Code Name "Ice Box" (to be renamed soon)

[Lord_Towers]

So i've been lurking for a long ass time and i figured i should add my 2c to the pot. I've been modding computers for quite a while now; first person to put a custom window in among my friends, got the store i was working at to stock modding parts (compusa) yada yada yada stuff like that. I've always wanted to post a log, but i never thought anyone would care.

anyways my current project is to make an external box to super cool my processor until i have enough time and money to buy a new case and make it a contained unit.

since this project is more about proformance the first round than astethics, i hope you'll all forgive the looks of this until i finalize things. This should be updated daily (if nothing else i'll just keep you informed of the little mundane thing i had time for on a given night so you know i'm still working) and since i'm in front of my computer all day i'll be checking this durring the day as well.

the parts so far:
DangerDen Maze4-1 Tec waterblock
320W Tec
5/8" ID tubing (scrounged up for free)
ViaAqua 2600 pump (720 GPH)
13.8V 25A RadioShack PS for the Tec
1" ID tubing from res to pump
3-4' acrylic res 3" tube
heatercore (may switch to A/C condenser if the core dosen't cool enough)


thats just for the external rig, my computer is up and running still and i'm not doing hardware upgrades on it i'll post specs up when i get home (i'm at work right now)

I'll post a bunch of pictures soonish (i've been looking for an excuse to use the digi cam anyways) but i welcome any questions/comments in the meantime!

 

[Lord_Towers]

A general overview of my dining room table

The pump

super res!

Tec PSU

The heatercore

so there are some starter images, i'll see if i can master sketchup enough to show a diagram of what my plan is...

any comments?

 

[Thermite Paste]

you know what would be cool, if you put a flourescent light in the middle of the res, going straight through, insulated by another tube, and make the water uv reactive or something. just an idea though

 

[rogue_jedi]

ditch the heatercore and do a bong cooler!

its certainly tall enough, you just need a decent showerhead. and a nice pump.
i'm invincible!

 

[Lord_Towers]

actually the idea for the res is to run a ciol of copper tubing down the center to help cool off the water. and perhaps have a little tiny pump pumpin chilled water through the coil loop to help cooling.

that may or may not happen, i have the copper, but benging it into tight coils has proved near impossible so far and i'm not sure if i'll need the extra cooling. i'll definatly be splashing LED lights all over the place, i love lights

 

[Lord_Towers]

ditch the heatercore and do a bong cooler!

its certainly tall enough, you just need a decent showerhead. and a nice pump.

how exactly is a bong cooler made? i have a showerhead and a 740 GPH pump...

 

[Everfalling]

actually the idea for the res is to run a ciol of copper tubing down the center to help cool off the water. and perhaps have a little tiny pump pumpin chilled water through the coil loop to help cooling.

that may or may not happen, i have the copper, but benging it into tight coils has proved near impossible so far and i'm not sure if i'll need the extra cooling. i'll definatly be splashing LED lights all over the place, i love lights

wait...water cool the water cooling? wtf

 

[rogue_jedi]

actually the idea for the res is to run a ciol of copper tubing down the center to help cool off the water. and perhaps have a little tiny pump pumpin chilled water through the coil loop to help cooling.

that may or may not happen, i have the copper, but benging it into tight coils has proved near impossible so far, and i'm not sure if i'll need the extra cooling. i'll definatly be splashing LED lights all over the place, i love lights

i think you need special flexible copper tubing for that.

how exactly is a bong cooler made? i have a showerhead and a 740 GPH pump...

these guys have a few articles you can look into

/dansdata enjoy the reading
i'm invincible!

 

[Lord_Towers]

wait...water cool the water cooling? wtf

yeah using a seconday loop to be a water chiller. running cold water through the copper tubing to cool the water while its sitting in the rez

and i have pretty flexible copper tubing, i just can't get it to bend w/o colapsing upon itself


but i think i have a new idea now...

