WC system questions

[DavidNWA]

hey i'm new to this forum. My question is, on a water cooled system, is a neoprene collar and sealant required?

Also, instead of fans cooling the radiator, can a radiator we placed in a freezer? I'm NOT putting a computer in a mini fridge or in a freeze. Im using the freezer to cool down the liquid and radiator as the liquid circulates. Any opinions?

[MrLarkins]

??? are you going to cut holes in the fridge??? wow, that's dedication there. I'll definitely want to see how this one turns out.

I say go for it (with the fridge).

As for your first question: no and no (if you get the right parts)

[Otter]

That's not the most efficient way to do phase change cooling, but it would be fairly easy to set up. I suspect there are better solutions, though. And whatever you do, you'll need to take precautions to prevent condensation from shorting out your system. Check out the extreme cooling section for more on this.
http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=72

Before you fully commit to phase change, give some thought to whether or not it's really worth the extra effort. Refrigeration will get you lower temps, but it requires a great deal of effort for relatively small gains in overall performance. You might want to start with a simple ambient WC setup and move to a waterchiller only if that proves not to be enough.

[DavidNWA]

Well they are just ideas...havnt even hit paper yet.

On drilling holes in the freezer, i've seen it done, just gotta re insulate and seal.. Plus i have a small (3.5cu ft) deep freezer laying around.

In terms of testing; once i get it running, i wont put it on the CPU just yet, I wanna run it with ambient temps and test it on old discarded CPU's to check condensation.

[billb]

hey i'm new to this forum. My question is, on a water cooled system, is a neoprene collar and sealant required?

... can a radiator we placed in a freezer? No, you don't need to condensation proof a watercooled system. The water can never get below ambient temperature, hence, no condendation.

As for the freezer idea, it's been discussed hundreds of times and will not work. The compressors don't have the capacity to cool a computer.

[treatmentx]

i think he meant, watercooled, and "what if" he placed the radiator on a watercooled system inside a fridge...

the answer is still the same as Otter's. Very little gain, as he has mentioned... you won't even notice it if you do simple everyday computing.

[Otter]

As for the freezer idea, it's been discussed hundreds of times and will not work. The compressors don't have the capacity to cool a computer.
I've never done anything with phase change, but IIRC, it's that the condenser on a minifridge doesn't have the capacity we need. I think a minifridge compressor might be adequate if you put a larger condenser on it, though the compressor would still run most of the time and hence would probably burn out a lot sooner than it would have in the unmodified fridge. A large enough freezer might be another story, especially if you filled it with liquid instead of relying on air to transfer heat from the loop to the cold plates. It would be a very bulky solution, though.

[MrLarkins]

what is up with folks thinking its phase change? it's not his idea...he simply will put the rad in the fringe on the shelf instead of in the pc case

[Otter]

The freezer is phase change.

[DavidNWA]

LOL thanks MrLarkins for trying. It's alright, like i said, i have a deep freezer laying around, and a spare mobo and cpu, i'm just gonna run some test on it. Thanks for the inputs though.

[MrLarkins]

The freezer is phase change.

yes, the freezer is phase change, but the fridge will just lower the ambient temp for the rad.

if he was referring to phase changing, he wouldn't have posted in the water cooling forum.:bang head

my question for DavidNWA: will you leave the pc on 24/7? if not, then will you remove the rad from the 'freezer' while not in use? otherwise, i see an ice block forming inside the rad and cracking it

[DavidNWA]

I was planning on using some additive so that it wont turn into a block of ice lol that would suck.

[Otter]

yes, the freezer is phase change, but the fridge will just lower the ambient temp for the rad.
So it's phase change cooling. Except for using the rad instead of cooling the coolant directly with the cold side of the phase change loop, it's your basic waterchiller.