Anyone use coolbot?

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ChristaCheatham

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This is my first experience with a cool room. We insulated an existing stall in our barn. We bought an ac window unit and placed our shaeffer turbo fan inside. The room is only for one calf. It seemed to  be running fine and felt cool. I just received my cool bot yesterday. BUt when we ran the fan the room gets hotter? Do we need to insulate more? At this moment we are just running the ac unit and cool bot to see how cool it will get. Any advice?
 

GoWyo

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Are you sure you did not frost up the AC unit?  If you frosted the AC, it will not cool anything.  Read the instructions very carefully as far as how to install the sensors and set up the program. 

I bought one last year and initially it worked well, but then started letting the AC frost up no matter how aggressively or not that I set the "Fins" setting.  I quit using it and contacted the retailer, who put me in touch with the guy who invented and manufactured it.  Wound up returning the unit to the manufacturer and it was a problem with the power supply that messed up the hardwired programming on the unit.  He reflashed the software, replaced the power supply and even replaced a sensor wire that one of the calves managed to chew on and returned it to me and it has worked great ever since.
 

ChristaCheatham

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How do you know if the fins are frosted? My ac unit is set up so that the cool air is primarily felt on top of the ac unit by the vents. We put the fin sensor there. Is the fin sensor supposed to go where the temperature sensor originally was? behind the plastic frame where the heat sensor is set up?
 

GoWyo

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Yes - the fin sensor gets wedged into the fins on the AC coils where the temperature sensor was, not at the cold air outlet.  The temperature sensor is pulled out of the fins and placed along side the heater wire and then wrap the heater and temp sensor together with aluminum foil.  This is what prompts the AC unit to keep on cooling.  However, the fin sensor needs to be placed into the coils to alert the CoolBot that the fins are about to get too cold so that the heater will kick off long enough to keep the fins from frosting. 

The CoolBot video says to remove the plastic front entirely, but I leave ours on to filter the hair and dust.  Just be careful not to pull out the fin sensor when putting it on.  Still have to remove the plastic front and hose the fins/coils out at least once per week.
 

ChristaCheatham

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Ok! and also is the heater wrapped along side temp sensor supposed to be on the outside of the cooler or on the inside behind the plastic covering on the front? Just checked it a minute ago and it's cooling down to 66... will check it in a half hour again and fix the fin sensor. But when I turn the fan on... the temp goes up? How do I keep that from happening? The turbo fan is pretty important I think
 

GoWyo

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Wrap the heater along side the temp sensor in foil.  I leave ours hanging out the bottom of the plastic cover of the AC unit.  Set your CoolBot to something around 45-50 degrees and let it rip.  Get the fin sensor wedged into the fins and that will keep it from frosting the fins and coils.  Room temp might go up a little with turbo fan on, but should level out after a couple of minutes and then get chilly.  You do need the turbo fan.
 

ChristaCheatham

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Ok here are some pics of heat sensor and fin sensor without and with plastic covering as well as a pic of the actual coolbot. The red light for heat is flashing. I also turned on the turbo fan again. How long will it take to cool to 50? Thats what I have programmed.
 

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GoWyo

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That looks about right.  If you set it at 50 deg. it should get to the mid-50s.  How many btu is your AC rated?

I have not been able to get down past about 52-54 deg. with two 1250 lb. steers in a 10x10 cooler and a 18,000 btu AC.
 

GoWyo

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Your steer is going to put off about 5-6000 btu of body heat, so it may be difficult to get room air temp much below 60 if your AC is only 6000 btu.  Give it a try, but you might be wishing for a bigger AC.
 

ChristaCheatham

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I also went out and checked the coolbot read 73.... with the turbo fan.... starting to get really frusturated
 

GoWyo

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Where is the tip of your room temp sensor?  should be away from the AC unit a few inches.

Heater should be along side the AC temp sensor and wrapped in foil - that looked right - they need to be touching and foil wrapped around them.

Fin sensor should be wedged into the coils - could not see behind the filter screen, but should be ok.

Other thing to check is to push the middle button until the program subject is on "Fins" - then start it at Zero, which is default.  Check the instruction manual, but I think -1 is less aggressive cooling and +1 is more aggressive.  You can take it to +2 or +3 and see what happens.  If you get too aggressive, it may frost up.  Not sure what else to suggest.  Double check the manual and find the video on the CoolBot site.

