Liquid Cooling guys. How do you Handle Condensation?

[BF_TEXMASTER]

Hi,

I've been thinking about taking the plunge into water cooling but for those of you who cool your liquid with more than fans, how do you aviod condensation? This is a major conscern of mine.




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[ed8150]

condensation forms 7c(or is it 10?) degrees below ambient and is affected by humidity and other enviromental things. i believe some people wrap foam around the pipes that pump cold water. that should work. or you could submerge your case is some heavier than air gas...no water vapor, no condensation. what exactly are you trying to do and with what?

 

[BF_TEXMASTER]

condensation forms 7c(or is it 10?) degrees below ambient and is affected by humidity and other enviromental things. i believe some people wrap foam around the pipes that pump cold water. that should work. or you could submerge your case is some heavier than air gas...no water vapor, no condensation. what exactly are you trying to do and with what?

Thanks for the reply.

Basically, I'm looking for a system that cools very well but is simple enough to dissasemble because I upgrade often. I will probably set it up to cool the cpu, video card, and possibly my scsi hard drive.

My plan is to use one of those mini-fridges you can buy on ebay to place my resovior and pump inside.

Can you get away without insulating the waterblocks themselves if you keep the water temperature above 10C?

 

[ed8150]

as to that iam not sure. but why not just coat all but the bottom in caulking or somthing? how is the humidity in dallas?

 

[BF_TEXMASTER]

as to that iam not sure. but why not just coat all but the bottom in caulking or somthing? how is the humidity in dallas?

BAD really bad. Its amazing considering how far we are from the coast.

 

[Tiger]

Condensation is not a problem with ordinary water cooling even if you are using a bong and therefore no preventative measures are necessary.
Condensation or Dew Point is related to Relative Humidity (RH) and if RH is really high (over 100%) then it is possible for condensation to occur at temps as low as a few degrees below ambient. If you want to know what the RH values and the Dew Point are at any given time then go to your national weather service web site and see the map there. Very high humidity levels normally only occur in coastal areas along which a warm current is flowing.

 

[BF_TEXMASTER]

Condensation is not a problem with ordinary water cooling even if you are using a bong and therefore no preventative measures are necessary.
Condensation or Dew Point is related to Relative Humidity (RH) and if RH is really high (over 100%) then it is possible for condensation to occur at temps as low as a few degrees below ambient. If you want to know what the RH values and the Dew Point are at any given time then go to your national weather service web site and see the map there. Very high humidity levels normally only occur in coastal areas along which a warm current is flowing.

But what if you are planning to cool the water to say 12C?

 

[ssjwizard]

ok with un chilled watercooling you will never need condensation protection cus the water temp is never blow ambeint. you ay you want to use a mini fridge to cool you water resivior thats a pretty good idea. though there was one guy here who did something a little diffrent in the same situation that will cool the watter much mroe efficantly that just a tub of water inside of the fridge due to a higher surface area. what you can do is take a bunch of copper tubing and make it into a set of coils and set it inside of the fridge then you need to put hose connectors on the sides of the fridge one for ingoing and another for outgoing. id recomend having the out going directly to the cpu for best cpu tempratures. this will give you a temp which is perhaps cold enough to condense wattter on your block what you can do is get some 1/2" id pipe insulation and just slide it onto the water hoses that will prevent them from forming condensation also you should get either some closed cell foam or neoprine and put it around the cpu socket and water block that will keep outside air from being able to get to the cold surface which will prevent condensation. you will also want to put a small piece of foam underneath the cpu inside of the socket. that should prevent condensation anywhere inside of your computer some people also say to fill the socket holes with die electric grease you can do this it cant hurt but alot of people dont think its nessicary.

 

[drunkmonkey]

Would a de-humidifier be good for inside a computer to stop condensation or would it not be efficient enough?

 

[ssjwizard]

a de humidifier is used to lower the genral level of humidity in a room for high humid areas like sea side and ocean areas. it doenst remove all humidity and i seriously doubt that it would reduce the amount of liquid in the air to even matter.

 

[AllRoy]

What about condensation prevention for your memory or gpu?

