There are 220-240 volt 15k-30k btu used ac’s cheap on craigslist. anyone here use a window unit to make a chiller for their rotovap? a 1hp water chiller is about 1500 bucks online with a heat removing capacity of about 7k btu/hr and a 1.5hp chiller is about 10.5k btu/hr.
I would imagine a person could build a large capacity chiller for under 500 bucks easily enough.
1 Refrigeration Ton = 12,000 BTU
How this relates to HP does cause a lot of confusion. It is true many people equate that 1 HP = 1 Ton, and this isn’t accurate.
Basically the colder you operate, or the lower your evaporator temperature on your refrigeration system, the lower your BTU/Hr Capacity is. Because of this it is impossible to directly correlate HP to Refrigeration Ton.
for example:
If you have a 5 HP refrigeration system operating under typical AC conditions (45F ET/130F CT/95F AMB), it will remove 56,000 BTU/HR, or 4.71 Refrigeration Tons.
This same 5 HP refrigeration system operating on a Brewery Chiller System (20F ET/120F CT/95F AMB) will remove 35,700 BTU/HR, or 2.98 Refrigeration tons.
So for an Air Conditioning project the 5 HP system has a 4.7 ton capacity, but for a lower temperature chiller application it will deliver less than 3 tons capacity.