Vapor-Compression System

Type

Project

Year

2026

Skills

HVAC, thermodynamics, brazing, applying engineering classes

The War

Since life began, living things have always been at war with their environment, and the environment has always won. This cycle of oppression is the foundation for a long, lengthy, and inspirational speech about the evils of entropy.

But who has time for that? Let's just look at it plainly: entropy, the chaos of a system, is the least cool physics concept out there and is spoiling the fun for so many cool ideas. Why must entropy always insist on increasing? Why can't I have my perpetual motion machine? The answer is that entropy needs to chill out. Some nerds out there who don't want a perpetual motion machine are probably now thinking: "But entropy is a super important concept, and without it reality would cease to be, so what are you going to do about it?"

I'll tell you what I am going to do about it, nerd. (At two paragraphs into this page about entropy, you should realize that I am also a nerd.) Entropy and I have irreconcilable differences, and I do not want it here anymore. To do this, I am building a vapor-compression chiller to get that entropy out of here.

Vapor-Compression Chiller

This project was inspired by a 3/4 HP low-back-pressure compressor I snagged from the Pitt surplus store for cheap. This will be routed to a large car radiator on the condenser side and a plate heat exchanger on the evaporator side. I will need to use glycol on the other end of the heat exchanger because the evaporator end is tentatively going to sit at −20°F. This is still very much in the planning stage, but once I have bought (salvaged) parts and finished the design, I will update this page.