the end of the drive as if he was getting rid of it or about to have yard sale so thinking stop load it and do ask any ?s, Naa i walked up and 
, just wanted to know R u selling that or giving it away ? " sure take it " 
so i get home and start demolition to see if it works and so on. Well i come to find it has cool and heat and u use to be able to select between cold and room temp and the selector was inoperative , I assume thats why they were getting rid of it, well my gain as all i want is ac possibly heat in the winter.
ok here it is a little mod done to remove the cup and nozzle area.
and here is my b4 chiller temps
i removed the upper portion of the coolers resv i wasnt plannig to use it with a bottle. Also you can see the hard pvc tubing is wraped directly on the ac coil and duct taped in place
Next we have the inner resv coiled. I used 50' in all the coiling and taped in place
This is a pic of the wraped coil and the coolers insulation kinda dont fit like it did b4 but its keeping so of the coolness in
this is a pic of the disconected heat thermocouple. I am not using the heat function right now so i didnt want the cooler heating the element so i unpluged it and actually removed the thermocouple and spliced so extra wire into it and am using it as the cool side thermo and put it directly into my bucket to get the temp reading of the bucket vs the resv. the cooler is pretty smart and lets u set a cool temp setting so i raised it to the top which is 50 a tad cooler the i like but i plan to add my own thermostat which will cycle my pump as its needed.
Next we have my present bucket resv chilled to 66 after 2 hr of consistant resv pump running not to bad seeing we started at 75 =)
this is the actuall out let tem. at start the 75 deg water went in around the coil and came out 60 deg i am very impressed
All done and set to chill my water
, just wanted to know R u selling that or giving it away ? " sure take it " so i get home and start demolition to see if it works and so on. Well i come to find it has cool and heat and u use to be able to select between cold and room temp and the selector was inoperative , I assume thats why they were getting rid of it, well my gain as all i want is ac possibly heat in the winter.
ok here it is a little mod done to remove the cup and nozzle area.
and here is my b4 chiller temps
i removed the upper portion of the coolers resv i wasnt plannig to use it with a bottle. Also you can see the hard pvc tubing is wraped directly on the ac coil and duct taped in place
Next we have the inner resv coiled. I used 50' in all the coiling and taped in place
This is a pic of the wraped coil and the coolers insulation kinda dont fit like it did b4 but its keeping so of the coolness in
this is a pic of the disconected heat thermocouple. I am not using the heat function right now so i didnt want the cooler heating the element so i unpluged it and actually removed the thermocouple and spliced so extra wire into it and am using it as the cool side thermo and put it directly into my bucket to get the temp reading of the bucket vs the resv. the cooler is pretty smart and lets u set a cool temp setting so i raised it to the top which is 50 a tad cooler the i like but i plan to add my own thermostat which will cycle my pump as its needed.
Next we have my present bucket resv chilled to 66 after 2 hr of consistant resv pump running not to bad seeing we started at 75 =)
this is the actuall out let tem. at start the 75 deg water went in around the coil and came out 60 deg i am very impressed
All done and set to chill my water
what a relief the dry ice was 99c lb and the bricks are around 10lbs. so it was getting costly. along with the ice and r/o water. any how i change from the 160gph pump in the cooler to a 225gph and since its pumping through 1/4 line its not great pressure but it doesnt ever freeze and keeps the cooler at around 55-60 the bucket pumps are the same 225gph pumps and they have about 20' of tubing in the cooler so i can get the bucket to a comfy 68-70 even with lights on the chiller does create a bit of heat but i seem to be doing great with it. cant wait to get this harvest under my belt and do some minor modification to my closet and get my ac unit in there and then i will be rocking. I also plan to move the chiller unit out of the closet into a chamber with the ac, so i can pump the heat up and out with out heating my closet.
i ve tried several time to pm the mod but to no response so i ve reregistered again. ok so i will get some better pics with a good camera.
