Core Temperature Controls CTC-100 Shipping

[RiderX]

I will have delivery of a CTC-100 system this week and hope to get it to the FJR the following week. While a bit pricey ($800 plus cost of capillary clothing), I think this is the way forward, especially for long(er) endurance riding in less than optimal weather.

https://www.coretemperaturecontrols.com

Some will recall I use to carry a 2.5 gallon cooler (thanks Garauld) for ice, helping with evaporative cooling. Now in theory, I'll set the degrees I want for the transfer fluid (waterproof control goes in handlebar area or for me on the dash shelf). Up to 10A is power draw.

Of course for those jumping on and off (like the rally-ist), the sequence of power down and severing quick disconnects will be interesting. I hope to report here as I learn about the product.

 

[dcarver]

keep us posted. looks interesting. I suggest you make a trial run this August in Death Valley at noon?

 

[audiowize]

How in the world do you disconnect from that thing without spilling fluid all over the place?

 

[PhilJet09]

I like it, and am really interested in hearing your evaluation after you get to use this in both hot and cold conditions.

 

[RiderX]

How in the world do you disconnect from that thing without spilling fluid all over the place?

The quick disconnects cause a few drops of fluid to escape each disconnect. When not connected the fluid stays in the garment and the main unit. For a long ride, I will carry a small bottle of fluid. System fluid level can be seen on main unit sight glass.

 

[RiderX]

keep us posted. looks interesting. I suggest you make a trial run this August in Death Valley at noon?

As you know I've done it the "other" way with evaporative cooling. As mentioned, I had Garauld make me a 2.5 gallon hydration system to store extra ice/water. Every other stop I could buy a bag of ice and gallon of water for Death Valley type riding. I got very good with this stationed at 29 Palms and riding in Mojave daily. I think this will be far superior.

 

[RiderX]

So I installed and had a great opportunity to try in 107 and 102 degree desert conditions. It is very awesome. I kept it simple and velcroed to an old pillion seat but there are brackets if you want to bolt down. I also used my coaxial heated gear connector to attach the power / ground and disabled the ignition trigger line.

In a very hot garage, by temperature only) I could not tell if it was working (other than fluid transfer bubbles). It wasn't until I got the tubes against my skin and went for a ride that I realized all was right in the world. It does take a good ten minutes to get cold fluid through the tubes. How cold is it? This is hard to tell, but even if it's 25 degrees below ambient, a little airflow across the tubing feels spectacular! At night it was about 88 degrees and after getting cooled down, I jacked the temp up to 130. Wow! I got hot from abdomen to back and shoulders within a minute.

So far, so good. Product and documentation are good. I still have tubes quite long, thinking I might want some mobility around the bike. Need to shorten them some. The quick disconnects lose about 5-7 drops of fluid. I will take a bottle of thermal transfer fluid to keep topped off at checkpoints.

 

[Bounce]

Is the fluid Propylene Glycol? That would be consistent with non-toxic thermal transfer applications.

If you can confirm this, you can get it by the pint at your local druggist for about $8.

It's used (50/50 with distilled water) to recharge humidifiers in cigar humidors.

 

[owsley]

Good luck RiderX. I will see you guys in a few days out west.

I also will be interested in how the units do and hold up

 

[RiderX]

Yeah, Bounce it probably is. I don't have the manual or bottles in front of me as I'm on the east coast for a bit. They charge around $9 for maybe a 12 oz bottle?. You need a bottle and a half to get the system full (cothing and unit). I got four bottles so I could take enough with me for total system charge if I had some unfortunate leak/tear/crash. I think this would last you years for normal riding. I think realistically about a half bottle for something like an 11 day rally.

 

[Mr_Canoehead]

Resurrecting an old thread.

I bought one of these at the BMW rally last year but didn't get much chance to try it out. Last weekend, I used it on a ride where the temp was around 35c - 38c (95-100f). To say I am a disappointed would be an understatement. Although I could feel the cooling and the unit's exhaust vents were hot, I was melting in my Klim jacket. I started with the cooling vest and when that didn't cut it, I switched to the cooling T-shirt, with a wicking baselayer underneath and a LD comfort shirt over top. It worked better but still nowhere near cooling enough. I was uncomfortable.

