[Colin]

Steve (Xjinn from another forum) has an article about this on the front page. For one who chooses to have part of their cooling apparatus outside the main box, this may be one of the most revolutionary discoveries in oveclocking. You thoughts or are you on your way to the hardware store?

[Thelemac]

I rather like the idea. I'm thinking of a way to set it up in one of those YY cube cases that Shadow ÒÓ was working on for Stolid. Maybe with a couple of them.

[Jono]

i have an idea for it: why not make it semi- self-contained? put an evaporator on the end and recapture most of the outgoing 'steam' water vapor, then you don't have to fill it up with the house plants.

why not use a mister instead of a shower head? that coupled with a tall tube would make it more efficient, no?

Jono

ps: i've never done any type of extreme cooling, but i did take some classes in physics...

J

[Colin]

I am a fan of a very subtle, self contained box but this idea has me so jazzed even I dreamed about it last night. It’s also the first computer project my wife has raised an eyebrow to. The ability to cool two 172 watt TECs and get all of the goodies from local suppliers intrigues me. I have not been this excited about computers since I purchased a KT7-R and an 800 Bird. I wanted to wait for the other forumites reactions but sorry, I could not wait to post this.

[Jono]

i was thinking about a self contained system, and the problems it would cause. the thing that got me thinking first was when the author stated not using antifreeze because of the danger in an open system. then it started raining outside. a lot of energy(heat) is gained or lost when a substance goes through a phase change. water to vapor 'eats' heat, vapor to water 'releases' heat, right? problem being the temperatures at which this happens is to far apart and to far away to be useful.

here's the kicker: what about a different substance? my girlfriend found a substance called an amylene(c5,h10) that is a liquid at room temperature, and boils at approx. 40* C.

although not needed, a metal-to-metal hs could be used to keep ambeient temps inside the closed system.


Can someone please tell if i'm missing something? Physics was a few years ago...

Jono

your coolant is likely to get to 40C or around there, so you will probably have a lot evaporating. This water tower has me so psyched for my summer rig in the summer, i have already thought of so many things to do with it, some not so good. I am also intrigued by this concept of the huge pvc housing, what if you made a huge copper coil and had a few fan blowing up, that would be a great radiator! lets see, how could we improve on an already great thing, the mister sounds great, you just might end up loosing a lot more water that way. My concern is vapor loss and how to reduce it. What if a condenser loop of some sort was added., especially if a mister is used. That would reduce the amount of vapor escaping. I really like the idea of the waterfall design, could run some on the outside and make some nice little sculpture thing. My main concern is the mist, but by adding maybe a u type thing would keep mist from coming out. This is definately worth pursuing, i love this idea! This is gonna be used in my water cooled system this summer.

[Colin]

Two or three fine mesh filters at the top of the tube should handle the majority of the mist.

thats what i figure, but with a U you could add a tube to return some of the water. Not going to be a lot anyways, just random brainstorms as this is such a great idea.

[Spode]

I reckon collecting the water is definetley a good idea. A project I did a while ago was a jam jar filled half way with water put onto a cpu. The glass was kept cool by a fan. The water would evaporate and then hit the cold glass and lose the heat as it changes and goes back into the water. I hope Dan doesn't mind me putting a link here:

http://www.spodesabode.com/articles/jamjar/index.html

Perhaps it may be useful.

[TT120]

What I didnt understand about the pvc thing was, is there a fan inside that thing somewhere and if so where?

[Hoot]

The fan mounts on the slanted junction and lightly blows air into it. the air goes up the stack while the water rains down. The air brushing the water evaporates some of it into water vapor, taking heat along with it. Great concept as long as you can keep your room comfortable in the summer. As the humidity goes up in the ambient air, less evaporation occurs and less heat is carried off. For those of us in cold climates, this can be a nice way to humidify the house during the long winter. I don't think a mister would work as well, because it will not allow as much water to flow (less gph). I like Spodes idea of the evaporative still. A piece of metal pipe would do a better job of condensing than glass, but then there is the introduction of contaminants to consider, as well as corrosion over time and evaporative stills that use water are slow recovery systems without some form of active cooling on the condensing surface.

