Exploring Below Ambient Water Cooling

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I have a plan to water cool a PC chair I PMed Ryan about it but I don't want to bug him anymore so I thought i would ask it here. My original plan was to use a basic 3 fan rad PC water cooling setup but instead of it going to a CPU block it would run into copper tubing that ill put inside the chair. After reading some of these posts I learned that the rads will only cool to room temp which defeats the purpose. So I was stuck until I found out about TEC which I'm still researching and trying to learn.

Since finding out about TEC I came up with a plan to water cool the hot side then in winter I could put Y junctions on the copper pipe lines and run hot water to heat the chair but Ryan has proved that its not possible because the water evaporates from the hot side.

So after reading more of this post looks like I have to use a CPU pipe cooler for the hot side. Ryan has recommended 3 models should I still use something that big as its not heating a CPU or gpu?

For the cold side my plan was to use a water block either CPU or one from that site that's been listed before (hope they ship to Australia). I was going to use a 5" bay reservoir and a eheim fish tank pump as it had a higher flow rate then the PC wc ones.

I'm trying to plan it out and see if this will work before I rush out and buy everything so any help will be appreciated!

I can't seem to find anyone else that's tried to water cool a chair and my knowledge on all of this is limited.

Thanks!
 


Don't buy a water block from the previous listed website, that large copper block I bought was a waste of money, the mass of copper retains too much cold, and affects the peltiers hot side and causes a heat/cold transfer stall.

The water block to pick up the cold needs to be matched to the peltier size dimensions.

For the hot side of the peltier, it must be fully covered!

My peltier is 50mm x 50mm so I made a cold plate from aluminum plate bar stock, the cold plate is what's sold and named as such but really it should be named a hot plate, as it needs to be used on the hot side of the peltier for full coverage of the hot side or else the peltier will burn out on the uncovered area.

The hot side of the peltier has to be fully covered, so a plate is needed if there is a size difference between the peltier and the heat sink used to cool the hot side.

The water blocks I'm using are an XSPC Rasa and a Swiftech Apogee XT, both blocks covered the 50mm x 50mm peltier size but have been modified internally to increase the flow rate through them, the trick is to not allow the water to stay in the block too long or else it will freeze, so there has to be enough water flow rate through the block that freezing does not occur.

There's a lot to consider if you're taking on a project like this from scratch, you'll need to plan it out, research what's available to you, and understand what to do with it when you get it all in hand.

I have to admit I'm not up on water cooling a PC chair?

I'm not really sure what you're even talking about, do you have any pictures of it?
 
Thanks for the reply, sorry about my rambling.

I need a new weekend project and its coming up to mid summer in Aus and my study doesnt have air con and fans dont really work on 40c days. So im looking into water cooling my chair i know it sounds crazy but im willing to give it a go and see how it works. I'm still learning about peltier cooling hence the questions about the hot side, I have ordered a small 40mm 60w peltier but after i did that i found http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300553692881 any thoughts on that unit?

Once the peltier arrives im going to order the water cooling equipment from a local store then ill try to assemble it all and see what happens.

Any suggestions on a power unit for the peltier? Also did you cover modding the water block in this thread at all?
 


It'd be cheaper just to buy a window air unit? And a lot easier as well.
 


That's not going to give you below ambient cooling, I have a window air unit.

That allows me to have more control over my ambient room temperature but no matter where it's set to run, ambient is still ambient.


 


Not to sure what a 60w peltier is going to do for you, both mine are 266w each one almost 4 1/2 times what yours are capable of?

You first need to know what hardware you'll be running, and your overclocking intentions to get an idea of what power peltier you'll be needing to handle the heat load, you're jumping the gun there.

The link you posted I wouldn't even consider buying.

I would be a good idea to post your online purchasing availability in Australia, that way it would be possible to look over what's available to you?



That's also determined by your overclock and peltier load as to what power supply you'll need to handle it all, or maybe even a 2nd power supply, I'm running two.



