Mist Cooling

[Flash]

Anyone have any thoughts about this idea:

I was thinking about those misting fans that you always see on the sidelines of NFL games, and how something similar might be used in water cooling. Of course these work on the same principal as bong cooling, but how about this variation--use a traditional radiator/fan arrangement (outside the case) but place a misting sprayer between the fan and radiator, spraying on the rad. In other words, you'd have the fan an inch or so behind the radiator with ducting sealing the rad/fan unit, and a small mist head in between. I'd think that mist evaporating off of the radiator would provide some extra cooling. My thought is that you'd have a separate reservoir/pump for the mist unit so that--unlike a bong, you'd still have good cooling even if the mist reservoir ran dry. You could use the mist sort of like a 7-12v fan switch--cut it on when you are doing high-load activities. Instead of using higher fan speeds and creating more noise, you'd just use up a little water and create some humidity.

I might have to try this out when I get in my new stuff next week.

 

[ap0calyps]

That might bring your temps down a bit, but it would not work NEARLY as well as a true evaporative cooler. The whole design is very inefficient. Why wouldn't you just build a bong cooler?

 

[Shadow ÒÓ]

don't think this would be an inside cooler. The amount of mist you'd have to use would be substantial and you may actually get storm clouds to form around your ceiling.

 

[Flash]

ap0calyps (Jul 27, 2001 04:42 p.m.):
That might bring your temps down a bit, but it would not work NEARLY as well as a true evaporative cooler. The whole design is very inefficient. Why wouldn't you just build a bong cooler?

Bong coolers require frequent refilling, and if the bong runs dry your cpu cooks. They also sound like you have a waterfall in your house.

 

[AmbientFiction]

I thought a bong cooler sounded like you had a bong in your house lol. Thus the second reason for its name

 

[William]

sure it could cool the air down some, but you are wasting a ton of water. A bong cooler can be made so that it will refill itself automatically.

 

[cjtune]

You will encounter serious problems in just trying to mist the water, and in the long term, the topping-up of water in your bong can be a tedious chore. Just sprinkle the water, sprinkle and sprinkle lots and lots of water. Imagine each water jet or stream of droplets as a pin from a heatsink (keeping in mind its relative velocity to air and the distance it travels) and you'll quickly realise how effective it is compared to radiator watercoolers already.

BTW, those misting fans for crowds are for cooling the air, as the water droplets (not vapor yet!!) blown away by the fans evaporate in transit and cools the air by sapping the latent energy of vaporization from it.

 

[cjtune]

Oh, and your idea of fan speed control wrt. to load to reduce water lost is commonly implemented in the industry to to do the very same thing for cooling towers.

 

[Flash]

William (Jul 27, 2001 11:46 p.m.):
sure it could cool the air down some, but you are wasting a ton of water. A bong cooler can be made so that it will refill itself automatically.

I guess I didn't explain my idea very well. I had in mind that the whole apparatus would be enclosed on four sides (not the top), and whatever water didn't evaporate would siphon down into a reservoir to be recirculated--just like a bong.

I know it wouldn't be as efficient as a bong, cooling-wise. I think it would come somewhere in between a bong and a regular radiator. You'd have less water loss than you'd get with a bong because you'd only use the mist apparatus when you needed a cooling boost, i.e., when doing cpu-intensive stuff.

I don't see why it would a challenge getting mist. You can buy misting heads for fish tanks, and K-mart sells a cheap pressure bottle with a mist head on it. It does require a fair amount of pressure to make mist, but you'd have a dedicated pump that wouldn't have to push water all through your system, too.

Anyways, it was just a thought. Maybe it wouldn't work at all.

 

[Mord-Sith]

The theory is sound... make one write an article win a hundred bucks. Im sure you would win if you could get it to work.

 

[cjtune]

Flash, the last thing you wanna do is to collect the evaporated water (if that's possible). The water vapour is carrying with it, heat. Once it settles and condenses somewhere it'll release the heat back again -back to square one. But collecting back the mist (non-evaporated water floating around) is a good idea to reduce water loss. Misting is bad for bongs because it is hard to recover especially when you have 2 to 3 80mm or 120mm fans providing convection.

I suppose it'll be cool to have some kinda 'turbo-charge' to a bong by having an optional misting thingy, but think about it: most of the time your CPU will be running near or at full load so it's either your bong can handle that much of heat disposal or not so if you plan to use that misting apparatus, you'd better integrate it into your bong, full time. But you'd better build some baffles to capture the mist back.

 

[Quaky]

William (Jul 27, 2001 11:46 p.m.):
sure it could cool the air down some, but you are wasting a ton of water. A bong cooler can be made so that it will refill itself automatically.

Can you give me some more info about this plz William as I am designing my own bong right now. It might be worth considering that. I tought of a metal plate on top of the bong, on which the water would condensate and drip back in the bong.

thx in advance

 

[cjtune]

Quaky (Jul 29, 2001 12:23 p.m.):

William (Jul 27, 2001 11:46 p.m.):
sure it could cool the air down some, but you are wasting a ton of water. A bong cooler can be made so that it will refill itself automatically.

Can you give me some more info about this plz William as I am designing my own bong right now. It might be worth considering that. I tought of a metal plate on top of the bong, on which the water would condensate and drip back in the bong.

thx in advance

Maybe you can use some kinda drip feed or thin line from a faucet to supply enough water to match the rate of water loss (you have to measure it!), but possibly a bit lower if you don't want your reservoir to overflow while you're away. As for capturing the mist (a.k.a. drift water) to reduce water loss, using plates as baffles is a good idea:
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Something like that?

 

[Quaky]

Thx CJtune, I'll try it and post the results as soon as my watercooling rig is up and running.

 

[cjtune]

Good luck, Quaky, and be extra careful of leaks at the hose connections.