Six months ago, I got a steal of a deal on this Environtronics thermal testing
chamber. Brand new, these puppies can go for tens, if not hundreds of thousands
of dollars. How much did I pay? Less than 1,300
US dollars, and that included Delicia.
I'm sorry, I mean delivery. Back when we unboxed it, we were blown away by how
good the condition of it was. I mean, sure, it was decommissioned over 10
years ago and left outside, but there was next to no corrosion, and it even
had full documentation, service history, and schematics in the box.
>> [music] >> I mean, how much more could it cost to integrate into our testing lab?
A quarter million dollars? The good news is we got in touch with the guys who
decommissioned this exact unit, and they got it in working for less than a tenth
of that. Oh, well, that's wonder Wait, what does it working mean?
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Before we get into why it's only working today and would cost us over 250,000
dollars to permanently install in our warehouse, let's take a look at the
progress that we've made on the unit. I mean, I can already see that a lot has
changed here. And to get the details, it'd probably be best to talk to one of
the technicians who's been here grinding away at this particular achievement over
the last few weeks. First things first, Stephen, can you talk me through why you
guys needed to bolt this sheet of plywood onto the side of the unit? So,
basically, what we ended up doing is creating a whole pump system for this
unit because it's water-cooled. It's not air-cooled, so normally this unit has a
much bigger condenser or cooling unit up on a roof or a cooling loop in a
building, but we had to make it work.
One of our ideas to dissipate the heat from the unit was to use these scrap
cooling towers that we dumpster dive, but unfortunately, it just plain wasn't
enough capacity. So, why don't you walk us through what we're Oh, lordy,
actually doing? We're using your water connection to cool the unit. So, we're
just running cold tap water through it and then dumping it once it's heated up.
Okay, City of Surrey, if you're watching this, this is temporary, okay? Just like
to do this video, and like there was a heavy rainfall atmospheric river like a
week ago. This is not permanent. Please don't be mad. To be clear then, we're
not using this at all. No, we aren't.
Okay. Anyway, there wouldn't be anything for us to
cool if the system wasn't working. So, why don't we talk about what we did on
the refrigeration side? >> When you were going through the initial bit and explaining all the bits and
pieces, spot on. Oh, really? >> You You got You Oh, we got that on
camera. Nice. >> No, abs- absolutely, cuz I was I was impressed, actually. It's like, "Ooh,
this guy You've You've You've done some homework on this."
Yeah, most of it was actually back when I was a teenager, >> [music]
>> because I really, really, really wanted to build a DIY phase change CPU cooler.
So, I learned about the refrigeration cycle, and then ultimately never did it.
And a big part of the reason I never did it was because handling the gases freaks
me the crap out. And as we mentioned in the first video, that was one of the
biggest challenges with this is that it came completely non-charged, so it was
it was empty. Um and we really weren't
sure where or how we could get our hands on the gases. So, you guys have
obviously got it charged up now. Was that a big challenge? For us, not a
problem. We We deal with the cascade systems all the time, so
getting the R508B, the ultra-low temp gas, not an issue. [music]
>> Okay, so it's not one of those ones that's restricted and you're not allowed to buy it anymore. No, it's it's just
not that commonly available. Let's put it that way.
What does that mean? That means you need to have a
refrigeration license, and it's bloody expensive.
>> [sighs] >> You're just going to keep hitting me with that stuff, aren't you? Unf-
Unfortunately, yes. That's the way this project went. What
kind of condition was all the mechanical side of it in? So, like you said,
there's a there's no rust in here, but the question was is how did these age?
And out of these two compressors, it was
this one that was the biggest problem. When we decommissioned it, we put in
nitrogen as a holding charge to basically protect everything, thinking
that >> No rust? No rust. Whoever's going to Whoever wants to buy it or whatever
they're going to do with it, it's going to be safe. They can just turn it on and away it goes.
>> Inert gas, and it's not going to interfere with whatever you want to put in after. That's kind of the idea,
right? >> Yeah, exactly. >> Okay. Problem is
this compressor didn't have any. Like, no gas. So, that's on you guys
then. No. No. There's a leak on there. There's a leak.
>> [laughter] >> I'm not I'm not taking the blame for that one.
Okay, so at some point while it was being stored outside, it sprung
>> It sprung a leak. >> Yeah, it sprung a leak. And so, what ended up happening is that
the oil that's sitting in this compressor becomes contaminated, and
>> [music] >> in order to refurbish it, not only do I
need to take the oil out, but I also need to get rid of all the moisture
that's in there. That was the biggest problem.
Cuz here's the thing, water is also, you
know, a refrigerant in a sense in that it has its own behavior around freezing
and evaporating. And so, if you've got any of that in your other more different
refrigerant, unless it's part of a gas mixture you intended to make, it's
[music] a big problem. This fix was a lot cheaper. This was just a coupler. Right, okay.
>> to put it back together cuz this forms part of the water loop that cools that
low-stage compressor. Got it, okay.
This is such a tiny silver lining on a giant rain cloud. Mhm.
