Cooling Conundrum

[SundeWCitY]

I have been going insane lately from thinking of a way to cool my terrarium. as of now i have a mini fridge set up with a coil inside and the hose is attatched to a water pump and then to a radiator with a fan, however i can not get the water temp cold enough to make a difference in the tank. and i am sure a mini freezer would work better however canada does not have them to my knowledge. I read about peltier cooling, i have found some units on ebay and they are quite reasonably priced, I was curious how i could make one work for a mini airconditioner in my tank. I have read that the Thermoelectric Peltier Cooler run on 12V that is my first problem, the second is how would the whole thing be assembled to work. I have a 4" fan that runs on 120V and is powerful yet quiet. perhaps if i put a heat sink from computer modules attatched to the fan and the Thermoelectric Peltier Cooler on the fan the heat side would be absorbed by the heat sink and the cool side would blow cold air into my tank? perhaps i am just going slightly insane over the matter but i honestly just dont have $400 for an aquarim chiller , and i think i am on to something i just need some advice on how to get the idea in motion. Please let mr know what you think. thanks for the help! perhaps someone out there is using this type of system!?

[Martin Hingst]

Hi,

there is a reason why people pay 400$ for aquarium chillers and not just 30$ for a Peltier element...I would forget about that. I have tried it with a 45Watt Peltier Element, without any real effect. I would say you would need at least a 200Watt - better 300Watt Peltier Element, and then you come close to prices of a compressor.

There once was a Peltier cooled aquarium chiller on the market, I think it was 300W, and it also did cost more than 300 Euro. But as it looks the manufacturer has stopped this model - I have an idea why

If you want to save some money, buy an old freezer and refil the cooling system. Or buy a used compressor flow cooler on ebay. They are used in beer coolers or things like that. I have seen offers around 100€ already.

Good luck

Martin

[SundeWCitY]

hello martin the peltier element i got was 540Watts . 12V and 30 amps, i have a feeling it will work, and its gonna kill me wondering if it will or not. I got all the parts together for $90 but my next problem is finding a power converter for 120V to 12VDC and 30Amps , i have a funny feeling that its going to be a lot of money for that... argh , yeah honestly ive got all the equipment for a water cooled radiator, so im just going to drive down to the states this weekend and get a small freezer. but since i all ready bought the peltier i am going to try see what i can do with it, but i still will get a freezer, but then theoretically a chiller would of cost the same:( haha its quite annoying lol , anyways ill post how the peltier thing goes, all i really need is a power converter at this point . and i think i need to get a smaller radiator for my terrarium because the air cant really get through it, maybe i need a bigger fan too.. the list goes on! thanks for your input! greatly appreciated !

[SundeWCitY]

as i have given up on the peltier idea , i now have went out and purchased 50' of bendable copper tubing and made a massive coil and i am in the process of getting the fittings to fit the aluminum coil to my new copper tubing, it is then going to be placed in a bucket and filled with water to freeze into a solid block of ice. And this time i am planning to use 100% antifreeze in the line as even 50/50 mix of water and antifreeze still froze and almost blew another water pump.. so now i just have to wait to get a few more fittings and everything should be a go . the prevous system seemed to cool the tank to 19 degrees at night no problem and keep it 23 in the day, so we shall see how a longer coil will effect the cooling capacity of the system, i feel one fault of the previous setup was that the water was moving too fast in too small of a coil to have an effective rate of cooling. so with the longer coils and freezing all of the tubing i hope i can get my tank down to 15 that is my goal... we shall see. i will update this once it is all going .