New Dry Curing Chamber Build...42cu.ft. stainless double door

[Fueling Around]

Took two tries, but got the pattern made for the baffle plate.

If the kraft paper doesn't work, the template paper flooring installers use is thicker and more durable.

 

[Ty520]

 

[indaswamp]

Got the baffle plate test fit installed today!! WOOHOO!! That was a challenge, but I figured it out. When I made the second pattern in the morning, the humidity was high and the paper expanded, when I spread it out on my work table in the sun...IT SHRANK! So I used cardboard, started over and made another pattern...IT SHRANK TOO!!! I could not believe it! The cardboard shrank more than the paper! 3/16" over 2'; and fast too...like in 2 hours! Crap! I walked off to make some more coffee and think about the problem. Had an A-ha moment...the top holes on the second pattern lined up perfectly, so I put that pattern back in place. Then I marked the shelf brackets on the paper at the bottom. Used the top holes and the marks for alignment. Used the shelf brackets as my pattern. Dad always says,"use the original part for a pattern if you can."; took me 2 days before his wisdom dawned on me! DUH!!! LOL!!! After that eureka moment, It was a piece of cake! All the measurements were within 1/32" when I cut the aluminum. It fit like a glove when I did the test fit. Had some beers and a pizza tonight to celebrate.

 

[indaswamp]

Some pics...

Baffle plate installed, left side view: Bottom bolts are for mounting the shelving brackets, top bolts are for securing the baffle plate....

Right side with shelves installed:

Radiator/fan assembly fits perfectly!

I'm going to make some mounting clips out of aluminum sheet metal to secure the radiator fans in place. Got a few small odds and end left...couple of brackets and clips to make...and the construction phase is done. On to the cooling system this week!

Oh- and the paint job...

This is right after painting. It looks better now...

 

[indaswamp]

I had to take pictures of the cardboard shrink...I could not believe it shrank THAT much!

Left...

Right..

And it was taped down firmly. Tape was still in place, though it was pulled very tightly.

 

[indaswamp]

Front line moving through this morning, so I will be inside fooling with the cooling components...may start doing a little wiring.

 

[indaswamp]

1100 dehumidifier fits perfect on the top shelf...Will put one in each front corner on the top shelf.

 

[indaswamp]

Just an update...
Got the inside of the box deep cleaned and sanitized. Did Final install of the baffle plate. I made some clips for the heat exchanger/fan assemblies to mount them to the back wall and the baffle plate. I drilled the water line holes in the ceiling of the cabinet. Got the water lines run, got the reservoir installed.

Had a set back yesterday evening when I discovered that the left door hinges were loose. Investigating it, the backing plate that the hinges mount to with 3 screws was a piece of 0.1" flat bar and two bottom screws on the top hinge were stripped/rusted out. Had to do a repair. Ended up opening the stainless sheet metal at the top corner and digging out 10" of foam to get to the backing plate. Pulled that out for a pattern. cut a 10.5" replacement piece out of 1/8" flat bar. Tapped the holes and reinstalled. The threads on the screws where pretty bad so I replaced them back with new. Door is rock solid now though...

Got the caster tray fabricated this afternoon. Got too late in the evening for install, will have to do that tomorrow. Will move the cabinet inside tomorrow to finish the cooling system which is mostly electrical work at this point forward. Hope to have it up and running this weekend. I have a bunch of pics.- will post them later.

 

[pineywoods]

Looking forward to the pics sounds like your getting there

 

[JC in GB]

Very nice. Wish I was as handy working metal as you are.

JC

 

[indaswamp]

Very nice. Wish I was as handy working metal as you are.

JC

Well....growing up as an engineer's son, I learned a whole lot of stuff watching Dad at an early age. I also have the mind for it...Life skills!
It also helps having a friend with the heavy machinery for fabricating, bending and welding aluminum.

 

[indaswamp]

Looking forward to the pics sounds like your getting there

Thanks piney! Moved the maturing chamber in the house today!! WOOHOO!!! Happy day today! Beer time! I promise a bunch of pictures will be posted this weekend....I am taking the afternoon off tonight and celebrating the completion of the construction phase. This weekend I will start running and hooking up wire for the cooling system.

 

[indaswamp]

That sucker is HUGE!!! Looked much smaller outside! So much room to hang stuff!!! I am Happy Happy!!!!!!

 

[indaswamp]

Here's the pics...

I am using a coleman 2 qt. insulated water jug for my cooling system reservoir. I have a tendency to over think things and had elaborate plans to make an insulated reservoir...was walking through Walmart and looked up and saw the jugs sitting on the shelf. $4 dollars..I said-"that's it! That will work perfectly!" This is how I secured it to the top of the freezer box using the rivet nuts and a piece of all thread...

