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Beer Flash Cooler

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Giz

Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2008
Location
Crewe, U.K
Hi all. I've been running the water cooled rig below in my sig and avatar for over a year now, apart from the CPU. Just changed to a Phenom II 940 from a 9850. It runs pretty well, but I've always thought it could be better on the temps. Reading other set ups, people seem to get idle temps around 30˚ where mine are more like 40˚+ idle and reach 55˚+ with Prime95. Only the CPU is wc'd, with a triple rad and fans. My 8800gt is on air at the mo. I'm getting 3.8Ghz stable at 1.5 volts though.
The main problem is the ambient air temp in the room I've got my PC in. It gets hot in there after 3 or 4 hours gaming, even with the window open. I've been thinking of different ways of getting the water temp down without getting into too extreme stuff.
Then i had a brain wave! My brother used to supply and fit bar equipment for outside bars, like for parties and weddings. He used beer flash coolers for chilling the lager, so i thought I'd give one a try.

Heres how the cooler should be set up behind a bar, and a similar model to the one I'm using. CO² gas is used to force lager from the barrels, then through the cooler and up to the dispenser. Simple.

Flashcooler.jpg
[/IMG]
FC-5000C.jpg
[/IMG]

It's a twin cooler. There's one compressor with one water reservoir. This holds two separate pipe loops, each with it's own agitator pump to circulate the cooling water to aid cooling and also to stop it turning into a solid block of ice! It's designed to cool two separate barrels of lager/beer at the same time.
Reading other peoples posts about water chillers and drinking fountains etc, I was pretty sure it wouldn't cope with 40˚+ water temp going through it. I decided to use both loops and double cool the water, so the flow goes like this.
Drive bay reservoir > MCP 655 pump > CPU block > triple rad > into 1st chilled loop of cooler > out, then back into 2nd chilled loop > out of 2nd loop and back to Drive bay reservoir.

The main cooler res is filled with plain tap water. My water cooled setup had Feser liquid in the system, but i didn't trust this from freezing so i used a standard car antifreeze mix, about 70% to 30% water. I would have gone 100% but thought it would be thinner and easier on the 655 pump with some water added. Neat antifreeze is slightly thicker than water.

The cooler has 7 settings, 7 being the coldest where the cooler runs almost permanently without shutting off. I decided to try this setting, thinking it would struggle to get the water temp down. Man, how wrong i was. The cooler's supposed to run for an hour or so to get the reservoir temp down. I got impatient after 20min's and fired up the PC. The first worry was whether the MCP 655 pump had enough push to get it round the extra piping and loops. No problems there, this is an awesome pump. Watching the temps on speedfan, they started at 35˚ and fell to 25˚ , then 15˚ . This was obviously doing its job. I started Prime95 expecting the temps to go back up to 50˚ +. They didn't but kept falling! It was obvious it was going too far because condensation started forming on every metal part of the water loop. Radiator, CPU block fittings, pipe clamps etc. I panicked and turned the cooler to 2. As the temps rose back up to around 25˚ the condensation disappeared.

So, it looks like this is working superbly, far better than i had hoped. Easy to set up, and the best part, the chiller is free (or on permanent loan from my bro!)
After a few days of trial, it seems that if i keep the temp anywhere above 20˚ there is no sign of condensation. Something that i didn't expect was the triple rad. Instead of it having warm water running through it, it now has super cooled water, and the triple fans that blow room temperature air through the rad now blow cold air into the room, cooled by the rad. Perfect! This has given me another idea which I'm about to try below.


So now for the questions!

I've pulled the rig apart to replace the mother board which had usb port issues. I'm changing it for a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD3P AM2+ ddr2 board because i fancy a change from Asus and the reviews are OK. Let me know if this is a bad choice asap, I'm getting it next week.

Question 1) Is it worth going the whole hog and trying to seal the board and CPU socket from condensation. And where in the UK sells the stuff needed to do it. I'm a bit worried at the thought of stuffing the CPU socket with non conductive grease and other stuff! I'm very happy with 20˚ if you all think that no condensation will form in the socket at this temp, or a bit higher for safety?

