Six months ago, I got a steal of a deal on this in Vyrotronic's 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. 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.
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 in working for less than a tenth of that.
Oh well that's wonderful, what does working mean?
What does working mean? For you, it means that we're going to tell these fine folks about our sponsor.
Before we get into why it's only working today
and would cost us over $250,000 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, 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, Stefan, 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 dived
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're going through the initial bit and explaining all the bits and pieces, spot on.
Oh really? We got that on camera nice. No absolutely because I was impressed actually.
It's like oh this guy you've done some homework on this.
Most of it was actually back when I was a teenager 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.
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 deal with the cascade systems all the time so
getting the R580 the ultra low temp gas not an issue.
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.
You're just going to keep hitting me with that stuff aren't you? 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 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, 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? 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.
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 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 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.
Because here's the thing water is also you know a refrigerant in a sense and 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 a big problem.
This fix was a lot cheaper this was just a coupling right okay able to put it back together
because 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 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 touchscreen 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 Wattlow F4 controller so this is primarily
what a lot of chambers use and we dumb this thing down a lot. What are you saying? Take a really good
PC from the 2000s and throw in a Raspberry Pi instead. Oh I thought you meant you dumbed down
the simplicity of the interface for the target audience. Well maybe a 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? Yes that is so cool so do you guys just refurbish and repair these
things or do you like build them? We don't build them so we service them we repair them right but
we work on a host of other equipment that uses cascade refrigeration so if you had a minus 80
freezer if we if you remember a little thing called COVID and the COVID and the COVID vaccines
can't 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 well I can do that. Yeah turn now hold on
gotta turn on this one too. Nice solid. Yep there we go. Okay so now we've got water coming through
flowing out. Uh-huh I'm 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 because once they know they have to deal
with it. I just fix things. Yeah as far as you're concerned everything's fine sir. That's exactly it.
All right so our cooling is doing our first stage compressor essentially the hot side
of our first stage compressor loop. Correct 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 is hot side is cooled by the first stage is cold side and that's the whole idea.
Yeah and you're absolutely right about that but what this unit has that's unique is called a
desuper heater. So you end up be you essentially make the second stage compressor run cooler run
more efficiently run better. But yeah primarily the condenser for the first stage does all the
cooling and transfers the heat because ultimately that's what this chamber is. It pulls heat. Sorry
you mean the evaporator. It 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. Is that cool in that freeze?
All right so the water's on. Yep. The unit's energized. Yep. Do we just press the button?
Pretty much. Holy s***. 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 because I'll get you another quote. It's all good. So that
that's just the internal fence. And those are not responsible for cooling any of the hot sides
or anything. Those just circulate the air through the what I guess it'd be in a vat 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. Minus one. All right there we go. Right arrow turns on. Wow that's simple huh?
That's 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 degrees Celsius per minute. Oh okay. So pretty fast. Wow. For a
chamber that's this big. It's huge. But that was with a load correct? That was with a 600 pound
aluminum load in it. Oh so when it's empty she'll rip. She should but remember 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. 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
dumbed it down so much eventually we can fine tune it to get its original performance back. Right.
But for all intents and purposes it's working at about 80%. Okay which is still pretty quick. 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 or 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 one degree.
I mean given the size of the things that we would ever put in something like this that's actually
perfectly fast for us. Want to go in it Elijah? It's really loud inside. Double up the hearing
protection. We might have to. It's over 100 decibels the last time we measured it.
I actually can't hear you. I didn't talk. Do you want a do you want a jacket?
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah okay. That's our new one. Yeah buddy. lttstore.com
What can I say?
Oh my god.
So cold. It's fine. It's only like zero. This is Canadian summer maybe.
Okay close this here.
Let's see how long it's going to be inside here.
Okay. It's very dry. Yeah. So it's not that bad.
It's not great. No. Do you want to go more? Okay.
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 good?
All right we'll call it. We'll call it.
So nice.
Well she works. What'd 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.
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. I just set it to minus 40. Yeah 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 a 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 negative 40.
Remember 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. No. This is warm water coming out
of here. Can we throw the panels on right now? Absolutely.
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 degrees Celsius.
Oh man. That's chilly. Wow.
Oh my god. You're blue. Chilly boys. I'm Canadian but I'm like Southwestern Canadian. Doesn't get
that cold here. I have never experienced minus 50. That's crazy. I've never seen my breath come out
like that. Like immediately my mustache started to freeze. All right. Let's talk about the challenges
of keeping it. There are several reasons we can't run this long term. Starting 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 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 mystery pitle 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 you know somewhere outside of this chamber preferably outside. So that's where like
our cooling tower might come in except that 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. 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 thanks to some extra stuff they had lying around and also just wanting to
be turbo bros. So we're going to have them linked down below for your refrigeration and heating needs
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 re-gas it but that cost is
a fraction of what you'd spend on a machine of this size in class brand new. So slide into my DMs.
You know what I'm saying? Hit me up. Yes I'm up. You know what I'm going to slide in here?
The segue to our sponsor. If you guys enjoyed this video go check out part one when we unboxed it.
It's a pretty cool little piece of hardware and we skimmed over some of the details from that video today.