I finished mine up with just one ice maker, and it's dropping ice every 45 minutes on the nose. My fuzzy math tells me it will produce around 6-8 lbs every 24 hrs which seems like a lot, but then again I don't live in Florida. I also aimed my fan directly at the bottom of the ice maker. Thanks for putting this idea out there! It's been consuming all my free time lately and the wife is rolling her eyes evertime I get all excited from hearing ice falling lol
I've been following this build for a few weeks now and I can't believe how much I'm loving it. I brought it up to a neighbor as he was heading out to the lake and he says once you do a 2.0 he's gonna copy it! Hope you're safe and well during the storms!
The Mpemba effect has to do with how fast water loses energy(heat). Sorry I work in Celsius. 100 degree boiling and 0 degree freezing. Say you have 100 degrees water and 10 degree water. What the Mpemba effect states is that the 100 degree water will lose more energy in the same amount of time than the 10 degree water but the thing is the 100 degree has a lot more energy in total. For example in 30 min, the 10 degree water goes down 10 degrees(so its at 0 starting to freeze). While in the same time the 100 degrees loses 60 degrees and now is at 40 degrees. So its lost 60 units of heat while the 10 degree only lost 10 units of heat and therefore has lost energy "quicker". A lower energy state will always freeze quicker just because it has to move less energy out of the water. Hope this makes sence. Its 6am and I havnt slept yet.
Makes sense to me but I had to put numbers to an equation in HVAC school and given a dog dish in freezing weather example. I do remember ΔT being in the equation but had to look up the Mpemba effect. With TH-cam I learn at least one thing new everyday. Thank you for providing that new thing today. . . .
Soeveth Thanks for the easy to understand explanation. How anyone could rationally think hot water would freeze faster than cold water is beyond me. Its like two identical cars......one is sitting still, the other rolling at 90mph. Which one can hit 100mph first? The static car can create noise, smoke, negative Gs, that the rolling car didn't. However, the rolling car will be at 100mph long before the other.
The amount of energy the water loses is a directly related to the temperature difference, the greater the temp difference the greater the heat transfer rate. The equation is Q = mc∆T where Q is the heat energy, m is the mass, c is the specific heat, and ∆T is the difference in temperature. That isn't the Mpemba effect
Hot water drops temperature faster, but it eventually gets down to 50F and from there it will get to 32F the same speed as water that started at 50F. That means all the time before it got down to 50F is added to the time it takes to freeze water that started at 50F. TL:DR: cold water freezes faster. The hot has to get cold before it freezes.
This hot or cold water is clear. A ice machine is rated to make pounds of ice in a period of time at a given inlet water temp. The hotter the water, the less pounds. Adding hot water to your freezer not only reduces production, but adds to the ice build up on the sides from water vapor.
Still hot water freezes faster than cold water put hot water in the freezer and a cup of cold water in the freezer to see what freezes faster. Whether it produces more ice or not.
Have you timed the cycles. If you could find away to count the ice dump cycles. It would be easier than weighing the ice. And those makers only use 6/8 oz’s per fill. I used to know exactly but it’s been awhile. In a home refrigerator average cycles are 20 mins apart, at 10 or less degrees.
These are the types of videos I love. Thanks for being so thorough and dedicated to making sure you touch on all points. I wish someone was like this in the indoor hydroponics niche.
I love how TH-cam suggestions work. One ice maker video and I'm hooked. Keep up the great content, I like how you're slowly working through various suggestions.
You know the difference between screwing around and being a scientist is.................... you write your results down!!! You have been following the scientific method proud of you!!!!
from a sanitary view point I am imploring you to plumb a solenoid valve ahead of the ice maker valves, it's sole purpose is to spill hot water down the drain till the water temp drops to your ground water temps, this will help keep microbiological growth (the bad germs that give people the poops or worse!) out of your ice.
Use copper, it conducts heat better. Just figure out how much water gets dumped in the tray each time is fills. Then get enough copper tube so it will contain that amount of water.
@@TKCL As long as the volume of water within the plastic tubes that are in the pre-chiller is MORE than the two ice-makers are using for each batch it would make zero difference between copper and plastic tubes. The thermal conductivity of copper is only important if the time in the tube is short. So having a "tank" or a lot of meters (inches of the tube) of plastic tubes (basically a tank regarding volume) precool the water no matter what.
Derek Muller, who has 9.43mil subscribers on his "Veritasium" channel, explained on his 2nd channel, "Sciencium" why the Mpemba effect does in fact NOT exist in this setting. You confirmed it. I'd suggest bring that cooler closer to the freezer by placing it on some boxes. That isolation foam can't fight the Florida heat. 2 of the 5 seconds of water are reheated to room temp in that pipe prior to entering the freezer. Then also use salt water in your cooler. I learned that trick from Rob (DeerMeatForDinner). You did some great tests here!! Thanks!! We'll be watching. Edit: Don't use expensive copper. Rather drill two holes in a plastic soda bottle cap. Do a good seal with apoxy. These bottles can handle the pressure. One pipe enters the top and the other longer one goes all the way to the bottom. Do this with 2 bottles one running into the other in your mini freezer. No cost, just some work. Its the same concept as what Samsung fridges use to supply chilled water into their door dispensers. Remember to keep the distance between the water cooler and freezer as short as possible to prevent reheating. I think you'll beat the 8% increase. Holding thumbs.
I'm loving this! Thanks for your work and data, here is what I know about chilled to freezing, my side by side fridge, has ice and chilled water in the door dispenser, the water supply comes into fridge side and fills small container at bottom of fridge behind vegetable crisper to chill water for door dispenser, from that tank the water goes to ice maker, making ice cycle faster 😀, just my observation
I think the mini fridge is not worth it. All the test and logic seem pretty good to me. You do a good job of balancing cost, effort, and production which is really important for the average DIYer. It let's us see where we can get the most bang for our buck. Thanks and I look forward to the next one.
This is awesome, I've been invested heavily on this project over the time you been working on it, that I took a personal leave of absence from work just to make sure I didn't miss anything!!
As an engineer the work and cost of providing chilled water is not worth it. I would go outside and dig around your water line a few feet from where it comes into your building and insulate it at least 1 foot underground and up the wall and into the inside of the building and leave it at that. I would use the spongy black foam that is used on HVAC freon lines and tape it up good and call it good - small labor and materials cost to reduce the sun beating on the pipe as much and raising the temp! Now if you want to reduce your cost for making ice figure out a way to bolt a aluminum water block onto the ice maker housing and run the warm water from outside through the block and let that pre-cool your water while releasing your ice cubes from the mold! That would serve 2 purposes at the same time!!
Your awsome I have enjoyed all the tests and info you have provided and have purchased 2 icemakers to install in my new chest freezer, am getting a fan and my life is going to be much better not having to buy ice in town thanks again life is good! And drinks are cold. It's always happy hour here!
Maybe instead of the minny fridge. Look on water coolers. Route your water in. Have a line out to the ice makers before the cold water out. You get cold water for testing as well as a cold water source in your shop. Depending on the models you could also have hot water if needed.
Love Love Love the home ice maker cooler!! I think just add a 3rd or 4th ice maker in your cooler rather than chilled water.. You can add or remove ICE makers as required for your ICE needs increase.... Looking forward to your future videos. Keep up the good work.
Couple ideas... 1.) Get a white pool noodle to insulate your pipe 2.) Create a shade to keep the sun off the pipe/side of the shed 3.) Instead of putting your copper/plastic coil in the mini fridge, run it through the lid of the freezer and affix it to the under side 4.) You can affix a piece of R10 foam to the cold sides of the box 5.) Create a "radiator" for the front of the box that pulls cooler air from the bottom and blast it out the front P.S: I am jealous of the commercial sink setup.
I would look into an under sink water chiller. They are expensive $200+, but as a bonus you can add a faucet to your sink and drink cold water whenever you're in the shop! Or get a chilled and instant hot setup so you can have hot water at will too. Would be easier than drilling into your fridge and keeps a third of a gallon or so of water around 42⁰
I was out looking for a different video when this showed up in the suggestions, and I just spent over an hour watching the build and all the updates... very interesting and I had considered doing this exact same thing for drinking ice (my house has a built-in fridge that contaminates the ice but would cost $16K+ to replace/fix, so I have to make drinking ice other ways for now)... great tests and updates. Now - back to what I was *supposed* to be researching...
