Are there any drawbacks to using antifreeze in the spindle chiller compared to distilled water?
Water has better heat transfer, but I’m worried about there being microbial/bacteria growth and corrosion.
I’ve heard of people use a mixture of the two, around 20% antifreeze and the rest water to stop bacteria from growing, which sounds like a good idea.
But there’s also like 10 different flavors of antifreeze, I think the option to go is Asian vehicles antifreeze, it’s missing some additives that might* cause issues, but I’m not too sure.
Even distilled water may grow bacteria because the bacteria is in the air. You could add a little bleach to the mixture of the distilled water. Automobile antifreeze has a lot of other chemicals in it so since the chiller is mostly aluminum and most modern cars have aluminum blocks likely any modern antifreeze would work.
I would just change the water and/or antifreeze often to prevent problems. Whatever you pick just stick with it because mixing different types of antifreeze could cause problems with the internal chiller parts due to chemical reactions.
Here is a short description of modern antifreeze types.
What are the 4 types of coolant?
#1 – IAT (Inorganic Acid Technology)
#2 – OAT (Organic Acid Technology)
#3 – HOAT (Hybrid Organic Acid Technology)
#4 – Dex-Cool.
If you live in a place where it freezes in the winter the antifreeze might be best to prevent your chiller from freezing and busting.
I’m mainly concerned about the additives in antifreeze causing problems inside the spindle, and all the types just makes it harder to choose. I think I might go with Dex-Cool/OAT, being propylene glycol based and good for all around corossion prevention for steel and aluminum but I’m not 100% sure yet.
I dosen’t get very cold here in California, I’m mainly looking for corrosion resistance and stopping bacterial growth.