Chilled Water Questions

[Lewist123]

First post in the forum, so hi all, some impressive stuff kicking about, well done!


I am planning on going chilled water using the guts from an old freezer. I will put the evaporator in a res, chill the water and use it to cool the CPU.

I have seen a few guys here and elsewhere combat condensation by building an airtight chamber around the mobo and using the water absorbing xtals (forgot what they are called) to remove the moisture from the air. I like this idea and have decided that this will be my solution to condesation.

I was wondering however, could i use the radiator that i have with my current water cooling setup, place it within the airtight mobo case, and pump chilled water around it to cool the whole mobo to say 5 - 10 degrees c???

I am sure that would work, however how much power would you think that i would need in order to make this work properly?

thanks in advance

Lewis

[Gautam]

:welcome:

A freezer is a little too weak to work properly as a chiller. Also the airtight chambers rarely keep the mobo safe for long--as they can never be perfectly airtight. Doing it the old fashioned way isn't too difficult and is safe and effective.

If you had a sufficiently powerful compressor your radiator idea might be feasible...but even still it would most likely only heat your loop up instead of effectively cooling ambient.

Even cooling a computer is quite a challenge for a freezer, which isn't designed for a constant load.

[Lewist123]

Hi

Thanks for the reply

I have been doing a few bench tests with the freezer unit and i think that you are probably right! It takes quite a while to acutally cool the evaporator and the condenser gets really really hot!!

I am fairly shire i can get an airtight case.. i am currently running an under oil pc as my htpc! and so far have had no leaks from my case.. well my second... my first didn't leak until i tried to move it with 16 litres of sunflower oil in it... the perspex bottom got some hairline cracks and started to seap oil.

What sort of power would you think i would need. The current freezer i have is 150 watt under work surface type freezer. Would i require, say a 300 watt unit from a full height freezer.. or is it best to do what most do and go for a 5000 + btu ac unit?

[rhino56]

Hi

Thanks for the reply

I have been doing a few bench tests with the freezer unit and i think that you are probably right! It takes quite a while to acutally cool the evaporator and the condenser gets really really hot!!

I am fairly shire i can get an airtight case.. i am currently running an under oil pc as my htpc! and so far have had no leaks from my case.. well my second... my first didn't leak until i tried to move it with 16 litres of sunflower oil in it... the perspex bottom got some hairline cracks and started to seap oil.

What sort of power would you think i would need. The current freezer i have is 150 watt under work surface type freezer. Would i require, say a 300 watt unit from a full height freezer.. or is it best to do what most do and go for a 5000 + btu ac unit?
yes go for the ac unit or a dehumidifier.

[XeonStrikeForce]

If you allowed the freezer to pull down for a day or so and to start a Ice layer should hold you at 0C for your fun. Any colder there is no option other then what every one has said.

[rhino56]

If you allowed the freezer to pull down for a day or so and to start a Ice layer should hold you at 0C for your fun. Any colder there is no option other then what every one has said.
if you were to cool a large amount of liquid like fill up a deep freezer with antifreeze it would hold for a long time but eventually more heat energy vs less cooling energy it wont sustain it. it can work for benchmarking though.

[XeonStrikeForce]

Thats what I said.

I build 6,000 to 48,000 BTU chillers for equipment I have no trouble keeping things cool I can quite assure you.

If you pay attention to my wording I stated clearly it would not hold long, and I did not say to use antifreeze as the whole idea is TOO freeze the water, as it melts it absorbs heat, this is a method used in industry to supply extra demand cooling that the system other wise could not produce, Brine tanks are used that freeze several hundred gallons of water as a thermal buffer. Same idea here only much smaller and with out the secondary interface fluid.

Allow the freezer to store capacity like a batery, then for benching you consume this stored capacity (IE Discharging your batery) Once consumed it must be recharged.

[rhino56]

Thats what I said.

I build 6,000 to 48,000 BTU chillers for equipment I have no trouble keeping things cool I can quite assure you.

If you pay attention to my wording I stated clearly it would not hold long, and I did not say to use antifreeze as the whole idea is TOO freeze the water, as it melts it absorbs heat, this is a method used in industry to supply extra demand cooling that the system other wise could not produce, Brine tanks are used that freeze several hundred gallons of water as a thermal buffer. Same idea here only much smaller and with out the secondary interface fluid.

Allow the freezer to store capacity like a batery, then for benching you consume this stored capacity (IE Discharging your batery) Once consumed it must be recharged.
you are talking about 6,000 to 48,000 BTU chillers for equipment used in industry Brine tanks are used that freeze several hundred gallons of water as a thermal buffer.

we are talking about a pump and 2 waterblocks at most for someone obviously new to chillers. good advice would be dont have chunks of ice floating around thru the system. many bad things can happen when you start bringing water below 0c and dont know what youre doing. its not that i disagree with your post i just dont think its safe for him to try it like that.

[XeonStrikeForce]

It is perfectly safe, others have don such things. It is very easy to protect against Ice going into the pump intake, You may not be familiar with the many of systems that can be used, non the less they are there. Even if ice jammed the water block, it would be cleared out second temp exceeded 1C and at this time the ice is absorbing that heat to melt thus still keeping the block at apx 1C-0.5C.

If he just wishes to bench mildly and not invest in it much, then a simple ice bank system will suffice, simple cheap, just long waits between benching. Using a screen mesh filter should he be so worried about ice fragments All be it highly unlikely as Ice floats and the intake will be at the bottom, and the ice sheet will melt evenly, so I am unsure where you got the idea fragments would be coming from?

If he wants more, then a cheap investment of an A/C and a matching coaxial exchanger or plate he'll have a flow through chiller design that will be 100% duty. All he needs to do is pay an A/C guy to remove the gas slap in the new exchanger and recharge.