Horizontal Volenti Cooler.....

**Naja002** · 05-22-2009, 08:42 AM

Hey Everybody,

After setting up the Bongs, a little further research lead me to "Volenti Coolers", but I couldn't seem to find any pix of what exactly a "Volenti Cooler" was/looked like.

After swapping some PMs with nub about my bong coolers et al.....volenti coolers came up and I finally found some pix in nub's thread here:

Nub builds a (better) bong....

Very cool idea...no doubt,

but I'm not a big fan of the appearance! It didn't take long to realize that this could be done horizontally inside of a cooler....and a little bit longer to work out the details in my mind.

I have the tub, pump, tubing.....just need a few pieces of 1/2" pvc pipe....hmmmm. So, yesterday I needed to kill a few minutes before an appointment. So, I killed it at Lowes.

This is what I've come up with:

A small Via Aqua 480 pump pumps the water up to the manifold:

I drilled 4x 3/32" holes into each run hoping that they would not be too big or too many....worked out very nicely!

Here's a 10 sec video:

For experiments I often try to use what I have on hand just to get an idea if it will work, what changes (may) need to be made, etc. So, at the moment I'm just using some new wash clothes that I picked up for another reason, but never used. Nub and I both agree that having the cloth reach all the way down into the res water is the way to go. I may pick up some and cut to fit for this task. Anyway, here's a short 20 sec video--I was hoping to show the wicking from start to soaked, but it did not turn out that way. Being brand new cloths.....it took a bit for them to get soaked and start wicking well, but this will give you a good idea of what's going on:

Next, make a cut in the top, drill a few holes, add a small fan:

The towel is there to cover a 3rd hole. I've found that just having the fan hole and the open one on the end works fine, if not better.....

Results? Well, I don't know right now. I added hot water....probably about 4 gals of it. Temps went from ~100F to ~72.5 in ~1hr.....ambient is 82F and ~75% humidity. So, it's below ambient....it works. However, it's a no-load situation right now....so, how well it works?.....not sure atm. I'm not sure what I am going to do with it at this point. I really just wanted to put it together and check out the concept. But being who I am......

.........I did have to hook it up to my bong setup.....

**Naja002** · 05-22-2009, 08:44 AM

So, I hauled it out to the out-building:

Made a few cuts in the res top and Volenti tub in order to run the source flow (pump from res) and return (siphon tube):

Got my siphon starter setup:

After the res and the Volenti tub reach water height equilibrium.....I only had ~2" of exposed cloth above the water. Not ideal, but this is just an experiment and--it can be fixed with a little bit of effort....not something I'm in the mood for today though....

Within ~30mins though the Volenti temp was already about 3F below the res temp:

And the res temp is ~10F below ambient......@ ~ 46% humidity:

The 80F is the temp of the air coming out of the bongs.....5F below ambient....5F above res water temp.

The Via Aqua pump adds ~10w to the setup.

It's going to get warmer still today, so I'm going to keep an eye on everything and see what happens......may be more temp pix to come.....

**Naja002** · 05-22-2009, 08:45 AM

Well, once again....being who I am.....after a minute of thinking about--I just needed to fix the high water problem. Well, that tub had been used in a different application for a couple of years. The wood was already cut....all I needed to do was drain the tub a bit, move it, place the wood, move the tub back, and extend 1 end of the siphon tube....not a big deal really. So, I just got up off my duff and did it:

Added ~3.75" to the height....which was just about right!

Here's a vid (~20 secs) of it in action--with the top off:

~1/2" lower would have been perfect. Without the top on it's almost silent.

Everything else looks the same, except a few inches higher.

Don't get worked up, folks...whatever happens here: This is just a toy to play with for a bit. I have no idea what I am going to do with it or how long I'm going to keep it running. It does offer quite a bit of experimentation though...being mixed in with everything else....turn off the rads and bongs and see how this puppy does by itself!