It's possible but you need to circulate the water through the evaporator or you'll have a bad time.55 gallon plastic drums filled with water. $10 each around here. IBC totes, cage won't fit through the doors. Build interior walls in house thick/deep enough to load with 2 liter pop bottles filled with water. Phase change sheetrock is probably too expensive
Somebody needs to take a wall mount mini split, rotate it 90 degrees, remove the fan blade, immerse it in water. Use it to heat or cool water, a chiller. Zero idea as to if this is possible.
That's not the case with an evaporator coil. You're likely to freeze the water around it without flow. Even if you don't freeze it you'll likely under load the system such that the compressor is forced to slow down (or just shut off if it's single speed) to let the evap side catch up, assuming the system has appropriate sensors in place.Natural convection should disperse heat such that a pump isn’t needed.
No pumping needed for our 800 gallon Solartechnics thermal storage tank for DHW needs which is paired with our indoor wood boiler, tank temps range from 150-180f over the course of a fire in the boiler.
I’ve thought about pairing some thermal solar collectors, but the cost wasn’t there and just opted for a hybrid hot water heater, which works great as a basement dehumidifier.
Sure. On the surface this is of course true.Or the delta t of the water of isn’t large enough. Larger mass, greater Delta less freezing.
Same thing for heating, undersized the thermal storage tank or the coil and you’re return temps will spike and you won’t absorb the heat.
Neato!! H2O’s specific heat capacity per cost is so great! ?You're far better off just plumbing in an evaporator designed to pump water through it if you're going to rip the whole thing apart anyways.
You can then use that thing to chill a whole bank of drums down over the course of the day....
Or just buy an actual water chiller expressly designed for this purpose. Getting a 1 ton chiller running on solar can't be too difficult and they're already designed to work with your system of pipes and/or reservoir.
Anti-corrosive pure titanium evaporator for both fresh and salt water
I looked at chillers. Commonly used in bars for beer taps. None seemed to be very efficient especially for the price and none used inverter technology. Somebody needs to make a inverter technology reverse cycle chiller.It's possible but you need to circulate the water through the evaporator or you'll have a bad time.
You're far better off just plumbing in an evaporator designed to pump water through it if you're going to rip the whole thing apart anyways.
You can then use that thing to chill a whole bank of drums down over the course of the day....
Or just buy an actual water chiller expressly designed for this purpose. Getting a 1 ton chiller running on solar can't be too difficult and they're already designed to work with your system of pipes and/or reservoir.
I was fortunate enough to spec out a 40 ton unit (2x circuits for redundancy with 2x 10 ton compressors each circuit) about two years ago and it's been running like a top since.
We keep 550 gallons of water at 50F +/- 1F year round for production. But I digress.
But you can do the same thing with geothermal (in certain regions) just by pumping water down into the cool ground and back again in a closed loop without any phase change compressor system involved.
However, there are some rather important concerns which must be properly engineered when using geothermal to prevent fun things such as melting permafrost (if you're in such an area) and sinking your house. And this solution may not work well in every climate.
Yeah. I can believe that.I looked at chillers. Commonly used in bars for beer taps. None seemed to be very efficient especially for the price and none used inverter technology. Somebody needs to make a inverter technology reverse cycle chiller.
Just remember to keep that heat outside lolNeato!! H2O’s specific heat capacity per cost is so great! ?
This chiller device states 0.25 ton (3000BTU/hr) using 460W input power. Estimated CoP of 1.9. Suggested 40-90 gallons of water volume to cool. Suggested water flow rate 400-900 gallon / hour circulation.
I got one and plan on experimenting with using it as a daytime fixed load to cool down some insulated buckets of water.
Arduino monitoring temperature of multiple locations (evaporator box, ambient air, water evap inflow, water evap outflow, condenser, etc..) and N-channel MOSFET to switch pump(s) on and off.
At 460 W input from AC power I’ll have to eat the inverter losses and CoP of 1.9 is just okay. Thanks for sharing your experience!
the cool new thing on the block is fluid sinking air heat sinks so i was thinking of turning the compressor upside down to get thermal dissipation with the water ?jkJust remember to keep that heat outside lol
Keep in mind, the mini splits use variable speed compressors and condenser fans, so to get the mini operating on a water coil would require a variable speed water pump, compatible with the condenser controller, and the precise heat transfer of the air coil, adapted to water heat transfer characteristics… we HVAC pros don’t have that kind of skills… that would need a manufacturing engineer…Yeah. I can believe that.
If you really want one though I don't see why you can't just convert one to a water heat exchanger, assuming you are or know an hvac pro.