This is a pic. of the radiator clips I made from aluminum flashing (looking from the bottom)...

Holes for the water lines drilled...

Cover over the hole where the old water drain line ran through the cabinet...

The bad top hinge plate on the left door...

New plate for install (holes not tapped yet)...

Top left corner opened up to dig foam out and retrieve old backing plate...

New backing plate installed..

And refilled with expanding foam, secured in place with rigging... I used one of the old bolt holes on the roof to secure the 2x4 on one end and a ratched strap to the bottom hinge on the corner.

 

[indaswamp]

Last Wednesday I had my boat building buddy's son lined up to weld out the caster tray for the freezer box... That did not take too long at all...got it done in less than an hour.

Welds cleaned up, tops of some welds taken off with grinder for the freezer box to sit flush in the tray, acid washed, sharp edges and corners cleaned up with a tiger sanding disk...

Casters installed...

And Steve H I had help to lay it down on the back!! LOL!! The bottom had a few rust spots so I cleaned it up with a grinder and sanding wheel, then hit it with some acid wash, then acetone and the last of the can of rust primer...

Let that dry for a couple hours then installed the caster tray. I oversized the holes in the caster tray where the legs were installed in the bottom of the freezer box. Made some 3" X 3"X 5/16" plate washers for the 1/2" bolts to secure the tray to the bottom of the cabinet.

Fit like a glove! I oversized it by about 1/8" all around to allow for pull of the aluminum when welding.

I used stainless steel tie wire I had on hand to secure the water lines on the hose barbs. Bent the cut ends down and held in place with a 4" ziptie. Kept twisting the wire until there was enough compression so that the hose would not turn on the fitting. No leaks when leak testing!

radiator/fan assemblies installed!

And here she is waiting to be moved into the house...

 

[indaswamp]

Cooling system update:
I hooked up the cooling system Friday night. Did not use the controllers at all, everything direct wired for a cooling test of the TEM system. Ambient temp. was 70* in the room. Started at midnight and let it go all night. Woke up in the morning with excitement and anticipation only to be let down...The freezer box was STILL at 70*F! What the heck??? Shut everything down and on the computer doing research... come to find out (late BTW after I bought the TEM modules) that I bought the wrong peltier TEM modules.

Peltier modules have a set temp. differential that they can achieve based on the module and the ambient temperature the unit is operating at. If for example, the differential is 50*F then you should have 25*F of cooling on the cold side and 25*F of heating on the hot side. Peltier technology uses two different metals in the module. One metal will be better for cooling than the other, but you can flip the polarity and force the cold or hot to either side; which is how those travel food and drink cooler/heaters work. If the heat sink on the heat side is not efficient enough, and the hot side gets hotter than it should, this will shift the differential to give you less cooling. If the heat sink is very efficient, then the heat side runs cooler than expected, giving you more drop on the cooling side.

Well, the TEM I bought was not set up for chilling, it was set up as a fluid heater. When I wired it up red to (+) and black to (-) and powered it up, the heat sink on what I thought should be the hot side got cold and the fluid block got hot! So I switched the wires and ran the test. The heat sink got up to 163*F with the fans running!!
What happened is that because of the inefficient heat sink, the heat bled over through the TEM module and was heating the chiller block too....

Long story short-the heat sink is not large enough and this unit is not designed for cooling. I need a huge, very large, efficient heat sink like the TEM unit JC in GB uses. I went back looking on aliexpress and found what I needed..the correct TEM module for my application. I will buy (2) 180W refrigeration chillers designed for aquarium applications. I will add two radiator fan assemblies and run 2 TEM systems side by side. I could have bought a 420W refrigeration chiller but from my research two smaller units are more efficient because of the heat removal. So that is what I will do.

So now I am back to waiting again...will be another month before I can make any progress on the cooling system. I hope to have everything else done so that when they arrive it will be plug and go...

 

[JC in GB]

Cooling system update:
I hooked up the cooling system Friday night. Did not use the controllers at all, everything direct wired for a cooling test of the TEM system. Ambient temp. was 70* in the room. Started at midnight and let it go all night. Woke up in the morning with excitement and anticipation only to be let down...The freezer box was STILL at 70*F! What the heck??? Shut everything down and on the computer doing research... come to find out (late BTW after I bought the TEM modules) that I bought the wrong peltier TEM modules.

