Phantom, Dual Wall Clear LN2 Evaporator - First Encounter

This is my first encounter with the Phantom, Clear Dual Wall LN2 Evaporator

The Phantom
Made by www.LN2cooling.com

Special thanks to:
Aaron Schradin who was truly a pleasure to work with on this project.
Simon Solotko from AMD for his help with this project also.
Special thanks to Chew for the use of his TWKR. Chew is a top notch bencher, one of the best, and very nice, helpful guy !

One of the things that I really like about benching computers is the cooling aspect of each run. I have tried to stay on top of as many types of Extreme Cooling as I can, given the resources that I have. One question I remember hearing one time was “how does become a really good bencher”, something along those lines away. The answer was pretty simple, get the best cooling you can and the rest will follow with lots of hard work.

I began using many methods of cooling but SS Phase really got my attention at first so off I went to find one of the best units I could at that time. After some time a SS Phase unit built by one of my favorite builders, Jin Park, was in my shop and I was soon benching away with that.

It became very clear to me at that time that even though this SS Phase unit was very well built and could hold CPU’s at very good temps under high loads, aprox -51c unloaded and I have not gotten that unit below -39c under high loads, that it was just not cold enough for what I wanted to do. But I had the Phase/Cascade bug bad !

I then moved on to LN2 cooling as being able to get a Cascade was very hard to do. Yes this website XS has had a very bad influence on me LOL !

At this time, and now, LN2 pots made by K|ngP|n or Vince were the best we could get so I collected a few of them. The F1 and Tek’s filled my bench and were used on every bench run that I did. I also collected other pots made by others, MickMouse CPU Pot, Evaps and other SS Phase units. I love to collect these items as often I as I can :)

The next problem was a Dewar to hold LN2 in for benching. This was also not an easy thing to find. Keeping a eye out on ebay and other places I finally found a Taylor Wharton LD50 with pressure top and this has served me well.

Sometime later I had the chance to go to XS in Las Vegas for a very special event, the AMD LHe event where AMD CPU’s would be taken down to temps unheard of and benched at Extreme Conditions. At this event I saw several new pots being used, one was the early LHe pot built by Aaron Schradin with Simon Solotko.

Another event later in Austin Texas by AMD again the video Xtreme Conditions was created and I had the first chance to see the Phantom LN2 Evaporator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR--2ivkFSQ&fmt=22

I saw this video and became very interested in this new tech for LN2 cooling.

Getting in touch with Aaron Schradin and we soon had a new pot being made for me. Aaron was a pleasure to work with on this project, very friendly and I believe he wanted to make a pot like no other. It was a few weeks to get all this done and after many emails exchanges, ones like “It’s Shipped”, and “It’s in your town now !”, I finally had this monster of a LN2 pot in my hands.

When I opened the box my eyes were like as wide open as they possibly could, I just went OMG when I held it for the first time. The pot that Aaron made for me is rather big for a LN2 pot at 15” tall.

Here is some data on this Evaporator, taken from www.LN2cooling.com

Careful materials selection is critical!

Importance of Materials Selection
• Why copper, and what type?
– At normal operating temperatures, there is little noticeable difference in thermal conductivity values in various copper grades.
– However, as temperatures decrease, conductivity of various grades increase at drastically different rates.
• Conductivity of “pure” copper
– Copper at 300K thermal conductivity is nearly 400 watts/m °C
– Copper at 100K thermal conductivity is nearly 400 watts/m °C
– Copper at 18K thermal conductivity is nearly 4000 watts/m °C
– Copper at 10K thermal conductivity is nearly 2000 watts/m °C
– Increase of a factor of nearly 10 times at the peak!
• Conductivity comparison of other materials at low Kelvin values
– Silver increases to 193 watts/cm °C from 4.5 watts/cm °C
– Aluminum increases to 71.5 watts/cm °C from 3.0 watts/cm °C

Interesting Temperatures for Simon’s Experiment

• Wood alcohol (methanol)
– freezes at -97.8° C (-144.0° F)
– boils at 64.7° C (148.5°F)
• Grain alcohol (ethanol)
– freezes at -114.1° C (-173.4° F) -- Everclear Alcohol? Something 180+ Proof
– boils at 78.5° C (173.3° F)
• Liquors:
– 24 proof liquor freezes at -6.7°C (20°F)
– 64 proof liquor freezes at -23.33°C (-10°F)
– 84 proof liquor freezes at -34.44°C (-30°F)
• Isopropyl Alcohol
– 90% isopropyl freezes around -90.0°C

