Custom Radiator Air Duct (watercooling)

J

jreffy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 25, 2006
Messages
300
It's pretty much common sense that it's more effective cooling if you can pull fresh cool air over your radiator in a water-cooling system. Currently there are only 2 options. Pull the warm air inside your PC over the radiator on the way out of the case, OR pull in fresh air from the outside of your case to the inside, but then you are adding heat to the case. Bad news.


However, on my Savage mod, I'm going to solve this problem. I'm going to build a duct that will pull air in from the outside of my PC, directly to the rad, and then back out of the case.
I plan on mounting a 240mm rad into the top of my case, with 2 120mm fans pulling air through it and out of the case. I will simply build a duct that covers the rad and fans, and pulls in air from the left side of my case, near the top of the side-panel. I haven't decided if I want to put fans on the intake and the rad, or just the rad, or what.

I'm ordering my rad and PSU this week, but I'm going to build a mockup of this duct out of foam-board to figure out how exactly I'm going to pull this off.


Anyone have any opinions? tried this before? think it's a dumb idea? suggestions?
 
That's similar to how mine's set up. A heatercore sits in my drive bays facing forward, wo 120mm fans sit on top of the case, and a duct connects them. Air goes in the front of the radiator and out the top of the case...
 
Get your loop up and running, and feel how "warm" the air coming out of your radiator actually is. Then you will know if a duct is worth it ;)
 
zer0signal667 said:
That's similar to how mine's set up. A heatercore sits in my drive bays facing forward, wo 120mm fans sit on top of the case, and a duct connects them. Air goes in the front of the radiator and out the top of the case...
Click to expand...


did you run it before without the duct? if so, what was the temp difference?


oh, and what material did you use for the duct, just sheet metal?
 
jreffy said:
did you run it before without the duct? if so, what was the temp difference?


oh, and what material did you use for the duct, just sheet metal?
Click to expand...


Ran it without a duct... but only with one fan and no shroud, so no valid comparison. Sheet metal, I think I cut it from pre-fab HVAC ducting.
 
Looking forward to seeing the final result. Eventhough it isn't really necessary...we enthusiasts dont do something because it is necessary :)
 
at load theres a delta of about 10-15 degrees but achieving super-pi times of 29.203 (1M) isn't bad though right?
 
Taken from my Project: Savage worklog thread. Basically dealing with this duct idea/

UPDATE 8/29/06


Got some new parts today. Building had been non-existant while I waited for these parts, because I needed some exact measurements before proceeding (you'll see why). Power supply and 2 LED fans came in.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_007.jpg

I was a little concerned with the wires on the PSU. They stuck out and were less flexible than I wanted, but I had anticipated that this would be a problem http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_009.jpg.

Anyways, I pressed on.


I had already posted a thread about a custom duct system for my radiator that I am going to mount on the top of the case. Unfortunately the radiator that I want (GTS Stealth 240) has been out of stock, so I didn't have it to physically measure with, althought I did have the specs from the website.

Anyway, here is the rough (and I emphasize the word "rough") mock-up I did with foam board. The idea of this duct is to carry "fresh" (and therfore cooler) air through the radiator that will be hooked into the watercooling system, which will in turn cool the water more effectively as it passes through the radiator.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_014.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_015.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_016.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_017.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_018.jpg

For measurements sake I put it at a 45 degree angle, just to keep it simple. As you can see I had to cut a bit out for the support bar and the motherboard tray. Now I BARELY hit the tray, so a simple fix of putting the duct on a sharper angle will fix that no problem. The other thing that will fix is the interference with the power cables, as you can see here. The PC is upside down so the PSU would stay in place :) you can also see the fans will fit just fine.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_010.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/jreffy/Project Savage/20060829_013.jpg

The only question left is the length. I plan on mounting 2 slot-load DVD/CD drives into one 5 1/2" bay, however I'm concerned my duct interferes with that, but I think I have a solution. Only time will tell for sure though.

Still trying to decide if I want to put a window on my duct and mod that out as well :) Any ideas?

Anyways, that's the update. My car is in the shop and it's going to cost me some money, so I don't plan on having many new parts and therefore not many updates for a while. I'll probably be cutting the holes in the top of the case for the PSU fan and the radiator fans, along with mounting them in the case until then. Going to have to rig up a custom mounting anyway for the PSU since I flipped the back panel so it would have a blowhole directly out of hte case.
 
ahhh, I understand what you are doing now, that will be nice, and functional too!
 
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