Utilize the thermal losses from the top and back of the deep freeze to pre cool your water before it enters the icemakers. You can use the poly tubing you’ve already got. Just sandwich it under whatever insulation you plan on adding. No need for an additional refrigerator to run. No additional costs
@@TKCL you may have to do some math to ensure you’ve got enough liquid capacity in your tubing. That may involve measuring how much water it takes to fill the ice maker, and then determining the fluid capacity of the poly line to ensure you have enough linear footage of the line to hold enough water to fill both ice makers once. At least. A lot of experiments can even stem from that setup as well.
I found this channel while looking into those tabletop ice-makers, they produce soft ice, which is great for making ice water or a watery glass of (insert preferred drink) and not much else. There are some that cost $400+ dollars and make thicker cubes faster but it's still soft. Cleaning is also an issue. Since you already use that mini-fridge, running those plastic lines through it seems like a good idea and you would still have plenty of room for its normal load of stuff. GREAT JOB btw! It keeps getting hotter and you keep outdoing your previous production! Of course, the cheapest way to pre-cool your water would be to lay that tubing you already have, on top of the freezer and underneath whatever insulation you finally decide upon.
it all coms down to BTUs the freezer pulls the BTUs out of the water so the lower the BTUs in the water going into the freezer the quicker it will freeze.
True, the ice makers are drawing in so little water each cycle. At 1 BTU/lb F for water, the difference to bring one pound of water at 50 F vs 100 F down to 32 F is 50 BTUs extra.
Ok I can't comment from my tv so I grabbed my phone just to comment. First I've followed this build since the beginning and it's been amazing. My personal goal for you is to reach the 10lb per day mark WITHOUT the mini fridge. Good luck and never stop tinkering!
Dont forget the convenience to open the lid of your freezer and scoop ice instead of driving somwhere and pay for it, time saving....... love the video's
I appreciate all the tests, really cool. At the end of the day build the system that works best for you. I agree, I think modifying mini fridge to cool water down might be over the top for what you are trying to achieve.
It has to do with thermal mass again. If you spray boiling water and room temperature water in freezing conditions the boiling water will freeze in the air. With containers or masses of water, the chilled water will freeze faster because water freezes at let's say 0F for the sake of argument. It takes longer for a given mass of water to reach 0F from 212F than from 50F. As the the water is atomized or vaporized, thermal mass is much less of a factor. I believe the room temp water was so close to the same time as the hot water because of their proximity to one another. According to the laws of thermodynamics heat moves from areas of higher concentration (hot side) to areas of lower concentration (cold side). I have no doubt that the room temperature water absorbed some heat from the hot water tray making their times to freeze closer to one another.
I love the fact that Andrew is using ice from his icemaker to chill water so his icemaker can make ice faster. I know it's just for testing but it cracked me up.
@@TKCL Basic science where you want 32 degree F water coming in. Also the heat transfer of air is actually very poor. You would do much better if you can heat sink with solids directly to the cold side of freezer with good heat transfer materials. Those 2 things are about all you can do.
One trick I learned with those "instant read" thermometers, is to insert them into whatever you are taking the temp of, before turning it on...the reading will show the true temp sooner with no gradual climb. Have really enjoyed the icemaker series.
Great shirts! Also think this project has become popular due to the the fact you are treating it as a council Tinkerer project. You pitched the idea and had everyone come up with ideas and theories, has all feel involved with and for that we all thank you. Also have an idea for one another shirt, let me know if like to hear it.
If you want to run water at ambient temperature long term, you can fill a drum/barrel using your well water stored inside away from the sun. Then use that to fill the ice makers. For small testing you can use buckets instead of a drum mounted higher than the ice makers so you can use hydrostaticpressure to fill them (no pumps needed). Obviously a larger volume of water takes longer to heat or cool so temp fluctuations would decrease during production. You can also add some ice directly to the water to cool it. My humble suggestion.
Hey, loving the series. I appreciate your humility and willingness to learn and test. As for the naysayers, my dad used to say, "Never let the bastards wear you down!" One way that you could cool your water for less expense is to use a wet radiator. harness some evaporative cooling and you might be able to knock enough off of the incoming temp to make the economy work.
I think this is the coolest Channel on TH-cam! ;) Also I’ve watched nearly 2.5 hours of ice content this year and is one of my favorite things to watch. Send help...
Perhaps rerouting the main well line with a T joint and maybe even a valve so it stays under ground as much as possible before it enters the building depending on the limitations of the slab floor or even a new home run to the wellhead that is about 4 ft deep in the ground. Bit at LEAST don't pull from the top of the external vertical section with the black insulation on it.. Good luck!!!
Some ice makers use a sensor to determine what temperature the tray is. The quicker that tray reaches the set temperature, the quicker it should discharge the ice and refill the tray for a new batch of ice. Also, since making ice is a matter of thermodynamics, it is really a matter of heat exchange. This also explains that radiator effect of having fans move air over the trays displacing/exchanging the heat quicker. In general the colder the freezer is the quicker the ice should form (absent the Mpenba affect). Setting the freezer colder and chilling the water coming in should speed up production. I was thinking that a copper loop within the lid of the freezer may have a similar effect as using a mini fridge.
Even if you broke even after all of this its extremely convenient to leave for a boating trip or off road trip, either or in my case and not have to stop at an ice machine or store that sells ice on the way IF your lucky enough to have one on the way. Less time getting there is more time spent with the family and that's priceless.
Microphones - Change out the lapel microphone for a lavaliere(headset). This way, the mic is next to your mouth instead of below the vocal projection of normal speech. The lavaliere mic will plug into your existing belt pack, so you don't have to have a new belt pack for the mic. If your mic came with both types of imput(lapel and lavaliere) try a video with the lavaliere mic. You'll find the results are much, much better
I have used a mini fridge for cool drinking water for several years in our shop. Our experience with copper coil was that it would freeze the water. We ran the coils on the back wall. Out finial version ran a coil of pex inside the rear of the fridge. In the end the Pex won. It is cheap and did not freeze as easly with normal refrigerator operation.
I think the gain from chilling the water is OK but probably not worth the expense. How about insulating the freezer on the outside? Perhaps reducing the impact of being in the shed would have some benefit. Great job. Loving this series.
Really been thinking about this (watched previous episodes) a lot. I currently have 2 deep freezers (both of which were given to me for free!) and I love having ice around. Ice here in Southern Iowa is around $5-$6 plus my coolers sit inside my back porch along with my water coming directly from my basement.
I'm in Florida, deep well water temp. is 72*F. When the sun shines on my pressure tank all day, it increases water temp. significantly. I suggest insulating the pressure tank.
Warning long comment. I'm glad to see the process in testing all of the options with water temperature, amongst other variables. I have been thinking the whole video about your previous videos where you had mentioned in your final ideation of the freezer adding a keezer inspired collar and adding insulation. Finally at 39:37 you mentioned the top and back being cold. 🥳 One thing I would try as far as insulation goes (and incorporate cooling your water) is take a sheet of 2 inch foam and carve out a small path for the poly water line to stay in contact with the freezer. That should help cool the water down before entry. Weather the top or back is best, either should help, I would use braided stainless steel lines if you go for a top mount to prevent a fatigue failure. I brew and have a keezer myself... and though my own quest for the best method of insulation I have yet to put on my collar and taps. Debating between which wood would insulate best, if a sandwiched layer of foam would help, Foil faced... if you test before I do thanks! If I get inspired I will share. Either way(external mount or mini fridge) I would say stick with the poly line. Its cheap and easy to work with. The water in my fridge is in a poly tank and it does just fine🥶. Rambling over for now. Stay cool!
