Postby Cincy » Sat Jan 11, 2014 5:07 pm
I am contemplating building my own DIY refrigeration system. We live In southern Ohio so the weather is not ideal for an outdoor rink, a few weeks ago when I saw the forecast I jumped on the opportunity to build my first quick and easy rink. After a few days of skating it's now turning back to a pond, but it was so much fun that we're trying to figure out how to make it last all winter.
As a test we disassembled an old window air conditioner unit and dumped the cold side heat exchanger into a cooler of water (10 gallons @ 53 deg F to start). We were able to get the water down to about 34 F in a few hours before we turned it off. Huge chunk of ice on the cold side heat exchanger. We figured that it you were actually using an antifreeze solution (sounds like probably propylene glycol would be the best bet) you could get the water/antifreeze mixture as cold as you would need.
Now its just a matter of getting a pump and the tubing. I was wondering if it would work to use drip tubing that they sell at hardware stores? It seems to be about half as expensive as the PEX stuff, but looks like it might have a bit lower thermal conductivity. If its not too much worse I wouldn't mind using that at half the cost. Does anyone know what the mesh/tubing density of professional rinks is?
The good thing about this setup would be you could just add cooling power to the system as you pick up $40 used AC units on craigslist. The tubing seems like it will be the most expensive part.
Anyone have any thoughts or insights? Depending on if I get a pump or not I could try this idea for real.