Artica 1/2 hp vs Daeil-Suncool 1/2hp chiller

[roidan]

Have been running the Artica 1/2hp commercial series chiller to my satisfaction and thus got a Daeil-Suncool 1/2hp chiller from a fellow reefer for my 2nd cooling loop....

Here's a picture of my Artica

[roidan]

Here's the Suncool-Daeil.....

physically similar....

[roidan]

Artica's specs label

[roidan]

SunCool's label...

[roidan]

The bad point about these chillers are that they are very noisy.....but Artica recalled my 1/2hp recently to do a mod of the casing/fan to reduce the noise..and noise surely reduced significantly....but it's still audible though..hehe

The main intention is for the Suncool to provide cooling for my system should the Artica chiller or water flow through it fail for watever reason....

My Artica fed by a tee-off from my iwaki mx100, is set at 27.6....which means it kicks in at 28.0 and stops at 27.2.....

under normal circumstances.....temperature will not rise above 28.0

So i will use an eheim 1262 to feed the suncool and set it to 27.8......meaning it will only kick in should temperatures reach 28.2 and then stops its operation at 27.4

That's double cooling loop

[weileong]

Here's the mod they have done.

I was pretty surprised when they called me and told me they are doing a recall for all the 1/2hp artica. Guess you get better service after paying more.

[roidan]

yeah..i have to say the Artica staff are very pro and service-oriented.....

the mod the mod....works damn well man...lol

here's the thermostat control of the Artica

[roidan]

Here's the thermostat control of the Suncool

[roidan]

Seems that both are using different thermostat circuitries....can tell from the connectors being used...unless same thermostats but different connectors

[roidan]

Suncool's

[roidan]

opening up the suncool reveals black anti-vibration foam that the artica lacks....will see how it will help control the noise compared to the artica when i hook it up these few days...hehe

[roidan]

The top cover of the suncool has some foam too to provide a snug fit when u fix the top cover back....no more noisy vibrating panels...hehe

[roidan]

i do see more black foam being used in the suncool than the artica.....can't wait to see which is more quiet.....will update the thread accordingly

[lightningstrike]

IMHO, main purpose of the PE/PU foam is to insulate rather than to provide soundproofing.

[Gouldian]

As usual bro, great objective review. Hope to learn more about both chiller from you.

Looking forward to more of your sharing.

[huiwen]

Nice review, what about the difference in price ? they sure looks indentical to me from the outside !

Are you paying premium for Artica bro ?

Cheers,

[roidan]

but from the way they deliberately line the perimeter of the top cover, seems to me that they found the foam good for reducing vibration as well by ensuring a snug fit.....because my artica used to have a problem with the top cover vibrating even secured with screws and when i pressed the top cover of the artica...the casing noise was reduced slightly....

but i wonder why they will want to put such a big black piece of foam on top of the chiller to *insulate* the whole heat of the chiller when the idea is for the chiller to disperse heat as fast as possible for the chiller to work well....

my only guess is that they want the black foam to sandwich between the top cover and some components that are near the top cover to absorb more vibration as well as provide some minute portion of noise dampening? hehe

thanks gouldian....will inspect the 2 chillers in the next few days and see if there are any differences in internal components...hehe

huiwen..i think the artica costs about 2k odd...and the suncool about 1.8k...but the artica after-sales service is impressive from what i have experienced and probably it may be worth that extra bit

[lightningstrike]

i do see more black foam being used in the suncool than the artica.....can't wait to see which is more quiet.....will update the thread accordingly

bro, me not talking abt the big black foam; me talking abt the foam wrapped ard the heat exchanger, etc as shown in my per quote.

[roidan]

oh...haha...dunno my artica got the same foam around the heat exchanger or not....will open my artica and see see look look...by right should have hor...since it helps insulation as you said...

but when i said more black foam being used in the suncool, i was referring more to the so called pasting of the foam on different parts of the casing which seem to be lacking compared to the artica....whether this foam helps to reduce vibration and dampen the noise for the suncool, have to wait till i get it hooked up and running

[jc85]

Any idea if it is SunCool OEMed from Artica or the other way round?

[roidan]

Any idea if it is SunCool OEMed from Artica or the other way round?

The plastic top casing cover of both has these words moulded....

DAEIL....

DAEIL make chillers for JBJ...ie JBJ lighting buys units from daeil and rebadges them as artica

from the website below...seems that suncool is direct from DAEIL

http://www.daeilace.com/en/goods/seawater.asp

[roidan]

the top casing of the artica...no black foam being used here...but the chiller came back with a new top casing after they took it back for the mod....new casing snaps over the top quite snugly though....although i will probably squeeze some thin foam like what suncool did should the top cover becomes loose again...

[roidan]

artica did not wrap the compressor with the foam that suncool did.....

will wrapping or not wrapping the compressor affect the chilling operation other than vibration/noise issues? hope our aircon guru lightningstrike can enlighten us

[roidan]

artica heat exchanger is duly covered with foam though

[35Cents]

Looking at the additional forming in the suncool...i can't help thinking that Daeil very smart not to "reveal" this additional thing to its competitor ###### client, but in anyway looks like Daeil is in a win-win situation.

Nice review dude, never expect anyone to go down to describing (and tearing apart) the internals differences of the two chillers.