New Anodizer-Tank Set Up Question

[sswee]

I'm running a 50/50 average. 2 that just tingled and 2 that hit hard enough to blow the GFIC. I was happy to see them change to TI.
SS

[BDForgan]

Thanks guys for all of the advise. I mixed up my tanks tonight except for the anodizng tank. I've got to test some different ideas on how to keep the thing at 68/70°. I used to have a 200 and 50 gal. saltwater reef tank. The big tank had an inline chiller that cost 900 bucks. It worked perfectly – but my electric bill went up from $75/month to $950/month. Of course, I had probably 10,000 watts running on the thing with all of the metal halide lights, pumps, filters, skimmers, CO2, electronic monitoring, etc.

The little $200/$400 heat sink chillers you see advertised in the fish tank industy stink. They'd have a hard time keeping the little Siamese Fighting Fish glass bowls sold at Wal•mart at 70° much less 5 gal. The heat sinks would have to be 10 times the size to work, which is no different than what I've seen some of you doing with the radiator PVC pipe setups

My operation will be 1 or 2 items a month if I'm lucky to get away from my design studio. I guess I will try some type of cooler to set the Ano tank in with the plastic blue ice packs.

I did purchase an external 8 plug CGFI power strip. I shocked myself one time with a pump in a small outdoor pond.

B

[luminous]

Originally Posted by BDForgan

The little $200/$400 heat sink chillers you see advertised in the fish tank industy stink. They'd have a hard time keeping the little Siamese Fighting Fish glass bowls sold at Wal•mart at 70° much less 5 gal. The heat sinks would have to be 10 times the size to work, which is no different than what I've seen some of you doing with the radiator PVC pipe setups

Actually, I've had great luck with the PVC pipe chiller method...
I used about 30' of 3/4" PVC pipe and a bunch of elbows to make a chiller coil that's submerged in a 55 gallon plastic barrel of water. Acid gets pumped through it from my 20 gallon tank. I keep a trickle of cool spring water running through the barrel to keep it cool, and the spent cooling water goes down the hill to water my pear trees.
With an inside shop temperature of 90F, and a starting acid temp of 80F, I can turn the chiller on and get the tank temp down to the mid 60's in less than 1/2 hour (with no anode current). With 10 amps or so of anodizing current, I can maintain 70F indefinately as long as the shop doesn't get much over 90F. It's not as sexy as a fancy titanium chiller, but it seems quite adequate for my purpose and the price was certainly right...

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[acidrain]

Luminous's method works well for small tanks.
HVAC uses a window-mount type AC unit blowing into a box that contains the ano tank. I think his tank is around 20 gal too, and that method works well.
I've heard bad results from the heat-sink type chillers. Personally, I use a 1/4hp titanium core chiller. I've calculated it to chill approx 1500 watts. It barely has enough poop to keep my 50gal tank with 20 amps going through it at temp (I'm in Seattle, and temps are fair).
Looking back, I should have gone with the AC unit... I even had a spare.

[destroyer125]

Has anyone looked into how industrial places cool their tanks? Id imagine they use some type of industrial chiller, but it may be worth the time to check?

[dedalus]

Don't worry about fumes from a seal tank. There aren't any.

An old customer of mine whose anodizing tanks I maintained ran water through stainless steel coils in the tank, that was then circulated through an outside chiller. The water cascaded over a series of flow spoilers in the open air to cool it.

Iwas always after them to install more cooling capacity. The hotter it gets, the more aluminium dissolves; the more aluminium dissolves, the higher the voltage; the higher the voltage, the hotter it gets...