Im looking at chillers because I really like the idea of a closed looped system as well as having an inline temperature gauge and flow alarm built in. You can pick up CW-3000 chillers for about $125 these days. Though the one problem I see is that their inlet/outlet nipples are all 10 mm which is .39” Of course the ID of the tubing we use on water cooled spindles are 1/4” . I’d rather not go through the hassle of trying to change out the fittings on the back of the chiller (finding the metric thread size and smaller nipple size would probably be a nightmare) Obviously people are getting around this as chillers are being used on water cooled spindles every day. I did buy superthane tubing which is pretty flexible. I could probably stretch that over the nipples but if I couldn’t Id be going down the path I really didn’t want to go down by finding replacement hose end nipples. Curious as to what those that are using chillers experience has been
Here’s a photo of mine. I went to Lowe’s and got adapters from 10mm to 1/4” with some short pvc tube.
awesome.. ill look into that!
For the fitting side of this question, I’ve had luck warming up the tube with a heat gun and stretching it over the fitting, or using silicone tubing + band clamps or zip ties. It’s a pretty minor issue in the long run.
One thing to note is that the CW3000, while it is a great water loop, it’s not technically a chiller, as there is no refrigeration circuit. It’s just a radiator, reservoir, pump and fans. For closed loop water temperature control (like is very valuable for laser operation, and precision spindles) you would need to step up to the S&A CW-5000 or CW-5200 series. All in you can get one of those units to your door for ~950CAD/$717USD at the current moment.
The CW5202DH is what I recently ordered via Cloudray for my Altmill, and that particular model hits a sweet feature set by being 120V, 60Hz, but also having two water loops that can be run separately for two different spindles (I have multiple routers, so this saves me having a separate chiller for each machine!)
-Colin
Good info. I knew the CS-3000 was not technically a chiller. They really should come up with a better name for it. Closed loop radiator system or something. I know you don’t want to get your spindle cooler than ambient air either as that will invite condensation issues. A bucket of water and a pond pump work for the majority of people. I really just wanted a closed system that would be hard to get debris inside the liquid and one that would sound an alarm if the flows stops working. These inexpensive chiller (radiators and fans) seem to foot the bill for me. If my cnc was running day and night I could see investing in a real chiller system but you do need to pay close attention to the temperature of the fluid to keep it a few degrees above ambient.