what makes water coolers for TIG torches so expensive? is it not just a pump, fan, heat exchanger (radiator), and reservoir? or do they have some kind of refrigeration? Seems like you could build one yourself that accomplished the same thing for a fraction of the price.
Maybe I'm way off, but I'm new to the TIG world and just kind of free thinking

 

You're right in your thinking. There's somebody even selling plans on ebay to make a cooler out of a small radiator, fan and a 5 gallon bucket.

 

Many of the older water coolers were just tanks that held about 10 gallons of water with a pump that just recirculated it. You would have to do allot of welding for this not to work. My syncrowave 300 sits on a miller cooler just like that. It has no fan or cooling core.

Get a small tank or even a fuel cell and an rv water pump ( you may need a transformer 120v to 12v) or something small about 2-4 gal min and able to make about 50 psi.

There was a fella selling some inexpensive units on ebay but they did normally go for somewhere around 275 or so although I did see one go for under 200

 

Ive been thinking about making my own also... but dont have much free time to do so. Plans now are to just wait for a sweet deal on one. Ive just been running water from a faucet(that we otherwise never use) to the machine and then a hose out the bay door.

 

i would think you could do this similar to a watercooling setup wiht a computer. for that, we use large aquarium pumps, radiators, fans, and some will use a resiviour for filling, other use a T-fitting. typical setups cost about $150, but that inculdes water blocks, which you have no use for since you're not doing this with a computer.

the pumps we use are usually something like these: http://www.eheim.com/technik_pumpen.htm . i'm not sure how well they would hold up with that much heat, but i'd imagine that they could very well do it.

if you don't want to use an aquarium/fountain pump, you could use a small well pump or a large bilge pump. don't expect the bilge pump to last a long time, but it's workable. a small well pump shouldn't cost much at all to buy used, or even new if you can get one on sale. an irrigation or fire sprinkler pump would probably do well, too.

so, how much heat will this have to handle? i'm sure you can make a small self-contained unit for cheap if you know much about plumbing.

 

I would not use an aquarium pump as most will not generate much pressure. You have avery small hose that is at least 12.5ft long mine are all 25ft and it will take some pressure to get the water to flow trough the hose and depending of the change in height the water may need to bew pushed up to the torch head . You need to think about the fact that the pump needs to push the water each way so that's 25 to 50 ft. The oither thing is if there is anything laying on the hose or if it even tries to kink you will burn up the torch cable. Like I said you don't need a fan or cooling core a simple tank of water with a pump will work. I have welded cylinder heads and aluminum blocks and never had any trouble with the miller cooler under my syncrowave300 and it's a simple water reservoir with a pump.

 

yeah i dont think an aquarium pump would work. they are not designed to pump through long tubes like that.
I was doing a little reading and came across someone that said you need 40-60psi through the torch. is that true? Seems like a fuel pump would do the trick there. Just need to find a way to power it.
For the radiator you could use a heater core. You can get a nice size core for like $20 pretty easily. Then throw a couple computer fans on the heater core for some extra cooling.
For the reservoir you could use a 5 gal bucket like Engloid was talking about. Or you could fab up something out of stainless.

Seems like you could build a nice working cooler for under $100

 

i put that up as an example. there are several people running dually boards with a cooled northbridge, cooled southbridge, and cooled videocards with those eheim pumps. looking at the pressre loss over 5 water blocks and 10-15 feet of hose, along with a good sized radiator, and you're probably looking at about the pressure you'd see here.

i think the downfall would lay in the fact that the aquarium pumps aren't meant to handle heat.

2OH, i'm sure you can come up with a pump somewhere. irrigation and well pumps look the most appealing to me.

 

Here is my welder on home made cart, with home made cooler for 250 amp torch. All specs are on the pictures.

Any questions, just ask.

 

I have an old airco that has a little check valve that opens when the post flow/pedal is going. Since there was/is no pump, I just made a resevoir that sits on the wall above the welder(well secured) with a line coming from the bottom...so it is just a syphon feed. Doesn't work as well as the pump, but keeps the torch manageable.

 

Unless you do a lot of heavy welding, I wouldn't even bother with the fan or radiator. Give it a try without, you can always add it later.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Vanilla Sky &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i put that up as an example. there are several people running dually boards with a cooled northbridge, cooled southbridge, and cooled videocards with those eheim pumps. looking at the pressre loss over 5 water blocks and 10-15 feet of hose, along with a good sized radiator, and you're probably looking at about the pressure you'd see here..</TD></TR></TABLE>

That's fine for a couple hundred watts of PC power, but how about 10,000 watts of welding heat? I'd go for more flow.

 

Where can you purchase the female fittings for the regulator and water line hose? If I'm right, they're UNC 5/8"- 18 UNC fittings?

