Condensation

[Dark Druid]

I have a question (who doesnt right?)

I have started to test my setup, all items are in (http://www.confederate-eagle.com).

I took the water cooler system and set it up on the kitchen floor. Ambiant temp was 75f. and it ran like a champ.

Now this was WITHOUT the peltier cooled resivior. I had a 5 gallon bucket of water for the resivior (checking for leaks).

Well a temp prob from my digidoc5 showed that the Maze2 was at 69f and steady (no heat load, and no cooling, just forced water)

So I droped a tray of ice (16 regular size ice cube) into the 5 gallons of water (taking into consideration 10' of 1/2 hose and the pump, there was 5 gallons of water total)

Well you know what happened.

The water temp dropped to 65f and the bottom of the maze2 was right at 62f.

Here can the condensation. On the hoses, the maze, and the PUMP!

now when I connect the peltier how bad is the condensation going to be?

I have little control over ambiant temps. it will range from 90f to 70f on a daily basis (Im not here all the time, and the kids jack with the temps)

Thanks

 

[Thelemac]

You have to worry about condensation whenever your temp is lower than ambient. More so on humid days.

Well, not whenever they're below ambient, but usually. With your TECs on the res I would assume that you're probably going to have to worry about it if you got it by cooling the water just a little bit.

 

[ebola]

hmmm.... Since I'm thinking of building a water pump system with cooled water how do I fight condensation. Insulation on the tubing perhaps? anyone know of good tubing?

thanks

 

[Thelemac]

Well, you could just waterproof your system. That's what I plan on doing when I head down that road. Otherwise you might look into how vapochill insulates thier tubing, as I'm pretty sure that they have it done right.

 

[Dark Druid]

If I understand your "Waterproof the system" statement, I dont think that will work.

You have to have air flow across all the other components, northbridge, ps, harddrive.

Almost all power consuming parts of your system generate heat. and you have to move that heat away or you get a run-away effect. Thus the same thing you get with out proper cooling of the hot side of a peltier.

Or did I misunderstand you?

Peace

 

[bdf24]

You can put a layer of sealent over any electrical part and it will still allow the heat to dissapate. I coated my whole cpu (except for the slug and pins of course) with Polyeurathane. A couple of coats so when running my peltier I'm almost garunteed to not wreck my cpu, its water proof. I do have insulation around my cpu but if that has a leak somewhere and happens to build up condensation.
I do not have my motherboard coated. But I should. I have seen guys who have coated there whole systems with sealents as well as use dielectric grease in all there slots. It will not cause your board or cpu to retain heat.