Problem With Chiller

[mike_danger]

Hi,

I have a jewel trigon 190 (190 litres) and about a month ago a bought one of the Hailea chillers off ebay (cheap £180 model from far east, thought I was gtting a bargain). Well it worked great for the a month but last night it went up the swany. Is making a loud noise and is red hot to touch. Also is not chilling the water anymore. I think the fan has gone as I can not feel any air being extracted from the unit.

I need to house the chiller in my cabinet (I have made large ventation holes), so I hope this didnt cause the chiller to go wrong? When I bought the Hailea chiller I told the seller this as I was worried of it overheating, the seller told me it would not get hot and be no hotter than a fridge. However it did, when the unit was operational it was very hot to touch and made the whole cabinet inside quite hot.

My tank gets up to about 30+ without a chiller, like I said the Hailea was working great as I manage to get it stable between 26-27 degrees.

So anyway I am now looking at buying one of the Teco Chillers...

Either the Micro Model
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Brand-New-Teco-Micro...1QQcmdZViewItem

Or the TR10
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Brand-New-Teco-TR-10...1QQcmdZViewItem

Any ideas on which on to get, and will I have the same problem with heat? I am really keen on getting another chiller (just abetter one) as it is the only method for keeping my tank at a nice temp.

Many thanks,

Michael

 

[SkiFletch]

You get what you pay for huh? . Chillers by their nature get very hot because they are heat pumps... Due to the laws of Thermodynamics (especially the 1st law) a chiller cannot remove heat from your tank without putting it somewhere else. If you want to remove 100watts of heat from your tank you have to put 100 watts of heat somewhere else. 99% of the time chillers use a radiative evaporator to heat sink to the air around the chiller. Hence your fridge makes your kitchen just a bit warmer. Same principle, removing heat from the fridge and putting it to the air around it.

Having a chiller in a small closed box with no active ventillation is a BAD idea IMO. I'm not sure whether that was all or part of the reason for your former chiller's failure, but I'm sure it factored in. Without enough air to heat-sink to, the chiller can quickly overheat and many problems will ensue. Dont get the "mini" model. It uses thermoelectric (TEC) modules which are very inefficient as chilling solutions for water. A TEC is probably only 40% efficient at best as a chiller under normal conditions where a compressor chiller (like the larger model) is closer to 70-80% efficient. Also the thermal capacity of the mini is too low. But you'll need to make SURE that the compartment where you install the chiller is actively cooled with fans to prevent overheating in the future. Cutting vent holes with no fans isnt good enough in a stagnant household. Fans are needed.

 

[mike_danger]

Cheers for your help,

The seller of the original chiller wont givem e a refund even though it went wrong after a month! however he has taken it back to have a look at. So no new chiller for me

When I get it back i will set up a fan in there, sounds like good idea. But worried abouit how much electric it will use, this tank is making my bills go up and up!!! lol

Michael

 

[N1z]

tbh my tank has survived one heck of a heatwave! temps went into the 32s! no joke all fine though. But ever since i took off the lid the temp is always lower then 27 deg.

 

[mike_danger]

Hey,

Just been looking on ebay at the Habistat cool temp control. I could set that up in my cabinet so when the chiller came on and started pumping out hot air, the fans would kick in

Me thinks I have a plan!!

It helps if I take the lids off, but how much water do you use a month for top ups? With the chiller my water was cool and no evaporation

 

[N1z]

sounds nice, urm well tbh im not botherd by it cos i have to cos of my lights where before i had naf lights and a hot tank, which would u choose? Plus i have my own RO unit so its hardly a pain to produce it.

 

[mike_danger]

Hi,

No sorry it was a genuine question, as im interested in my options. Not sure how much water I would need ot buy if i went open top.

 

[SkiFletch]

While clowns and tangs are not necessarily jumpers, I'm not a fan of going completely topless... What if one of them gets spooked and goes carpet surfing?

A single smaller fan (120mm) should be all you need to cool the compartment, and those only chew up like 10watts. Nothing to worry about

 

[mike_danger]

Hey Skifletch,

Yeah I am not keen on it either, coz of loss of water and the whole jumping thing.

I really like the idea of this habistat cool control, as the cabinet is not always hot only when the chiller starts up to chill. At this point (as you know) the chiller chucks out loads of hot air. So the habistat would detect this and start the fan up. Just saves running the fan 24/7!

I just hope this will be the solution as I don't want another broken chiller! I may even set up two small fans in there just to be double sure!

 

[SkiFletch]

It'll work for sure, but its a little overkill IMO. A 10watt fan is only going to cost you pennies to operate, but if thats the way you want to go, then do it

 

[mike_danger]

LOL, I love the overkill comment.

Made me laugh as you seem to know me well alraedy!

Will take a pic when its all set up and let you know how its going.

 

[SkiFletch]

Cool, cant wait. Like I should talk about overkill. When you get to see pics of my completed hood you'll see some real over-engineering

 

[mike_danger]

Hey,

As promised here is a pic of chiller and fan set up...

I finally got it set up on the weekend and it is working like a dream. Although the weather has suddenly dropped here so I can see myself packing it away soon for the winter. Any advice for storage over the winter, should I give it a clean out?


Michael

 

[SkiFletch]

When it becomes truly un-necessary for the winter, go ahead and pull it off your system. I'd store it in a cool-dark place and remove all saltwater from the unit. Might be a good idea to flush it with tapwater for 30 mins or so before storing it for the winter just to keep the heat exchanger in top-notch condition

 

[mike_danger]

When it becomes truly un-necessary for the winter, go ahead and pull it off your system. I'd store it in a cool-dark place and remove all saltwater from the unit. Might be a good idea to flush it with tapwater for 30 mins or so before storing it for the winter just to keep the heat exchanger in top-notch condition

Thanks for that, will leave it another week and will store it up the loft.

Michael