PSG-1
Well-known member
OK, I know that's an ugly 4-letter word to a lot of you folks on here, I'm sure y'all get sick and tired of seeing snow.
But here on the coast of South Carolina, it's a very rare thing. We definitely get nights that are cold enough for snow, sometimes it gets as low as 15 degrees here at night, if you can believe that. Despite it being this cold, the weather never cooperates, the conditions are never just right for natural snowfall to occur.
In years past, I've been quoted as saying, "if it's gonna be this **** cold, I wish it would snow, so at least we have something to enjoy, besides just freezing and going crazy from cabin fever." Used to be, I would just grab my skis and my snowboard, and drive 7 hours to the NC mountains.
However, a few years ago, I discovered a way to bring the slope to my backyard, kinda.
I can hear people saying, "OK, WTH is this contraption, PSG? Looks like the worm of a moonshiner's still."
The 'worm' actually serves as a heat exchanger. You can see the fitting where a hose connects this to a pressure washer. The other fitting is for compressed air.
Also, I use a copper worm for the lower pressure going from the well to the pressure washer. This worm is placed in a barrel of cold water, and I add snow and ice to the barrel, this helps to pre-cool the well water, which comes out the ground at about 50 degrees during the winter.
What happens right here is the key to the whole thing. The vertical fitting is called a nucleation nozzle. This puts out an extremely fine mist, almost atomizing the water at about 1,000 PSI (which is why SS tubing is used for the worm, as copper could rupture) The nozzle that makes the 90 degree turn and is horizontal is an air nozzle, delivering about 5CFM @ 90 PSI. This action breaks down the water molecules, as well as supercooling the droplets, which helps in the next step....
These 3 nozzles are upper misting nozzles, they are specifically calibrated to deliver a certain droplet pattern, for optimum snowmaking. As the air supercools the droplets from the nucleation nozzle, they snap into a frozen state, and 'seed the clouds' caused by the upper misting nozzles.
So, what we end up with is something like this:
You can see the snow crystals forming in mid-air
Check out the neighbor's yard....not a flake of snow, so, you know this is not from natural snowfall.
And here's a video of the process in action, I document 32 inches of snowfall in about 12 hours, and that's something you NEVER see on the SC coast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_NJ-q3BKx4&list=UUHYpuGo2zvfQcgL2J7VdAqA&index=37&feature=plcp
But here on the coast of South Carolina, it's a very rare thing. We definitely get nights that are cold enough for snow, sometimes it gets as low as 15 degrees here at night, if you can believe that. Despite it being this cold, the weather never cooperates, the conditions are never just right for natural snowfall to occur.
In years past, I've been quoted as saying, "if it's gonna be this **** cold, I wish it would snow, so at least we have something to enjoy, besides just freezing and going crazy from cabin fever." Used to be, I would just grab my skis and my snowboard, and drive 7 hours to the NC mountains.
However, a few years ago, I discovered a way to bring the slope to my backyard, kinda.
I can hear people saying, "OK, WTH is this contraption, PSG? Looks like the worm of a moonshiner's still."
The 'worm' actually serves as a heat exchanger. You can see the fitting where a hose connects this to a pressure washer. The other fitting is for compressed air.
Also, I use a copper worm for the lower pressure going from the well to the pressure washer. This worm is placed in a barrel of cold water, and I add snow and ice to the barrel, this helps to pre-cool the well water, which comes out the ground at about 50 degrees during the winter.
What happens right here is the key to the whole thing. The vertical fitting is called a nucleation nozzle. This puts out an extremely fine mist, almost atomizing the water at about 1,000 PSI (which is why SS tubing is used for the worm, as copper could rupture) The nozzle that makes the 90 degree turn and is horizontal is an air nozzle, delivering about 5CFM @ 90 PSI. This action breaks down the water molecules, as well as supercooling the droplets, which helps in the next step....
These 3 nozzles are upper misting nozzles, they are specifically calibrated to deliver a certain droplet pattern, for optimum snowmaking. As the air supercools the droplets from the nucleation nozzle, they snap into a frozen state, and 'seed the clouds' caused by the upper misting nozzles.
So, what we end up with is something like this:
You can see the snow crystals forming in mid-air
Check out the neighbor's yard....not a flake of snow, so, you know this is not from natural snowfall.
And here's a video of the process in action, I document 32 inches of snowfall in about 12 hours, and that's something you NEVER see on the SC coast!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_NJ-q3BKx4&list=UUHYpuGo2zvfQcgL2J7VdAqA&index=37&feature=plcp