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Bong or Heatercores?

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4od

Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2006
Location
Westchester, NY
I've decided to get a new radiating element
the options-

2x 77" Bonneville heatercores, probably costing me 15$ each max, plus fittings, fans and shrouds. Would have to make external housing, probably about 60$ overall

Bong cooler -sounds like i could get good temps, but I'm not sure how annoying refilling would be... probably like 50$ plus distilled water

Opinions?
 
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Try a single Bonny first. They're truly awesome. If you think you need more performance, throw the second one in but I don't think you'll see a huge gain even with your presshot.
 
You can build a bong for almost nothing in a bucket that in my experiance thus far will run much cooler than any radiator you can buy. here a links to the article that inspired mine, I just put a fitting in the bottom of the bucket so my pump wouldn't be submerged. The whole thing cost about $15 to make and was well worth it. As far as using much water I run mine on my benching rig and so it doesn't have any 24/7 time on it, in the 20 or so hours I have ran it, I haven't needed to add any water yet. Remember though with a bong its like having a swamp cooler in your room, it will increase humidity and decrease the ambient temperature in your room.
 
My first watercooling was with a bong cooler, it gave great temps but refilling was a chore. If you can get your hands on heater cores I'd say get them.
 
I second trying a single bonny heatercore. I was running one on an athlon XPM 2500+ running @ 2.4ghz @ 1.95v and a Hydor L30. I had a 120mm silverstone fan running at the lowest setting (dk what the rpm was but you could see the blades going around). No shroud or anything and I was getting 32c under load. this was in my ~80*F room. they are a truly amazing rad.
 
For the heater cores, great option i think.

They dont really need fittings, just cut off the inlet and outlet tubes before they start to bend. Personaly if i were to do it again, i would have heated those pipes off the core cut them, and then re-soldered it back on to keep any copper particles / shavings out of your loop. All you need to do to substitute the fittings is strech 1/2'' tubing over them no problem, and a simple hose clamp makes it more than secure in the long run.

Its really pretty easy to strech the tubing over coper pipe... Just dip the tubing in boiling water, and use a small tool to pull it the rest of the way over.
 
Evaporative cooling for the win! Does not need to even be a bong, depends on how you build it, and there is very cheap lexan/acrylic pipe on ebay if you want to make it purty :)
As for refills, build a auto-refill cache and you'll have a once every few days refill. As for as load goes, you can probably get ambient or less with almost any heatload. I held 900 watts of heat at ambient no problems, (3.4EE northwood + 437watt dominator pelt @ 4.995 ghz and video card, and chipset on pelts )
 
NoL said:
3.4EE northwood + 437watt dominator pelt @ 4.995 ghz and video card, and chipset on pelts

LN2 anyone?
Please tell me you have screen shots of that, validation links and a pic of that rig :eek:

I personaly think a evap. cooler would be a good idea if you live in a dry climate, heck I didn't even know they worked all that well in humid areas.
 
I guess with a big enough pump... and antifreeze it would be decntly below ambient. But i never got far into that later generation of P4's

As for where evaps work, i think they work all over the place... Efficencey may change due to humidity, but how many power plants esp nuclear and coal ones do you see that DONT make use of massive Evap cooling towers??
There may well be an economy of scale there for effincey at work there that im not seeing. But thats the example that comes to mind.
 
NoL said:
Evaporative cooling for the win! Does not need to even be a bong, depends on how you build it, and there is very cheap lexan/acrylic pipe on ebay if you want to make it purty :)
As for refills, build a auto-refill cache and you'll have a once every few days refill. As for as load goes, you can probably get ambient or less with almost any heatload. I held 900 watts of heat at ambient no problems, (3.4EE northwood + 437watt dominator pelt @ 4.995 ghz and video card, and chipset on pelts )

SWEET DONKEY SNOT!!!
that, sir, is real cooling.

as to the climate question, it may be more important...

heres why:
i am all for evaporative cooling, but it will be much more worth it in climates where it is much more effective. since its such a chore, the return on investment in "swampy" places like atlanta, Nola, huston, and FLA is probably going to be less...
 
An evap cooler with proper waterflow and airflow can get your water to "wet-bulb" temperature.
Dry-bulb temp is what a thermometer would normally read, and wet-bulb takes evaporative cooling into account using a wet muslin "bandage" over the bulb of the thermometer.
At 100% humidity, they are the same.

I used to run a bong every winter until I started to put my radiators in the basement.
They made a nice humidifier for those dry Michigan winters (when it's 20F outside, there's little humidity in the air).
 
Diggrr said:
An evap cooler with proper waterflow and airflow can get your water to "wet-bulb" temperature.
Dry-bulb temp is what a thermometer would normally read, and wet-bulb takes evaporative cooling into account using a wet muslin "bandage" over the bulb of the thermometer.
At 100% humidity, they are the same.

I used to run a bong every winter until I started to put my radiators in the basement.
They made a nice humidifier for those dry Michigan winters (when it's 20F outside, there's little humidity in the air).

