Cheap/DIY Thermolator?

[moldingppm]

Has anyone here made their own thermolator? I have a job that we will run a few times a year, usually short production that doesn’t justify buying one, so I was thinking about making my own out of a cart, 2 manifolds (mold water in/out), electric hot water tank, and a pump. Water will be added from a check valve on a tee off of process water. Anyone have any insight for this? Could this work, or am I better off trying to find something used and getting it over with?

[chrisprocess]

No experience making one of these, interesting tho. what temps would you run at? How would you control the dump valve to prevent circulating water from overheating?

I wonder how much cheaper a DIY would actually be

[brentb]

I know a guy that made one with a gas grill, small 5 gallon tank, and a modulating valve, no pump other than central system. It worked!

KOM

brent

[moldingppm]

Thanks for the input guys. The customer actually ended up sending a different mold for us to run, so I don't need to worry about this anymore!

Brent, really? I wonder how he went about that, either way, that sounds interesting.