Question 2) I previously had the triple rad mounted externally on top of the PC case. Now I've chopped the back of the case so the rad can slide ¾ of the way into the bottom of the case, with two of the three fans inside, blowing upward onto the underside of my 8800gt. Can anyone see any problems with this cold air circulating round the case? I can't test this set up till i get the new mobo, but obviously I'll have to run the cooler at a temp where condensation doesn't form on the rad.

Just before i pulled it apart, the rig was running stable at 3.9Ghz, 100mhz higher than before. I didn't get chance to try it further but i will.
I'll get some pics and temp screen shots when I'm up and running again next week. Let me know your thoughts on anything above before i get it rebuilt. :cool:
 
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I could do with some advice on the two questions at the end of my post, before i fit the mother board. All feedback welcome :)

I'm not aiming for minus temps here, something around 15C / 20C is good for me, so i won't be turning my D-Tek into a block of ice. How involved do i need to get with sealing for condensation. Just the CPU socket, or the whole area around the CPU including the back of the board?

Also I've cut the bottom of the PC case and bolted my triple rad 2/3 rd's of the way inside. It won't fit all the way in, it's too long! I've got two 120mm fans fixed to the rad drawing air from under the case and blowing chilled air onto the underside of my air cooled 8800gt and up into the case.
I've got two other 120mm fans, one at the front and one in the side panel, both blowing air out, so all air drawn into the case comes up through the bottom and is cooled through the radiator.

Am i likely to get problems from blowing chilled air around the inside of my PC? I don't know how cold it needs to be before condensation forms on everything.
 
Wow, surprised that no one has really replied!

Thats one crazy idea. But its awesome that it worked so well. I wouldn't of even tried it lol

I wouldn't seal anything. Having it as cold as possible without gathering condensation would probably be your best bet. Even with it sealed, I still wouldn't trust condensation near my gear for a long period of time :p

I would just tweak it, and find the coldest you can get it to without any moisture gathering, and then go from there.

Keep cranking that thing up! I'm interested on how high you can get this thing to, and what the temps are!

Pics would be awesome, also :)
 
that is a good idea, but you should insulte the part of the board and the tubing. don't 4get to post results :)
 
that is a good idea, but you should insulte the part of the board and the tubing. don't 4get to post results :)

I wouldn't worry about it, the few degree difference to stop it from producing condensation wouldn't be worth it, I don't think. Unless I'm missing something here :screwy:
 
Wow, no replies in a week, then four in 30 mins! :)

Thanks for the input guys. I'll get some pics when the boards back in. The PC case is my avatar.

I can alter the running temp quickly and easily on the chiller if i think condensation is starting to form on the rad and pipes, only problem is i can't see if it's getting into the CPU socket, and what temp it starts to form there.

I'm happy to run moderate instead of extreme temps if it gets me out of sealing the socket!
 
Wow, no replies in a week, then four in 30 mins! :)

Thanks for the input guys. I'll get some pics when the boards back in. The PC case is my avatar.

I can alter the running temp quickly and easily on the chiller if i think condensation is starting to form on the rad and pipes, only problem is i can't see if it's getting into the CPU socket, and what temp it starts to form there.

I'm happy to run moderate instead of extreme temps if it gets me out of sealing the socket!

Is there any way for you to monitor the temps of the block? As long as your a few degrees from the condensation point, I doubt the socket is going to get colder than the parts your seeing condensation on. So if you don't see any on the block, i doubt your in any danger.

But again, I don't have much experiance with all of that, just my own opinion :p I'm sure some other people on this forum would have some better advice :)
 
Is there any way for you to monitor the temps of the block? As long as your a few degrees from the condensation point, I doubt the socket is going to get colder than the parts your seeing condensation on.

That's what i was hoping. I figured if i lowered the temp till condensation formed on the block, then raised it a bit till it was dry i might be OK. Not sure though.