I'm going to use metric because the numbers are easy. Switching to gal/F/what ever is just a conversion it doesn't change the physics. When I say water I mean pure water, adding slight impurities changes the numbers slightly but the difference is normally minimal. Adding slat to melt ice is not a "slight" amount. 1. 1 cubic centimeter (cc) of pure water is 1 gram (gm); 2. To cool 1 gm of water 1 degree Celsius (C) means you have remove 1 calorie; 3. To freeze water at 0C you remove 80 calories and get a ice at 0C; 4. To cool ice 1C takes 1 calorie; 5. The speed of heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temperatures. Large difference, faster transfer, small difference, slow transfer; 6. The amount of gases dissolved in water is inversely proportional to its temperature, hotter water has less dissolved gases. 7 Water turns to ice at 0C under "normal" conditions. The reason Fahrenheit uses 32 as the freezing point is that 0F is the lowest temperature that a water / salt mixture will stay liquid at. Fahrenheit used three physical points to define his temperature scale, the boiling point of water, the freezing point of water ( 180 degrees, same number as half a circle with lots of factors) and the freezing point of salt water. Celsius uses the first two and a range of 100, fewer factors but we do have 10 fingers. What does this mean? 1. Cool water will freeze faster than hot water since it takes time to cool the hot water down to the temperature of the cool water, at that point they are the same. To put it another way the amount of energy to remove from the hotter water is greater; 2. Given a set cold environment ( the inside of the freezer) the rate water cools is fastest when it is warmest and slows down as it approaches the freezing point; 3. Ice made from hot water is clearer since it has less dissolved gases; 4. Using cooler water does speed up the freezing process but the main energy removal requirement is to cause the phase change from water to solid ( 1 vs 80) so from an energy transfer point of view the phase change is equal to an 80C water difference. From an energy speed point of view its the slowest since the temperature differential is the smallest; 4. Cold ice doesn't make your drink colder, it cools it faster but the final temperature of the ice/drink mixture is the same ~0C. The mixture is basically in equilibrium some water some ice, melting occurs because heat is coming in from the outside of the container.
the whole hot water freezes faster is probably attributed to misunderstandings about hot/boiling water expending its energy faster than cold water. the Tech Ingredients channel i mentioned in a previous video had a freezing demonstration with their home made freezer and shows that the temperature will actually stall until enough energy/heat has been moved/lost to continue dropping the temperature.
I love the idea of a solar water heater, I’ve studied with several people have done come up with some decent ideas. One have a black tank that’s not insulated and use the heat in the hot water rising to create flow into a second insulated tank and then at night I have a valve on a timer that just shuts off and uses the insulated tank overnight because it will stay very hot for several hours when it’s insulated then in the morning the valve open in the black painted tank sitting out in the sun and not insulated or heat the water which will flow into both tanks and hit on the water again. A black painted strip down water heater tank gets hot pretty quick, especially in the summer. I don’t think you’re just proving science at all tell me the truth as hot water takes longer to freeze and there may be some extreme condition where that changes but I’m willing to bet it’s because in the end that hot water is significantly lower volume, I think it would Have to be hard enough to where you were losing mass because the temperature was so high that the water was turning to gas and evaporated at a rate so quickly you just didn’t have as much heat to remove in the end because you just didn’t have as much water left. To test that what you have to do is put 1 ounce of water in a container and then take an extremely hot plate or something or water that was so hot that it was already in a gaseous state but I think for the purposes of making ice it’s always gonna be better to start with less heat in whatever you’re trying to freeze, Since chilling in freezing is the absence of heat, cold isn’t actually something that exists it’s just an absence of heat
my ice maker has been running for 1 week now. 7 cubic ft freezer is about half full. I guess I don't use as much ice and I open the freezer less. I also sealed the gaps cut in freezer using great stuff for windows and doors. it is made for insulated ares and the window door formula has the least expansion pressure so as not to lift the lid off while curing
Rather than a coil, just put a reservoir. Since it will be an hour or so in between fillups, there's no need for a high surface area coil for fast heat transfer. Just use something like that jug you already had in there... so if you can find something that will hold a liter or so that will take those hoses, you will not need a coil. Just insulate the hose between the mini fridge and the freezer. - Once again, great video and you've got me salivating for the next one
Take a 2" x 24" pvc pipe and create a 40 oz inline reservior. Let the water acclimate to room temperature while in the "reservoir" and then flow to the ice maker from the exit end. Problem solved.
Also a thought, maybe get a fridge and put it next to the freezer, run a 10 ft long plastic pipe made into a coil through the refrigerator compartment then back out to the ice makers. The coil will keep a good bit of water refrigerated on it's way into the ice maker. Plus you'll have a place to put drinks and stuff in the shop👍👍
Very, very well done. I personally won't be going with chilled water as the gain isn't that impressive. Only if I began to not have enough ice for my needs would I consider it but here's the thing. If you have the space for another DIY Ice Maker instead of buying a mini fridge, the copper, fittings and time to build the chiller. I honestly think I'd just buy and build another DIY Ice Maker instead. It would be pretty close to the cost per bag to pay off the chiller versus another Maker. Just my two cents...
you might see a slight increase if you expand your coils. leaving them tightly bundled like that means that it takes longer to cool down. condensers in stills can bring alcohol down to the low 40s with just crick water.
There wasnt much benefit, but for the haters, run a drip irrigation system for your "garden" that keeps cool water supplied to the ice makers. Pretty easy to calculate the power to lower temperature of water while liquid, and then the one that is ten times more important, the energy to make the phase change from liquid to solid. That phase change is why its hard to make ice and on the other end of the weekend, you still have ice after 3 days. water ice is pretty magic if you think about it. try taking 20 lbs of vodka in your cooler that is still liquid. You will have a great first night, but have a lot of warm vodka after 12 hours. Take 20 lbs of ice and you will have 16 lbs of ice. the next morning. If you fish, you need more ice, if you drink, you need more vodka. You want to end your trip with "stored" energy" that you took with you to bag some fish and keep cold beer for 4 days and slide into the dock with nothing to spare
Or if you have a pool, drip it to your pool... It will make up for some of the evap loss on the pool. I agree that running water for no reason is wasteful but nothing says you can't use that water for something or collect that water some how for future use.
I would like to see the spacer idea that you talked about. I could feel good about doing that to our little freezer to make ice without any real modifications
I hope at the end you do a total break down of cost for everything. I mean how much you paid for the freezer and ice makers as well as tubes and wiring. Everything else. This has been fun to follow. Lol I like the fact of the cost to make the ice. We use a lot during summer baseball season. I'm thinking about doing the same thing you did. Thanks for the idea. Sorry I didn't realize you said cost around 375 to 400 dollars in everything not bad at all. Could probably cut that cost if you found a used deep freezer at a auction or someplace.
idea on insulation: on the inside along the top you could put a bathroom dual pane window across the top, just frame it, or find a used ice cream display and rob the window out of it. This way every time you open the door your not loosing as much cold air. Heck maybe even look into one of those ice cream displays for overall insulation additions. ie dissect one and figure out if you can use any of that tech in your setup. Enjoying the videos keep it up!
I wonder if a passing the water through a radiator like on the ones used for PCs would work. Also a portable evaporative cooler to help cool things further although humidity would go up. Another thought is if the discharge air from the radiator is still cooler than ambient then passing it through freezer's condenser might help it come to temp faster.
The hot water freezes faster thing was something I heard growing up in Canada and it made sense because hot water is what was used to flood the ice off a Zamboni on a rink. I think they used hot water to resurface a skating rink because it melted the imperfections left behind by the blade that scraped the ice. Also, if you had nothing else on the go and your only focus was making this ice maker run as efficiently as possible, the experimentation would only take 1-2 weeks haha
I know everybody has an idea, so do I. I have a small edgestar ice maker, one ice tray. It consistently makes 12 lbs of ice a day. The difference that I see in your design is the edgestar tray is screwed into a cold plate on the side. Have you thought of adding cold plates. They would be of large enough size (mass) that once they are cold they would hold the low temp. Inorder to cool the water, getting it to freezing temp faster. It would eliminate the need for fans and precooling the water.
insulating the incoming water pipe On the Sunny Side would make hey big difference also insulating your pump house from direct sun could have an effect too
Great video, I agree with you Andrew, improvement investments have to make good business sense. ROI has got to be a consideration! Good luck with your trials Andrew!