Peltier modules have s set temp. differential that they can achieve based on the module and the ambient temperature the unit is operating at. If for example, the differential is 50*F then you should have 25*F of cooling on the cold side and 25*F of heating on the hot side. Peltier technology uses two different metals in the module. One metal will be better for cooling than the other, but you can flip the polarity and force the cold or hot to either side; which is how those travel food and drink cooler/heaters work. If the heat sink on the heat side is not efficient enough, and the hot side gets hotter than it should, this will shift the differential to give you less cooling.

Well, the TEM I bought was not set up for chilling, it was set up as a fluid heater. When I wired it up red to (+) and black to (-) and powered it up, the heat sink on what I thought should be the hot side got cold and the fluid block got hot! So I switched the wires and ran the test. The heat sink got up to 163*F with the fans running!!
What happened is that because of the inefficient heat sink, the heat bled over through the TEM module and was heating the chiller block too....

Long story short-the heat sink is not large enough and this unit is not designed for cooling. I need a huge, very large, efficient heat sink like the TEM unit JC in GB uses. I went back looking on aliexpress and found what I needed..the correct TEM module for my application. I will buy (2) 180W refrigeration chillers designed for aquarium applications. I will add two radiator fan assemblies and run 2 TEM systems side by side. I could have bought a 420W refrigeration chiller but from my research two smaller units are more efficient because of the heat removal. So that is what I will do.

So now I am back to waiting again...will be another month before I can make any progress on the cooling system. I hope to have everything else done so that when they arrive it will be plug and go...

That is most frustrating. When I read the description for the module you got, I thought it was a chiller module as well.

I also thought my heat sink on my TEM modules was oversized but I guess not.

If it is any consolation, I spent all day Saturday wrestling with a 16 year old clothes washer replacing the basket drive. After getting it all apart, cleaning it, installing the new basket drive and reassembling it 3 times, I come to find out the control board is also fried. Good night. A waste of an entire day and now I am out $1000 for a new washer which I will have to wait for 2 weeks to get. Most frustrating.

I think it was a bad week for handiwork. >_<

JC

 

[JC in GB]

Last Wednesday I had my boat building buddy's son lined up to weld out the caster tray for the freezer box... That did not take too long at all...got it done in less than an hour.

Welds cleaned up, tops of some welds taken off with grinder for the freezer box to sit flush in the tray, acid washed, sharp edges and corners cleaned up with a tiger sanding disk...
View attachment 631373
Casters installed...
View attachment 631374
View attachment 631375
And Steve H I had help to lay it down on the back!! LOL!! The bottom had a few rust spots so I cleaned it up with a grinder and sanding wheel, then hit it with some acid wash, then acetone and the last of the can of rust primer...
View attachment 631376
Let that dry for a couple hours then installed the caster tray. I oversized the holes in the caster tray where the legs were installed in the bottom of the freezer box. Made some 3" X 3"X 5/16" plate washers for the 1/2" bolts to secure the tray to the bottom of the cabinet.
View attachment 631377
Fit like a glove! I oversized it by about 1/8" all around to allow for pull of the aluminum when welding.

I used stainless steel tie wire I had on hand to secure the water lines on the hose barbs. Bent the cut ends down and held in place with a 4" ziptie. Kept twisting the wire until there was enough compression so that the hose would not turn on the fitting. No leaks when leak testing!
View attachment 631380
radiator/fan assemblies installed!
View attachment 631379
And here she is waiting to be moved into the house...
View attachment 631378

Looks great so far. I really like your water reservoir. I may switch mine to that style.

I am so terribly bummed about your cooling system issue.

 

[indaswamp]

That is most frustrating. When I read the description for the module you got, I thought it was a chiller module as well.

I also thought my heat sink on my TEM modules was oversized but I guess not.

If it is any consolation, I spent all day Saturday wrestling with a 16 year old clothes washer replacing the basket drive. After getting it all apart, cleaning it, installing the new basket drive and reassembling it 3 times, I come to find out the control board is also fried. Good night. A waste of an entire day and now I am out $1000 for a new washer which I will have to wait for 2 weeks to get. Most frustrating.

I think it was a bad week for handiwork. >_<

JC

OUCH! I will only be out $12 bucks when you consider that I can salvage the small fans on the units!! Will try and order the new TEM chillers tonight. Fingers crossed I don't have more problems with aliexpress!!

 

[JC in GB]

OUCH! I will only be out $12 bucks when you consider that I can salvage the small fans on the units!! Will try and order the new TEM chillers tonight. Fingers crossed I don't have more problems with aliexpress!!

I have had very few issue with AliExpress. I hope you get what you need quickly.