Making chiller from 5150BTU a/c unit

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hopefully tomorrow i will be buying the unit, its the 70$ unit that you can see at sears.com from kenmore, i believe somebody may have done this already, i think juicy might have. Anyways, i plan on having this done around new years, which hopefully by then i will have an nforce 4 board.

i'm going to see if i can make the reservoir myself out of lexsand, i don't like how the 12 can coolers turn out...

i also want to have the entire unit enclosed in some type of case, that might also be lexsand since i have a bunch of it at my house.

my first question is will my hydor l40 be able to handle the cold liquid?

and what type of tubing should i buy, i feel like the tygon off danger den's site is a major rip-off and i could probably find it cheaper at home depot or something.

also would the swiftech blocks be the best for chilled liquid considering they don't have the lucite tops like danger den and they are also made of 1 material?

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i got the unit today, i haven't taken pics of it yet but i will post them as soon as my other system gets restored because it crashed and i lost some boot files, will have it up and running tonight.

i ended up getting a 5300BTU unit which costed like 130$, they didn't have the 5150 and i didn't want to wait. this one has like electrical display and thermostats and stuff so that will probably end up being more of a hassle.

i didn't check the compressor but i know its r22, with HS of 350 and LS of 150. also the condensor and evap fan are on the same system, so i will need some help from you guys in taking that apart, and also dismantling the electrical temp stuff.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=APPL&pid=04272056000

that is my unit, hopefully you guys can see that link, its a kenmore 5300 BTU, if you go to sears.com you will see it.

i'll try and get pics later tonight.

[gkiing]

i got the unit today, i haven't taken pics of it yet but i will post them as soon as my other system gets restored because it crashed and i lost some boot files, will have it up and running tonight.

i ended up getting a 5300BTU unit which costed like 130$, they didn't have the 5150 and i didn't want to wait. this one has like electrical display and thermostats and stuff so that will probably end up being more of a hassle.

i didn't check the compressor but i know its r22, with HS of 350 and LS of 150. also the condensor and evap fan are on the same system, so i will need some help from you guys in taking that apart, and also dismantling the electrical temp stuff.

http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=APPL&pid=04272056000

that is my unit, hopefully you guys can see that link, its a kenmore 5300 BTU, if you go to sears.com you will see it.

i'll try and get pics later tonight.

If it has an electronic thermostat you may be able to use it to "set" the temperature if you have a large reservoir (eg the evap coil in a lexan tank as you suggested) to buffer the heat when the compressor is off. This may not work though, and you may be forced to remove all the electronics from the compressor and just attatch it to an on/off swich.

It would be best to get an aquarium pump such as a danner mag5 or an IWAKI md-20rzt as they can handle the cold temps better.

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so my hydor l40 will have to go? i thought it would have been okay.

well all i have to do is take off 3 bolts from the compressor and i can take the whole unit off of the base of the a/c unit. that will be it for tonight though.

[gkiing]

It depends. If it's plastic it will probably crack below -20C.

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i measured the evap, and its about 8"x14" the size i have for the a/c frame is 12"x18.5" so i have a pretty good amount of room to build the reservoir and still keep it inside the a/c case.

for where i should put my inlet and outlet: would it be best to put the outlet in say, the upper right corner facing the front, and the inlet in the lower left corner facing the back, or vice versa, i figured that way the liquid could flow thru as much of the evap as possible.

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http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&vertical=APPL&pid=04272056000&bidsite=KENM

that is my a/c unit. it has a circuit board that is used to control everything, it has 2 fan speeds, and also a temperature thing that is used to turn on/off the compressor. i tried taking off the blue wire that connects the circuit board to the compressor and the compressor wouldn't turn on, also if i unplugged the temp probe it also wouldn't turn on, i tested the system by just squeezing the temp probe in my hand to see how frosty the evap got.

would anybody be able to help me get this thing to just a plain on/off switch?

tell me what you need, like pics of the board and stuff like that and i will provide iit.

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i emailed hydor about my pump and cold temperatures, and they haven't responded yet, i sent that email on saturday and they already have had a full business day to respond.

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well i just heard back from hydor, and they say the pump is recommended for indoor use only with temps between 5C and 35C.

[rhino56]

i been using the stuff from www.jab-tech.com clearflex and it works well
way cheaper then tygon and just as good.

