Chilled water, more thoughts.

T

Torsten

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 4, 2006
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I've seen the fridge idea bashed time and time again, but I haven’t yet come across my idea for it. Typically what is suggested is placing a single radiator for a watercooler into a fridge. This is shot down because a fridge cannot cool a cpu putting out 100+ watts of heat. So here is my idea...

Rather than place a single radiator inside a fridge and feed it the heated water from the cpu -- use a two radiator setup; one outside the fridge and one inside the fridge.

The water coming from the cpu runs through the first radiator and is cooled to room temp.
The water from the first radiator is then fed into the fridge into a 2nd radiator. The water is chilled to any extent possible, and then fed back into the cpu. Preferably both radiators will be running fans.

In this scenario, the fridge is only working to cool ambient water.

Downsides? I can only think of the fridge having to run 24/7 operation, and the condensation issues that exist with everything else in this forum. Im sure you could find a fridge somewhere with a decent duty cycle; commercial unit or something. The key would be finding everything cheaper than a typical $800 phase change unit...

This could be used to cool either a cpu or a peltier I imagine.

Thoughts? :confused:
Yay 1st post!
 
You would be better off getting a freezer and doing this...However, I suppose if you go a really small mini fridge and cranked it you might have some luck...The real problem is that it wont really be in the fridge long enough to have much of an effect on the temps. If you ran a lot of tubing in the fridge though you might be able to keep it in there long enough to cool it sufficiently to see a drop.
 
Thanks for the quick reply.

Good point, a freezer would be preferred.

Your right, the longer we can keep the water in the freezer unit and the greater the surface area, the more affect you will get from it.
I think rather than lots of copper tubing, more and larger radiators would be best (thats what they are designed for, after all). Fans on the radiators would increase the temperature transfer as well.

If you run a big enough freezer unit like this:

7175193_sa.jpg


you could just drop in a car radiator! All you would have to do is modify the fittings :p The volume would give the water plenty of time in the freezer unit.

I just did a quick search on ebaymotors -- you can get a massive car radiator for as little as $50-$60 shipped. Throw a couple 120mm fans on there and you are GTG.
 
A chilled water system can be made for a lot less than $800, so can a direct die phase system if you do the work yourself.

The easiest way to do a chiller is to buy an inexpensive 5000btu window ac unit and submerge the evaporator in a regular cooler. This doesn't require opening the system, any knowledge of phase change, special tools, etc. All you have to do is use the cooler as the res in your loop. You can even use the thermostat on the AC unit to control temps. This is a fairly bulky setup, but nothing compared to a referigerator or freezer. Plus, you can use this with an existing loop, with a car rad in a freezer, most PC system pumps are not going to push water through a loop that long.

As far as condensation, any time you go below ambient you will start getting condensation. You either need to insuslate, or set the thermostat to make sure you don't get temps that low... I recommend insulating, it's not that hard and you are almost certain to want to try running at the lowest temps you can get to see what your system will do.
 
Swiftech has a chiller kit which uses pelt plates to chill the liquid. You should check it out. The kit is less than $500, and of course, no klunky compressors needed. It does require a separate loop to cool the hot side of the plates, and the kit is very compact compared to other solutions.
 
boshuter said:
A chilled water system can be made for a lot less than $800, so can a direct die phase system if you do the work yourself.

The easiest way to do a chiller is to buy an inexpensive 5000btu window ac unit and submerge the evaporator in a regular cooler. This doesn't require opening the system, any knowledge of phase change, special tools, etc. All you have to do is use the cooler as the res in your loop. You can even use the thermostat on the AC unit to control temps. This is a fairly bulky setup, but nothing compared to a referigerator or freezer. Plus, you can use this with an existing loop, with a car rad in a freezer, most PC system pumps are not going to push water through a loop that long.

As far as condensation, any time you go below ambient you will start getting condensation. You either need to insuslate, or set the thermostat to make sure you don't get temps that low... I recommend insulating, it's not that hard and you are almost certain to want to try running at the lowest temps you can get to see what your system will do.
Click to expand...

Window AC unit in a giant water resevoir... what a good suggesstion. How low do you suppose the temps get? I am unsure what type of refrigerants they use.

Also, if someone were curious to learn about building their own direct die phase change, and wanted to gain knowledge of phaze change and tools ect., where could you direct them? ;)
 
Torsten said:
Window AC unit in a giant water resevoir... what a good suggesstion. How low do you suppose the temps get? I am unsure what type of refrigerants they use.

