• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Customizing a window unit.

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Maximus Faticus

Registered
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Location
Raleigh
First off I'm new to using phase change as a way of cooling my PC, so pardon me is this is a noobish question.

I was wondering if anyone has spliced into or cut off the phase changer to run copper tubing with coolant straight into a water block? It would seem a hell of a lot more efficient then cooling a reservoir.
 
What you are talking about is direct die phase change cooling. This is what is used in a Vapochill or mach unit. The "phase changer" that you need to move is called the evaporator. This is the part where the refrigerent goes from a liquid to a gas and absorbs tonnes of energy.

Many people have made these direct die systems, but it's not the easiest thing to do. First you have to degas the system, then build an evaporator, attach the evaporator, tune the system to work with it's new smaller evaproator, regas the system, and many other little things. This requires a few specialty tools to do, and a lot of knowledge.

Making a water chiller is a way for us to get sub-zero temperatures without having to do major work on the phase change system. It also allows you to cool your CPU, northbridge, GPU and anythign else you want with one phase change system.
 
Actually here is what I'm thinking about doing.

maximusfaticus.jpg


Not only do I want to use the refrigerant to chill the CPU/GPU, but I want to blow cold air from the bottom to reduce the condensation, while making the rest of the computer nice and cold.

Have any of you seen anyone do something like that before?
 
you need a better understanding of how phase change cooling works. The refrigerent doesn't just go through the compressor and get cold, and then transfer heat from other components.

A phase change system works like this:

-refrigerent enters a compressor as a low pressure gas
-it leaves the compressor as a high pressure high temperature gas
-it goes through the condensor, where it is cooled, making it a liquid
-it goes through a throttling device and into the evaporator where it changes back into a gas
-the changing from a liquid to a gas requires lots of energy, so the evaporator gets really cold.
-the refrigerent leaves the evaproator as a low pressure gas and flows back to the compressor.

The only part in this whole cycle that is cold is the evaporator. It is possable to make a system with more than one evaporator, but it is extreamly hard to do, and ususally won't perform very well.

If you wanted to make a system that worked like the one in your system, you need a cold coolent moving through the lines. The best way to do this would be to make a standard water chiller from an AC unit, and then run chilled water through the system.
 
Back