SUNBEAM-BRITA WATER CHILLER diddle [DEBUNKED] - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Scherms
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2022, 08:56:00 pm
content: Sunbeam water chiller (WTF6000) chills electrically to ~ room temperature!I love this product, I use it everyday and it works great but the marketing and electronic engineering is a total scam! It's the only product I own that works much better with dead electronics than when new! Go figure...Bogan Teardown:BRITA WATER FILTER & CHILLER W(T)F 6000Filters water 100% - Perfect gravity fed filter operation for more than 8 years, I luv it!Ok, I'm an industrial designer and when I wanted a water filter with Brita tech I went for the Sunbeam because this item's industrial design is very good. It's the engineering that sucks to almost insanity!The actual water filtering process is excellent and the twin water bowls have large surface areas that allows the chlorine in the water to evaporate off easily.I thought the 'chiller' option (SCAM) was a pure gimmick meaning that there is no refrigeration so it can only maintain the water temperature to room temperature which is what it would be anyway! A completely pointless exercise in spending your electricity money to achieve nothing... DOH!Just look below at the total 'wankery' air circulator & plumbing you actually pay for to achievenothing!So this is what I did. I pulled the entire unit apart and removed all the electricals, fan, motor and the lower 'chiller' tank and pipes. I stripped it right out until I only had the blue upper tanks, the tap and the lower white half, that's it. I then got a plastic pipe and connected the exit pipe of the bottom blue tank and fed it directly to the tap. Then I refitted the parts I mentioned (blue plastic tank and bottom white case) and put them back together again.Hence no more electrics and a direct feed pipe to the tap == PERFECT!PS: the isolated Brita filter module itself sits independently in between the two interlocking top blue water tanks and is unaffected by my modifications because that's the only bit that actually does work @100%.This is the product Sunbeam should have made, a simple gravity fed water filter with no chill tank or electrics and would have been a fraction of the retail cost. This unit would work flawlessly for decades because there are not any mechanics to fail. But then all those mechanics of the ones that do fail don't actually do anything anyway so why do people complain? Surely a dead unit actually runs more reliably than a working unit especially since there is no advantage to have one that actually 'cools' anyway!Great design but the over the top engineering achieves nothing except to wastes your money. The concept was dishonest yet the main function works perfectly beyond the death of the electronics and mechanicals... HUH?Great product once you actually strip out the designed 'obsolescence'https://www.productreview.com.au/listings/sunbeam-brita-water-filter-chiller-wf6000

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2022, 09:50:28 pm
content: I get what you are saying, but, if you wanted a normal gravity fed filter then just buy a normal Brita water filter unit.The device has a peltier inside which it uses to chill the water. Many offices have similar coolers, but using a more expensive compressor instead of a cheap peltier.Regardless it sounds like a poor overall design to the point I would not be using it:Quote

author: Scherms
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2022, 10:11:30 pm
content: Quote from: thm_w on March 31, 2022, 09:50:28 pmYes I agree totally except that a peltier does not 'chill', it actually heats the water up or 'down' to room temperature because there is no refrigeration or evaporative mechanism in the product!Also these units are very expensive to buy and repair when the electronics fail! So the dead or dying units sell on gumtree and ebay for nicks! This is great because you can get a brilliant gravity fed Brita water filter really cheap if you are prepared to surgically remove the 'wankery'...As said, it's a great product and works great. It filters 3 litres of water in our kitchen everyday and the Brita filters work great at removing all the scale out of the water.It's what it should have been originally and now gets a giggle on every pour!

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 31, 2022, 10:21:23 pm
content: If you actually want it at room temperature, the peltier is not a bad option since usually the temperature difference is small (some people don't like drinking cold water for health reasons relating to digestion and sensitive teeth/gums, this is a esoteric but fairly common topic that doctors study, I have heard it from people in like India that they drink warm water for health reasons), if you don't need alot of cooling or heating its nice and quiet. If you actually wanted it cold it is probably a lot more energy efficient to use a compressor. I think its supposed to make 'consistent temperature' water. Older people that grew up without refrigeration without running water do seem to prefer room temperature water, since it was typically stored indoors in containers brought in from a external well, since it was too much of a hassle to get fresh cold well water from a bucket every time you want to drink.As for the hygiene problems that's not really excusable.