Also, if someone were curious to learn about building their own direct die phase change, and wanted to gain knowledge of phaze change and tools ect., where could you direct them? ;)
Click to expand...

They will do very good temps, probably -25c or better, plus they maintain temps very well due to the large size of the res.

A good place to learn about chillers, or phase change in general is "XtremeSystems. (org)". They have sections devoted to chillers and another for direct die phase systems. You can see a lot of pics and threads about people who have used the window AC units for chillers.
 
This is exactly what I was looking for - so much good reading - I am going to busy for awhile. Thank you ;)
 
For less than $800 Jinu117 can build you a kick @$$ single stage with all the trimmings and it would be nice and clean.
 
Sounds about the same price as a vapochill lightspeed. What advatanges does his unit have against such a manufactured product?

I was loooing into a possible less expensive alternative; but more powerful equally priced alternatives are good too. :cool:
 
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=101902

^^ about water chilling with an A/C unit

usually a custom built direct-die gets lower temps than a retail unit.

Water chilling to extreme temps seems like too much work to be worth it. Lots of things have problems at <-10C that require custom parts (water pumps are one thing I can think of... pretty much any common plastic.)

If you go custom direct-die, make sure you like their work, are prepared to wait, and trust the person with both your computer and your $$. :D
 
Torsten said:
Sounds about the same price as a vapochill lightspeed. What advatanges does his unit have against such a manufactured product?

I was loooing into a possible less expensive alternative; but more powerful equally priced alternatives are good too. :cool:
Click to expand...

Most of us get a LS and then send it to Him or Chilly1 to have it regassed and change the head. So to start out with it from the start is a +. Also he has cheaper models with out all the bells and whistles but for $200 more and a one time investment might as well go all the way IMO. Ship him a PM and see. If nothing else he does know his SS phase units and can tell you about it. Tell him mysticmerlin from XS sent you. :D
 
Just go with custom... it would be crazy to purchase a Vapo then have it modded, unless you are stuck with one now, or get a used one VERY cheap. To get the same performance of a good custom unit would require changing everything but the case/controller/ condensor... and the Vapo controllers are not that great (they do show good temps though ... wrong, but good ;))
 
What's wrong with vapochill LCD ? :)
I love cracking that one down till it can't display temp, lol :)
In all seriousness though, the real advantage of Vapochill LS is the good looking case, great evaporator mounting mechanism. Performances.... well... just about all custom builders can do tons better :)
As for chiller, care must be taken for sure on insulation. I would love to see commercial chiller with block, etc all included but unless it is DIY, I can't imagine it being cheaper than DD due to more parts involved inherently...
evap => heatexchanger. Than there is pump, blocks... which is typical waterloop added to direct tide... eeek.
 
I agree... for me, cases are the hardest part to build. It takes more resources than most home shops will have to do a case like Vapo/Lian Li. No question the vaop mounts are great... but for what they cost... I can live with my Chilly1 knock off at less than $5.00 ;) Picking up a defective used LS is a great idea, I've seen them for $200 or less (rare, but it happens)... the case and mount is well worth that.
 
Torsten said:
Good point, a freezer would be preferred.

Your right, the longer we can keep the water in the freezer unit and the greater the surface area, the more affect you will get from it.
I think rather than lots of copper tubing, more and larger radiators would be best (thats what they are designed for, after all). Fans on the radiators would increase the temperature transfer as well.

If you run a big enough freezer unit like this:

you could just drop in a car radiator! All you would have to do is modify the fittings :p The volume would give the water plenty of time in the freezer unit.

I just did a quick search on ebaymotors -- you can get a massive car radiator for as little as $50-$60 shipped. Throw a couple 120mm fans on there and you are GTG.
Click to expand...
Why in the world go to all that hassle with fans and crap? If I had a small freezer that size I'd get one or two used empty 15.5 gallon beer kegs and put that thing in there. fill it up with whatever your preferred coolant and go.
 
qdemn7 said:
Why in the world go to all that hassle with fans and crap? If I had a small freezer that size I'd get one or two used empty 15.5 gallon beer kegs and put that thing in there. fill it up with whatever your preferred coolant and go.
Click to expand...

Heh, that'd be a *fun* project :p
 
In regards my "freezer" draft, yes -- plain ol large resevoirs might be sufficient. However, radiators are designed to have a much greater surface area, and fans move much more air over the surface area.

But your right -- it is possible that this would be overkill. Then again, "overkill" is not a word used in the extreme cooling solutions forum very often ;)


In retrospect, the AC chillers definately appear to be a more cost-effective way to go for us non-directdie phase guys.
 
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