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fridge pics, and some ?'s

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SpaceRangerJoe

Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2001
Location
Tulsa, OK
alright, i finally got my pics from my friends camera. heres a few of the fridge i am going to be using.

outside
outside.jpg


back
back.jpg


technical stuff sticker
sticker.jpg


inside
inside.jpg


alright, for the questions. unless i want to end up recharging the system, i cant really cut any of that white thing inside the fridge, right? that whole thing is the evaporator, correct? cause it seems likes the channels run through it. i must say, i was a little suprised by that, but what can you do, eh? for my fan relay, i was thinking about using the thermostat on the back. you can see the wiring of it in the picture of the sticker on the back. after i get to work, ill bust out my mad paint skills, and show you what i mean (i dont do much "work" at work). anyway, thats what i have to far. ill post more later when i have some time. peace.
 
i was planning on leaving the whole thing together, and just putting a res in there, with the white thing laying in it. it just seems like it will save some hassle. the fridge already has all the insulation i need, and this way i dont risk kinking or breaking one of the tubes. it will be easy to keep everything self contained like this. im still trying to think of a good way to make the whole thing water tight, lest it ever be tipped in transport, so i dont have to worry about it.

mad paint skills coming soon...
 
alright, here some simple paint to show how i want to wire some 120V fans.
madpaint.jpg


does that look ok? 2 or 3 slow fans shouldnt draw to many amps, so do you think the switch will be ok? the goal of this is to get the fans to turn on and off with the compressor. please share your thoughts. also, does anyone know a good place to get some 120v fans?
 
wannaoc said:
Why not just drill two holes in the side and run tubes into the fridge and have the res inside? That way you can keep beer in there too. :)

thats what my plan is. believe me, the possibility of keeping cold drinks handy definately played a role in my wanting to do this :D.
 
ok here is what you do.

to make your res you get 2 peices of polycarbinate or acrylic and you cut hem to fit inside the u shape of the condenser and seal it so that the condenser makes up 3 of the 5 sides of your resivior

OR you make a biger resevior and stick it inside ( more area of the condenser touching your cooling solution but it is much larger and may be dificult to make fit inside fridge.

as for the water chiller coil i can give you my special design for a super efficient design =)
 
doh!!
i just looked closely at the pic and saw that your also gonna have to seal that side of the condenser because it has a huge hole in it

BTW i would get a VERY strong pump and insulate it and put it inside the fridge because that will do 2 things
1 cut down noise
2 free up room in your case
 
oh just 1 more thought.
you plan on putting fans on the mini fridge pump to cool it right?

you can instead make a closed loop coil of copper tubeing from your chilled solution to also cool the pump =) ( smaller seperate pump)
 
im going to go look for a plastic storage container for the res. something with a lid. then im gonna put it in the top part of the fridge (as close to the whole top half as i can), then unfold the evaporator in it some. then ill cut a little slit on the edge, where it meets the top of the bucket for the evap to fit through. then seal it with silicone. oh yeah, hole in the bottom and side to feed the pump and the return to the res. im planning on probably using a mag 5 for a pump, maybe a 7, but the 5 produces a whole lot less heat. im going to make have maybe 2 fans blowing across the coils in the back, and maybe have a little coverage on the compressor, cause it will most likely be running a lot. i started to take it apart last night, and it should be easy to wire some fans up to the existing relay (see pic above).

anyway, were having a party tonight. their hasnt been this many girls in the house all summer, so im gonna get back out there (man, am i commited to these forums or what? girls all over the house, and im posting... does this seem bad to anyone else?). peace out.
 
the coils in the back do not really need the fans but the compressor will.

remember the larger your res the more heat storage its capable of due to more liquid .
 
i figure the faster i can remove the heat from the coils, the more efficient the cooler will be. but i decided it might be a good idea to have some cooling on the compressor when i heard nealric mention how hot his got.
 
the coils getting hot is part of the cycle of phase change and while it does effect the inside cooling of the fridge it is kinda like a diferent loop in the system where instead of needing cooling ( because the condenser will do that ) focus on the pump(compressor) which creates the action for the expansion and contraction of the gasses through the loop because the compressor is what is really gonna get hit with the stress.


by submerging your copper coils into a liquid you remove heat from the copper tubing containing your coolant and store the heat in the liquid so that it will be removed by the condenser.
this is why the container holding his fluid can store more heat with more fluid and should not be the same fluid that pumps to your comp .

i think you where talking about using your res as the radiator of the system also if im not mis understanding your posts.
its better to make a copper tube spiral ( shaped like a spring) and submerg it in a seperate solution from the stuff going to your comp and use the copper coil as your radiator .

i could draw you a pic of what i mean but i dont have a way of hosting pics so i would have to send it email
 
i think i get what you mean. if you want to email me the pics, i will host them for you. i dont really see how that is more efficient though... cause in the end, the fridge in its entirerty still has the job of dissipating all the heat that is extracted from the cpu. if i understand you right, you are saying 2 different coolant loops. well...i guess 3 if you could the fridged phase change

1: the loop that goes to the cpu. the "rad" of this loop will be cooper coils sitting in a liquid in the fridge.

