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Raditor defrost? (Prevent rad from freezing)

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KonaKona

KonaKona

Trashcan Man Member
​
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Well I thought I'd come ask you guys about this,

Is there any good way to keep a radiator from freezing at DICE temps? (-80C)

The only thing I can think of is a heating element to defrost it, but the point of this is to get some very, very cold air and a heating element might spoil that(?)

Suggestions?
 
anti freeze in your solution? or just keep the water from stopping. dont know if that works, ive never used a radiator below freezing temps
 
Last edited:
I assume you're talking about using dry ice as a chiller?

Antifreeze would be a good start, but I don't think it will be effective much past -20c. You may have to use another liquide in your system. Possibly an alcohol.
 
alcohol doesnt like heat very much , it cant take all the heat from the processor.

and alcohol might burn.
 
I think someone at XS was using like 90% rubbing alcohol, very hard to freeze that. Keep in mind that alcohol is flammable and can damage plastics. With dry ice you don't need to worry about it bursting into flames though, probably not even under normal WC conditions but it would stink up the room.
 
Well in this situation the coolant wouldn't be taking any heat, as the heat exchange would be through a radiator, no CPU block. The goal is to cool the air. The coolant probably would be some form of near pure alcohol. It would only be for benching (See: DICE) so if the tubes get torn up its no big deal.

I'm talking about keeping the radiator itself from freezing. All the heat is going to be exchanged through it and obviously it is going to freeze over quite quickly.
 
so your trying to blow blow freezing AIR past the RAD? so the coolant inside becomes below freezing also?

hmmm this will be a pickle to solve. its not like tubing where you can just insulate because you need the airflow.
 
DarkFury said:
so your trying to blow blow freezing AIR past the RAD? so the coolant inside becomes below freezing also?

hmmm this will be a pickle to solve. its not like tubing where you can just insulate because you need the airflow.
Click to expand...

No you got it backwards,

The coolant inside will be way below freezing, thus the rad will freeze over. The goal here is cold air, not cold coolant.

But still, keeping the rad from freezing is not a easy thing to figure out. Think I might find some people who work on meatlockers and see what they use in those or something.
 
I know this is old but the question is why? If you have a frozen loop go direct die with it and forget the inefficiency of air. But hypothetically the only way to do what you were asking is by removing the moisture from the air, all of it. That means you would need a closed system. If you want to get very cold temps using DI/air setup you can forget the loop altogether, just throw some dice into a plastic box with a lid on it - with your computer inside the same box. Vigor from Japan did this (and a few other guys) and reached into the -30 C range if I remember correctly.
 
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