 

[ssjwizard]

unless you are going to run the same sub ambient fluid over your gpu and memory you will not need any protection if you do you will need to rig somthing up. a pad of neoprine wraped around it in a way similar to the cpu should be sufficant

 

[tspencer]

Hey guys, I have a similar problem. I'm going to use a TEC (peltier) cooler to chill the coolant in my system. I want to chill the cpu and gpu, so I didn't want to use it directly on the cpu. I have a couple ideas on preventing condensation and would also like your guys' feedback/ideas on it. I was thinking of putting the board in a custom made sealed case and using a dessicant like silica gel or activated alumina to remove the moisture in the air, It would also have a radiator cooled by the liquid circulating chilled air through the case to keep the board and capacitors all cool as well as reducing the ambient tempurature inside the case. I plan on using a glycol/water mixture to acheive sub-freezing tempuratures with the liquid, but that presents the problem of frozen condensation on the radiator. I hope that my ideas are helpful, and would also appreciate your input on what I could potentially do to prevent condensation and ice with my build.

 

[Boulard83]

Think you sould start your own thread Overall, what you want to do may be doable.

 

[Conumdrum]

Hey guys, I have a similar problem. I'm going to use a TEC (peltier) cooler to chill the coolant in my system. I want to chill the cpu and gpu, so I didn't want to use it directly on the cpu. I have a couple ideas on preventing condensation and would also like your guys' feedback/ideas on it. I was thinking of putting the board in a custom made sealed case and using a dessicant like silica gel or activated alumina to remove the moisture in the air, It would also have a radiator cooled by the liquid circulating chilled air through the case to keep the board and capacitors all cool as well as reducing the ambient tempurature inside the case. I plan on using a glycol/water mixture to acheive sub-freezing tempuratures with the liquid, but that presents the problem of frozen condensation on the radiator. I hope that my ideas are helpful, and would also appreciate your input on what I could potentially do to prevent condensation and ice with my build.

NEW GUY:

We have an xtreme cooling sub forum. You shouldn't bump such old threads. You should learn about the forums a bit and maybe look for a better subforum to post in.

Your plan sounds very normal for a new guy. You have no idea about the full TEC idea. The dessicant will moisturize if you have ANY airflow. It's not cheap. Just fill the CPU socket with Vasoline and insulate the mobo like everyone else does. These crazy ideas have been tried.

You might need to know that TEC cooling for a CPU and GPU is pretty much impossible due to TECs can't deal with the high heatloads of modern CPU/GPUs anymore. They just will smoke. AND did you know the TEC needs over DOUBLE the normal cooling to remove the heat? Due to the HIGH wattage of the SPECIAL PSUs you need to buy to power the TECs? 24 VDC Roswill power supply's in 20-50 amp range.

Read more, become informed.

 

[Petnax]

Hey all,

It this tread is still alive?

I have two ideas on how to eliminate condensation – let me know if this may work:

1. Use all fans inside the case to “exhaust” the air.
2. Put glass of backing salt inside the case (a bit stupid , but may work as salt takes all the humidity)


I have bought Koolance water chiller and now waiting for it.

 

[Omarosas]

An Idea

Hi,

I've been thinking about taking the plunge into water cooling but for those of you who cool your liquid with more than fans, how do you aviod condensation? This is a major conscern of mine.




Current Computer

Side View

Please help me get off the air cooled wagon

Even though this thread is a few years old, I thought I'd reply anyway since I've just seen it today while researching the same issue. While reading some of the replies, I remembered watching a video on YouTube that showed a guy building his desktop in a fish tank and had all the components submerged in what I think is mineral oil (It's been a year since I've seen it, so don't recall). So why not combine both ideas, fish tank with mineral oil for no chance of condensation and small refrigerator for the reservoir and radiator. In theory, it would protect the components from any leaks coming from the liquid cooling, since the mineral oil will force the water away from the electronics. Just use a dye in the cooling liquid to tell it apart from the oil. That way you can discover a leak if you get any.

What do you guys think about this? I'm not a pro or anything and would love to hear your thoughts before I go out and spend money on it.