 

[sev]

For cooper tubing, u need a pipe bender or a special metal spring that goes inside the tube when you bend it. (I used to do a bit of pluming )

 

[Lord_Towers]

For cooper tubing, u need a pipe bender or a special metal spring that goes inside the tube when you bend it. (I used to do a bit of pluming )

yeah i figured i needed a bender, but at home depot it was 33 bux! i was hoping to get away wiht a 5$ solution or less!

 

[Lord_Towers]

Well here is another round of pictures... i'm not moving along super fast, but whenever i read other people work logs i loved all the pictures so i'm trying my hardest to post lots for you guys!


grrrr... image shack won't show my pictures at the momment... i'll try later (in a few hours or less, gotta love being paid to be online :-p) to get you the small update i uploaded last night.

 

[Lord_Towers]

alrighty now that imageshack is being nice again here are some pics!

New present in the mail

Pump with new 5/8 ID outlet and 1" ID inlet

straightning out the 1" ID tubing... stupid kinked tubing

Freshly installed Res outlet

the maze 4-1 and tec after initial test

so that was my miniscule update from last night, i did some more gluing wiht the plumbers goop and attached a few more things, but mostly thinking about what to do next

i'm trying to figure out what to do w/ my Tec, the wires seem to get pretty darned hot while its running, i can't tell what temperature they reach, or if they simply level off warm... i have some new wire to help it out but i don't know how low i can snip off the wire to make it less warm... anyone else have the hot wire tec problem?

 

[knaSen]

tecpr0n!

What you mean "hot wire tec problem"?

 

[Thor]

alrighty now that imageshack is being nice again here are some pics!

New present in the mail

Pump with new 5/8 ID outlet and 1" ID inlet

straightning out the 1" ID tubing... stupid kinked tubing

Freshly installed Res outlet

the maze 4-1 and tec after initial test


so that was my miniscule update from last night, i did some more gluing wiht the plumbers goop and attached a few more things, but mostly thinking about what to do next

i'm trying to figure out what to do w/ my Tec, the wires seem to get pretty darned hot while its running, i can't tell what temperature they reach, or if they simply level off warm... i have some new wire to help it out but i don't know how low i can snip off the wire to make it less warm... anyone else have the hot wire tec problem?

ok.. part of your problem is your running 1" copper tubeing its much harder to bend than 1/2 " and isnt needed, the block your useing is only 1/2" there for the choke point will be the block and everything will flow at that rate no matter what. go get your self some 1/2" stuff , i dont think your going to be able to get that 1" to bend into the tube the way you want, even with a tubeing bender

try bending the coil around the tube you plan on putting it in, it will get it close to the size you need then start to tighten it once the coil is made slipping it into the tube as you go to help hold the progress

if i remeber right most tecs want to run at x voltage and pull x amprage , when you drop the voltage it will pull more amps to try and make up for it, as volts go up it draws less amps, now... if it wants 18v it may only need lets say 8 amps... but if you give it 12 v then it will try to pull 14 amps, (this is based on no real math right now, just makeing my point) the determening factor in wire size is amprage (and voltage to some extent, but more so amps) look at house hold wire that runs your lamps and pc, its thin stuff, no one piece has to be able to handel more than 10 amps (most curcuits in the bedroom are only 15a) at 110v now.. look at your car.. its whole system is only 12 v... but your starter requires about 60amps to crank over, thus the thick ass wire running to it... ever wonder why jumper cables are so thick... now you know..

so.. short answer... replace the wire with a thicker (lower guage) wire always go bigger then you need, if its got 14 guage and you determan you need 12, go 10.. i can garrentee you, you will burn out thought leads if you continue to run them in that state fire and other bad things will happen... on that note, chances are its got thin flat leads comeing out of it( i can't see the pic's (and i croped them out of my post) run a good bead of solder up as close to the ceramic as you possibily can (be carfull not to let it get thicker than the ceramic or it could interfere with contact between the cold plate and or the block )

and running more wires, will work, but its asking for trouble.. and looks messy... (just do it right.. )

thore

 

