Chiller box mod project

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Yup, that also removes any worries about warmed moist air getting back into the room so no Legionnaires disease for us 😛
should get the holes drilled tomorrow I reckon and trialling with the radbox and with 5L max of distilled in the chiller(Need a better name for it, chiller sounds crap lol), for now I'll power it off a spare Psu and see what the results show
Moto
 
😛
Ok, its painted black and plumbed in, initial tests showing no real improvement over the old set up, but I'm certain I need a pump in there as flowrate is awful hehe,
I ran IBT a couple of times on standard for a max temp of 45'c, I've chucked more water in and am off to kill pandas in Azeroth for a few hours, see how that holds out,
Moto
 
I will be watching this thread and the real one closely for the results but I do not think that this will work as well as you hope but you never know here is what I see as potential problems 1) the rads will possibly heat the water up 2) the unit auto shuts off before achieving any noticeable results in temps 3) the cold plate inside the unit freezes and causes an insulation effect meaning that the cooling power of the unit is lowered drastically from being frozen over

Ok but with that said I really do hope that either you can figure out a way around the problems or they never arise in the first place so we will see and fix what needs to be fixed.
 
just a thought but if you had an extra rad laying around maybe you could try putting that in the cooler box and make a small loop with only a pump rad and a block that way you could attach a temp sensor to the block to see what kind of temps you will be getting before adding a heat source.

I am working on using the little rads again with TEC’s 4 of them attached to the top and bottom of a 6 stack with water blocks on top of the TEC’s to cool the hot side of the TEC this is all insolated together . The inner loop will cool the processor at first to see how it works, by way of cold water to the processor block. The outer loop for cooling the TEC’s will have rads to cool the water. This is an interesting concept, to be honest I do not know with way works better, using the TEC’s directly to the component or cooling the water to the block, but it seems like fun to try and find out.
 
Cooling the water is the more efficent approach which is why I decided on this route,
Ryan also went this way after finding the balancing act of tecs on blocks was a bit much
to answer your first post though,
Rads aren't heating the water up, not as far as I've seen anyway, only been a few hours
the unit can't auto shut down, its on or off,
and the tec in the unit shouldn't freeze up until around six days of constant use, which it will never get :)
still checking, seeing how things are, definitely want another pump though
Moto
 
Ok, First up some pics of the painting/drilling, and I'm upping the game on my logs, some pics will have a soundtrack link :)
click the link then look at the pic for best effect,

Soundtrack
IMAG0670.jpg


:non: That won't do for me :pfff:

Drilled the holes, because I used a stepped bit, the inner holes aren't big enough and the powerdrill won't fit inside the box to even them out,
IMAG0671.jpg


Ratchet drive will though :)
IMAG0673.jpg


Snug as a bug in a rug,
IMAG0674.jpg


A bit of sanding and spraying later,
IMAG0675.jpg


Top section rebuilt, note I've moved the wires to come out the end instead of out of that handgrip hole, much neater :)
IMAG0676.jpg


And finally,

Soundtrack
IMAG0678.jpg


Pretty quick and simple for this part of the project, the longhaul is ahead :)
Moto
 
Right, some numbers from yesterday,
After a couple of hours (about six) on WoW last night top temp was 39'C, gfx cards slightly higher at 41'c
but the real results were on Intel burn test earlier in the day,
I now know I need a pump in the chiller module and theres some bleeding to be done, I can hear trickles in the radbox 😛
Idling in a 21'c room gave me a 21.56'c water temp regardless of fans being on/off/max/low with about two litres in the chiller
I gave time for changes to affect the temp but nothing significant happened from fans being mostly off, to case and topfans being on low, all the way to full on all fans,
But IBT results were rather nice, I'm seeing drops on load temps here,
boxandtopandcasefansmax.jpg

iirc I would spike 50's on it before adding the chiller,
this was 44'c most of the run with an occasional 45'c jump, so I'm encouraged enough to continue the research, repeating the tests with more water volume showed no gains or deficits so I'm sitting on around 7L in there for now
So, no proper S.a results as yet, for now its bleed when I get a chance to, observe the loops behaviour and figure out how/where that pumps going once I've bought it 😛
but the peltier isn't as effective as I'd have liked it to have been straight out the box, but who's afraid of a little tweaking to get the results?
Moto
 
After reading Ryans thread about below ambient cooling (with a kinda sad end..) it's nice to see this one *thumbs up*

What is your loop now like? Rad -> TEC/Reservoir -> CPU -> GPU?

