I drew my plans together and presented them to the missus....Thats not going in my house
Hmm....if I couldn't have one like that what could I do....hmmmm
There is a cupboard under the stairs that houses 3 seats from my people carrier, and 2 demi's....eureka
:rolleyes: Seats back in the car and new plans. As I don't need an entire chiller, just a chiller unit would do....of to the shops. Now I had bought a thermostat kit from Maplins along with a fan. I was up ti'll 2 am on Saturday, soldering. Could I get the fan to work...
. The switch was working but the fan was'nt....b***ocks to this, time for bed Woke up Sunday, went to Wickes, central heating thermostat purchased for £9.99 jobs a gooden.
B+Q 4 sheets of 1200mm x 450mm x 55mm poly boards for £10.49.
Liquid nails £5.49
Maplin fan 120mm for £6.89
Note:- You can make this any size you want to. I chose the height to fit 2ltr bottles and the width to suit my cupboard.
Polyboard cut to size and glued together with Liquid Nails.
Sealed the interior joints with liquid nails. This is important as it doesn't allow air to leak into the unit, other than via the air intake. It also doesn't allow condensation from the ice bottles to leak out of the unit.
Note the central divider has a gap at the bottom.
Coolant in the shape of 5, frozen, 2ltr pop bottles (for illustration only)
These bottles will be replaced with deep frozen, water filled, pop bottles prior to use.
I will be putting a towel under the bottles to absorb the condensation.
Working out where to put the thermostat, fan and air intake
Roughly the finished item
Air is drawn into the 1st chamber through the air intake top left. The air is then drawn down the 1st chamber past the 3 frozen bottles. The air is then drawn under the center partition into the 2nd chamber containing the 2 frozen bottles. The air is drawn upwards toward the fan and is then expelled into the cupboard.
My chiller unit is powered by a 12v leisure battery that lives in the cupboard with the chiller unit.
The fan is quite powerful and creates a suction seal with the lid. You can hear the fans output diminish as it forms the seal so I had to widen the intake after the photo was taken.
This is basically the Ken Schwartz design modified so as not to house the fermentor. The unit is chilling the cupboard which it is placed in.
It should be able to maintain a temperature difference of up to 17 deg c below ambient, which is more than adequate for most British summers!
If a yeast performs best at 18 - 20 deg c you'd be o.k with an ambient of up to 37 deg c, though it would be pushing it.
It was great fun watching millions of polyballs being extruded from iside the coolant chamber on initial start up.
Next I have to seal the cupboard door and then were off :pink
I no longer have to fear the scorching Mancunian summers
Nb, Even during the high 30's a few weeks ago the cuboard would maintain a temp of 20 deg c with just 2 ice blocks so this baby shouldn't have any problems.
(storage would be a bit of a problem though!)