2: the coolant that is in the fridge, which is used to cool the copper coils which eventually lead to the cpu.

3: the closed circuit of the fridge, compressor, evap, condensor, etc... this cools liquid 2, which in turn is used to cool liquid 1.

is that what you mean? or am i way off. if that is correct, i dont see how that is going to be more efficient than just pulling the coolant straight out of the res, and pumping it to the cpu. yout way (as i understand it) just adds more barriers for the heat to travel to before it is removed from the system as a whole (this end step is to radiat it through the condensor coils on the back of the fridge).
 
I have a question for you that is a little off topic SpaceRangerJoe. What are you using to insulate the tubing, CPU socket, bblock, and all of the rest of the stuff that has to be insulated. I am kind of interested in building a phase-change type system when I get up the money, but I have no clue how to go about this or the rest of the project.

P.S. I think that thorilan is suggesting something like this to stick in the fridge to take a lot of the stress off the compressor. It will cool the liquid before it goes back into the compressor and will probably make the temps a little better. It may be a good idea and iot doesnt look like it will be that hard to do. The only thing that I could see being a problem is the space it will take up......you may have to give up your cold beer.
 
for insulation, ill smear dielectric grease all over the socket, and in the socket. then a piece of closed cell foam or neoprene in the socket. cut a piece of foam to go around the socket. cover the back of the socket in grease, and put a piece of foam over that too. for the tubes, im looking for pipe insulation. its a circular foam, with a slit cut in the side so you can slip it over tubing. then il wrap it in electrical tape. a similar process for the gpu block and video card. i dont think im going to insulate the tubing in the fridge itself, since it is going to be cold in there anyway. i guess if it becomes a problem, ill do it. for the pump, per jfettigs advice, ill probably just run it submerged so that wont be a problem.
 
as for this extra loop, i still dont really understand it i guess. heres how i understand the whole refrigeration system. and please correct me if i am wrong. compressor compresses the refrigerant. by raising the pressure, it becomes a liquid. it is then moved towards the evaporator. the pressurized liquid is then run through some sort of expansion valve. the rapid pressure drop causes it to flash boil, absorbing a lot of heat in the process. this occurs in the evaporator (the part that gets cold. the white metal looking thing in the top right corner of the fridge). then refrigertant is consequently warmer now, still in a gaseous form. this heated gas is then run through the condensor, where the heat that is stored in the refrigerant (r12 in this case), is disipated through the coils. this is where the fans come in play. this is a passive radiator. by moving air across it, the ambient temperature around the radiator (condensor) will be lower, speeding the transfer of heat from coils to the air, thus helping to lower temps faster. this cooled liquid (formed from the now cooled gas, or is it still in a gaseous form, just cooler than before? either way) is then run through a compressor, where the whole process starts over. is that a somewhat accurate understanding?

as for cooling the compressor, i assume it will be getting warm since it will be running constantly. but if i take the heat from that, and dump it back into the res in the fridge, then its just adding more heat to the system, and more work for the compressor to do in the end. so i might add a fan to blow air over the compressor, to help it out, and perhaps extend its life a bit. but the bulk of the heat is going to be dissipated through the radiator (condensor) on the back of the fridge. not the compressor. im not trying to be difficult about this, so dont take it like that. im just trying to make sure we clear up any misunderstanding. as usual, any comments are welcome.
 
Im so sorry. I forgot to include the link for what I thought thorilan was suggesting. Here it is: http://www.overclockers.com/tips1011/ Not too sure if that is what he is talking about, but he hcan correct me if I am wrong.



I am pretty sure that you are correct in your assumption of how phase-change cooling works. I think that the idea that thorilan may have a good idea though becuase the compressor is going to be under a lot of stress when all that heat is dumped into it. Thorilans idea would dissipate some of the heat before it hit the compressor, and put less stress on it. I could be wrong about all of this though.
 
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