But there is some good news. One of the big challenges we were not looking
forward to was dealing with the control system for this thing. You guys might
remember there was a little touch screen here, and then inside, here, let's crack
this open, there was like a Windows XP
era machine, was it? Well, that's gone. And what are we using
now? So, right now, what we're using is a little Watlow F4 controller. So, this
is primarily what a lot of chambers use,
and we dumbed this thing down a lot. What are you saying?
Ta- Take a really good PC from the 2000s
and throw in a Raspberry Pi instead. [music] Oh, I thought you meant you dumbed down
the simplicity of the interface for the target audience. Well, maybe maybe a
little a little little bit of that, too. Fair enough. I mean, realistically, our
needs are not that complicated. We want to be able to, over the network, I
assume, tell it, "Here's my target temperature, here's how long I want it
there, and here's my next target, and here's when I want it to turn off."
Absolutely. >> And we can do all of that these days with a Raspberry Pi rather than a
full-fledged PC tower. And look at this. There's so much space.
It's free real estate. And all of the other relays and stuff that are in here,
these are all just the originals? Uh yes.
That is so cool. So, do you guys just refurbish and repair these things, or do
you like build them? Uh we don't build them. So, we service them, we repair
them, but we work on a host of other equipment that uses cascade refrigeration. So, if
you had uh a minus 80 freezer, uh if we
If you remember a little thing called COVID and the COVID and the COVID vaccines,
can they need to be stored in at minus 80. Those are the freezers I typically
work on, as well as this. Carmichael does all that laboratory stuff. Cool.
Okay. Can we fire it Can we fire it up then? >> Absolutely. We need to turn on the water
first. Okay. Uh well, I can do that. Yep, turn that one Hold on. Got to turn
on this one, too. Nice, solid. Yep, there we go. Okay. So,
now we've got water coming through, flowing out. Uh-huh, and flowing out to
what? The garden, where at least it can be used by our plants. >> Absolutely.
Is that where it's going? Yes. Okay. You
can tell that this man has experience
working with organizations where the executives don't want to know.
>> [laughter] >> Because once they know, they have to deal with it. I just fix things. Yeah.
[laughter] As far as you're concerned, everything's
fine, sir. Exactly it. All right. So, our cooling
is doing our first stage compressor,
essentially. The the hot side of our first stage compressor loop, right?
Correct. There is There is a small circuit going to the second stage, but for primarily
>> Really? What would the water be doing for the second stage compressor? Because
I thought the second stage's hot side is cooled by the first stage's cold side,
and that's the whole idea. >> Yeah, and you're and you're absolutely right about that, but what this unit has
that's unique is called a desuperheater. So, you end up
You essentially make the second stage compressor run cooler, run more
efficiently, run better. Oh. >> But yeah, primarily the condenser uh for
the first stage does all of the cooling and transfers the heat. Cuz that's me
That's what this chamber is. It pulls heat >> You mean the evaporator.
Depends which system we're talking about.
Wait, right, because it heats and cools. Speaking of which, what kind of a
temperature range can we do with this unit? Because we didn't know that much
about it when we bought it. Um minus 73.
That cold enough for you?
All right. So, the water's on. Yep. The unit's energized.
>> Yep. Do we just press the button? Pretty much. Holy
Elijah, I don't know if you're going to be able to talk me out of us not deploying this.
Yes, I will be able to cuz I'll get you another quote.
It's all good. So, that >> [laughter] >> That's just the That's just the internal
fans. Mhm. And And those are not responsible for
cooling any of the hot sides or anything. >> No. Those just circulate the air through
the what I guess would be an evap Yeah. inside here.
And also just circulate the air in the chamber so you have a constant temperature throughout. Because if you
need an environmental control chamber,
then you obviously care about the consistency of your bloody environmental
control. How cold do you want to go? Cold. Minus
one's fine. Minus one. All right. There we go. Right arrow
turns on. Wow, that simple, huh? That simple.
And then, how long should this take to pull down?
So, the specification The original unit ran
at 100 Yeah. Ran at 1.75° C per minute.
Oh, okay. So, pretty fast. Wow. >> For a chamber that's It's huge. Yeah.
But that was with a load, correct? That was with a 600-lb aluminum load in it.
Oh, so when it's empty, she'll rip. She should, but remember what I what we were
saying about it's almost working? Yeah.
Well, it works, just not as
it was originally designed. It's a little bit slower now. Kind of
like me as I age. As you age. Hey, just so we can have
this conversation where it's a bit quieter, Mhm. why do you think it's slower? Did we not put enough
refrigerant in or like The refrigerant is correct. I know that. The problem is
is the controls. So, because we dumped it down so much,
eventually we can fine-tune it to get it its original performance back, Right.
>> but for for all intents and purposes, it's working at about 80%. Okay, which is
still pretty And it's not going to damage it in any way to run it this way. >> No, it's just not It's just not as
efficient at cooling pulling out the heat. Got it. Okay.
I'm good with that. Let's go see what kind of progress we've made while we've been standing here. Wow, we got we got
better than our 1°. I mean, given the size of the things that we would ever
put in something like this, that's actually perfectly fast [music] for us.
Want to go in it, Elijah? It's really loud inside.
