Chilling for n00bs and poor; my project finished

[Miles_Teg]

Hi fellas,

This will be a rather lengthy post about my Liquid Chiller from start to finish. Anyone is free ofcourse to copy my project; it's especially ideal for guys that don't know the first thing about the phasechange principle, it's just not needed. The reason for me personally to have done things the way I did, is because very little funds are needed, and I live in a country where phasechange related hardware is very very hard to get, let alone refrigerant.
Let's start from day 1 shall we? First I bought this thing off an online auction...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/waterchiller.jpg

As this thing is a liquid chiller allready, in essence all I needed to do was add some tubes, a waterblock and a pump. Yet, I decided I might as well make it somewhat visually appealing, so along came a lot more work then I had in mind. First thing I did was taking snapshots of the spec. tag...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Chiller_spectag.jpg

1/20 hp(!) R134A. That's not a whole lot. I searched the Danfoss site and came up with a nice PDF (http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Danfoss_TL2.5F.pdf) about the compressor, it's a TL2.5F. At this point I thought about giving up on the thing, as it's so weak. But hey, I bought it, I might as well try it, right? So I started stripping it's bidy off...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Chiller_stripped.jpg

The internal reservoir stands too high for my taste, so I had to bring it down some...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/1floordown.jpg

Next pic shows the reservoir. It's made of aluminium, and houses the evaporator in it's walls...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Reservoir.jpg

Now it's about time for an initial testrun to see what the thing is capable off. I re-routed some wires, bypassed the thermostat, connected a hose to the outlet and filled it up with some antifreeze...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/-24C.jpg

Next I made a lid to fit on the reservoir, and a couple of pieces of closed-cell foam for insulation...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Lid.jpg
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Lid_Insulation.jpg

Now it's time to insulate the waterblock. I used the same closed-cell foam, as I just have a lot of it. It's a mat for backpackers to sleep on, approx 1/3" or 8mm thick. Got it for € 2,50...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/WB_Insulation.jpg

I got the coolant I used at an automotive store, nice 'n cheap windshield wiper fluid. Will go down to -70°C the bottle says. After playing around with it for a while, I ended up with a 50/50 mixture with water. According to the bottle, good for -25°C...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Coolant.jpg

The waterblock shown is a DD Maze2 V2. The block was made for S462, but I made my own plexi holddown. (Covered in foam on the pic) Next I connected some more hoses, the waterblock and did some construction work on the housing, using 8mm MDF wood...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Construction1.jpg
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Construction2.jpg

I made used a switch for on/off action, and one to use the thermostat, or to bypass it. Both switches have lill' LEDs built in. The thermostat bypass switch will illuminate if the compressor is running, regardless if it's being controlled by thermostat of running full time. I used a radioshack-type digital temperature sensor, which won't be very accurate, but it'll do. Next up was some more work on the housing...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Chiller.jpg

What we have here my friends is an iced over waterblock. If the chiller is being set to run full-time, the coolant will go down to -18.5°C. Better then I thought. The taped-in armaflex was 'leaking cold' so I redid the armaflex job, and glued it this time. Next up was a paint-job to get the aestetics I was looking for. Also added some aluminium L shapes to it's corners...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/Paintjob.jpg

So that's the finished product. Now to prepare the mainboard. I cut up some more closed-cell foam, and managed to get an airtight fit making excessive use of vaselin. (non-acid/ no H2O / metalprotector type)...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/MB_Insulation.jpg

The black piece you see between the PCI and DIMM slots is a piece of neoprene. I cut up my mousepad for this, as the foam was to thick for the back of the mainboard. I checked everything for conductivity before attaching it to the mainboard. After waterblock installation things look like this...
http://members.home.nl/jan.barelds/Miles/Chiller/WB_Mounted.jpg

This concludes my guide, a few notes left to mention. The chiller can hold a liquid temp of around -10°C with my 2.4C @ 3.5GHz. After leaving the chiller running a night, the coolant temp will settle around -18.5°C. Even with an overclocked CPU, the liquid temp will only increase quite slowly upon starting the PC. More then enough time to do some hardware finetuning and benching. BUT. The coolant temp IS NOT the CPU temp. There's a difference (dT) of around 19~21 °C between coolant and CPU temp. This means that even if the coolant is quite cold, the CPU still won't reach minus temps. Baring this in mind, I'm still pleased with my chiller's performance, but I do have to say I'm allready looking at Direct-Die to take on. Might take me years of collecting stuff though :( But I'll see you when I get there ;)

Anyway; let me know what you think.