Kelley on top of using a light color pool noodle to cover your water pipe. You may want to evaluate the cost of using something like white leak stopper or white flax seal on your outside water tank . Even a white latex paint would help dramatically to reduce the heat inside the water tank itself.
The more i think about it. With the heat produced with the ice makers there could be a 10- 15 degree difference from top and bottom. Yep 1 fan ducted to bottom has to be tried and turn the other one off. Now that you have the plastic line already and you have 2 cold spots on the outside it only makes sense to put that to use as well without damaging your mini fridge
great work! i would like to see if added a piece of metal attached to the inside metal of the freezer with thermal mastic with the icemaker setting on it again with thermal mastic would affect ice production. I know your freezer isnt running on r134a but in one of those systems the temperature at the inlet of the evaporator is about -20F. The entire inside of that freezer is the evaporator and after you defrost it you will see ice forming near the top first. plus i think the metal would extract even faster from the mold. Uline used to make an icemaker that was thermally bonded to a evaporator. and again great work on the series. I am definitely invested in it now.
Really cool video I feel you won't need the copper tubing just use like a bucket or container with a air tight lid in the fridge then have 2 of them plastic tubing runs comig out of like the side of the bucket (making sure there leak and air proof ) 1 leading to watter mains and the other leading to the ice makers, that way you will have a large amount of chilled water (more than you would with copper tubing ) witch should keep its temperature better in the fridge ,it will be cheaper than the copper tubing and also you may be able to get away with just running the tubing in the door jam hope it helps
Here's a potential passive solution for you. You mentioned that the top of the chest was cold and that you may insulate it later. Run your coils of water line across the top of the freezer and sandwich them with insulation. Obviously you will need enough volume in the lines to fill both ice makers, but that should bring your temps below ambient without using any extra electricity or wasting water.
As for the “chiller”, I would not drill the fridge! I would remove the door & add a riser, drill the riser, remount the door, then run cheap plastic tubing. Have you looked into a solar distiller? This may improve your purity test results...
For a chilled water solution that's easy and new-equipment-free, just run the loops of nylon lines under the insulation you plan on installing on the lid and/or back. It will recycle some amount of that lost efficiency back into your process
This is what I was gonna suggest.. can't have it in cuz it would obviously freeze in the freezer lol... But you're literally making ice! Lol take some of the ice and plastic tubing run coiled up in a bucket before entering the makers... Just enough so it chills water intake but not too much cuz might freeze ya know? Was also curious bout hard and soft water? Do they have different freezing times? If u add third freezer would run to keep up with added heat so I would stay with 2 and only have 1 fan and chilled maybe even filtered water on intake which can be all in one unit... Iced filter? Lol... Can't wait to finish these vids for some reason hahahaha... U captured half the dudes on the internet some how... It's great lol
Before investing in copper lines i personally would 1. shorten the water line height outside. 2. try using that plastic tubing you used in the cooler, thats how some fridges with water dispensers do it just a zip-tied coil of plastic line.
You can insulate the entire freezer as long as you don't restrict the air flow around the compressor. The coils down there is where it dumps its heat. You can add a fan down there too, but neither will have much effect on ice production just freezer efficiency. I would try to squeeze in a third ice maker.
The running water idea is a flawed approach for the simple fact that like you said the water in the line inside the building is still sitting there warming to room temperature. Because each batch of ice takes time to make by the time it needs water again the water in the line inside the building is up to room temperature. At least those are my thoughts. To correct this your trickle of water would need to come out of the line feeding the ice makers close to the freezer so the water they take in is that cold ground water.
Understand that! But testing shows it just isn't enough of a drop in temperature. It's a go big or go home type of approach. I think there is easier approaches to more ice production.
Room temperature still cooler than the temperature of the water that was coming out of the tap that the line was baking in the sun. That was why he let the water running. it was so the sun didn't had time to heat the water in the pipe.
Just my humble opinion; I think you said that the outside of the box gets cold, and you want to insulate it? I agree, and some 1" foam insulation on the garage wall would be great too. My suggestion would be, what if you ran a copper line in a zig zag up and down the outside of the ice box against it underneath the new outer insulation you would be adding? I would think the thermal difference would be minimal to the box while significantly cooling down the water coming in. Especially when you think that the water is going to stop and sit in the pipe getting cold, then when the ice maker kicks on, a new batch of water cools down with a thermal mass already in place. (of course, measure how much water needs to sit in the pipes to fill the maker.) And, hopefully it won't make much of a difference, if really any, in KwH used. (I think...). I just like looking at the least cost solution for the most worth. :) Ok, that's my 2 cents!
Ok, wow. You covered a lot of ground in this one. You put a lot of options on the table. I've watched this from end to end. After considering your test results and your cyphering, I'm going to make three suggestions. First: Get some shade on that inlet pipe and the wall behind the sink and freezer. Second: I like your idea of a fan to move the air behind the freezer and around the compressor. Third: Bang for the buck, I suggest adding 1 or 2 more icemakers to the freezer. You said you don't have the room, but I believe with a bit of thinker tinkering, you could. I don't recall the price of the icemaker but I'm guessing it isn't more than that coil of copper. Going with the copper coil in the mini fridge and get 7-8% improvement versus 33% increase for the same $. Just my suggestion.
HVAC guy here. 1 BTU is the amount of energy to raise or lower 1 lb of water 1 degree F. So if you have 200F water and try to get it to 40F it would take 160 btu's but if you have 70F water and try to get it to 40F it would only be 30 btu's. I wont go into latent heat, but yes if your water is colder going in it would take less time to freeze it.
I can almost hear the wife screaming in the distance " Are you still on the ice thing? Dammit we gotta house to build !!"
That's exactly right!
With all the views he’s getting I’m surprised she’s not telling him to make more on the ice 😂
Ice is paying the bills.. youtube views style
I finished mine up with just one ice maker, and it's dropping ice every 45 minutes on the nose. My fuzzy math tells me it will produce around 6-8 lbs every 24 hrs which seems like a lot, but then again I don't live in Florida. I also aimed my fan directly at the bottom of the ice maker. Thanks for putting this idea out there! It's been consuming all my free time lately and the wife is rolling her eyes evertime I get all excited from hearing ice falling lol
Lol I know the feeling
I'm right here with you watching.....taking a break from repairing a Hoshisakie ice machine. this is way more fun!
I've been following this build for a few weeks now and I can't believe how much I'm loving it. I brought it up to a neighbor as he was heading out to the lake and he says once you do a 2.0 he's gonna copy it! Hope you're safe and well during the storms!
Thank you for watching
The Mpemba effect has to do with how fast water loses energy(heat). Sorry I work in Celsius. 100 degree boiling and 0 degree freezing. Say you have 100 degrees water and 10 degree water. What the Mpemba effect states is that the 100 degree water will lose more energy in the same amount of time than the 10 degree water but the thing is the 100 degree has a lot more energy in total. For example in 30 min, the 10 degree water goes down 10 degrees(so its at 0 starting to freeze). While in the same time the 100 degrees loses 60 degrees and now is at 40 degrees. So its lost 60 units of heat while the 10 degree only lost 10 units of heat and therefore has lost energy "quicker". A lower energy state will always freeze quicker just because it has to move less energy out of the water.
Hope this makes sence. Its 6am and I havnt slept yet.
Makes sense to me but I had to put numbers to an equation in HVAC school and given a dog dish in freezing weather example. I do remember ΔT being in the equation but had to look up the Mpemba effect. With TH-cam I learn at least one thing new everyday. Thank you for providing that new thing today. . . .
Soeveth Thanks for the easy to understand explanation. How anyone could rationally think hot water would freeze faster than cold water is beyond me. Its like two identical cars......one is sitting still, the other rolling at 90mph. Which one can hit 100mph first? The static car can create noise, smoke, negative Gs, that the rolling car didn't. However, the rolling car will be at 100mph long before the other.