Hoot

[The Stickie]

wow all this fuz...

I'mworking on the same idea fro a few weeks now... cause I liked the idea of watercooling and didn't like to purchase a radiator...
I made it whit a aluminium pipe (about 1m in length, 20cm wide) an it does fine, but I didn't install it to my system yet (I don't have a waterblock for my cpu(yet) :-() Didn't know this was so revolutionnary...
My model is more silent (cause I use something to catch the drops before they hit the water,and because i use thick aluminium ... I have build 2 reversed U-forms on it with a nice outlet fan each... in these U forms a lot of water condenses and goes back down...

also the alumium works a bit like a heatsink for the hot air/water

but anyway... I don't know wether mine performs better/worse because I never tested it and I could never compare it with radiators as I aid before...

[TT120]

Hoot (Apr 22, 2001 10:31 a.m.):
The fan mounts on the slanted junction and lightly blows air into it. the air goes up the stack while the water rains down. The air brushing the water evaporates some of it into water vapor, taking heat along with it. Great concept as long as you can keep your room comfortable in the summer. As the humidity goes up in the ambient air, less evaporation occurs and less heat is carried off. For those of us in cold climates, this can be a nice way to humidify the house during the long winter. I don't think a mister would work as well, because it will not allow as much water to flow (less gph). I like Spodes idea of the evaporative still. A piece of metal pipe would do a better job of condensing than glass, but then there is the introduction of contaminants to consider, as well as corrosion over time and evaporative stills that use water are slow recovery systems without some form of active cooling on the condensing surface.

Hoot

Thats what I thought but in the pic, it looked like the vapor was coming out of the side vent. That confused me. Thanks Hoot.

[BillA]

for those desiring to ADD humidity to the house's interior, I guess ...
but the article's author lives in New England, and does not pay the utility bills

I live in an air conditioned house in Houston (for which I pay the electric bills - AVG $450/mo in summer), and I'm not going to even think about dumping that moisture in the house

for me the ideal system is silent, I can quiet a fan or two more easily than a urinal

be cool

[Rain]

Just a thought from a newbie on here, the author of the article states that you would have to put something in the water in order to kill off potential germs collected, however with the high temp. of the water in the tower, would that not be high enough to kill off any potential germs and or bacteria?

Rain

[coldmop]

Maybe a better way is to have the mist fall on a rad so the coolant can still be a closed loop. Cool mist hitting a metal rad with a fan blowing on it and you are all set. There are some neat looking wall mounted water fountains available that pose as decoration. Thats where the cooling tower belongs. Turn it into art.

[Xerka]

Just some ideas

At my house I have a swamp cooler or evaporative cooler. The way you can get rid of the falling water noise is get some material that they use in swamp coolers and stuff it down where the water falls down. The water then will have more time to cool off by the air as it trickles down the material.

I just had a couple of ideas for your cooler. They may not works seeing as I have no degree in this field but, here it goes. Haver ever tried to use a humidfier I know alot of those cool the water down quite a bit. Also not positive if this would work but if you put maybe a coper block over half the top some of the water would probably condense on cold copper. Not sure if any of this would work but I think the humidfier may work. That was good article going to have to build myself one of these.

[stool]

That has to be one of the best new ideas around for a while. The ideas already flowing will make this an interesting topic for some time to come.

[Hoot]

Stickie, you got any pictures of your rig?

Hoot

[dimmreaper]

Colin (Apr 22, 2001 02:11 a.m.):For one who chooses to have part of their cooling apparatus outside the main box, this may be one of the most revolutionary discoveries in oveclocking.

I'd hardly call it "revolutionary", I wouldn't call it a "discovery" either.

Here is a much older (june of 2000) article about evaporative cooling, a different method was used, but it's still evaporative cooling an OCed CPU.

http://www.overclockers.com/tips89/index07.asp