About your spikes going down: Are you sure that comes from the TEC cooling the water or is it just due to the bigger reservoir evening the results out (even without TEC it would take some time to heat that water up)? Did you try with the TEC completely off?

What I really dont see here is the heat going from the Water to the Air (after all you cool with water because transferring heat to air takes a lot of surface, right? And the water surface in the box is small compared to even a small radiator), in my opinion you need to somehow submerge the cool TEC side into the reservoir (ofc not directly, but with longer fins reaching into the water or by routing the water directly on the tec or something like that).

Oh and one more question: During the 6 hours, did you watch the water temperature in the box? Was it stable or rising?

Nevertheless cool project and I cant wait for new results :)
 
What I really dont see here is the heat going from the Water to the Air (after all you cool with water because transferring heat to air takes a lot of surface, right? And the water surface in the box is small compared to even a small radiator), in my opinion you need to somehow submerge the cool TEC side into the reservoir (ofc not directly, but with longer fins reaching into the water or by routing the water directly on the tec or something like that).
Click to expand...
surface area may be less, however, volume is much higher compared to a rad. This is what you mentioned about the temp evening itself out. As the heat is saturated in the water. Then removing the heat from the water is the reverse process - which would equate to more air movement - after all water dissipates its heat through radiation to its surroundings, convection around the container holding liquid/water and conduction to the air around container.

^ sorry for the thermal 101 class.

btw, nice progress so far!
 
Thanks Lutfij, nice to see you back again as well mate :)

Ok, in some semblence of order,
the core temps were stable throughout Ibt apart from the mentioned spikes so I know that is the solid temp as it quickly returns to 'normal'

Loop order at the moment,
Respump in case>Gpu1>Gpu2>Chiller>Radbox360>Radbox 360>Radbox pump>Cpu>Rx240 on roof>T-Virus1>TVirus2>Return to respump in case
The rads are doing the work of removing heat, the purpose of the chiller is just to provide cooler water for the loop, it is not intended to actively remove the generated heat in any way, thats the job of the rads/fans
I wouldn't have the Tec plate in the water as its aluminium, I may do something like that if I can find a suitable Cu plate
and no, I can't directly monitor the Chiler temps atm, I'm still waiting on the temp sensor for it to arrive, I'm currently going off an ambient sensor and the sensor in one of the T-Virus reservoirs,
maybe the dedicated sensor will show something up, but normally a loop isn't more than 1-2'c difference anywhere in the loop
Thanks for the interest and I hope we can get some better results soon :)
Ryans thread btw, not a sad ending, just a confirmation of one method not working,(well not without a lot of balancing), its by trying things that we rule out less effective ways of accomplishing a goal, so its never the end, only a lesson and a new beginning :)
**Ryan posted as I was writing this 😛**
@Lutfij, glad you're liking it mate :)
Moto
 


Exactly how are you setup water wise?

Is the water level above the tubes in the picture and the flow circulating in the water volume?

If that's what you are doing the feed should be the higher and the return lower and at the farthest point to get some circulation of the water going.

The water has to circulate to pick up the chilled air, even at that the sheer volume will take a long time to cool with just chilled air blowing down on it?

In a thermal mass the coldest water is at the bottom of the mass, I modded my cooler with the feed tube at the bottom of the cooler and the return coming in at the top, with the thermal mass that eliminates any air getting into the system.

My water temperature in my cooler right now is 12.8c, CPU idle temp is 16c at a 4500mhz overclock.

Not trying to rub salt in the wound just trying to figure how you can get the best from this setup?

Ryan
 


:lol: Cross posting

Moto, the radiators are going to heat your chilled water, if there is anything on the plus side of things for you it may be 1c.
 