Miles.

[berkut]

Add a fan on that poor condenser

[kommando]

Add fans as Berkut said and it'd be sweet.

[Gary Lloyd]

It doesn't really need a fan, but it wouldn't hurt and might gain a degree or two.

Very nice job, BTW. :toast:

[pippin88]

Nice job, looks very professional.

Is it quiet?

[TheDogFather]

Yeah, nice work. I like it. :)

TDF.

[Miles_Teg]

Thought about adding fans on the condensor, and 'a degree or two' (as Gary states) would justify it for me. Have one laying around, a 120mm Sunon one. Might need another one just in case. Been benchmarking all day, and it seems just a few degrees really do influence stability if the CPU is running on it's toes.

And yeah, it really is very quiet, as in not hearable if the PC is on. All I hear every now and then is a 'click' from the thermostat switching the compressor on and off. If the PC is on, but just running at defaults, the compressor is on for around half the time. As in 10mins on / 10 mins off cycles. The thermostat is set to +5°C. During everyday PC use I run stuff at stock speeds, as 3.5GHz is not really neccessary while browsing or if the girl is typin' recepies ;)

[Bartje]

Hey Bro me again...

It seems this chiller just won't be enough for my GPU block with 172W Tec.. water temp went from 16C to 40C in 30 mins.. I'll let it running for a while to see where as the Water temp stops rising..

[saratoga]

Thats surprisingly good results for a 1/20th of a HP (just 40w!). Will be great on your power bill to0.

[OCme]

well done, and neatly finished... doesn't look much bigger than a prommie

[Slay3r]

Nice.

[NesQuiK]

hey , just to wonder . how did you make the reservoirs temps go to -24 , those machine usually run at like +10 degrees or else when you would want to drink water it would be frozen ?
can anyone help me on this

[Miles_Teg]

Well,

The thing is, them things are regulated by thermostat normally to keep the water from freezing. Just yank it off, and temps will be much better.

[blinky]

Originally posted by OCme
well done, and neatly finished... doesn't look much bigger than a prommie it looks 3 or 4 feet high, so its a lot bigger, but its nice and cheap and performs decently

good job mate

[OddOne]

Great job !!

[Reflex1]

Love the case ;)

wot are those controls on the top for?

[embro]

damn i didn't know that these unit could go THAT low. Good job!!!

[kayl]

i love the finished case it looks so profesional, i want one

[texuspete00]

Originally posted by OCme
... doesn't look much bigger than a prommie



:confused:

[Miles_Teg]

IT IS a lot bigger then a prommie! Standing up around 80cm tall.

The controls are for on/off action and a thermostat bypass.

[Epsilon]

That compressor is strong enough to get 0c water 300w loaded !!

My m8 has a chiller custom made with this compressor

pic:
http://www.voidyourwarranty.nl/images/projects/Red%20Darkness/chiller/chiller%202.JPG
http://www.voidyourwarranty.nl/images/projects/Red%20Darkness/chiller/chiller.JPG

edit:
Ik zie nu pas dat je nederlands bent, waar heb je dat ding gehaalt ?

[afireinside]

Um... Wheres the evap :p:

[Miles_Teg]

Epsilon,

I bought the cool water thingy 2nd hand from 'marktplaats.nl'. Really was a bargain. I know about the compressor being able to do alot more then in my current setup, but I wanted to leave the refrigeration system intact as I didn't know about HaegKoeling selling parts back then ;) Anyway, already sold the thing to my brother, and I'm ready for a new project. Got a nice R12 1/8 HP compressor and alot of 1/4" pipe. Capillary will come from HeagKoeling. Still trying to solve the evap issue (wanna go direct-die on this one). Don't wanna go bankrupt on a baker18 block ya c ;) Still have to find a friendly A/C mechanic too to charge it.

[Epsilon]

haeg can fill the system when it's ready (for about 50euro)
My prommy is refilled by them and i've met them a couple of times

[Bartje]

Nice!! I'll be getting a prommie as well.. might get a revill as well as it is very cheapo :rolleyes:

This cooling unit (the one Miles Teg build) will be used to cool my 172W Tec/water cooled vid-card..

To bad it hasn't got enough power to keep the water cool with a Tec added, i will be using a car rad as well to cool the water when its above room temp...

Right now thinking of a way to bypass the rad for the times the water is below room temp...

[ns_ripper]

:off:


Originally posted by Epsilon
edit:
Ik zie nu pas dat je nederlands bent, waar heb je dat ding gehaalt ?

is dat ook nederlands? :devil: