DIY Phase Water Chiller

V2V3

n00b
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Dec 20, 2006
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My first Refrigeration System! (Back in 2004)

The other day I found the Pictures of my first Refrigeration system, and I decided to post them to help others out there get involved with extreme cooling and overclocking.

Way back when I was just starting to play with refrigeration systems my parents were crazy enough to let me borrow the freezer over the weekend  So I went to work tearing it apart and figuring out how it worked. It was damn simple once I got all the insulation out of the way!

After my initial rampaging I realized I was not going to be able to modify the unit for “Direct Die” cooling, so I started on building a Water chiller. The first plan I had was to chill something like 20 gallons of water in the base of the freezer using it as a reservoir. But… I had a damn hard time preventing leaks! After watching the unit take its sweet time to chill 20 gallons of water to near freezing I decided I better use a smaller reservoir :D that’s where dads hunting cooler came into action! Cutting in a few notches to fit the liquid and suction line was easy. Paying the $50 for Anti-Freeze was a lot for a 14 year old kid who saved every penny for that 5950 Ultra!

The unit was a standard R134a Compressor with a cheapo refrigerator condenser but it did one hell of a job chilling my Anti-freeze to -50C

The Freezer cut in half made a nice stand to work on :)
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The supplies! I loved the Home Depot way back when :D
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Drilling the mounting holes
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C-clamps used to hold the wood nice and tight while the silicon glue set
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Scoring and cutting the "Plexi-Glass" we found that a plain old utility knife worked best
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Insulation of the motherboard with Liquid Electrical tape (don't get it any where near capacitors!)
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it did its job
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Koolance 200W water blocks NB,SB, and CPU
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ASUS FX5950 being insulated w/ Liquid Electrical tape
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back of the motherboard being insulated from condensation
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Re-wired the compressor to run 24/7
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Nearing completion w/ the double walled "Plexi" side panels
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Fill port on top
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Leak testing with Dyes, at first it leaked quite a bit!
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Removed the Refrigeration unit from the freezer base
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Placed the Evap in a cooler (smaller reservoir)
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Cooler filled w/ 5 gallons of Pure Anti-Freeze
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Blocks in place and insulation cured!
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Pumping the Glycol
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Insulation on the suction line
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Sweet......

What kind of temps are you getting? The only thing I dont like about your chiller are those koolance blocks, they dont look tough enough to handle sub zero temps...... It could just be from the picture, I hope they work well for you.....


Man, $50 for coolant is alot of money, I was pissed already that it cost me $25 to fill my res with windshield wiper fluid ( 8 gallons ) lol........

Good job man and enjoy the cold water.......
 
Sorry for the thread necro but gotta say thanks for posting this even though what I was searching for on Google wasn't related to your Water chiller. :)

I was checking to make sure liquid electrical tape was ok for circuit boards and your thread + pics popped up with a circuit board coated with the stuff.
 
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