Be thankfull, when its not dry 20°f can be as misserable as 0°F outside.
 
Must we talk about the freezing weather when winter is comming??

Some of us have to venture outside to silly things like calsses and fire drills at 3am.
At least its been mild here so far... Oh man the jinx hammer will surely swing for that one :cry:
 
Bongs work better the more heat you dump into them, because it raises the water further above ambient temperature and thus is more inclined to evaporate more :p

It's all about trade-offs though; instead of trading off more watts for heat as in an air cooled setup, you're trading more watts for water...
*remembers running the bong with a 2700 GPH submersed sump pump making at least 800 watts of heat to generate more pressure for the maze3 (it forced through the seal by the way); also remebers coming back into the room and having difficulty breathing for the rise in humidity in mere minutes*

if quiet is a concern, I have a bucket evaporative cooler that DOMINATED the bong cooler and made no noise whatsoever...the 'man peeing' sound got kind of annoying after a while but the three or four below system ambient temperature was well worth it.
 
Dual heater cores won't get your water temps below ambient but it'll get you close - mine runs ~3°C over ambient.

I considered a "bong"/water fountain solution but decided the central air didn't need any extra humidity to deal with during the summer months - KC is bad enough already ...
 
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I'm probably going to go with the bong. The challenge and possibility of sub-ambient temps is too much to pass up. Also, in the winter, has anyone ever had their bongwater freeze?

And remember, an OC'ed Presscot runs HOT, not to mention the vid card
 
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4od said:
Also, in the winter, has anyon ever had their bongwater freeze?
(worst camping trip ever!) j/k :bday:

no.
but another thing to keep in mind is that it is not like a sealed cooling system. cant dump in antifreeze because youll die from toxic fumes, cant do alchohol either, unless you like flash fires, no detergents or chemical cleaners, unless lung blisters are okay with you - in other words, you dont want to put anything in there you wouldnt put in your body. something else to keep in mind.

and if youre thinking of running some hoses and putting it -outdoors-, as long as the pumps stay running, youll put out plenty of heat to keep the water from freezing at least in my estimation, but may get high water consumption at the bong
ohh! and condensation on the tubing, and computer stuff.
make sure to address that, because its not a victory unless the computer stays dry. (keep the ocean outside the boat!)
 
orionlion82 said:
(worst camping trip ever!) j/k :bday:

no.
but another thing to keep in mind is that it is not like a sealed cooling system. cant dump in antifreeze because youll die from toxic fumes, cant do alchohol either, unless you like flash fires, no detergents or chemical cleaners, unless lung blisters are okay with you - in other words, you dont want to put anything in there you wouldnt put in your body. something else to keep in mind.

and if youre thinking of running some hoses and putting it -outdoors-, as long as the pumps stay running, youll put out plenty of heat to keep the water from freezing at least in my estimation, but may get high water consumption at the bong
ohh! and condensation on the tubing, and computer stuff.
make sure to address that, because its not a victory unless the computer stays dry. (keep the ocean outside the boat!)


You do address a couple of valid points, but they're all wrong for a few reasons that I'll explain:

Alcohol fumes being explosive: I'm sorry, but unless you were running pure isopropyll alcohol in the system or straight from the bottle stuff, there's no way the small ounce splash you toss in is going to increase flammability.

Same goes for chemical detergents, namely bleach. A few drops is all that's required to kill every living thing in the loop and it leaves a fresh springtime scent in the room.

Condensation on the hoses: This simply isn't possible, because the water can never get below the point that it evaporates at, get it? As the ambient temperature falls the humidity goes up, to the point where the air approaches 100% and the temperature falls no more because no more water is evaporating, so no more cooling is taking place, making condensation not possible UNLESS the bong is outside or in another room that's cooler (or drier).
 
Pro*Banshee said:
You do address a couple of valid points, but they're all wrong for a few reasons that I'll explain:
...

sweet!
i had to read that a couple of times over the day to get it, but it seems to make good sense now. i was refering to running the unit outdoors in the cold , and perhaps snaking tubing in somehow (somehow sounds like this may be the plan, but we have not heard back yet) - which in the winter maybe could get the water cold enough to cause condensation on tubes inside the building (unless insulated of course), and might even get chilly enough water into the blocks to where condensation may be an issue at the rig.

and yes, a few drops of this or that is probably fine- sure, but i allways liked the idea of simply stating that you dont want to put anything into one that you wouldnt want to put in your body.
and maybe someday someone comes along... and has this bright idea of filling their bong with alchohol or antifreeze or solvents to clean it out with - its just one of those better safe than sorry things i think its better to hammer home... one day i cought myself ready to dump in some CLR once just to run through for a cleaning: and then i thought "oh no, the seals" and "oh no the metal and pumps!" but really, having CLR in my lungs would have been worst of all.
plus, since its an open system, there can be a temptation to just dump something in and see if you get lower temps...
one of these days well have to exchange a few PMs and trade some info.
 
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