Anyone use a car A/C Condensor as a radiator?

You all know what I'm talking about.. In front of the radiator of a car is the A/C condensor. They are huge!

I have a Xaser III and it has a very large and vacent side panel that a smaller japanese sized condensor would/could fit nicely on. They usualy have about 3/8 to 1/2 sized tubing. I've seen them in both aluminum and copper.

Plan:

Install Condensor as radiator on side panel opposite window panel. About 2 inches away from side panel... and see if it will work pasively. If not I'll mount some 80's in a row on top of it pulling air up.

Water pump:

I'm going to dig around the forums some more and find out all of the part numbers for water pumps you guys are buying from lowes and such.

Water block:

I have a AMD Athlon XP 2100 + OC'ed to 2.2 ghz.. runs up to 160 degrees while folding so I gota get one good...

Probably do the northbridge as well and also plan on doing the X800. But after I get the CPU up and working.

I don't think anyone uses them because they are too restrictive to waterflow with all of those bends. I would suggest looking for an appropriate sized radiator to fit your needs or tell us what dimensions you would like or parts you would like to cool and we can help make a suggestion.

Well I want something absolutely freaking huge.. Like use two chevy truck heater cores big. I am still considering the idea of using the the condensor but with a very large pump to overcome any flow loss.

I'm also very close to the wall and its very cold here in ohio *shivers*. I think I'll drill some holes and run tubes outside and put the radiator out there.

You have any recomendations on pumps?

AC condensers are usually all aluminum, which doesn't play nicely with the copper waterblock in a waterloop.
If you can get a copper one for free, you can try it, though it won't really kick as much behind as you might think.
Also mounting it to a case side gives you big issues with getting enough air through it.
If you're gonna buy one, get something really nice like a PA160. Granted it is bigger than some cases can handle in the front (something to think about).

71C is darned high bud. You do indeed need some better cooling. I think an empty beercan as a heatsink would get better temps than you've got.
BTW, we all use Celcius for temps. Membership worldwide just makes it easier than half of us doing conversions all the time.

And sticking a radiator outside sounds like a nice plan, but that cold water running into your computer will cause condensation to form on the tubes and waterblock, quickly making a dead computer.
That is, unless you're planning on insulating heavily like the gents in the extreme cooling section do...

Dual heatercores!!!
That is all.

Hmm, oh i can link my WC thread. Here is the full version.

For clifnotes... I am going with dual '77 bonivile heatercores (w/ AC) in parrallel, a 350gph 10ft head pump from an aquarium (almost a D5 for half the price), a swiftech micro res because they seem to be of sound design, 3x 120mm fans to cool it off, and a home made external box to house it all.

For system temps yes, Celcius is the norm. Example -- "My presscott idles at 45 and loads at 60."
However for room and ambient temps -- we still let the old Fahrenheit fly.

Great tips! I'm an over the top diy'er (even though I have a premod case) so I plan on finding something in the garage or junkyard that will make a nice radiator. I think I even have a few heater cores out in the garage from some car projects.

I'll have to check out some of the insulation techniques.

Does anyone know how high of pressure is safe in a water cooled system? I have a pump in the garage that is capable of moving some massive gph. With the restrictions in the system I bet it would have a bit of pressure on the output side. I guess it would mostly depend on block types.

I have to water cool my GPU. I over clock the x800 to 550/580 and it runs up to 80c and locks up and turns off.. I'm not oc'ing it anymore till more cooling.

LOL i payed less than $50 for 2 brand new all copper heater cores from autozone... the equivalent of 2x 120.2 rads!

I think safe head pressure off the pump depends on 2 things:
A) Getting propperly sized fittings / hosing - and using hose clamps on everything.
B) If you do run rather high pressure (i think anything over 10-15ft if i remember right) Go ahead and spring for the nylon re-inforced vynil tubing. It dosent look as good, but at least you know it will hold.

Beyond that, if things are propperly sealed -- dont go over 40ft of head... thats just nuts.

Steve just read through your build.. and... I've learned so much!

That pump looks like it will do just fine, I'll try and track one down localy.

Since the top of the xaser is three miles long (about 20 inches) I'm going to attempt dual heater cores up there but in series. Why? I duno yet.

Now to solve the riddle of the resevoir. 2" pvc tube running up the back about 18" inches too tall? I think not!

Now is there a write up on proper water routing? There is sooo much content on the OC forums that it is hard to find things... Nix that I'm going to search. But feal free to chime in.

Im slightly enebriated right now because i have to get rid of my alcohol in my dorm before turkey break -- lol what a fun task! The beer and bailies anyway -- might have to smuggle out the everclear, its too harsh to solo.
Anyway, thats my disclaimer for any miss info i toss out here.

I would have done a PVC res, but couldnt find any bulkhead fittings for it -- I still need 4 of those soon, so i guess i should have kept looking. Frankly i tihnk the bigger the res, the slower you see temp changes, and the fewer fill cycles needed to get it running.

