temp probe to heat water for D76

[joe_mcinerney]

The community college I work for has been having maintenance done on

their water systems. Currently we are having problems getting close

to 100 degrees. Can anyone direct me to a vendor/retailer who might

sell a probe/wand to be placed in water heat it. We use D76 and make

10 gallons at a time. Usually twice or three times a week. Thanks in

advance.

[stephen hazelton]

You might try McMaster-Carr, an industrial supplier, which has no end of industrial items. www.mcmaster.com, if I remember right. Possibly Edmund Scientific.

[stephen hazelton]

I was trying to think where I had seen things like this before. They do make units that go in dog bowls or livestock troughs to keep them from freezing, I don't know if they would work- might be too low wattage or have built in thermostat set for low temperatures. Probably the ideal solution would be to buy an electric hot water heater that holds at least 10 gallons.

[rbradbury]

Or perhaps you could find an old church-basement-type large coffee urn at a rummage sale or a restaurant supply house that sells used equipment, and use that to heat up a quantity of water. Obviously you'd want to decant from the urn into a mixing bucket, and mix in enough cold to bring the temp to just where you want it.

[frank.schifano]

Why make things more complicated than you have to? Get a big pot of water and heat it on the stove. When it gets to the right temperature, turn off the stove. Try the caffeteria. They might let you use something there while the problem is being sorted out if you ask nicely.

[chris_waller]

Go to a laboratory supplier. They sell a thrmostatic heater with a built in circulating pump. You just clamp the thing on to the side of the water-bath, set the temperature and switch on.

[ann_clancy3]

We use a microwave oven to heat water at our labs.

[eric_chamberlain]

I own a beverage heater that ran me about $13. <a href="http://www.surrayluggage.com/hotbevheatg3.html">Here's the link.</a> Its for travelers wanting to warm their hot drinks. Its just a heater coil and a electric cord. You could try that. I'm planning on putting it with a PID controller to make a tempering bath.

[tom_musselman]

As an old chemistry lab manager, I can offer this: Here are my main suppliers. Search their products and you will probably find everything you need.<p>

 

Fisher Scientific, <a href="https://www1.fishersci.com/index.jsp">https://www1.fishersci.com/index.jsp</a><p>

VWR, <a href="http://www.vwrsp.com/">http://www.vwrsp.com/</a><p>

Cole-Parmer, <a href="http://www.coleparmer.com/">http://www.coleparmer.com/</a>

[stephen hazelton]

The problem with several of those solutions above is the 10-gallon thing. Yes, you can heat a quart of water in a lot of ways, but heating 10 gallons on a stove or with a cup-warmer is going to take a while. If you only needed to do it once, it would be different, but with the 3-times a week routine, you'd spend a lot of time waiting for the water to heat. The hot-water-heater would solve that problem altogether, no waiting at all, and should be able to set it within a few degrees of the target (maybe a little higher so you could mix with cold to adjust the temp just so-so).

 

Watch out for appliances intended to HOLD the temperature- they might take forever to raise the temperature significantly.

[evan_parker]

Mr. Chameberlain: Please let me know how your attempt at integration of the beverage warmer and the PID goes. This sounds like a fun project that would yield something very useful.