Does anyone use or play with bong coolers anymore?

[I.M.O.G.]

PS are you writing anything for the frontpage? We are missing an article from you.

 

[Conumdrum]

Nope, gotta kill monstas. Besides I ramble too much. More of a fingers on the 'fittings' kinda guy. Hokie is the best we got, I bow to his skillz.

I'm gonna do a neat upgrade to my 'Monsta' in the next month. Maybe I'll take pics and measurements of before and after temps and post some sorta hack journalism.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Cool. Our editting process does a pretty good job of cleaning things up. From your posts, I'd judge that you'd write a great nuts and bolts piece, and how-to's is one of the most popular sections.

 

[hokiealumnus]

Nope, gotta kill monstas. Besides I ramble too much. More of a fingers on the 'fittings' kinda guy. Hokie is the best we got, I bow to his skillz.

I'm gonna do a neat upgrade to my 'Monsta' in the next month. Maybe I'll take pics and measurements of before and after temps and post some sorta hack journalism.

Ok first, bahahahaha, you're funny. Let me be clear lest someone read that and believe you - I'm halfway decent with words. I am very, very far away from anything resembling the best we have. There are a lot of people, including yourself, that know a heck of a lot more than I do.

Second, please do so, I'd be very interested in reading that.

 

[Bobnova]

Nope, gotta kill monstas. Besides I ramble too much. More of a fingers on the 'fittings' kinda guy. Hokie is the best we got, I bow to his skillz.

I'm gonna do a neat upgrade to my 'Monsta' in the next month. Maybe I'll take pics and measurements of before and after temps and post some sorta hack journalism.

The editors are great, i submitted an article a bit ago with more then a little rambling and somewhat dubious layout, they fixed it right up and have been very nice and polite about it, too.
Just bash something rambling and decent out, they'll polish it for you and/or point you in the right direction.



Someone buy me a waterblock and i'll make a bong cooler, got plenty of showerheads around, and some creative ideas

 

[MARCI]

Lets keep this thread on topic guys. A radiator in a fish tank has nothing to do with bong coolers.

Sure it does, use the bong to cool the fishtank.


Sealed pc loop -> submerged intercooler ->fishtank <-Evaporative Tower "Bong"

 

[I.M.O.G.]

A fishtank isn't relevant or interesting, a bong cooler may be impractical in every day usage, but its fun, cool, improves temps, and its the topic of this thread.

BTW, I've never seen shelve designs that I remember until this thread. I wonder how that works compared to something which creates a spray or allows drips. Possibly holes in the sheets to increase the surface area of the water? Droplets create a lot more surface area for evaporation, compared to a sheet of water.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

so i've been thinking it over and i think this is how i would go about a bong cooler.

Stuff i have already
20 gallon fish tank not in use
i can get a scrap furnace blower (good for about 1200 CFM or so )
2 pumps - one for the water fall and one for the loop.

Stuff i would need
plastic sheets
silicone


i think that's all i would need. i would basically build a box and install shelves for the water to flow on.

i would build a troff for the water to collect and evenly flow out of.

now, where do i get the plastic sheets for a good price?! thinking home depot or maybe a hobby shop.

i could maybe using plywood and coat it with some type of rubberized paint?

it would be about 2' w x 1.5' d x 3-4' h.

 

[Bobnova]

How bout copper flashing for the ramps? In a 20g aquarium (20g tall, or 20g long?) that'd give you a few square feet of copper surface for heat transfer
Flashing doesn't cost too much at hardware stores.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

then tank is 12" deep x 16" tall x 24" long. so i figure a blower from a 60k BTU furnace will be about the right size. i think i am changing one monday.

 

[Bobnova]

That'd be a lot of airflow. Like.... bazillions of CFM.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

ya, i would be worried about the water being sprayed out, i would have to mess with a dimmer switch i think.

but ya furnaces put out a ton of airflow, i would like to replace all my yates with one if the blower wasn't so big and heavy.

 

[Bobnova]

I'd be tempted to do something silly like put the blower outside and run ducts into the house for various computers.

 

[Conumdrum]

Nope. You ned droplets floating in the air, every droplet needs to hit the airstream to cause evaporation and drop the water temps. In your pic only the surface of the waterfall would cool. You need massive surface area what a showerhead with thousands of active droplets of water and surface area. I know evaporative cooling. I use it to cool my house in Vegas. You need a giant surface area. Each droplet times 1000 is a lot of surface area.

BTW, some have even tried dripping water over lots of ping pong balls to increase suface area................

 

[I.M.O.G.]

I was thinking drillling holes in the shelves if your using a shelf design. You wouldn't have the restriction of a showerhead, but you'd still get lots of droplets.

Rather than shelves, you could also use a mesh design with a showerhead or other sort of sprayer. Like the ping pong balls to increase surface area, but a different balance of surface area and restriction.

 

[JimOkc]

This looks like interesting reading. Not too sure how practical it is for someone with a closed loop system already, but it seems like a good bang for the buck and fun.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

well i was thinking of using humidifier pads being that i work in the trade i can get them cheap enough.

the reason i thought my idea would work is the amount of shelves.

so here is the second version i came up with using 3 shelves with holes in them with 3 humidifier pads sitting on top of each one.

then a tray with several holes drilled into them for the water to flow evenly over the pads.

EDIT: dammit, most pads are made from aluminum i believe.....

though i don't think that will be a problem since the water won't be in constant contact?

 

[Bobnova]

How bout pot scrubbers? They have more surface area then anything short of charcoal and don't plug up easier, aquarium people love them for wet/dry filters (which are mighty like bong coolers, just a different goal).
Buy a 100pack from amazon or something, shouldn't cost too much.
Then you have a truly huge amount of surface area to drip water onto.

The aluminum could still be an issue, if there is a steady stream of water that connects the top to the pads or the bottom to the pads they are connected electrically, which is bad.

How about furnace filters? They're fiberglass for the most part, not as much surface area as a swamp cooler pad (often those are fiberglass too though), but cheap.
Actually the swamp cooler pads might be best, i know they come in a plastic/fiberglass flavor.

 

[Spawn-Inc]

was checking out home depot and they have the older plastic drum pads for $6 each so that will be my route i think. they are meant to have air pass through them and have lots of surface area so win win.

just need to find a place that sells sheets of plastic.

 

[neonblingbling]

How bout pot scrubbers? They have more surface area then anything short of charcoal and don't plug up easier, aquarium people love them for wet/dry filters (which are mighty like bong coolers, just a different goal).
Buy a 100pack from amazon or something, shouldn't cost too much.
Then you have a truly huge amount of surface area to drip water onto.

Instead of buying hundreds of scrubers, how about using a 'floss filter' for aquariums? Might be a little easier to work with one sheet per level, then re-positioning each little green pad...

Also, how much pressure do misters require? Like the ones every venue in Las Vegas has during summer?