[Lord_Towers]

ok.. part of your problem is your running 1" copper tubeing its much harder to bend than 1/2 " and isnt needed, the block your useing is only 1/2" there for the choke point will be the block and everything will flow at that rate no matter what. go get your self some 1/2" stuff , i dont think your going to be able to get that 1" to bend into the tube the way you want, even with a tubeing bender

I think i didn't explain stuff right... The 1" tube from the res to the pump is standard clear vinal tubing, the metal in the pic is a bar trying to straighten it out. the pump comes standard wiht 1" input and 5/8" output, i just upgraded to a brass barb instead of plastic

try bending the coil around the tube you plan on putting it in, it will get it close to the size you need then start to tighten it once the coil is made slipping it into the tube as you go to help hold the progress

i'm only bending 1/4 or even thinner tubing but i went ahead and ordered a handheld pipe bender to help out. i have a rod that is the perfect coling diameter, the problem i have is simply the tube colapsing upon itself.

if i remeber right most tecs want to run at x voltage and pull x amprage , when you drop the voltage it will pull more amps to try and make up for it, as volts go up it draws less amps, now... if it wants 18v it may only need lets say 8 amps... but if you give it 12 v then it will try to pull 14 amps, (this is based on no real math right now, just makeing my point) the determening factor in wire size is amprage (and voltage to some extent, but more so amps) look at house hold wire that runs your lamps and pc, its thin stuff, no one piece has to be able to handel more than 10 amps (most curcuits in the bedroom are only 15a) at 110v now.. look at your car.. its whole system is only 12 v... but your starter requires about 60amps to crank over, thus the thick ass wire running to it... ever wonder why jumper cables are so thick... now you know..

My Tec is rated for 15V at 26A i'm running it of a 13.8V PS at 25V...its the best i could find...

so.. short answer... replace the wire with a thicker (lower guage) wire always go bigger then you need, if its got 14 guage and you determan you need 12, go 10.. i can garrentee you, you will burn out thought leads if you continue to run them in that state fire and other bad things will happen... on that note, chances are its got thin flat leads comeing out of it( i can't see the pic's (and i croped them out of my post) run a good bead of solder up as close to the ceramic as you possibily can (be carfull not to let it get thicker than the ceramic or it could interfere with contact between the cold plate and or the block )

and running more wires, will work, but its asking for trouble.. and looks messy... (just do it right.. )

thore

yeah i can get big wire, my only issue is the thin leads comming out of the tec. i have a prebundled cable with 4 wires in it and i was just considering using that wire set (2 + 2 -) to help out instead of buying a new wire. i was thinking about building up as much solder as i could to match the wire diameter as best i can.

 

[Lord_Towers]

Well no interesting update tonight, i had to regoop on of the fittings cuz it didn't take too well to the plastic, no big deal just a bit more goop and some sanding

i'm glad i'm getting at least some response on my worklog, i was worried that no one would care in the least

i'll try my hardest to have better more interesting pics posted up soon, i know pictures of fittings and pumps just aren't that interesting to some people.

 

[Lord_Towers]

Pictures of a different sort

while these arn't techy pictures i thought i'd share 2 of my random pets

now arn't they just the cutest

 

[rogue_jedi]

i have a suggestion:

designing the hold down could be difficult, though. i don't think it's a standard size.

to be somewhat on topic, good luck getting the TEC rewired.

the black knight always triumphs!

 

[Lord_Towers]

Well i got some work done over the weekend, i'll post the pictures tonight if i have a chance. I did a bit more work on my res and its mostly complete, and i worked on fabricating a shroud for my heatercore. I'm glad i made cardboard models first i think i screwed up like 10x times :-p

i also found some old 12v 8a server fans that i'm planning on using... does anyone know where i can find a rheostat that can handle one or both?

 

[stryder2720]

i have a suggestion:

designing the hold down could be difficult, though. i don't think it's a standard size.

to be somewhat on topic, good luck getting the TEC rewired.

the black knight always triumphs!

I LOLed at that pic.. Good one