JOBO CPE-2 hack

[Coelus]

I bought a CPE-2 last week and now that it's here it got the gears a rolling on my head. I'm in Texas with summers a bit on the warm side, so not having the cooling system of the CPP may be an issue in a few months. I've read a few different ideas on other threads for cooling systems. I had a thought for a version of my own though.

I have a spare CPU liquid cooler. Pretty simply a pump and heat exchanger with hoses going to a radiator and fan. My thought is to simply drain the coolant from the system and route the bath water from the processor through it. Hopefully it will exchange fast enough to drop a little below developing temps and let the processors heater stabilize the whole thing. Thoughts?

The other thing I noticed is that there in no insulation around the water tank. It's just thin plastic. That doesn't seem very efficient to me. Would there be any issues you can think of if I made a foam base to set the processor in to insulate the bottom?

[Brian C. Miller]

You can just throw those freezer gel packs in there to keep the temperature down, and then let the heating element keep it constant. I've heard that it's recommended by Jobo, and I've tried it myself. Just put it into the deep end there, and it's fine.

[Coelus]

You can just throw those freezer gel packs in there to keep the temperature down, and then let the heating element keep it constant. I've heard that it's recommended by Jobo, and I've tried it myself. Just put it into the deep end there, and it's fine.

Well, there I go over thinking things again. Simple solutions are the best solutions.

[Peter Mounier]

I built an insulated box to drop my old CPP2 into. The only issues I ran into were more constant temperatures and lower electric bills.

Peter

[ic-racer]

I have a spare CPU liquid cooler. Pretty simply a pump and heat exchanger with hoses going to a radiator and fan. My thought is to simply drain the coolant from the system and route the bath water from the processor through it.

CPU coolers can't cool below ambient temp. Maybe if you put the radiator outside or underground.

[Brian C. Miller]

Actually, you'd have to build an evaporative cooling solution (swamp cooler) to get below ambient temp without going to Peltiers or Freon. My CPP-2 has a cold water inlet, and in the summer I hook it up to a fish pump in a bucket of ice water.

[Coelus]

Talked with a CE friend of mine yesterday. Another thought was to put the radiator end into the bath and attach the heat sink to the outside of a metal container of ice water. Heat sink would exchange the cold where it used to exchange the CPU heat, radiator would do the opposite of it's old job in the water. Main thinking on this is that the water may cause corrosion or gun up the inside of the tiny fluid paths in the cooler where the OEM coolant won't.

Of course I'll likely just try to the frozen gel packs in the water first before making the JOBO even more Rube Goldberg approved than they already are.

[Bob McCarthy]

Put a small baggy with 8-10 ice cubes in the tank. works great and no cost to boot.

I too live in the land of heat using a CPE. The lack of tank insulation is pretty meaningless unless your doing the processing outside in 105 deg., not inside at 75.

What makes it work for me is all liquids are the same temp. With b&w there are plenty of extra bottles for wash water.

Bob

[ic-racer]

Talked with a CE friend of mine yesterday. Another thought was to put the radiator end into the bath and attach the heat sink to the outside of a metal container of ice water. Heat sink would exchange the cold where it used to exchange the CPU heat, radiator would do the opposite of it's old job in the water. Main thinking on this is that the water may cause corrosion or gun up the inside of the tiny fluid paths in the cooler where the OEM coolant won't.

Of course I'll likely just try to the frozen gel packs in the water first before making the JOBO even more Rube Goldberg approved than they already are.

If you have cold water, just trickle it into the bath, the bath is your heat exchanger for the chemistry. You don't need a second heat exchanger in the circuit unless your cold water source is salt water or something like that . Yes, the CPP2 has a thermostatically controlled solenoid on the cold water, but it would work just fine if you just run a continuous stream of cold or appropriate temperature water into your bath. CPP2 has an overflow hose. Do you have that, if not you would have to make one.

[Brian C. Miller]

For my CPP-2, I use a fish pump in a bucket of ice water connected to the cold water inlet. No problems!