No I did not cover how I modded the water block, because it was an experiment at the time and I had no clue if it was going to even work, however it does work! You may be able to get away with a high flow older water block or one of the newer ones you could completely remove the jet plate from and get the same flow results.

I suggest you slow down and do a lot more research on the subject then start buying parts.


 
**You first need to know what hardware you'll be running, and your overclocking intentions to get an idea of what power peltier you'll be needing to handle the heat load, you're jumping the gun there**

He wants to cool his chair, not a Pc, I think I know a handy calculator,
Calculator
no seriously Nathan, this is a unique venture and quite possibly unprecedented, I think you need to post a build log and we can explore this further,
Although Ryans bang on with needing to know some specs, I seriously doubt you are intending on overclocking your arse 😛
going to be a fun trip hehe
Moto
 


Affirmative!
 


i was not talking about your project. i was talking about nathann92's project.
 
Thanks for the help Ryan and Moto! Sorry to be a pain but I work in a accounts department so this is all new to me. I think I might just buy the equipment I need and see what happens the peltier was only $3 so if I blow it or need a bigger one its not a big loss.

As for a aircon unit the part of the house my computer is in makes it hard for a ducted vent and its not my house so can't really throw in a window unit. Plus I needed a new weekend project so it kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

Once everything arrives ill post a thread with build progress and pictures and go with the flow :)

Thanks again guys.
 


Can you be a little more specific about the PC Chair?

I never considered something like that until I saw this one!

Unfortunately for me if I got something like that, the wife would be expecting a new car! :lol: (Laughing but not joking about the wife getting a new car!)

That emperor computer chair is very impressive, finding somewhere to put it, on the other hand?

Would be a challenge, it's very nice though!

So what do you have?
 
Wow this is pretty impressive would be nice but needs alot of room.

I just have a normal run of the mill desk chair that didnt cost any where near $5000 lol.

http://i1326.photobucket.com/albums/u653/nathan_nelson1/chair.jpg is something like im planning on doing except without the bucket of ice and the tubing hidden under the fabric. Based of a PC water cooling setup but instead of a radiator using a peltier to get below ambient temps.
 
Sorry if i disappointed you there must be different terminology in Australia ^_^

Is a small TEC 60W cooler decent for cooling a Samsung tablet down by 10c? I have one mounted in the dash of my car as a multimedia system and some days in the summer it overheats and shuts down which is my next thing on my list to fix..

 


I didn't realize you were cooling the chair itself! 😱

I thought you wanted to incorporate TEC cooling into the chair somehow to cool your computer> ( I didn't see that coming, wipes egg from face! :) )

TEC cooling is definitely a possibility but will cost a whole lot more money to pull off than what you have pictured, nice idea though the reverse of heated car seats.

There's something very important that I think you may not be taking into consideration and that is the TEC trade off of it exhausts heat into the room, so no matter how you cool the hot side of the peltier that exhausted heat will be added to the room temperature.
 


If you can figure out how to incorporate it and use the cooled air as intake into the tablet, looks like something that the design of Motos Chill Box cooling could handle, have you checked out his thread?

As already mentioned above the TEC cooling will be adding heat into the car, but I'm sure you have A/C in the car right?

Maybe the dash is not the best mounting place for your Samsung Tablet, have you thought of that?
 
I'd look to subverting the A/c lines to the tablet's intake, possibly splice in a coolpad to the line that the back of the tablet sits on?
I've seen similar things to This so they are out there in differing formats, just need toimprovise/adapt to purpose, both for the tablet and the chair
If he were to use my chillerbox, I'd reverse the peltier plate so the heat was going into the box, and tube vent that to the exterior somehow, and duct the other vent to direct the cooled air through tubing to the tablet,
:)
/Gets the duct tape and leatherman out
Moto
 
He could just secure the shirt around the chair back and be good to go, tubing is already sewn in, but it says the ice will only last 2 hours, you could use a much larger cooler and extend the time.