The amount of energy the water loses is a directly related to the temperature difference, the greater the temp difference the greater the heat transfer rate. The equation is Q = mc∆T where Q is the heat energy, m is the mass, c is the specific heat, and ∆T is the difference in temperature. That isn't the Mpemba effect
Hot water drops temperature faster, but it eventually gets down to 50F and from there it will get to 32F the same speed as water that started at 50F. That means all the time before it got down to 50F is added to the time it takes to freeze water that started at 50F.
TL:DR: cold water freezes faster. The hot has to get cold before it freezes.
Exactly! Why don't people realize this ! This has always been my argument.
This hot or cold water is clear. A ice machine is rated to make pounds of ice in a period of time at a given inlet water temp. The hotter the water, the less pounds. Adding hot water to your freezer not only reduces production, but adds to the ice build up on the sides from water vapor.
Still hot water freezes faster than cold water put hot water in the freezer and a cup of cold water in the freezer to see what freezes faster. Whether it produces more ice or not.
@@Tracyspellenberg he literally did that in this video…. And proved you wrong
@E S a lot of people here kept blindly saying that hot water freezes faster. I question their intelligence.
@@Tracyspellenberg you’re a different kind of special aren’t you?
Have you timed the cycles. If you could find away to count the ice dump cycles. It would be easier than weighing the ice. And those makers only use 6/8 oz’s per fill. I used to know exactly but it’s been awhile. In a home refrigerator average cycles are 20 mins apart, at 10 or less degrees.
These are the types of videos I love. Thanks for being so thorough and dedicated to making sure you touch on all points. I wish someone was like this in the indoor hydroponics niche.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching
I love how TH-cam suggestions work. One ice maker video and I'm hooked. Keep up the great content, I like how you're slowly working through various suggestions.
Thank you for watching
Curious to know if one ice maker makes more than the other in that deep freezer
You know the difference between screwing around and being a scientist is.................... you write your results down!!! You have been following the scientific method proud of you!!!!
Adam Savage
from a sanitary view point I am imploring you to plumb a solenoid valve ahead of the ice maker valves, it's sole purpose is to spill hot water down the drain till the water temp drops to your ground water temps, this will help keep microbiological growth (the bad germs that give people the poops or worse!) out of your ice.
Since that water sits in the fridge for a couple hours or more between fills, I think plastic tubing would get just as cool in that time. Great show!
It very well may, and that's a cheaper alternative.
@@TKCL you've already got 40' of plastic tube from this video. Just run that through the mini fridge.
Use copper, it conducts heat better. Just figure out how much water gets dumped in the tray each time is fills. Then get enough copper tube so it will contain that amount of water.
@@justoutoftime511 Fridge doesn't get that cold, plus he already has the plastic.
@@TKCL As long as the volume of water within the plastic tubes that are in the pre-chiller is MORE than the two ice-makers are using for each batch it would make zero difference between copper and plastic tubes. The thermal conductivity of copper is only important if the time in the tube is short. So having a "tank" or a lot of meters (inches of the tube) of plastic tubes (basically a tank regarding volume) precool the water no matter what.
Thanks for all the effort you are putting into these expiriments. So much fun.
Thank you for watching
Thank you for getting the mic! Sounds great! I’m riveted!
Derek Muller, who has 9.43mil subscribers on his "Veritasium" channel, explained on his 2nd channel, "Sciencium" why the Mpemba effect does in fact NOT exist in this setting. You confirmed it. I'd suggest bring that cooler closer to the freezer by placing it on some boxes. That isolation foam can't fight the Florida heat. 2 of the 5 seconds of water are reheated to room temp in that pipe prior to entering the freezer. Then also use salt water in your cooler. I learned that trick from Rob (DeerMeatForDinner). You did some great tests here!! Thanks!! We'll be watching.
Edit: Don't use expensive copper. Rather drill two holes in a plastic soda bottle cap. Do a good seal with apoxy. These bottles can handle the pressure. One pipe enters the top and the other longer one goes all the way to the bottom. Do this with 2 bottles one running into the other in your mini freezer. No cost, just some work. Its the same concept as what Samsung fridges use to supply chilled water into their door dispensers. Remember to keep the distance between the water cooler and freezer as short as possible to prevent reheating. I think you'll beat the 8% increase. Holding thumbs.
Man, I love these videos. Thanks for keeping it up.
Thank you for watching
I'm loving this! Thanks for your work and data, here is what I know about chilled to freezing, my side by side fridge, has ice and chilled water in the door dispenser, the water supply comes into fridge side and fills small container at bottom of fridge behind vegetable crisper to chill water for door dispenser, from that tank the water goes to ice maker, making ice cycle faster 😀, just my observation
Thank you for watching
I think the mini fridge is not worth it. All the test and logic seem pretty good to me. You do a good job of balancing cost, effort, and production which is really important for the average DIYer. It let's us see where we can get the most bang for our buck. Thanks and I look forward to the next one.
Thank you for watching
This is awesome, I've been invested heavily on this project over the time you been working on it, that I took a personal leave of absence from work just to make sure I didn't miss anything!!
That's pretty serious! Thanks for watching
As an engineer the work and cost of providing chilled water is not worth it. I would go outside and dig around your water line a few feet from where it comes into your building and insulate it at least 1 foot underground and up the wall and into the inside of the building and leave it at that. I would use the spongy black foam that is used on HVAC freon lines and tape it up good and call it good - small labor and materials cost to reduce the sun beating on the pipe as much and raising the temp! Now if you want to reduce your cost for making ice figure out a way to bolt a aluminum water block onto the ice maker housing and run the warm water from outside through the block and let that pre-cool your water while releasing your ice cubes from the mold! That would serve 2 purposes at the same time!!
Wow amazing to c the improvements this is going great ! Cant wait to what's next man
Your awsome I have enjoyed all the tests and info you have provided and have purchased 2 icemakers to install in my new chest freezer, am getting a fan and my life is going to be much better not having to buy ice in town thanks again life is good! And drinks are cold. It's always happy hour here!
Glad you enjoy the content.
Maybe instead of the minny fridge. Look on water coolers. Route your water in. Have a line out to the ice makers before the cold water out. You get cold water for testing as well as a cold water source in your shop. Depending on the models you could also have hot water if needed.
Love Love Love the home ice maker cooler!! I think just add a 3rd or 4th ice maker in your cooler rather than chilled water.. You can add or remove ICE makers as required for your ICE needs increase.... Looking forward to your future videos. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for watching
Couple ideas...
1.) Get a white pool noodle to insulate your pipe
2.) Create a shade to keep the sun off the pipe/side of the shed
3.) Instead of putting your copper/plastic coil in the mini fridge, run it through the lid of the freezer and affix it to the under side
4.) You can affix a piece of R10 foam to the cold sides of the box
5.) Create a "radiator" for the front of the box that pulls cooler air from the bottom and blast it out the front
P.S: I am jealous of the commercial sink setup.
I would look into an under sink water chiller. They are expensive $200+, but as a bonus you can add a faucet to your sink and drink cold water whenever you're in the shop! Or get a chilled and instant hot setup so you can have hot water at will too. Would be easier than drilling into your fridge and keeps a third of a gallon or so of water around 42⁰
I looked into them, most were more than I spent on the entire build. Going to have to pass.
Cool experiment 👍🏼 as long as the water freezes into ice that's all that matters 😊
That's right! I just need more ice 😁
I was out looking for a different video when this showed up in the suggestions, and I just spent over an hour watching the build and all the updates... very interesting and I had considered doing this exact same thing for drinking ice (my house has a built-in fridge that contaminates the ice but would cost $16K+ to replace/fix, so I have to make drinking ice other ways for now)... great tests and updates. Now - back to what I was *supposed* to be researching...
Thank you for watching
Yessss, move forward. Can’t wait to see more videos
In the middle of a completely new build right now. Waiting for a 9 dollar part to show up next week so I can finish 🙄
Great and perfect test.
And you are right. at the end of the day, it all ends up with the price for 1 ice cube.
Thanks!