[echow87]

wonder how the digital a/c units would work....i was hoping that there was a way to set the temp device so that you can "set" the temp to like perhaps anywhere from -30c to 15c

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i'm not going to worry about that, i'm just going to take off all the digital stuff and put it to an on/off switch

rhino, i have the clearflex also in my current water cooling setup, i thought that maybe it wouldn't work with the low temps, but you are doing okay with it?

so what would be the absolute best pump for my setup, i'm not too interested in cooling the northbridge by the way, unless it would help. i also might do an SLI setup down the road if it turns out to be a good choice. but i doubt it.

i currently have a maze4 cpu, gpu, and chipset block. i heard the gpu block doesn't work with the geforce 6800GT pci express that i have, so i think i'll get the swiftech block. but will the other two work okay with chilled liquid? they have the lucite tops btw.

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i was looking at the danner pumps and iwakis, and will probably get a danner, because the iwakis are so freaking expensive! why do they cost so much? or am i looking at the wrong models.

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my grandpa just came back from the salvations army and got a air conditioner from them for free, which means its probably broken somewhere. don't know exactly what to do with it now though. i'll see if its working tonight, maybe i can have two waterchilled computers!

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whats a better pump, a mag3 or mag5 for waterchillers? also would it benefit me to chill the northbridge or no?

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that other a/c was not designed to be taken apart, there are screws without screwheads, just the wrenchheads, in 4" deep wells that need to be taken, off i think i'll just throw it away, considering my grandpa got it from an alley.

i can't find the schematic of the electrical board of the a/c i'm working with, but there is a blue wire that comes from the board to the compressor, i'm guessing that it controls the compressor in some way or another, also if the temp probe isn't plugged into the board the comp won't turn on. i really need to find the schematic to that thing so i can figure out how to wire it up so it will just turn on and off.

i'm going to get started on the res tomorrow, my idea is to keep the original design entirely, and just build the res around the evap, and will just seal up the res around where the lines go into the evap from the compressor. so i won't need to do any creative pipe bending. what's going to be hard is figuring out how to wire everything up. i really don't want to have to tape the temp probe onto the bottom of the compressor to get it to run all the time.

[jinu117]

Very interested in how this unfolds as I've been thinking about this for last few months. Only constraint I really had was
1) Noise...
2) Size...
I stil am pondering over chiller with dimension of mach II unit or so to put on top (so mach II bottom, lian li, than chiller). Won't probably need nor want absolute best as thinking about 24x7 GPU cooling with chiller.
How loud is the unit vs Mach II compressor (I presume louder since it is rotary)? I would like to see some more pic with dimension if possible :)

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okay, i'll try and take some pics when i get my other computer up an running. that ought to be by the middle of this week i think.

whew, ABIT took my board in today and it doesn't look like they will be sending it back! the damn thing had a cracked cpu socket and silicone all over the place. i'll probably be selling the new board once i get it back.

i still have to create the res for this thing. i have finals this week that end thursday, so i'm really going to try and at least get the chiller done this week. but i haven't had any incentive because i just want this done in time for a not insanely priced DFI nf4 board to hit the US.

[ZENNZZO]

this is what I came up with...Crap can the big condenser and get one from Chilly1...
16 pass 4.3" x 4.3" x 6" unit with .25" tubing cheap as they get...
Coil 15' of 3/8" tubing w/ 110" of .028" capline, in the res of choice, mine is 18ga. copper sheet.
Thats a Laing 12vt pump. The stock start cap and a 15amp light switch...
SFF PSU to run the pump and 130CFM DELTA that I shrouded to the Chilly1 condenser...
tripple insulated with faom board, neoprene ...perforated neoprene the a skin of .25" closed cell neoprene sheet from DangerDen... :toast:

[rhino56]

i'm not going to worry about that, i'm just going to take off all the digital stuff and put it to an on/off switch

rhino, i have the clearflex also in my current water cooling setup, i thought that maybe it wouldn't work with the low temps, but you are doing okay with it?

so what would be the absolute best pump for my setup, i'm not too interested in cooling the northbridge by the way, unless it would help. i also might do an SLI setup down the road if it turns out to be a good choice. but i doubt it.

i currently have a maze4 cpu, gpu, and chipset block. i heard the gpu block doesn't work with the geforce 6800GT pci express that i have, so i think i'll get the swiftech block. but will the other two work okay with chilled liquid? they have the lucite tops btw.
the blocks seem to be ok, i doubt youll get way below zero with them but as long as the liquid doesnt freeze and expand and crack something you should be fine.
the tubing i had at about -6C but i have ran it colder so its fine. its not gonna crack or anything as long as you dont freeze your liquid.

[Skip]

well i'm hoping to expect temps like juicy's chiller, he had around -30C i believe.

anyways, the clearflex is all messed up, i took apart my watercooled system, and i had water mixed with zerex and water wetter. and the tubing was all brown, so i don't think it withstands chemicals very well. so i think i'll just buy tygon since this tubing went to hell.

too bad i'm not really going to get started on this sucker until the DFI board starts hitting stores, then i'll probably buy it once the prices are reasonable.