What room temp does the AC get it to if the Cool Bot heater wire is not connected to the AC temp sensor?
 

ChristaCheatham

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Yes the room tip sensor is taped to the wall a few inches from ac unit. It was at 3 but I will turn it to 0 tomorrow. When I came home from school today the heat sensor and temperature sensor were detached and the reading temp was 78. I also watched the video to make sure I was doing everything correctly.
 

iowabeef

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I have a feeling your air conditioner is too small to cool it off much more than that.  We use a 24,000 btu.   
 

ChristaCheatham

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iowabeef said:
I have a feeling your air conditioner is too small to cool it off much more than that.  We use a 24,000 btu. 

I think so too.... ran it without the calf and it was in the mid 50's within a half hour... would I be able to take the air conditioner back? how big is your room and how many calves do you have for a 24,000 btu?
 

Tallcool1

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ShowSteerGirl101 said:
iowabeef said:
I have a feeling your air conditioner is too small to cool it off much more than that.  We use a 24,000 btu. 

I think so too.... ran it without the calf and it was in the mid 50's within a half hour... would I be able to take the air conditioner back? how big is your room and how many calves do you have for a 24,000 btu?


First off, where did you buy your Coolbot?  It should have come with a installation diagram.  I know that you are having trouble with it not working and asking questions is good, but you have a brand new piece of equipment that isn't working (or you think it isn't).  Those things are $300.  Call the people you bought it from.

If you bought it used, call Matt @ Calf Climate.  I would be really surprised if he wouldn't talk to you.  He designed our cooler and sold us all of the stuff for it.  217-417-7784.

We run 2-25,000 btu window AC units in a 10X25 cooler.  That is 50,000 BTU's in a room that holds 3 fat steers.  It is sealed up and insulated to about R24+ with no exposure to any outside walls.  We will occasionally run as many as 3 Sullivan Turbo Fans.  We can pretty easily keep the temperature at 45 degrees in the hottest part of the day.  We can get it in the high 30's if we want to, but WE end up sick if we get it that cold in there.

I am no expert on this, but I have to agree with the others that have suggested you don't have enough AC unit.  If you decide you need more AC unit, send me a PM and I will send you a link to a wholesaler that can ship you a factory refurbished unit cheap.  For one steer, you need about 12,000 BTU's in a sealed room if you want to really get it cold.
 

BAC

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I know this is kinda off the subject but how much does in cost to run a coolbot unit.  I keep hearing it's more economical to run the coolbot than to run a cooler but I was wondering how much it would cost to run a coolbot in a really well sealed 12 X 14 room for 2 calves and keep it ~55 degrees.
 

Tallcool1

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BAC said:
I know this is kinda off the subject but how much does in cost to run a coolbot unit.  I keep hearing it's more economical to run the coolbot than to run a cooler but I was wondering how much it would cost to run a coolbot in a really well sealed 12 X 14 room for 2 calves and keep it ~55 degrees.

I am going to try my best to answer your question.  I know that the Coolbot is pretty confusing as to what it actually does.

Basically, the cost to run a Coolbot is whatever the cost is to keep your AC unit running at full capacity, for as long as you keep it running. 

The Coolbot itself does not use any more electricity than a simple adding machine uses.  All the Coolbot unit does is "confuse" the programming unit that is built into a window AC unit into thinking that the temperature in room is warmer than it actually is.  It also "confuses" the programming unit that is built into the window AC unit into thinking that the temperature of the fins is different than it actually is as well......so that the AC unit does not ice over.

We run 2 AC units in a 10X24 cooler that is sealed really well.  Each unit is 25,000 btu's.  We keep it in the low 40's.  It runs us about $10 per day to run the cooler.

I would guess that a smaller cooler running one smaller AC unit would probably not be much less to operate.  The large 25,000 btu units are 220V units and are pretty efficient.  The smaller 110V units are cheap to buy, and cheap to wire, but NOT cheap to operate.  When we built our cooler, I called Calf Climate and they did the design work on it.  They actually did all of the engineering work and because of the age of my kids and the number of years we would use the unit, we determined that we would get our money back in less than 2 years......the additional up front money for the bigger units and added cost of wiring and setup. 
 

ChristaCheatham

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Yeah I'm really hoping I can get it running cooler soon. I think we are going to try and return ac unit tomorrow and get an 18,000 btu instead of the 8,000 we are trying to use. Hopefully this will fix the problem and we can cool more efficiently.
 
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