I've got an Atomik Microtemp Tempgun for measuring surface temperature.

Should come in handy... 31YEfTFVWL__SL500_AA280_.jpg


I'll stick a standard thermometer in the case too and see what the air temperature is doing.
 
Wow, now I really like this.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ead.php?t=1930

Seems pretty pricey though, no wonder works well

https://www.kegman.net/flashchiller.html

Good links above, the guy in the forum post sounds like he's using the same kind of cooler. Shame the picture links don't work though.
The bottom link is where i got the pics from to give an idea of what it looks like. Mine is pretty shabby. It's been in a shed buried in junk for a long while! Works fine though. Yes they are pretty expensive new, but you see them on eBay fairly often. I was lucky, mine was free from my bro ;)

I'm getting a new Gigabyte mobo in the morning, soon as my local shop opens.
I went to Maplins Electronics today and got a tube of non hardening dielectric grease and a tube of Silicone sealant , good for making gaskets and safe down to -50c.


Grease.jpg


Few other pc pics. They're not pretty, but I'm going for funcionality and not to concerned with wiring. There's not much room in that case when everythings in there.


case2.jpg --------------- case1.jpg





Underneath of case, rad hole cut out. I've stuck a frame on the bottom of the case too so it's lifted away from the carpet more, for better air intake.


case3.jpg




Trusty D-Tek V2 block. That's going to be hard to cover all the sticky-out bits to stop condensation.

Dtek.jpg
 
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hi can i ask a question about your set up. any way the question is why are you using a rad at all ??? this baffles me as i have been using flash coolers for about 10 years now. and i have only once had condensation problems ( but that was because i took the fluid temp down to 6 degrees c ) i use a single product cooling type flash cooler. and i am cooloing everything except the psu ie the 6 hdds the cpu and gpu also north and south bridge's and the mosfets. mine is all electronically thermostastically controlled. which equates to the pump and cooler being swotched on via a relay controll when the pc is switched on. the pump runs all the time the pc is on, the cooler only switches on the liquid temp gets to 23.8 degrees c and off when it cools to 12.8 c and the average cpu temp is about 22 c ( which is a intel core 2 extrweme x6800 overclocked to 3.48 ghz) and the gpu which is an 280 gtx is around 28 c and the hdds are around 23 to 29 c. and i have no problem with condensation. so if you are interested in finding out a bit more please get in touch and i will give you some more indepth details.
 
Wow, sounds like you know your stuff! Great idea having a thermostat switching the cooler on and off. Got any pics of your setup? Is your thermostat and relay 12 volts like from a car, or 110/240v mains?

As for the rad in my system, I started with a basic water cooled setup with the rad mounted externally on top of the PC case. When I plumbed the system to run through the chiller, it was easier to leave it connected.
I then realized that the warm room air being sucked through the rad was being nicely chilled and then blown back out into the room. That gave me an idea of mounting the rad inside the pc case at the bottom. I cut the case bottom out so the rad fans suck warm room air up in from the bottom. Then it gets chilled through the rad and blown up into the pc case, cooling everything inside. That's the theory anyway.

I'm having new board trouble at the moment though. Bought a new Gigabyte board last week and set about greasing and sealing the socket. I took the socket cover off and filled the contacts with grease, as seen in the above sticky threads. How come this non-conductive grease doesn't stop contact being made with the cpu pins? You'd think filling the cpu socket with grease would stop it working. Anyway, after much work I was ready to boot. Switched on and all I got was 6 long beeps and no post. GRRR :bang head
After a lot more swapping of spare parts: cpu, graphics card, power supply, I decided I'd buggered the board.
After a few days of trying to clean it up to RMA it, I thought stuff it and went and got another board today. No grease used, just a quick build on the kitchen table using the cpu, HSF and ram, and.... still no boot! Same 6 beeps with no post. Crap.:temper:

After hours of trawling the forums It looks like the beeps mean the ram isn't being seen by the bios. So the original board with the greasy socket should still be OK. I'm going to get some more ram on Monday. I can use my OCZ Reapers in another system so they won't be wasted. What ram to get though. I'm still deciding... whatever's compatable with Gigabyte. Their website list of Qualified Vendors is pretty poor.
 
