optimising my chiller?

[MaRtIe]

hey guys/girls


ive got my little baby chiller hooked up to my water cooling,

its a R12 compressed fridge compressor (not sure on the specs)

one of those stupid fanless condensors,

anyway i hooked it up for a day (evap out the water) and recorded -15C

so i put the evaperator into a 2FT water tank, and sealed it a little, (not air tight) and it cant make it to 0C so far its been 7C maxx


the water res is wet as hell on the sides, condensation. and the cpu water block is really wet too.

so that needs insulating,

is there anything i can do to my water res to get it to 0C or below?


thank u guys

let me know if u want pics.. but not much to see

[DocGolem]

One suggestions I have is to use a different liquid other than water. Since water freezes at 0c, it won't go any lower and quite possibly won't reach 0c.

Denatured alcohol or concentrated windshield washer fluid are the most common liquids used here.

Also insulating the tank and bypassing the thermostat will yield lower temperatures.

[Aphex_Tom_9]

would using a smaller tank improve things?

[DocGolem]

would using a smaller tank improve things?

The smaller tank will create a faster pull down and overall lower temperature since there is a smaller load, but in the long run, the system will have to work harder to maintain the temperature. A larger res will take longer to pull down but will sustain that temperature for much longer.

So it's up to you. Do you want something that may take longer to pull down? or one that will pull down quick and may have temperatures rise after prolonged use?

[Marvin]

Insulate it.
your gains would be big.

[MaRtIe]

thanks guys, so really no matter what power i get, it wont go below 0C because i need anti freze? thermostat has been by passed.. now i need to insulate this thing.

i want it to maintain a stable temp so i guess i need to keep the big res?

because if i can get this evap to around -10, i should be able to get the water temp into sub zero? sorry for the noobish questions,

and thanks

[DocGolem]

You don't necessarily need antifreeze. What you need is a liquid that can withstand negative temperatures. Denatured alcohol and windshield washer fluid are the most commonly used liquids.

You don't necessarily need a 2 gallon water tank, but a larger tank will only give you a larger buffer between the time you turn on your chiller and the time you turn on your pc.

[MaRtIe]

i mainly need a big res for the fack that the evaperator is really big

[Blergo]

get some pictures of it. we love pictures :p
and get some insulation on the res / pipes / infact anything that gets cold to the touch or has condensation forming on it! obvious exeption is the bottom of the water block untill you are ready to mount it and then you need to follow one of the insulation guides that are floating around. :) keep the res at the moment, you can always put stuff inside it to lower the capacity later if you decide you want faster pull down. deffinatley change the water too something else, otherwise even if there is no ice forming in the water itself it will form in the low pressure area at the pump inlet and you could find yourself with a broken pump. i use windscreen washer fluid in mine. works a treat :) just seal the res properly from the outside air otherwise all the alcohol in it will evaporate and you will be left with funky coloured water / soap mix that will freeze like water..lol..
hope this helps,
owen

[ThunderStorm]

changing from R12 to R22, and insulating it should make the trick...

[Blergo]

personally i wouldnt bother changeing refrigerant yet untill you manage to get the most our of what you have, i have an R12 chiller here that last time i was playing with it got me down to -23*C and CPU temp on a P3 1Ghz (was doign a bit of old school overclocking ;-) you gotta love useing cable ties to hold the waterblock onto the cpu ;-) ) was about -12*C obviously with bad cpu contact aswell because i was useing cable ties..lol.. anyway,get the thing insulated. then mabey id concider changeing the condensor to a smaller active one and regassing it with R290 (propane) I say R290 because you will have a VERY hard time finding R22 cheap in the UK.
owen

[gkiing]

One suggestions I have is to use a different liquid other than water. Since water freezes at 0c, it won't go any lower and quite possibly won't reach 0c.

Denatured alcohol or concentrated windshield washer fluid are the most common liquids used here.

Also insulating the tank and bypassing the thermostat will yield lower temperatures.

Not sure where you heard that :stick: . The water is not limiting it to 0C. If the chiller got to 0c, the water would become ice, and then the ice would get colder. I have seen -40C ice. It can get colder, it just remains a solid.

[DocGolem]

Not sure where you heard that :stick: . The water is not limiting it to 0C. If the chiller got to 0c, the water would become ice, and then the ice would get colder. I have seen -40C ice. It can get colder, it just remains a solid.

Point taken and noted. Isn't it kind of hard to pump ice at any temperature? Just save yourself some headache and get a different liquid.

[MaRtIe]

ive got some anti freeze that has mixed coolant in to to. now my water emp is -10C.. and ime happy with that

[ThunderStorm]

Point taken and noted. Isn't it kind of hard to pump ice at any temperature? Just save yourself some headache and get a different liquid.

lol, it's impossible to pump ice, anyway, you can add anti-freezing components, like metanol or simply anti-freeze liquid that we used to put in cars condensors.

I bought some Shell anti-freezing component and it has a maximum temperature of -37º c. It's a very good mark in a waterchiller, but you can get it even lower... with water and some alchool i made -4 only for tests, but it perfectly runs in the pump. The water that runs in your pipes have lots of additives that changes the normal water properties, that means that the water will not freeze at 0ºc, as i said, mine freezed at -4.

If you want to make some real good temperatures at a waterchiller, just find some pure anti-freezing component (metanol).

My sugestion to raise performance is to insulate very well the system and specialy the tank,it must be very well insulated. If you can change it to R22, better...

[MaRtIe]

i wish i could regas it.. id be right in there.. but unfortunatly i dont have/ dont know where to get th tools, :confused:

what do you sergest for insulation?

[DocGolem]

I used Armaflex insulation tape and Armaflex pipe insulation.

The insulation tape was $6.31 after tax and the pipe insulation was pretty cheap for 12 ft., I think it was around $8. I got these from the Home Depot so any plumbing/heating/cooling store will carry something like them.

Insulation Tape ('http://www.armacell.com/WWW/armacell/armacell.nsf/8c7f80a2702ebd0480256a6200582c2f/1104422ad9b8034cc1256a850030e046?OpenDocument')

Pipe Insulation ('http://www.armacell.com/WWW/armacell/armacell.nsf/8c7f80a2702ebd0480256a6200582c2f/32a0bd3ce2923bf4c1256a690035a9f2?OpenDocument')

The insulation tape sticks and holds so be precise when you're laying the insulation around your blocks.

[MaRtIe]

thanks budday :D ;) ime gonna get right on insulating this thing.. who knows what temps i can hit next ;)

[Bennah]

Got any pics of it bro? Intrested in how you constructed it :D

[MaRtIe]

i did.. ile see if i got them in my camera memory. as u know i had a subzero disaster and riped it off

[MaRtIe]

guys ive got my chiller back up and running. here are pics. i just riped it out the freezer intact :D

pics here (http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/upload/userfiles/MaRtIe/Picture%20014.jpg)

pics here (http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/upload/userfiles/MaRtIe/Picture%20015.jpg)

pics here (http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/upload/userfiles/MaRtIe/Picture%20019.jpg)

and the last pic here (http://www.cryo-laboratory.com/upload/userfiles/MaRtIe/Picture%20013.jpg)

enjoy guys

[Bennah]

So you basically ripped out the compressor and such like from the fridge.

Whats on the end of the white wire/tubing gonig into your huge res ? Then you got the water pumped right from the res to the block and back ?

[MaRtIe]

well the pump is in the water tank, the big red tank :) its looped water res> water block> and back to res. if your taking about those green pipes they are the water cooling pipes sucking the chilled water. the thik white pipe. thats in the air is the sucktion line