the bblog

BCCC II

I found a drinks cooler, which should suit my purposes well, since it's already got a spout, and a little valve to control the spout. This means less stuff I have to design (and then debug) which is good. Unfortunately, it's "well used", so I'm going to have to figure out how to take a valve apart and clean it; plus, it's not that wide. If I align the intercooler coaxially, then there's not going to be a lot of room for dry ice, or rather, there won't be a lot of room for large chunks of dry ice. Smaller chunks will sublimate faster, and disappear quickly.

A workaround might be to form "D" shaped coils, and butt the curved side up against the interior of the cooler. This will leave a large contiguous space for dry ice, and simplify the coolant flow path; (Essentially a loop, rather than the torus of the previous design) but limit the size of the coolant pump impeller, which isn't a big deal anyway, since I shouldn't need high coolant flow rates.