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try kingston hyper x i use it with the asus p5k premium blackpearl edition and it works just great. as for greasing the cpu socket ive never bothered with grease i once used servisol 40 sprayed the entire board that works great and is easily removed with pcb cleaner. i will take some pics and post when i can ( as im lazy in that respect lol). also i wouldnt bothere with the rad the benefit you will get from cold air blowing in the machine is so minimal its not worth it when weighed against the flow restriction having the rad with a flash cooler. i use the alphacool 240 volt pump switched externally with a relay witch is powered by the 12v rail of a spare molex connector. i am using the a plus black pearl edition wcr case expensive but its a cracking inverted atx case. and the main pipe in and the out are on quick release connectors so i can unplug it all and move the pc to any where. this also makes for easier emptying and refilling if i add or remove components.
 
flash cooled beast

here r the pics
 

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That's a bad *** set-up. I can't even work out what's going where! :) Are those hard drive coolers ones you've made or bought?

Well this build has been a pain in the *** for different reasons, mainly the ram, and an unfortunate incident where I left the Phenom 940 on the worktop in my kitchen, and one of my kids knocked it on the floor! Result, a full row of bent pins down one side. They easily bent back, but somehow a pin that was on the third row got bent in an S shape. That didn't straighten and the little bugger broke off. :bang head Crap.

Thanks for the recomendation of the ram, hh. Got two sticks of 2Gb Kingston Hyper x's. Stuck them in on the table and the board booted up first time. They are working great.
Damn, didn't think the OCZ Reapers would cause a no-boot. They can go in a spare rig i'm building. And the snapped pin didn't seem to affect it at all. Must have been a spare? Anyone know where to view a pin function diagram for the Phenom II 940? Can't see one at AMD.

Clocking the Gigabyte board was fairly easy. The only gripe at the moment is the CPU Vcore voltage has large increments. 1.6v gives a failed boot, and the next option down is something like 1.58v but shows as 1.568v in CPUZ. I'd like to try it a bit higher.
Highest stable overclock with multiplyer so far is 18.5x 203mhz @ 3756MHz. Ram's showing 541MHz.
Highest stable overclock with FSB so far is 14.5x 266 @ 3857MHz. Ram's showing 532MHz at 1:2 ratio.
I'm pretty happy with that so far. I wonder how many people realy have gone over 4GHz with the 940 when they say it should be possible with good cooling?

So to the temps and the chiller. The rad inside the case is working absolutely brilliantly. My 8800Gt used to idle at 49C with the Zalman fan and heatsink. Now it idle's at around 33C with the cold air blowing up onto it. Everything inside the case is showing much lower temps. It depends how cold I turn the cooler down. I noted down a few temps from speed fan. All are at idle.

SpeedFan Temps 'C

Chiller switch-2----3-----4----5

Gpu-----------39---36---34---33
Temp1--------31---27---26---25
Temp2--------28---24---22---23
Temp3--------34---29---27---27
HD Boot------35---30---28---27
HD1-----------35---32---31---29
HD2-----------33---31---30---28
Phenom------29---24---22---19

Running Prime95 for a couple of hours on both overclocks, the CPU temp went up to around 42C with the chiller switched to 2, and when I cranked the switch to the 7 max the temps dropped below 15C on full load. At this temp the inside of the case shows only very slight condensation and only on the metal pipe barbs on the resevoir. The fans circulating chilled cold air inside the case seem to keep the moisture away, or lower the dew point so it can't form? Well happy! :) I daren't leave it on setting 7 though, the part of the rad sticking out the back of the case is running with damp! God knows what the cpu socket is doing.
The only mod I've done to the chiller so far is swapped the 240v internal fan for a 12v 120mm Scythe Kaze rated at 110cfm at 1900rpm. It's running full time wired from the pc where the 240v original cut in and out on a thermostat but sounded like an aircraft taking off. That's the highest cfm fan I could find localy. Any thoughts whether this will shift enough air? It seems to be doing a great job and it's nearly silent.
 
