water cooler

[Danny]

I run a home made water cooler on my other brand ("L") tig machine and wonder if I am getting decent flow. I recently ran into problems when welding 250 amps AC and had to switch back to my air cooled torch.I have a clear filter on my return into the tank and it looks like I have a fairly decent flow. it is steady and looks like I should have no cooling problems yet I am over heating the tungston to the point of drip. The arc is also getting unstable.
My cooler consists of a coolant pump (out of a saw) circulating through the torch then into a small radiator (no fan) and back into the tank. About a 2 gallon capacity. Is it possible that there is not enough pressure ? Like I said I do have steady flow. And the problem started with in a the first minute of welding ,long before the water in the tank was warm.
Never really looked at the a brand name cooler (only worked with cheap-o home built) to compare flow. Any thoughts ?

[Frank865]

The "name brand" coolers flow about a quart per minute @ 50 PSI.

[Sundown]

You can put a psi guage on the output side of the pump and feed the coolant from the output of the torch into a jar for one minute to see if you are close. Kinda like this ...

[fun4now]

i would think a coolant pump would be way to low flow, as its just designed to dribble oil onto the blade not draw the heat off of a closed system. unless i am thinking of a diferent type pump.
i know a lot of people use submersable fontan pumps that might be an option is your flow is too low.
also do you know the torch is ok, could it have built up calseum?? are you using the right fluid or just tap watter?

[Danny]

The pump I am using is a higher flowing type, made for true flow not just a dribble. But I couldnt tell you about the pressure it puts out ? I am going to invest in a guage to see what it puts out at the pump. I do run tap water but it is reverse osmosis (the best for coffee-not sure about water coolers?), there could be build up. I also run a little anti freeze in the water, the old shop didnt have heat by the welding area and I didnt want it to freeze on the weekends. A buddy told me to run water wetter in it ? It keeps the water attached to the surface instead of letting it bubble away from hot areas, but the water should be out of the torch by the time it is getting to that point. is there a cleaner I can run through it to be sure that its clean ? sheeze this torch is only a few months old I would doubt it has build up in it,plus it does have flow and with that small of orfices you would think a little build up would darn near kill the flow : right ?
Maybe I need to check my line hook up. does the flow direction make a big difference ? I believe I come out of the tank-through the torch-into the radiator-through the filter- and back into the tank.
thanks for all the info !

[Sundown]

The direction of flow sounds ok, I don't know about using reverse osmosis filtering - I use de-minerialized water in the summer with about 25% RV anti-freeze for the winter, and I change it every quarter. When I built my cooler I bought a 2.5", white faced psi guage from the surplus center for about $2.50 that has worked well, the nice thing about having the pressure guage permently mounted is that if you get some buildup in the torch head (or any other obstruction on the pressure side), the reading will change so you know about it.

[Danny]

time for a new pump. Looks like I have about 10 psi comming out of the pump. If I dead head the pump it doesnt gain even 1 psi. Pump must be shot. I have a 50 psi 3 gpm pump on its way. That should do it (I hope !).

[fun4now]

cool, looks like you are on your way.
now if i can just remember where i put all the parts for my cooler maybee i can have one too.
i already built a realy cool raideator housing to put the heater core in, and colected all the parts, heck i even have a W-torch and lines. maybee first of the summer i'l get on it.

[Frank865]

The pump I am using is a higher flowing type, made for true flow not just a dribble. But I couldnt tell you about the pressure it puts out ? I am going to invest in a guage to see what it puts out at the pump. I do run tap water but it is reverse osmosis (the best for coffee-not sure about water coolers?), there could be build up. I also run a little anti freeze in the water, the old shop didnt have heat by the welding area and I didnt want it to freeze on the weekends. A buddy told me to run water wetter in it ? It keeps the water attached to the surface instead of letting it bubble away from hot areas, but the water should be out of the torch by the time it is getting to that point. is there a cleaner I can run through it to be sure that its clean ? sheeze this torch is only a few months old I would doubt it has build up in it,plus it does have flow and with that small of orfices you would think a little build up would darn near kill the flow : right ?
Maybe I need to check my line hook up. does the flow direction make a big difference ? I believe I come out of the tank-through the torch-into the radiator-through the filter- and back into the tank.
thanks for all the info !

Here's a diagram of the hookup.
HTH

[Danny]

Thanks for the info & drawing.
I installed a new pump today, it was supposed to be a high pressure low volume pump, It only puts out about 15psi. I am going to check into a guage in a few days. But this thing has some serious flow ! I am running a bigger return from the radiator to the tank, (clear 5/16" ID ) and the fluid is flowing very good, much better then the old one. The 15 PSI bugs me but then again I did a practice weld on some 1/4" 6061 and it worked fine pushing over 200 amps. I'll play tomarrow when I have time. Spent most of my day building my cooler and got behind on work and couldnt play with it.

[Carl W.]

Check the photo on Sundown's pump, see the acorn on the side of the pump?
Take the nut off and adjust the threaded stud as this applies pressure on the bypass spring for the pressure relief plunger to control your pressure. Later pumps also have a filter that should be checked.
Unless run dry or with grit or dirt in the coolant these pumps run for many trouble free years.

[Sundown]

Check the photo on Sundown's pump, see the acorn on the side of the pump?
Take the nut off and adjust the threaded stud as this applies pressure on the bypass spring for the pressure relief plunger to control your pressure. Later pumps also have a filter that should be checked.
Unless run dry or with grit or dirt in the coolant these pumps run for many trouble free years.

On mine it is not necessary to remove the acorn nut as there is a hole in the top of it to provide access to the stud. In fact I have a small access hole in the cooler cover so that I can change the flow/pressure without removing the cover (I mounted a 2" PSI guage in the face of the cooler). I run it at 45 PSI and at this pressure it flows about 1.25 qt/min. I can sit at the table and weld aluminum (125~180a) for an hour at a sitting and not have the coolant temprature raise more than 8~10º. Of course I take my time and am not doing production work so it is not an arc-on all the time situation.