I just picked up a water cooled tig torch yesterday and I need to hook up the water lines to a homemade water cooler (planning to build similar to BigMoose's) and I also need a female to female coupler for the gas supply. The fittings are all the same as your normal gas hose that comes with the current mig and tig machines, except I would need the female versioon of them.


Modified by 91TSiGuy at 12:00 PM 12/20/2005

 

For more clarity, here's a pic
http://www.diamondstarmotorspo...l.jpg

 

so if one didn't care about wasting water, you could just hook the inlet to a cold water supply, then dump the oulet down the drain?

 

If you check the pumps being used on commercial welding water coolers you will notice that they run at a pressure of about 55 psi, so they pump pretty hard. I tried a pond pump but it simply doesn't have enough flow on a 25' torch assembly. If you lift the tig torch much higher than the pond/aquarium pump it simply stops flowing at all.
Regards Andrew.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Eddiebx &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">so if one didn't care about wasting water, you could just hook the inlet to a cold water supply, then dump the oulet down the drain?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes, I did that for a couple of weeks until I built the stand and cooler.

 

BigMoose, if you don't mind me asking, where did you get the female connectors for your hose ends? I searched McMaster and didn't seem to find the right pieces I was looking for. I sent my father out in his spare time today to the local welding shop to find out what he could but haven't talked to him yet.

 

I don't mind at all. I purchased my TIG and torch thru a local AGA distributor. I don't remember any problem getting the fittings. Either they came with the torch, or I picked them up at AGA. If you need the specifics, I can go digging for the original receipts.

 

Looks like I'll need to bug you for those part #'s. Two of the hose ends are left hand threads and the other two are right hand.

 

Moose you should really keep track of your pills better.

 

at what point do you need a cooler?i'm using a Lincoln 185.i don't really weld for any long periods of time,and i do pretty light duty stuff(charge pipes,downpipes mostly).i'm assuming it wouldn't be of much use in my situation?
or,is there an advantage to be had even in light duty use?
THANKS
Chris

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 91TSiGuy &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Looks like I'll need to bug you for those part #'s. Two of the hose ends are left hand threads and the other two are right hand.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Part numbers are Lincoln Electric parts:

Water to torch Left Hand 5/8 x 18 Male Fitting on hose. Requires 11N18 (S19558-6) This is a coupler with Left Hand 5/8 x 18 Female threads on both sides. Part S19558-5 has the Left Hand 5/8 x 18 Female threads on one side for the hose, and a male NPT pipe thread on the other. I think it is 1/4 in NPT. I think this is the fitting you are looking for.

Water from torch (Power cable) Left Hand 7/8 x 14 Male Fitting on hose. Requies 45V11 coupler. 45V11 has a power tab to get the power in, and has a Female Left Hand 7/8X14 port for a hose on each side.

Gas to torch Right Hand 5/8 X 18 Male Fitting on hose. I didn't need to purchase any adapter here as my power connector had a argon gas port integrated into it.

By the way, I found my design calculations for the cooler. Commercial Lincoln cooler 10 flows 0.1 to 0.8 gpm at 45 psi max. Lincoln cooler 20 flows 0.1 to 0.8 gpm at 60 psi. The Grainger 3P751 pump flows 40 GPH at 60 psi or 0.68 gpm. I set the internal relief valve in the pump to 45 psi. The 3P751 is discontinued, so use the Procon 111A035F11CA 250 Pump Grainger part 6XE78. It has slightly less flow.

 

they measure the eheim pumps by the amount of head.
how high it can pump water, and mine looked to be about 4-5 ft. not nearly enough for this application.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BigMoose &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Water to torch Left Hand 5/8 x 18 Male Fitting on hose. Requires 11N18 (S19558-6) This is a coupler with Left Hand 5/8 x 18 Female threads on both sides. </TD></TR></TABLE>

You wouldn't happen to know a part # for a piece like the one above, but for Right hand threads, would you?

How this torch setup is layed out:
At the power adapter I have a short red hose and short black hose coming out of it. The tig machine (Precision Tig 185) is setup to have gas flow through the din connector normally. Right now, that gas goes through the connector, but out right away through the short black hose (right hand threads). One of the seperate long hoses (say the top left one in the picture) easily flows gas through it when I tried blowing on it and that has right hand threads as well.

The short red hose at the din connector is water return I'm assuming, and the water returns through the long hose directly attached to that power connector. (has left hand threads) The other seperate long hose on the bottom right of the picture is the other water line with left hand threads as well.

Hooking up the water line seem like it won't be a problem now with the part # you listed above, but now the gas lines are a problem. I'll be calling the place I bought the torch from on Tuesday to try and see if they have any suggestions or can order those pieces for me.

Thanks so far for the help!