The tubes are both level as shown in the top pics, end of tubing is under the water level at the bottom of the box, but with you saying this I may move the feedline higher to agitate the mass more,
and see how/if that affects things,
No salt mate, I kinda knew I would need the extra pump but couldn't budget for that this month and its still early days yet,
I may even hang the Cable management and rebuild from a different point of view :)
but yes, once this weekends out of the way I can move to testing with just the chiller on its own, ten minute job to remove the radbox from the loop
Moto

 


You just defended my H50 modding effort 😛 hehehe! Honestly, Modo just made the entire picture clear to all(and everyone trying out wacky cooling ideas) following this thread that not every solution, though ground breaking, won't work in a real world environment. So the only way most people find out is by trial and error. Kudos to all them tinkerers. You know who I'm talking about - on this here forums!

About Ryan - that's what you can expect from a retired mod... game for fastest finger first, anyone ? 😀

@ Modo - Inspiration+ideas will always come from the most unusual places - so I'd prefer hanging-out with/observing them closely. Glad to be back to see all this!
 


No offense, but to me it was sad because it was closed (and therefor no more tinkering in this direction from you, at least at the moment). I read that thread like a book, and it's most of the time sad when a good book ends.

Moto: If I understand you correctly, the water goes through the chiller and then to the Rads? As Ryan said I think it would work better with the GPUs feeding the water into the rads (where a higher delta T is, which is needed for the rads to work) and the rads going into the chiller box (where the delta T is lower, which isnt needed for the chiller box as it could cool below ambient).
 


It was only temporarily closed because I had run into a progress wall that I had to find a way around.

Which meant multiple testing in various directions and I knew full well some of those directions would fail, but I had to try them to eliminate them as possibilities however I was not going to detail those in the thread.

Once I had discovered valuable information to share with everyone, I had it reopened to post those discoveries.

The failures were my learning curve to know what best approach to take from where I am now with the cooling progress using the TEC solution, what I'm presently running is the best of both worlds.

A selectable CPU cooling loop, either radiator loop cooled or TEC assembly loop cooled, completely independent of each other, the results are in the thread along with the latest pictures.

Ryan
 


I wasn't offended!

I thought you had discovered my online gaming downfalls in another thread.

I'm on a satellite internet connection, it's the fastest available internet solution where I live, out in the country.

Satellite connections suck for online gaming as the ping rate is way too high, around a 1,000 best I ever got was around 940, which makes me look like a rusted robot moving in online games, I got tired of being cussed out for holding up the game so no more online gaming. :cry:

Online gaming is the one thing I truly miss by moving away from the city and a direct cable connection, but living out in the country is way more pleasing than even considering moving back into the city for a cable connection! :pfff:

As far as being a retired mod, it's to all of you guys benefit, I do know the rules very well and will warn any of you when the line is close to being crossed, to keep you all out of trouble!

Ry
 
wow, I didn't mean to even get you ruffled 🙁 sorry to hear about your connection matey.

...NOOOOTTTT, you're not missing a thing bro, I like moving out of the city, getting off the network and spend time with folks+family. Catch some me time with fishing as well. None of that can come with a cable connection! Period! SO IMHO - your doing fine.

I thought you had discovered my online gaming downfalls in another thread.
Click to expand...
No way that's happening as I don't have time for multiplayers. Add me to your non-multiplayer club :)

As far as being a retired mod, it's to all of you guys benefit, I do know the rules very well and will warn any of you when the line is close to being crossed, to keep you all out of trouble!
Click to expand...
you're like the mafioso bro down the block - keeping us out of trouble 😀 which is good.

Okay now I off topic'd this thread alot. apologies Modo!
 
None needed mate, in my threads there is no off-topic 😛

@Detewe, yup, chiller goes to rads at the moment purely because thats how my Quick disconnects are set up, as I said to Ryan though, a full strip and rebuild may be in order at some point hehe, check my logs for just how user unfriendly my rig is,
but it is more adaptable than most loops to be honest, only approached in performance by Ryans, ArthurH's and possibly Rubix's loops
Heres my links,
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/272443-11-asus-6950-dcii-plan
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=13&post=311860&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/274180-11-psycho-rider-radbox-project#bas
As you'll see my main focus seems to be Ocd cable management, I must have about 30 feet of tubing on the build and inside the case only six inches is on sight, and thats hidden behind a fan modded on top of the waterblock,
all this madness looks like its going to have give way though so I may gain subambient running temps, but I'll have to put up with seeing some tubing :)
Moto
 
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