Utilize the thermal losses from the top and back of the deep freeze to pre cool your water before it enters the icemakers. You can use the poly tubing you’ve already got. Just sandwich it under whatever insulation you plan on adding. No need for an additional refrigerator to run. No additional costs
I'm kicking that around
@@TKCL you may have to do some math to ensure you’ve got enough liquid capacity in your tubing. That may involve measuring how much water it takes to fill the ice maker, and then determining the fluid capacity of the poly line to ensure you have enough linear footage of the line to hold enough water to fill both ice makers once. At least. A lot of experiments can even stem from that setup as well.
I found this channel while looking into those tabletop ice-makers, they produce soft ice, which is great for making ice water or a watery glass of (insert preferred drink) and not much else. There are some that cost $400+ dollars and make thicker cubes faster but it's still soft. Cleaning is also an issue.
Since you already use that mini-fridge, running those plastic lines through it seems like a good idea and you would still have plenty of room for its normal load of stuff.
GREAT JOB btw! It keeps getting hotter and you keep outdoing your previous production!
Of course, the cheapest way to pre-cool your water would be to lay that tubing you already have, on top of the freezer and underneath whatever insulation you finally decide upon.
I'm going to test one too
it all coms down to BTUs the freezer pulls the BTUs out of the water so the lower the BTUs in the water going into the freezer the quicker it will freeze.
True, the ice makers are drawing in so little water each cycle. At 1 BTU/lb F for water, the difference to bring one pound of water at 50 F vs 100 F down to 32 F is 50 BTUs extra.
Ok I can't comment from my tv so I grabbed my phone just to comment. First I've followed this build since the beginning and it's been amazing. My personal goal for you is to reach the 10lb per day mark WITHOUT the mini fridge. Good luck and never stop tinkering!
That is also my personal goal, I talk about that in the episode I'm recording now. I think with a few minor tweaks we are there. Thanks for watching
i LOVE ho thorough you are about all of this
Glad are the enjoying it
I can watch these videos all day long
Great! More coming
Just ordered the GOT ICE shirt. Love the videos, keep em coming.
Thank you for the support
Dont forget the convenience to open the lid of your freezer and scoop ice instead of driving somwhere and pay for it, time saving....... love the video's
I appreciate all the tests, really cool. At the end of the day build the system that works best for you.
I agree, I think modifying mini fridge to cool water down might be over the top for what you are trying to achieve.
Thinking so myself, there are a few more simple things to test before building my final product.
Thats the way to grow as a channel i hope to see you with a million subs some day
Thank you very much for the support
You are truly the iceman!!!
😁
It has to do with thermal mass again. If you spray boiling water and room temperature water in freezing conditions the boiling water will freeze in the air. With containers or masses of water, the chilled water will freeze faster because water freezes at let's say 0F for the sake of argument. It takes longer for a given mass of water to reach 0F from 212F than from 50F. As the the water is atomized or vaporized, thermal mass is much less of a factor. I believe the room temp water was so close to the same time as the hot water because of their proximity to one another. According to the laws of thermodynamics heat moves from areas of higher concentration (hot side) to areas of lower concentration (cold side). I have no doubt that the room temperature water absorbed some heat from the hot water tray making their times to freeze closer to one another.
I love the fact that Andrew is using ice from his icemaker to chill water so his icemaker can make ice faster.
I know it's just for testing but it cracked me up.
Yes just for theory. I'd be using more than it helps produce, so it isn't cost effective in the long run.
@@TKCL Basic science where you want 32 degree F water coming in.
Also the heat transfer of air is actually very poor. You would do much better if you can heat sink with solids directly to the cold side of freezer with good heat transfer materials.
Those 2 things are about all you can do.
One trick I learned with those "instant read" thermometers, is to insert them into whatever you are taking the temp of, before turning it on...the reading will show the true temp sooner with no gradual climb. Have really enjoyed the icemaker series.
Nice tip
Great shirts! Also think this project has become popular due to the the fact you are treating it as a council Tinkerer project. You pitched the idea and had everyone come up with ideas and theories, has all feel involved with and for that we all thank you. Also have an idea for one another shirt, let me know if like to hear it.
Thank you for the feedback. I'll always hear ides for merch
Sweet garden!
Thank you
Love the channel! Keep em coming!
Thank you for watching
If you want to run water at ambient temperature long term, you can fill a drum/barrel using your well water stored inside away from the sun. Then use that to fill the ice makers. For small testing you can use buckets instead of a drum mounted higher than the ice makers so you can use hydrostaticpressure to fill them (no pumps needed). Obviously a larger volume of water takes longer to heat or cool so temp fluctuations would decrease during production. You can also add some ice directly to the water to cool it. My humble suggestion.
Hey, loving the series. I appreciate your humility and willingness to learn and test. As for the naysayers, my dad used to say, "Never let the bastards wear you down!"
One way that you could cool your water for less expense is to use a wet radiator. harness some evaporative cooling and you might be able to knock enough off of the incoming temp to make the economy work.
Thank you for watching and the suggestion
I think this is the coolest Channel on TH-cam! ;)
Also I’ve watched nearly 2.5 hours of ice content this year and is one of my favorite things to watch.
Send help...
Can't help you, I'm addicted too 😂
Finally D-day :-)
Thanks for testing my proposal. Will watch the whole 42 mins. :-)
Thank you for watching
@@TKCL my pleasure. realy like your approch of testing. hardcore industrial design ;-)
Perhaps rerouting the main well line with a T joint and maybe even a valve so it stays under ground as much as possible before it enters the building depending on the limitations of the slab floor or even a new home run to the wellhead that is about 4 ft deep in the ground. Bit at LEAST don't pull from the top of the external vertical section with the black insulation on it.. Good luck!!!
Yup love the shirt as well , really caught my attention, nice experiment you’ve shared with us , hope to see more
More testing coming
Some ice makers use a sensor to determine what temperature the tray is. The quicker that tray reaches the set temperature, the quicker it should discharge the ice and refill the tray for a new batch of ice. Also, since making ice is a matter of thermodynamics, it is really a matter of heat exchange. This also explains that radiator effect of having fans move air over the trays displacing/exchanging the heat quicker. In general the colder the freezer is the quicker the ice should form (absent the Mpenba affect). Setting the freezer colder and chilling the water coming in should speed up production. I was thinking that a copper loop within the lid of the freezer may have a similar effect as using a mini fridge.
Thank you
That ice maker is working awesome for you.
Yes it is
Lots of great information. I think I would try the other tests vs modifying a fridge due to the costs of that project. Just my 2 cents. Good job!
I'm thinking the same thing
Even if you broke even after all of this its extremely convenient to leave for a boating trip or off road trip, either or in my case and not have to stop at an ice machine or store that sells ice on the way IF your lucky enough to have one on the way. Less time getting there is more time spent with the family and that's priceless.
Exactly!
Microphones - Change out the lapel microphone for a lavaliere(headset). This way, the mic is next to your mouth instead of below the vocal projection of normal speech. The lavaliere mic will plug into your existing belt pack, so you don't have to have a new belt pack for the mic. If your mic came with both types of imput(lapel and lavaliere) try a video with the lavaliere mic. You'll find the results are much, much better
I do have both, the headset just looks like I'm on a infomercial or teaching a lecture lol 😂
@@TKCL Maybe but, it is better to be heard and understood.
I have used a mini fridge for cool drinking water for several years in our shop. Our experience with copper coil was that it would freeze the water. We ran the coils on the back wall. Out finial version ran a coil of pex inside the rear of the fridge. In the end the Pex won. It is cheap and did not freeze as easly with normal refrigerator operation.
Thank you for the information
I think the gain from chilling the water is OK but probably not worth the expense. How about insulating the freezer on the outside? Perhaps reducing the impact of being in the shed would have some benefit. Great job. Loving this series.
Really been thinking about this (watched previous episodes) a lot. I currently have 2 deep freezers (both of which were given to me for free!) and I love having ice around. Ice here in Southern Iowa is around $5-$6 plus my coolers sit inside my back porch along with my water coming directly from my basement.
I'm in Florida, deep well water temp. is 72*F. When the sun shines on my pressure tank all day, it increases water temp. significantly. I suggest insulating the pressure tank.
Pump house build coming soon
Warning long comment.
