water chilling w/ refrigerator

[SteenkyBastage]

ok, i've done a search and read several threads that dealt with this, and most of them backed up my original plans.

now i want to get all your input/experience and make sure i'm not gonna screw up.

i have a small refrigerator (w19" h32" d20") that i am looking at using to chill my water in my watercooling rig with. my final plans are to (provided nothing easier works well) actually submerge the coils from the freezer section into a large reservoir.

doing this, however would basically require that i hack up the refrigerator, and pretty much ruins any chance of going back to a less agressive type cooling solution still using the fridge. so before i go all out, i'm wanting anyone's experiences/ideas on any other types of cooling using this refrigerator.

so far, i've considered simply leaving my radiator hooked up (after my waterblock, before pump/res) and having the reservoir be inside the fridge, but NOT having the freezer coils in the reservoir. instead i would just see how well the water could be cooled beyond what my radiator is currently doing.

if anyone else has attempted this or other methods, plz keep me posted as i would like to try different means of cooling w/o actually ripping the fridge up.

thnx

[UserName]

have you thought about removing you motherboard from your case and putting it in the fridge entirly? Close the door and your done. Can't here whats going on in the fridge.

[Diggrr]

You could try something like this:www.overclockers.com/tips798/

You can mod the fridge's coldplate later if it didn't work out, and keep some cold beverages handy in the door too.
Actually it looks like something I might try too since I have a mini cube server case that would fit so nice right on top of it.

[SteenkyBastage]

yeah, i noticed the front page article, but he didn't post how well it worked. he did that w/o radiator, to my knowledge, and i just cant see a fridge coping with my tbird in that manner. if i did do this, i would leave my radiator hooked up.

he basically did the same thing i'm thinking about but added the coils.

i tested my fridge, and the temps get down to around 29 or 30F after about 2 hours of being turned on. if it took that long (from 72F), i cant see it coping with my tbird just using heat radiation to the air.

the freezer plate (which i assume is where all the cooling happens in this particular fridge) however, is much colder (didn't get an accurate temp cause i had to open the door and hold the probe on it) at 20F or below.

and i did also think about putting the whole computer in there, but it seems like i'd have to be hacking some serious holes to get cables thru (vga). plus, i'm then back to the whole "not sure it could cool the whole thing alone" idea. seems like with my v5 5500 (has 2 gpu's that the temps are around 65C BACKSIDE each) and the tbird i'd be running at (hopefully) 1.5ghz or more, that the poor li'll ole fridge just would be working non-stop in a probable losing battle.

but thanks for the input, i'll probably be trying some of these ideas that are skeptical to me, just to be sure (unless i hear from someone who's tried that it for sure wont work).

[Diggrr]

Another thing I thought about doing, was to make a large waterblock that I could sandwich against the fridge's coldplate with a couple of pieces of wood. Just using this in place of a radiator, or the mess of a ripped up fridge with a tub of coolant.

I'd run the fridge 24/7. Run the computer only when I want to use it. Then there'd be no delay (waiting for fridge to cool before switching on the puter). These little ones don't draw enough electric to kill your bill, but the Mrs. sure could kill a t-bird while your at work.

[Neco]

One day I wanna try chilling too...



What about drilling two holes in the top/side/whatever peice of the fridge.


Feedin two hoses in there and hook them up to a radiator inside the fridge, if you want, wire up a fan to blow some air over th radiator - turn thr fridge to a moderately cold level, and have cold air passing over the radiator for the water.


This seems easier than all the ideas you guys have, but would it work good ?

[Diggrr]

I haven't yet gotten me grubby mits on a mini fridge yet, but I believe you'd get better results with direct contact with the coldplate in the fridge. I takes a big fridge to keep the air cold with this much load, but not so big to keep the coldplate cold.

I wish there were some garage sales in winter, but Michigan's a wee cold (usually) to be expecting that.

[Pepsi]

I did what you are thinking. It does work but most of the little fridges can't cope with the heat exchange. I wouldn't hack up one for experiment.........wait a while I sure I'll get to the Fridge hacking project by April if not keep me posted on your experiments.
Pepsi

[SteenkyBastage]

thanks for the ideas so far guys...

update: the fridge is now resting at about 25F, w/ coldplate still cooler yet. one problem i'm noticing is the compressor seems to sit at around 110F while i have the fridge set on max. dunno if this is too high or not.

i think that my first step is going to be simply placing my reservoir in the fridge, while leaving my radiator still on (right after the waterblock). i'll try this tomorrow and let you all know how well this did/didn't work. i would try it tonight, but i gots no alcohol (well, a bit of absolut, but i aint waisting that in here!).

from there i'll move on to the next idea...

[NovaCX12]

Here is a good example. This is my computer setup currently:

http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58652

[Tiger]

I have done this succesfully and you can read about it in this article;
http://www.overclockers.com/tips777/

The key is what I said at the end. To find how to determine whether the refrigeration unit u are using is going to cut it you need to measure the rise in temperature of the water leaving the w/b. i.e. measure it before it enters and when it leaves.Secondly measure the flow rate of the system u are going to use. Don't guess it. Measure it by timing the volume transfered per unit time. Armed with these two figures you can go the on-line calculator mentioned at the bottom of the article and work out what wattage the compressor needs to be. This will give you and indication of whether its worth persueing this idea or not. I have also designed a two stage cooler for cpu wattages exceeding 150W.

[mcrites]

I want to get a fridge setup, but it looks like putting the rad in the fridge only doesn't yield much, but I do not want to do subzero temperatures either :D As on the thread posted by NovaCX12, one of the posters bent his freon tubes into the resovoir in the fridge and was getting subzero temperatures. Can you control the temperature enough to just at least get 60F or so? I do not want to worry about condensation, since I am lazy and do not want to mess with condensation proofing my board and chip. :D Any ideas on using the fridge to get around 60F on the proc?

[Tiger]

Originally posted by mcrites
I want to get a fridge setup, but it looks like putting the rad in the fridge only doesn't yield much, but I do not want to do subzero temperatures either :D As on the thread posted by NovaCX12, one of the posters bent his freon tubes into the resovoir in the fridge and was getting subzero temperatures. Can you control the temperature enough to just at least get 60F or so? I do not want to worry about condensation, since I am lazy and do not want to mess with condensation proofing my board and chip. :D Any ideas on using the fridge to get around 60F on the proc?
You can adjust the level of cooling by the complete immersion of the evaporator in coolant just by adjusting the thermostat of the fridge. This doesn't help in the context of condensation because the coolant is still going to be way below ambient. However the level of insulation would probably be minimal e.g. 4mm (mouse mat material).

[mcrites]

Yeah, maybe if I do this, I would bite the bullet and just fix my board against condesation. If you go part of the way just jump the rest of the way in, eh? :D I dunno, I think I may just go for the bong to replace my dd cc and see how that goes.

[SteenkyBastage]

okay...one more brainfart, er brainstorm.

supposing i go with the full blown "submerse the coldplate in reservoir" idea. supposing this works to chill below ambient (condensation).

how does this idea sound?

have the chilled water pass thru a radiator BEFORE it gets to waterblock but AFTER chilled reservoir. have the radiator blowing INTO my case. this could possibly cool the air coming into the case, as well as warm the water slightly, which may (or may not) prevent condensation (as the air is cooler, and the pipes are warmer) around the socket.

call me crazy, just a thought.