>> [music] >> Double up the hearing protection? We might have to. >> decibels last time we measured it.
I actually can't hear you. >> I didn't talk. I was
Do you want to Do you want a jacket? Like LCD store or something so it's not
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. That's our new one. [music] Yeah, buddy. LCDstore.com
What can I say?
Oops. Oh my god.
So cold. It's fine. It's something like zero.
This is Canadian summer, baby.
Okay, close this thing.
Let's see how long it stays inside here.
Okay? It's down 5°.
It definitely goes down quicker.
Down 10.
It's very dry. Yeah.
So, it's not that bad.
It's not great, though. Do you want to go lower?
Okay.
My My nose is running now.
There we go. Just set it for minus 40, so
it'll get a bit frosty now. My mustache
is starting to ice. My nose is.
Okay. Are you done? I'm done. You're done?
All right, we'll call it. WE'LL CALL IT.
OH, THAT'S SO NICE.
WOO! WELL, SHE WORKS.
What did we make it to? Minus 22. Minus 22, which Okay, with how fast the air
was circulating in there, I wonder what the wind chill was on that. >> Yeah, it was really bad.
Freaking cold. I mean, my nose started to run about halfway,
and then the last minute or so, I could feel my nose hairs freezing. And I was
like, this is very uncomfortable. That was so fun, though.
>> [laughter] >> But it freaking works. >> It's real And we that's not even as cold
as it can go. Can we see how much we can push it? >> Yeah, we should let it keep going. >> to minus 40, so let's
Well, so let's let it keep going. In the meantime, you asked me a question while we were in there, and the audio was
obviously not usable. Like, what would we use something like this for?
>> Yeah. And the answer is
us not really anything. Our small chamber can accommodate what is
realistically the largest thing that we would test, which is a desktop PC. But
what these are used for in a more industrial environment is validation of
Apparently, this one's former life was validating solar panels. So, really it
would be for environmental validation of
outdoor-rated equipment Got it. >> that could be deployed anywhere from
Arizona to Antarctica. Let's go take a look at -40. Remember how I was how I
was telling you we move energy? Yeah. Put your hand on here. That's the water
inlet. Put your hand on here.
That is a huge delta. Yeah. That's crazy.
>> Yeah. This is warm water coming out of here.
Can we throw the panels on right now?
>> It's still really loud. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know. It's not not at
all conceivable for an open workspace like you guys have. It is a lot better,
though. It is.
Stop. I'm just thinking. We haven't even gone
over why it would have cost $250,000 to keep it permanently yet. Okay, we should
probably talk about that. But first, I want to experience minus 48° C.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Woo! Woo! Oh, man.
That's chilly.
WOW.
OH my god, you are blue. Chilly, boys.
I'm Canadian, but I'm like southwestern Canadian. Doesn't get that cold here. I
have never [music] experienced minus 50.
That's crazy. I've never seen my breath come out like
that. Like, immediately my mustache started to freeze. That All right.
>> [music] >> Let's talk about the challenges of keeping it. There are several reasons we
can't run this long-term. Starting [music] with probably the most expensive, as you heard, it was too loud
to operate out in the open like this. So, we would need to build a up-to-code
room to house this thing. That means [music] plumbing in case it leaks, fire
suppression in case it blows up, you know, noise treatment and electrical and
so much more. And it would have to be big enough that it can not only fit in
it, but service technicians who would need to come at least annually need to
be able to access every side of the machine in order to crawl around and
find out what the >> [music] >> mystery piddle stain is. That's right.
With that said, that doesn't sound like a quarter million dollars.
You're right. We would actually need to reinforce the
roof because for every energy unit of cool or heat that you put inside of this
chamber, you need to dissipate it, >> [music] >> you know, somewhere outside of this
chamber, preferably outside. >> So, that's where like our cooling tower might come in, except that
>> [laughter] >> we're talking about up to 200,000 BTU an
hour. So, that cooling tower ain't going to do it, and even something quite a bit
larger might not do it. No. And I really don't want to reinforce
the roof again. We already had to do it once in order to air-condition the
warehouse, and it was terrible. It took so long.
>> However, No. >> [music] >> No, we're not doing it.
Okay, that's fair. But that actually doesn't mean that this unit's story is
over. The quote from Carmichael, as I alluded to earlier, was extremely
generous considering the incredible amount of work they had to do here >> [music]
>> thanks to some extra stuff they had lying around and also just wanting to be
turbo bros. [music] So, we're going to have them linked down below for your refrigeration and heating needs. Um and
that cost savings they gave us matters because now this thing is in pretty much
fully functional, ready to be integrated condition.
It's a pretty nice system, and we'd be happy to let it go for what we paid plus
transport. You will have to capture the gas and regas it, but that cost is a
fraction of what you'd spend on a machine of this size and class brand
new. So, uh slide into my DMs. You know what I'm
saying? Hit me up. Yes, I'm up. You know what
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>> [music] >> If you guys enjoyed this video, go check out part one when we unboxed it. It's a
pretty [music] cool little piece of hardware, and we
skimmed over some of the details from that video today.