I finally bailed and put on my Hyperkewl vest overtop and opened all my vents. Ahhhh, cooling. The CTC-100 worked well with the Hyperkewl, adding to the effect but it should be enough by itself.

On the way home, I had to ride over a couple of passes where the temperature got down to around 8c (47f), so I put the vest underneath a fleece jacket liner. I cranked it up to 130 and felt a mild increase in temperature - nothing like as effective as my Gerbings jacket. I would say I was at the absolute limit of being comfortable; with the Gerbings, I can ride below freezing.

Has anyone else had this mediocre performance? For the price, I figured it would blow away both the Gerbings and the Hyperkewl and it did neither.

Now I am thinking of connecting the T-Shirt and the vest in series to see if maybe there just isn't enough surface area on the tubing. The cooling vests are off the shelf coolshirts which are designed to be used with ice water.

 

[HyperPete]

I haven't heard of the ctc-100, but I did read about this: https://www.gizmag.com/entrosys-motorcycle-airconditioner-review/30585/

 

[RiderX]

I heard a rumor that the founder crawled away. I had a few issues last summer and he ended up sending me a new unit. I haven't yet reinstalled. It will never works well as evaporative cooling especially for dry desert temps. The technology can only cool maybe thirty degrees below ambient. Once you got a little behind, like your suit is getting up to 150 on the inside, the unit will have trouble. I talked to one extended tester of the product who had the fan side out in the open airstream instead of the pressure vortex behind his body (on pillion seat). He said that works tons better- but more plastic fan exposure to road debris and such.

I found the heat to work great down to 30's (I didn't try cooler).

May be a moot point if you can no longer purchase?

 

[ionbeam]

The web site is down like nobody is home and won't be coming back.

 

[Bounce]

Unfortunate for those who bought in early. I balked at the price when they were soliciting pre-release purchases at the IBA Denver rally in 2012. They had some kind of "recall" at one point.

 

[Mr_Canoehead]

Thanks for the replies. It sounded like a good idea, and there were some positive reviews in the IBA magazine, so I was wondering if someone else's experience was vastly different than mine.

I got an email last fall from John Sims saying that he had been bought out by Klim and that he was expecting a new model to be released in 2017 as a Klim product.

I don't mind being an early adopter, since I am a gadget hound. I was concerned about the delta T not being enough to make a huge difference and sure enough, I think that is the issue. When I talking to John, he assured me that the cooling capacity had been tested and was adequate to keep someone comfortable up to 110F in humid conditions. He even said that there was enough reserve capacity in the system to cool a passenger as well. He seemed like a straight up guy. Guess I should have listened to my engineering brain.

From what I have read, the Peltier Effect chips can only cool so much and efficiency drops off at the extremes of temperature. The coolest temp of the coolant achievable is about 30F below ambient air temp. According to Wikipedia, in a refrigeration cycle, efficiency drops to about 15%. So. if the thing draws 10A, and uses 1A to run the fan and controls, it probably only has about (9Ax13V*0.15) = 18W available for net cooling, which is pretty low but probably consistent with my results.

I can also see that the fan cooling may not be enough to dissipate the 130W it consumes but mounting the unit to face into the wind will be an issue. I could probably put it on top of a Jesse bag on my GSA but I don't see anywhere on the FJR that would work.

I'll probably take the tubing and coolshirts and make my own Veskimo.

 

[Bounce]

If you could plumb in an intake from the cooled space (like a house) would it be able to cool the cooled air and and keep working its way lower?

 

[Mr_Canoehead]

In theory, yes but my wife hates it when I ride inside the house!

But seriously, you couldn't use the cooling air more than once and expect a device to cool its own airstream. That would break the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[Bounce]

In theory, yes but my wife hates it when I ride inside the house!

But seriously, you couldn't use the cooling air more than once and expect a device to cool its own airstream. That would break the second law of thermodynamics.

If you keep the exhaust steam out of the space, then why not? That's what the "recirculate" setting in cars does. Yes?