I'm glad to see the process in testing all of the options with water temperature, amongst other variables. I have been thinking the whole video about your previous videos where you had mentioned in your final ideation of the freezer adding a keezer inspired collar and adding insulation. Finally at 39:37 you mentioned the top and back being cold. 🥳
One thing I would try as far as insulation goes (and incorporate cooling your water) is take a sheet of 2 inch foam and carve out a small path for the poly water line to stay in contact with the freezer. That should help cool the water down before entry. Weather the top or back is best, either should help, I would use braided stainless steel lines if you go for a top mount to prevent a fatigue failure.
I brew and have a keezer myself... and though my own quest for the best method of insulation I have yet to put on my collar and taps. Debating between which wood would insulate best, if a sandwiched layer of foam would help, Foil faced... if you test before I do thanks! If I get inspired I will share.
Either way(external mount or mini fridge) I would say stick with the poly line. Its cheap and easy to work with. The water in my fridge is in a poly tank and it does just fine🥶.
Rambling over for now. Stay cool!
We think alike, I've already been considering that. Thanks
😎
I'm going to use metric because the numbers are easy. Switching to gal/F/what ever is just a conversion it doesn't change the physics. When I say water I mean pure water, adding slight impurities changes the numbers slightly but the difference is normally minimal. Adding slat to melt ice is not a "slight" amount.
1. 1 cubic centimeter (cc) of pure water is 1 gram (gm);
2. To cool 1 gm of water 1 degree Celsius (C) means you have remove 1 calorie;
3. To freeze water at 0C you remove 80 calories and get a ice at 0C;
4. To cool ice 1C takes 1 calorie;
5. The speed of heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temperatures. Large difference, faster transfer, small difference, slow transfer;
6. The amount of gases dissolved in water is inversely proportional to its temperature, hotter water has less dissolved gases.
7 Water turns to ice at 0C under "normal" conditions.
The reason Fahrenheit uses 32 as the freezing point is that 0F is the lowest temperature that a water / salt mixture will stay liquid at. Fahrenheit used three physical points to define his temperature scale, the boiling point of water, the freezing point of water ( 180 degrees, same number as half a circle with lots of factors) and the freezing point of salt water. Celsius uses the first two and a range of 100, fewer factors but we do have 10 fingers.
What does this mean?
1. Cool water will freeze faster than hot water since it takes time to cool the hot water down to the temperature of the cool water, at that point they are the same. To put it another way the amount of energy to remove from the hotter water is greater;
2. Given a set cold environment ( the inside of the freezer) the rate water cools is fastest when it is warmest and slows down as it approaches the freezing point;
3. Ice made from hot water is clearer since it has less dissolved gases;
4. Using cooler water does speed up the freezing process but the main energy removal requirement is to cause the phase change from water to solid ( 1 vs 80) so from an energy transfer point of view the phase change is equal to an 80C water difference. From an energy speed point of view its the slowest since the temperature differential is the smallest;
4. Cold ice doesn't make your drink colder, it cools it faster but the final temperature of the ice/drink mixture is the same ~0C. The mixture is basically in equilibrium some water some ice, melting occurs because heat is coming in from the outside of the container.
the whole hot water freezes faster is probably attributed to misunderstandings about hot/boiling water expending its energy faster than cold water. the Tech Ingredients channel i mentioned in a previous video had a freezing demonstration with their home made freezer and shows that the temperature will actually stall until enough energy/heat has been moved/lost to continue dropping the temperature.
No it's because the hot water will evaporate in a cold low humidity environment. This evaporation adds to the cooling of the water..
@@Bryan-Hensley its almost like it expends energy faster than cold water as a result, but doesnt freeze faster.
I love the idea of a solar water heater, I’ve studied with several people have done come up with some decent ideas. One have a black tank that’s not insulated and use the heat in the hot water rising to create flow into a second insulated tank and then at night I have a valve on a timer that just shuts off and uses the insulated tank overnight because it will stay very hot for several hours when it’s insulated then in the morning the valve open in the black painted tank sitting out in the sun and not insulated or heat the water which will flow into both tanks and hit on the water again. A black painted strip down water heater tank gets hot pretty quick, especially in the summer.
I don’t think you’re just proving science at all tell me the truth as hot water takes longer to freeze and there may be some extreme condition where that changes but I’m willing to bet it’s because in the end that hot water is significantly lower volume, I think it would Have to be hard enough to where you were losing mass because the temperature was so high that the water was turning to gas and evaporated at a rate so quickly you just didn’t have as much heat to remove in the end because you just didn’t have as much water left. To test that what you have to do is put 1 ounce of water in a container and then take an extremely hot plate or something or water that was so hot that it was already in a gaseous state but I think for the purposes of making ice it’s always gonna be better to start with less heat in whatever you’re trying to freeze, Since chilling in freezing is the absence of heat, cold isn’t actually something that exists it’s just an absence of heat
my ice maker has been running for 1 week now. 7 cubic ft freezer is about half full. I guess I don't use as much ice and I open the freezer less. I also sealed the gaps cut in freezer using great stuff for windows and doors. it is made for insulated ares and the window door formula has the least expansion pressure so as not to lift the lid off while curing
Rather than a coil, just put a reservoir. Since it will be an hour or so in between fillups, there's no need for a high surface area coil for fast heat transfer. Just use something like that jug you already had in there... so if you can find something that will hold a liter or so that will take those hoses, you will not need a coil. Just insulate the hose between the mini fridge and the freezer. - Once again, great video and you've got me salivating for the next one
Good idea
Take a 2" x 24" pvc pipe and create a 40 oz inline reservior. Let the water acclimate to room temperature while in the "reservoir" and then flow to the ice maker from the exit end. Problem solved.
Also a thought, maybe get a fridge and put it next to the freezer, run a 10 ft long plastic pipe made into a coil through the refrigerator compartment then back out to the ice makers. The coil will keep a good bit of water refrigerated on it's way into the ice maker. Plus you'll have a place to put drinks and stuff in the shop👍👍
Very, very well done. I personally won't be going with chilled water as the gain isn't that impressive. Only if I began to not have enough ice for my needs would I consider it but here's the thing. If you have the space for another DIY Ice Maker instead of buying a mini fridge, the copper, fittings and time to build the chiller. I honestly think I'd just buy and build another DIY Ice Maker instead. It would be pretty close to the cost per bag to pay off the chiller versus another Maker. Just my two cents...
I agree
you might see a slight increase if you expand your coils. leaving them tightly bundled like that means that it takes longer to cool down. condensers in stills can bring alcohol down to the low 40s with just crick water.
There wasnt much benefit, but for the haters, run a drip irrigation system for your "garden" that keeps cool water supplied to the ice makers. Pretty easy to calculate the power to lower temperature of water while liquid, and then the one that is ten times more important, the energy to make the phase change from liquid to solid. That phase change is why its hard to make ice and on the other end of the weekend, you still have ice after 3 days. water ice is pretty magic if you think about it. try taking 20 lbs of vodka in your cooler that is still liquid. You will have a great first night, but have a lot of warm vodka after 12 hours. Take 20 lbs of ice and you will have 16 lbs of ice. the next morning. If you fish, you need more ice, if you drink, you need more vodka. You want to end your trip with "stored" energy" that you took with you to bag some fish and keep cold beer for 4 days and slide into the dock with nothing to spare
Or if you have a pool, drip it to your pool... It will make up for some of the evap loss on the pool. I agree that running water for no reason is wasteful but nothing says you can't use that water for something or collect that water some how for future use.
You could use a recirculating pump to keep the water moving in the pipes and just have the water pushed back to your well.
I would like to see the spacer idea that you talked about. I could feel good about doing that to our little freezer to make ice without any real modifications
Version 2.0 coming soon
I hope at the end you do a total break down of cost for everything. I mean how much you paid for the freezer and ice makers as well as tubes and wiring. Everything else. This has been fun to follow. Lol I like the fact of the cost to make the ice. We use a lot during summer baseball season. I'm thinking about doing the same thing you did. Thanks for the idea. Sorry I didn't realize you said cost around 375 to 400 dollars in everything not bad at all. Could probably cut that cost if you found a used deep freezer at a auction or someplace.
