Tig watercooler

[Maker]

I'm looking to make a water cooler and as I understand, procon pumps are the best thing to use, only problem is I don't know where to get one. I found this place but there's no description. It needs to be about 1 Litre per minute at 50 psi max so does anyone know of a suitable alternative or where to get the real thing. or should I get it from there. And how do you mount them? And what size motor is needed?
I'm planing on making a heat exchanger type of thing form small copper tubing in front of a fan. And should the fan be something like this or should it run from a pulley on the pump motor?

 

[Rig Pig]

An old car heater matrix would save a lot of work! I would be surprised if you needed 50psi in a cooling system, volume is more important for removing heat, a centrifugal pump (pond pump?) would probably work well.

 

[FranV8]

http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/diy-tig-cooler.35721/

 

[Ed.]

A few years ago I made one for myself, I also looked at the Procon pumps as they were ideal, however I couldn't find any at a reasonable price, they have them in a lot of machines such as coffee machines and a lot of pub machines as well. I rang the Australian distributor/agent who gave me a bit of a run down on them, they do have a pressure relief valve on them but it is not designed to be used continuously to reduce the high pressure, they do have a model that would be ideal but it was several hundred of dollars with motor. Tig torches generally can take up to about 50-70 PSI Max, but more than that you risk blowing the lines inside it as they are quite narrow which also restricts the water flow.

The pond pumbs usually have a lot of volume but hardly any pressure to go through the narrow tubes with sufficient volume, the torch requires about 2-4l/minute flow. Having said that, there have been quite a few members on various forums who have used them successfully, I don't know if they lasted or not.

When I made mine, I used a old aircon radiator and fan for the heat dispersal and I tigged up a 16L holding tank out of aluminium sheet, used a high pressure low volume water pump and used a bypass ball valve to let the excess water flow back to the tank. I run mine on 26PSI and it puts 3.6l/m flow through the touch, after running mine on 130A-240A for several hours the water temp was about 2 degrees above ambiant. The link to the post I put up is http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/home-made-tig-cooler.26665/ in case you are interested which explains it more in detail.

I made mine much bigger and more complicated than I needed it at the time but was intending to run it also on my big MIG (although I never got around to getting a water cooled MIG torch). Total cost of materials was about $100 including all the fittings, but not including the radiator + fan and aluminium sheet for the holding tank and case, as I had those already. There are heaps of different ways of making one for not much cash.

Cheers

Ed.

 

[Maker]

Thanks for the help everyone, I've got more questions though: firstly, when you remove the torch from the cooler, how do you drain the coolant from the torch? And secondly, I'm also going to make a foot pedal and I'm wondering if I need some kind of HF shielded cable and if anyone could recommend the right stuff (needs to be 3 core)?

 

[Maker]

Think I just answered my own question, SY cable looks to be perfect.

 

[Robotstar5]

Think I just answered my own question, SY cable looks to be perfect.

SY cable has braiding for mechanical protection, for electrical screening look at CY cable

 

[Maker]

I thought the braiding in the SY might act as a kind of faraday cage. Would CY have any mechanical protection and also, how flexible are they both.

 

[Maker]

It's looking like I can't get CY without getting 50 meters of it, where as SY is available per meter.

 

[Robotstar5]

SY will be better than nothing but the gaps in the braid lattice could allow interference through, don't forget to make sure it has a good connection the metal case.

 

[Maker]

OK, thanks for your help.

 

[MrFluffy]

Another option if someone is considering it, a whale pump from a motorhome/caravan. I hitched up one to a 12v bike battery and mounted it & a 25l plastic jerrycan in a steel jerrycan frame. That way no electrical connection to the welding set, I just flick the on switch on it and it runs, as mines 3 phase I didn't fancy mixing the two. I have a car heater matrix, but in reality the 25l of water is enough to keep the torch useable at the average power levels I'm using so I've never fitted it inline.
My tig set has water connectors on the unit itself with self closing fittings like pcl fittings but smaller, not sure which standard they are as the matching tails came with the set in the box, so I leave the water side of the torch connected permanently and can snap the cooler off and on at will when I need it.

 

[Maker]

I was planning on making a roughly 5 litre stainless tank (mostly to test my skills) and also putting everything of plastic/rubber stand-off type things. And as for the foot pedal, I've sourced all the pieces, and I'm working out where to make the pivot in relation to my foot to be the most comfortable and also how to make the 30ish degree movement of the pedal turn the 270ish degree motion of a potentiometer.