author: Sceptre
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 01, 2022, 02:42:42 am
content: Quote from: Scherms on March 31, 2022, 10:11:30 pmSince when?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_coolinghttps://www.amazon.com/s?k=thermoelectric+coolerSceptre

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 01, 2022, 01:23:37 pm
content: Quote from: Scherms on March 31, 2022, 10:11:30 pmIf by this you mean that a Peltier cannot chill below room temperature, the statement is simply wrong.(if I have misunderstood, ignore what follows)A Peltier cell is a very inefficient heat pump, it takes heat from one side and transfers it to the other (plus its dissipation), but if heat is removed from the hot side, the cold side will happily go under ambient temperature.So if the cooler anctually contains a Peltier cell and andan adequate heatsink, it can cool water below room temperature.

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 01, 2022, 01:41:58 pm
content: With enough cooling (large enough heatsink and fan), and maybe some stacking or peltier elements, peltiers can get to sub-zero temperatures without much trouble.They are inefficient and need big heatsinks on the hot side to compensate for that, but they do work. It's how those small desktop fridges and camping cool boxes work, to use a related example.

author: Scherms
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 01, 2022, 09:19:36 pm
content: Quote from: TERRA Operative on April 01, 2022, 01:41:58 pmQuote from: newbrain on April 01, 2022, 01:23:37 pmQuote from: Sceptre on April 01, 2022, 02:42:42 amWell "shiver me timbers" I stand corrected...I learnt something new here today that defied my 'perceived' common sense! Thank you all for the links and reasonings on Peltier cooling... I will investigate further beyond here but in this particular 'water CHILLER' case there was never a real difference in temperature from room temperature hence my scepticism at the whole endeavour. I stand corrected and am a bit wiser than from a few minutes ago...

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2022, 11:15:03 am
content: I wonder if it can be hacked at to upgrade the chilling capabilities?Bigger peltier and PSU from ebay etc and uprate the fan to get the heat out better.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 02, 2022, 06:26:30 pm
content: Quote from: TERRA Operative on April 01, 2022, 01:41:58 pmYep. You just need to design this so that the generated heat is properly dissipated *outside* of the container.

author: Scherms
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2022, 01:23:03 am
content: Quote from: TERRA Operative on April 02, 2022, 11:15:03 amYou could and it would probably make it a lot better but because I ripped the Peltier unit out of this product 7 years ago and it has worked perfectly as a water filter ever since, I was not convinced. Maybe for the consumer a better explanation of the Peltier advantage would have kept me more onboard with their reason to include it in the first place!In Australia it gets hot here so reverse cycle aircon is the accepted standard for speed and efficiency. Peltier may not offer the cooling capacity expected to the claim of 'chiller' as opposed to 'cooler'. It's a big perceived difference regarding performance and is perhaps just marketing hype, perhaps.https://www.productreview.com.au/reviews/9e58863f-26ff-3f15-931b-a687b2cfc113I am a very happy owner of a great water filter. The cooling aspect was 'click bait' IMHO and secondary to it's function.Here it is still doing its stuff this morning making my scale free tea and keeping my kettle clean as...I suppose because I only really used it for boiling the cooling function was secondary hence my scepticism of its efficacy. But because this thread has shown that Peltier cooling is a thing of note I can now look at similar operations with a clearer and perhaps less 'stigmatised' outlook.Thanks to all for your calm and informative explanations to my now obvious lack of knowledge to this topic...Cheers, SchermsPS: the proverbial 'storm in a tea cup' perhaps...

author: TERRA Operative
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2022, 05:10:13 am
content: All good, today you are one of the ten thousand!https://xkcd.com/1053/

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2022, 08:32:50 am
content: Problem with those chillers is the inside heatsink is bare aluminium, which, with the nice soft water coming in, sitting next to the nice freshly extruded aluminium, causes it to corrode rather rapidly, so after a year you find the nice filtered and chilled water is full of aluminium oxide flakes and powder, as it has corroded nicely in this soft water.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 07, 2022, 01:04:11 am
content: They need to just make it out of tinned copper, britta is expensive enough that they can absorb it.