There is also a video of me showing full cost breakdown to operate, per equipment and per pound. It's not bad at all
idea on insulation: on the inside along the top you could put a bathroom dual pane window across the top, just frame it, or find a used ice cream display and rob the window out of it. This way every time you open the door your not loosing as much cold air. Heck maybe even look into one of those ice cream displays for overall insulation additions. ie dissect one and figure out if you can use any of that tech in your setup. Enjoying the videos keep it up!
Hi, Andrew! Good video! You seem to have tested all possible scenarios.
Thank you for watching, I love my ice!
I wonder if a passing the water through a radiator like on the ones used for PCs would work. Also a portable evaporative cooler to help cool things further although humidity would go up. Another thought is if the discharge air from the radiator is still cooler than ambient then passing it through freezer's condenser might help it come to temp faster.
Veritasium could save you some time on the mpemba effect. Glad you proved it for those still believing but boiling water was a waste of time!
The hot water freezes faster thing was something I heard growing up in Canada and it made sense because hot water is what was used to flood the ice off a Zamboni on a rink. I think they used hot water to resurface a skating rink because it melted the imperfections left behind by the blade that scraped the ice.
Also, if you had nothing else on the go and your only focus was making this ice maker run as efficiently as possible, the experimentation would only take 1-2 weeks haha
I know everybody has an idea, so do I. I have a small edgestar ice maker, one ice tray. It consistently makes 12 lbs of ice a day. The difference that I see in your design is the edgestar tray is screwed into a cold plate on the side. Have you thought of adding cold plates. They would be of large enough size (mass) that once they are cold they would hold the low temp. Inorder to cool the water, getting it to freezing temp faster. It would eliminate the need for fans and precooling the water.
I'll look into it
insulating the incoming water pipe On the Sunny Side would make hey big difference also insulating your pump house from direct sun could have an effect too
Doing that very soon
Great video, I agree with you Andrew, improvement investments have to make good business sense. ROI has got to be a consideration!
Good luck with your trials Andrew!
Thank you for watching
Kelley on top of using a light color pool noodle to cover your water pipe. You may want to evaluate the cost of using something like white leak stopper or white flax seal on your outside water tank . Even a white latex paint would help dramatically to reduce the heat inside the water tank itself.
Ditch the chilled water. Let's see what insulating the exterior wall next to the freezer and the freezer does...
Love the channel :)
Testing soon
@@TKCL Would raising the freezer off the ground a few inches allow for increased airflow and efficiency?
Possibly
The more i think about it. With the heat produced with the ice makers there could be a 10- 15 degree difference from top and bottom. Yep 1 fan ducted to bottom has to be tried and turn the other one off. Now that you have the plastic line already and you have 2 cold spots on the outside it only makes sense to put that to use as well without damaging your mini fridge
great work! i would like to see if added a piece of metal attached to the inside metal of the freezer with thermal mastic with the icemaker setting on it again with thermal mastic would affect ice production. I know your freezer isnt running on r134a but in one of those systems the temperature at the inlet of the evaporator is about -20F. The entire inside of that freezer is the evaporator and after you defrost it you will see ice forming near the top first. plus i think the metal would extract even faster from the mold. Uline used to make an icemaker that was thermally bonded to a evaporator. and again great work on the series. I am definitely invested in it now.
Really cool video I feel you won't need the copper tubing just use like a bucket or container with a air tight lid in the fridge then have 2 of them plastic tubing runs comig out of like the side of the bucket (making sure there leak and air proof ) 1 leading to watter mains and the other leading to the ice makers, that way you will have a large amount of chilled water (more than you would with copper tubing ) witch should keep its temperature better in the fridge ,it will be cheaper than the copper tubing and also you may be able to get away with just running the tubing in the door jam hope it helps
Here's a potential passive solution for you. You mentioned that the top of the chest was cold and that you may insulate it later. Run your coils of water line across the top of the freezer and sandwich them with insulation. Obviously you will need enough volume in the lines to fill both ice makers, but that should bring your temps below ambient without using any extra electricity or wasting water.
I'm already kicking that idea around, thank you
As for the “chiller”, I would not drill the fridge! I would remove the door & add a riser, drill the riser, remount the door, then run cheap plastic tubing. Have you looked into a solar distiller? This may improve your purity test results...
For a chilled water solution that's easy and new-equipment-free, just run the loops of nylon lines under the insulation you plan on installing on the lid and/or back. It will recycle some amount of that lost efficiency back into your process
I'm leaning towards that idea
This is what I was gonna suggest.. can't have it in cuz it would obviously freeze in the freezer lol... But you're literally making ice! Lol take some of the ice and plastic tubing run coiled up in a bucket before entering the makers... Just enough so it chills water intake but not too much cuz might freeze ya know? Was also curious bout hard and soft water? Do they have different freezing times? If u add third freezer would run to keep up with added heat so I would stay with 2 and only have 1 fan and chilled maybe even filtered water on intake which can be all in one unit... Iced filter? Lol... Can't wait to finish these vids for some reason hahahaha... U captured half the dudes on the internet some how... It's great lol
Pretty cool experiments. How about having a bottled water cooler feed the icemaker?
Before investing in copper lines i personally would
1. shorten the water line height outside.
2. try using that plastic tubing you used in the cooler, thats how some fridges with water dispensers do it just a zip-tied coil of plastic line.
You can insulate the entire freezer as long as you don't restrict the air flow around the compressor. The coils down there is where it dumps its heat. You can add a fan down there too, but neither will have much effect on ice production just freezer efficiency. I would try to squeeze in a third ice maker.
Good job
The running water idea is a flawed approach for the simple fact that like you said the water in the line inside the building is still sitting there warming to room temperature. Because each batch of ice takes time to make by the time it needs water again the water in the line inside the building is up to room temperature. At least those are my thoughts. To correct this your trickle of water would need to come out of the line feeding the ice makers close to the freezer so the water they take in is that cold ground water.
Understand that! But testing shows it just isn't enough of a drop in temperature. It's a go big or go home type of approach. I think there is easier approaches to more ice production.
Room temperature still cooler than the temperature of the water that was coming out of the tap that the line was baking in the sun.
That was why he let the water running. it was so the sun didn't had time to heat the water in the pipe.
Just my humble opinion; I think you said that the outside of the box gets cold, and you want to insulate it? I agree, and some 1" foam insulation on the garage wall would be great too. My suggestion would be, what if you ran a copper line in a zig zag up and down the outside of the ice box against it underneath the new outer insulation you would be adding? I would think the thermal difference would be minimal to the box while significantly cooling down the water coming in. Especially when you think that the water is going to stop and sit in the pipe getting cold, then when the ice maker kicks on, a new batch of water cools down with a thermal mass already in place. (of course, measure how much water needs to sit in the pipes to fill the maker.) And, hopefully it won't make much of a difference, if really any, in KwH used. (I think...). I just like looking at the least cost solution for the most worth. :) Ok, that's my 2 cents!
I'm already kicking that idea around, I like it.
Ok, wow. You covered a lot of ground in this one. You put a lot of options on the table. I've watched this from end to end. After considering your test results and your cyphering, I'm going to make three suggestions.
First: Get some shade on that inlet pipe and the wall behind the sink and freezer.
Second: I like your idea of a fan to move the air behind the freezer and around the compressor.
Third: Bang for the buck, I suggest adding 1 or 2 more icemakers to the freezer. You said you don't have the room, but I believe with a bit of thinker tinkering, you could. I don't recall the price of the icemaker but I'm guessing it isn't more than that coil of copper.
Going with the copper coil in the mini fridge and get 7-8% improvement versus 33% increase for the same $.
Just my suggestion.
I'm kicking all those ideas around
HVAC guy here. 1 BTU is the amount of energy to raise or lower 1 lb of water 1 degree F. So if you have 200F water and try to get it to 40F it would take 160 btu's but if you have 70F water and try to get it to 40F it would only be 30 btu's. I wont go into latent heat, but yes if your water is colder going in it would take less time to freeze it.
Interesting study:)