Active Water Cooling No Radiator!

[Quade2000]

I have an idea that's been in my head for a while now. Would love to see it tried. This design is based on not having any pelts on the CPU. The only thing going in/out the case is the water lines and the power line for the optional 2nd sealed pump in the case. It's something I'm saving up to do "right", but I'm sure one of you can throw one together for us to talk about. My vision sees the water chiller in some out of the way place, where it's fans would not offend. I also think this design could cool a 3 water block system (CPU/AGP/Chipset), allowing for a PSU fan only case ?! A MASSIVE hot side heatsink and 2 blasters could surely allow this no?

 

[ButcherUK]

A radiator would be a lot more efficient, pelts aren't really all that good at chilling water.

 

[JoeCrappa]

a LOT of people have tried that. They're called chillers. thats a VERY hard thing to get to work. its possible but its REALLY difficult and expensive to try.

 

[FeralCom]

Been there…tried it.

I actually built something very similar to that (the pump was outside). I used a Radio Shack project box and cut the holes for the intake/outtake and the heatsink. Was a real pain to get water tight, but I finally managed to do it.

The very best I could do is cool water at ambient temperature 2 degrees. That’s after trying 5 different heatsinks for the top and insulating the box. So yes, it technically “cooled” but wasn’t very efficient. I chalked it up to another learning experience.

I still have it in my garage. As soon as I get a cam to take some pics of my stuff, I want to post pics of it as one of my failed trials.

 

[Quade2000]

FeralCom or anyone else, would love to see some pics. Nice to hear it's been tried, but would like to hear some more details on the results. Thanks for checking my thread out and look forward to some pics, or links to pics of this design.....

 

[FeralCom]

Well it looks like I know what I am buying this weekend. Can anyone recommend a cheap digital camera?

After reading the new article by Ryland Page, I may give it another try. When I did this, the best heat sinks you could easily get were Orbs. Of course Orbs suck at cooling pelts, but you get the idea of what I had to work with. With all the new beefy heat sinks that are out now, it may be worth looking at again.

 

[Barryng]

Why not use two water blocks in parallel for the water chilling unit. The pelt's cold surface would mount directly against the water block. Then a fan cooled heat sink would mount on top of the pelt. Two of these in parallel would minimize flow resistance and maximiize heat removal capability. Two would also assure that the heat removal surface area is twice as large as the heat supply surface area (assuming all identical blocks).

I am not sure how one would mount this arrangement and mechanically hold it together but it might provide a more effecient heat transfer path from the water to to pelt. It might be as least as good as that between the cpu and its water block.

It seems that the major drawback to this is that fans are again needed to cool the pelts so we are back to the noise problem, compunded by all this hardware external to the case. Wouldn't a good heat exchanger and large quiet 120mm fan do just as good of a job?

Its almost 0400, I had too much wine at dinner, and I can't sleep. I hope this idea sounds just as good later today as it does now.

 

[JoeCrappa]

here you guys. read this and tell me what you think.

http://www.procooling.com/articles/html/kev_explores_pelt_water_chille.shtml

 

[The Overclocker]

there are a couple of articles on the same thing here: http://www.overclockers.com/tips89/index04.asp

 

[soil]

I don't get the point of using Peltier to cool the water. Peltier itself generates heat so you end up try to dissipated more heat (TEC+CPU) than air-cooling the water using radiator (CPU heat only)