As for routing the water. I think i read it in a stickey some place... But w/e, i'll do my best to explain things. A great discussion is going on in this thread, even if you cant get your head arround all of it (like me) its definetly worth the read. Something to keep in mind while planing is filling the loop, so you normaly have the pump at the lowest point, and make it so that the pump the first thing after the res.
Res >> -- >> Pump

You also have some degree of Temp variance as the water travels through the loop (but its not that much). Although minimal, its still 'good-form' to try and adhere to this. Make the coolest watter hit what you want to be coldest first! The pump as well as the things you are cooling add heat to the water. Water is also going to be coldest when it exits the rad(s), after that, its just heating up. Personaly i think the CPU is more important than the GPU, so i do this:
Rads >> -- >> CPU >> -- >> GPU >> -- >> rest of the loop.


So far we have: Res >> -- >> Pump >> -- >> Radiators >> -- >> CPU >> -- >> GPU
Now, for probably my best thought / comment of the night... But how best to set up the rads??

First off, resistance wise... running duals in parallel is sort of like the resistance of one rad, and causes a smaller rise in back pressure. -- Thats good right? Well, yeah... but with eough pump it dosent really matter. Secondly, in theory we generaly agree that 2 rad's in parallel will be working the same ammount per fluid cycle and therefore more efficient. -- That would be nice, but it seems we see diffent things in practice.

What i think is happening is something nikhsub1 often talks about... In that our water cooling loops operate below a certain thermal threshold (in that we are too close to ambient temps for our own good).As i try to articulate this... I think that rads have this magical threshold where it seems that the rads like to operate at a certain number of C above ambient... and somehow that means that cooling the water in stages by setting things up in series works better than doing a single slightly slower pass through both rads at once as is done when set up in parallel.

I seem to recall a 2-4 or so page thread on this a while back... ahh, HERE it is.

Hmmm. Darned big DIY sounds familiar
Check Further and Radiator links in my signature. Even with the radiator in the basement I was a afraid of condensation, so I put a heatercore in my case to bring the case air temp down...That's the only other way to do it, without insulating.
My water is 15.5C, my CPU is 22C, and my room with the computer is 23C. Even with that small of a difference, condensation would be easily possible (15.5-23C can form cond. at 65% relative humidity).

The rad is from a late 80's Toyota truck, and it's built much like a black ice, only 16x20 w/1" fittings.

CougarSE said:

Great tips! I'm an over the top diy'er (even though I have a premod case) so I plan on finding something in the garage or junkyard that will make a nice radiator. I think I even have a few heater cores out in the garage from some car projects.

I'll have to check out some of the insulation techniques.

Does anyone know how high of pressure is safe in a water cooled system? I have a pump in the garage that is capable of moving some massive gph. With the restrictions in the system I bet it would have a bit of pressure on the output side. I guess it would mostly depend on block types.

I have to water cool my GPU. I over clock the x800 to 550/580 and it runs up to 80c and locks up and turns off.. I'm not oc'ing it anymore till more cooling.

Click to expand...

I have a x800pro on air I ran it @ 560/580 for benchmarks (mem wasnt stable but passed tests.) It loaded @ 75-80 deg after slaping a mase4 on it i never even see 33deg load now =) . Water made a crazy difference in the temps on my vid card more than the cpu. Now i just have to get around to doing the vmods once i get a DMM

That is totaly awsome! More of a reason for me to go water cooled!

Once you go water you wont want to go back. I cant even think of building a air cooled rig for my self any more. Plus once you have the gear it will be good for a few years might need a new Wb once and a while but who cares =) I know for sure that my TT armor with my 3x120 rad in the front will be used for a lone time to come. The only thing that might pull me from water would be a SS system =)

||Console|| said:

Once you go water you wont want to go back. I cant even think of building a air cooled rig for my self any more. Plus once you have the gear it will be good for a few years might need a new Wb once and a while but who cares =) I know for sure that my TT armor with my 3x120 rad in the front will be used for a lone time to come. The only thing that might pull me from water would be a SS system =)

Click to expand...

One thing to think about when getting your blocks if if you even plan on building a water chiller if you do you sould pick up one peice water blocks .
I wish i had though of this when i got my gear. Now if I build a chiller i will have to braze my 2 peice wb's so the cold wont make the seals leak

edit lol i didnt mean to quote my self i meant to edit the post =)

A/C condensors are made to condense refrigerant from a high pressure, high temperature gas to a sub-cooled liquid. Their design is not optimized for water cooling and you would be better off trying to find an all copper radiator from a very small car or possibly a small water cooled generator.

Well looks like the word on the street is "it aint gona work". But I'm stubborn and I will try it. But I'm planning a Dual Heater core install on the top of the rig...spanning the uber long top. Super large resevoir and rads and a setup for the condensor. Just for a test.

Plus it will be much fun to Drill/Cut/Bend this ubber expensive Xaser III!!!