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Heat exchanger


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Heat exchangers are not complex, but you better have some braising or soldering skills. And you have to work out the flow rates and heat transfer abilities so as to ensure that it will provide sufficient cooling.....

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It depends on how complex you want to make it Vic. The HE's that give the greatest heat transfer for area are stacked full of tubes. A simple oil cooler often has a single tube within a slightly larger tube. Then there are the materials you make it from. Multiple different metals mean the HE needs to have zinc protection fitted. The very expensive ones that do not are usually made from Silicon Bronze and copper, or other such metals within that family. I have seen all SST ones, but they need to be much larger to get the same cooling. Most commonly found in Oil coolers. All Aluminium is another, but once they re shot, they are not worth repairing.
I have never built one from scratch, but have had to repair a few that have rotted out. You will be shocked at the amount of tube required to make the core with. Then there is the drilling of the holes in the two end plates the tubes are mounted into. It's a massive job and I have often thought it cheaper to just replace with a new one than rebuild.

It could be worth looking into plate coolers. Much cheaper, much smaller footprint, highly efficient. However, the gaps between plates are very small and prone to being blocked up, so you need to have a good inlet strainer. I have talked to  manufacturer about using them for marine use and he didn't think there would be any problem other than the filtering.

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