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Just done a few runs of 3D Mark06 and got some screen shots. Also running CPUz, GPUz and Speedfan. The temps are just after 3D finished. The standard clock for the 8800gt is 600Mhz and the most I took it too before was 650MHz stable but it was running well hot at that. Now it's nice and chilly running at 710Mhz. It will go up to the max of 750Mhz without the temp climbing much, but I'm not sure how long it will last at that? Well happy with the 14803 score. The most I've had before is around 13500.




Chilledoverclock2.jpg




I've taken a few hand-held temperature gun readings from the chiller. All are with the 12v Scythe fan running, not the 240v fan, so I don't know what they were originaly for comparison.

I'm still not sure exactly what the components are so forgive me if i get them wrong!
  • Condenser (the pipe matrix with fins and fan attatched?) about 50C.
  • Pump (black unit next to the condensor?) 60C.
  • Water agitators, one for each in/out loop (stops the resevoir freezing into a block of ice?) 49C/62C. - 2nd one seems high. Might try swapping it from spare coolers.
  • Water tank shows around -3C on the proper chiller temp probe and holds about 15 liters up to the overflow

Any of the above temperatures sound high for the components? What fans are you guys using on your home built systems, and what cfm do they shift?
Looking at your rig too, hh, quick release pipe connectors are a damn good idea. My set-up is SO unmovable at the moment! Not that it's ever going to be moved. They do look nice though :)
 
hi the cooler temps seem fine and the hdd coolers are koolance ones and the pump is pumping 650 lph which im upgrading to a 1000 lph one and i use no fans at all in my machine now. also had a fubar with the 280 gtx so upgrading to the pre watercooled 285 gtx but it all seems fine with ure rig good luck mate and keep me posted ( ps my cpu under load playing fear 2 temp is 35 c not bad and the gpu was at 36 im pleased with it and keep doing it all m8 ) also i am using fesser 1 black and i also put top quality anti freeze in the water bath same as the breweries do stops the ice problem
 
hi the cooler temps seem fine and the hdd coolers are koolance ones
Not to hot then? Great. I'll take a look at those hard drive coolers, but for now mine are running at about 27/28C which is about 9C cooler than they were without the cold air circulating.

i use no fans at all in my machine now.
Never thought of doing that! The Zalman fan on the 8800gt is the noisiest and I'm sure it would still be as cool without it, just using the Zalman heat sink. The 8800 is right above the rad fans getting a direct hit from the cold air.

also had a fubar with the 280 gtx
Lol! Was that from condensation or a leak?

also i am using fesser 1 black and i also put top quality anti freeze in the water bath same as the breweries do stops the ice problem
I've added some Fesser green UV liquid back into the loop. I was running straight antifreeze in case it froze, but i missed the radioactive looking glow!

Interesting about the ice thing. I used to do public bars for my brother which is where the flash coolers came from. When we set the bar equipment up for doing a public bar, we used two huge free standing coolers on wheels, waist high, with 14 in/out connections each. The beer and lager went through both coolers to double chill it and then went to 7 lager heads and 7 bitter heads. We were always told by the brewery supplying the barrels to fill the coolers with normal tap water (holding about 50 liters each) and turn them on the day before so they could form an ice bank inside. The ice covered the internal cooler tubing round the outside edge of the water tank. The beer pipes formed a matrix of tubing that sat in the middle of the reservoir away from the ice. A huge agitator/pump sat in the middle circulating the water round the matrix, stopping ice from forming there. The small flash coolers were just spares in case something happened to either of the main chillers.

The large chillers had lids to see inside when the ice had formed enough to use them. I sort of assumed the flash coolers did the same? The filler hole is too small to get a good look inside the reservoir though to see properly.
 
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