kproche | Sneak peek at upgrade for ThinBot

I've been working on a replacement chiller (heat exchanger) to replace the steel-tubes-through-cocktail-shaker assembly on the front of ThinBot. I just dropped it off at PK Selective Metal Finishing to be blue anodized.

Before I could do that, though, I had to do a test assembly to make sure it actually went together.

Here's the assembled chiller. The hoses from the pumps will connect to the nipples on top. The large hole on the right is where the cold water will come out to flow into the top bottle rack.

Bottom view. Short pieces of 1/8" diameter stainless tube will go into these fittings to fill the glass. You can see the water inlet on the upper left.

Here's what's under the cap. The large bores are connected in pairs with slots, and the slots are rotated by one position on the bottom. The result with the end caps in place is a serpentine water channel around the outside of the entire (8 pound) aluminum block.

Oh, the center hole? It's for illumination, and a place to drop garnishes. :-)

I did a compatibility test last week to make sure that neither the lime juice nor cranberry juice will react with the aluminum. Everything turned out fine.