On Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:08:14 -0600, Jon Elson
wrote:



Your cooler looks pretty good. I wonder, however, if you get into
serious TIGing, if the heat will build up. I was pretty surprised at how
hot the cooler got on my TIG system after some steel welding. (Actually,
it probably gets hotter on Aluminum with AC, but I am still learning the
techniques there, so I weld for a moment and then look at the part a lot.)
I have a Miller cooler with a big fan-cooled heat exchanger on it. The
exchanger gets hot, and the water in the tank eventually gets pretty warm,
too.

Jon

note on the cooler getting hot;
don't know how much coolant does the miller cooler holds and why it
gets hot, but one thing for sure the new miller 250 TIGs we used at
school the fan does not come on untill the coolant get hot enough.
it may even have some sort of flow control as well, because the sight
glass with the red star in it was barely spinning at 90-120amp welding

it has been said many times by guys here, a 5 gallon bucket or ever 4
gallon will never get hot enough (not even remotely) under normal
use.

I asked the same question back when I built mine and Ernie L. and the
other well known gurus confirmed it.
NO heat exchanger needed. unless you are blasting 300Amp continuosly.