Regarding using peltier cooling to do this would seem to be too many unanswered variables to know exactly what to do.

When it comes to cooling a CPU which is what this thread is about, there are knowns, like heat wattage load output of the CPU to know what has to be taken into consideration of being able to cool.

But trying to apply this to chair cooling is working against ambient room temperature and body heat, so finding a useable peltier wattage solution to handle the heat load will literally be a shot in the dark.

The ice water circulation will be an instant cooling solution to a certain extent, but will eventually cost more freezing the ice than a peltier cooler running, but in this case of cooling a chair, the ice may be more feasible?

Peltier/TEC wise it would be better than nothing maybe, but if you overload or stall the peltier you literally get nothing to do you any good, if you would loose your ice cooling in 2 hours, it will take multiple peltiers to handle the cooling load.

I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just telling you like it is, from everyone answering you here in this thread, I'm the only one with extensive experience of what these peltiers can and cannot do!

The information learned in this thread has been learned the hard way by experimentation and if you're determined to find a solution then no one will discourage you and you'll continue on to a solution.

It was discoveries that has allowed understanding how these peltiers behave, one peltier could handle a CPUs overclocked load, but even 2 peltiers could not handle a CPU and 2 GPUs in a single loop or individually pulling from the same Res/Cooler.

Could 3 peltiers handle the load from a CPU and 2 GPUs in the same loop, I'm confident enough at this point to say yes, however the electrical cost load outweighs gains in this situation, but none of this pertains to cooling a chair.

Keep in mind the peltiers I am running are 266w, 26amp each, and that sir adds up!

In both the total electrical utility load and the power supply used to handle the peltiers, not just any power supply can handle these loads, it takes a single 12v rail power supply with enough amperage capability to be way on the plus side of the load, this is not a power supply scrimping situation.

You have to keep in mind once you power the system, the amperage load is constant, so you have to have a power supply capable of handling it, and you cannot get your power from the 4 pin molex lines either, it has to come from heavier wire cabling from the power supply, either the 8 or 4 pin motherboard connector, or PCI-E cabling.

Or buy yourself a switching power supply specifically designed to handle your total load.

Ryan
 
Pictures of latest setup of what I'm presently running, I literally massacred my old Chieftech Dragon case and cut it down to create a mini RadBox for the GPU cooling, so my setup includes a dual peltier cooling for the CPU loop. and a dual radiator closed loop cooling for the GPUs loop.

FullViewClosed.png


FullViewOpened.png


CPU Loop Consists of the Pump

PumpView.png


Lower Peltier

LowerPeltier.png


Top Peltier

TopPeltier.png


View of Mini RadBox

GPUCooling1.png


GPUCooling3.png


GPUCooling2.png


GPUCooling7.png


GPUCooling6.png


^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Chieftech case cut down to just below the 5" bays!

 
GPUCooling5.png


GPUCooling4.png


GPUCooling8.png


GPUCooling9.png


Cooling performance update regarding the GPUs, now cooled by closed loop radiators their maximum load temperature reached under maxxed out benchmark load running multiple loops of the benchmark program yielded a 41c load that immediately recovered to a 33c state after the testing was stopped.

Compared to the GPU stock cooling fans that's 39c below the stock fan load of 80c, running full coverage GPU water blocks.

The CPU cooling only needs one of the peltier coolers running to maintain a 4.5ghz 2700K overclock running 15c + or - 1c water temperature, which is approximately constantly 9c below ambient.

The 2nd peltier energized allows holding water temperatures below 10c, which was my initial goal when cooling a 5ghz overclock, so it's there when I need it.

The 2nd peltier has not been even energized now for 3 days as it is not presently needed but, as some of you may have surmised, I'll only be through testing when I'm dead and gone!

There are other pictures posted before these showing the TEC/Peltier heat sink and water block assembly, and cooler/reservoir close ups if any are interested.

This last mini RadBox modification did not require me to relocate those, just reroute their tubing.

None of the mini RadBox tubing is insulated as it is not necessary.
 
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