I prefer to not show pictures of the base or how it was machined, if you are interested in this please contact www.LN2cooling.com

The base is rather complex and from what I understand took a fair amount of time to machine out. It is not simple holes drilled into a base of copper.
It is made from 99.9% pure copper and weighs ~ (need to get this weighed and I will add it in here)

So now that the Pot is here and ready to go I invited a few friends over for a benching party so they could see this wonderful pot in use also.
They were Cpt. Planet – Jake, Punx – Shannon, and Nick from EVGA, Nordic Jedi from 411overkill and ocgmj from NBOC.
As the rabid over clocking madmen headed straight from work on Friday and drove for 7 hours to get to my place which they did at about 1:00am Saturday morning and began setting up equipment right away, the session had started very early LOL ! Very sorry to ocgmj who arrived at noon that day and missed most of the benching session, very sorry about that :(

A few of these guys had not benched on LN2 before so this would be there very first time, how fitting to have the Phantom here for that :)

The Phantom was setup and benching started.

I must add here that this was my first encounter with this pot and was very tried when we ran this test. I had assumed that the pot was ready to go and had forgotten the instructions on applying the Teflon Tape on the mating surfaces, yup I am a idiot !

Out here in Calif getting 190 proof alcohol is impossible so I ended up using 80 proof vodka.
The test was started and soon found that we had leaks, and alcohol had leaked into the main chamber and would gel up and clog the base of the pot. That was unfortunate for this event but caused no serious problems.

Now I am not sure if the effects we saw were because of the leak but we had rather strange results from this session.

One of the effects that we noticed early on was how it pulled down temps. I would pour a good dose of LN2 into the pot and it would start to drop temps, but we reached a point where more LN2 being poured would actually warm up the pot. The best zone of LN2 we found was to keep the level of LN2 just down at the base. But filling up the pot to the top was ok for the first cool downs and made a really good show :) With a small dose of LN2 in the base it would make strange noises as the LN2 was moved about and being jetted around by the design of the base.

As we started benching the leak had began to clog up the base with gelled alcohol and we saw pretty bad temp swings and was impossible to keep at a given temp. We ended up stopping as the whole column was starting to gel up pretty bad. I has installed the temp probe in the eraser next to the CPU heat spreader. I am not sure if it was reading correctly there as we only saw a max temp of -159c I think it was, maybe because of the stacking effect of LN2 in the chamber, I am not sure.

Conclusion was that using 80 proof alcohol was a problem with how long you could run the pot before it started gelling up, higher proof = longer runs. I will have to try and find another liquid for this.
The inner tube or LN2 chamber seems to stack up LN2 in the tube, mixing with gas and boiling, making it hard for the cooling effect of liquid LN2 to stay in the base. Plus I also think that this pot is simply too tall, but usable. Bigger is better right ? well in this case it’s not really needed to be as tall :)

This is a extremely well made and nice evaporator and has strong possibilities for future use and tuning for better effects, there are a few problems with it now as any new tech has but I think that this can be figured out and tuned for better effects. It makes a really nice show but with size of the one I had built, but using it with one person is rather hard. But this pot would make a great addition for any benching show and other events.

Here are some pictures and video of its use.
The video is rather simple and crude. I am not a video artist, yet anyway and we were pretty tired when this was taken early in the morning. But it gives you a idea of how it looks and the gelling problem we saw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLo7Dr_kR2U

I will get the leaking problem fixed up for the next run.

As with any new tech things evolve and change, I think this design has promise and I am sure it will improve with future units. Just like the very first LHe evaporators evolved I am sure this design will also. So take this as a first peak, or second anyway at some very exciting new tech that I am sure will become better with future models.

We don’t really have any benching results from this run because of the problems I stated.

Photos by Jake – Cpt. Planet and Lee – Nordicjedi

So here we have some prepping up pictures.

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5568/1002474u.jpg

http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/4302/1002479.jpg

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/2616/1002485p.jpg

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/4383/1002487.jpg

Getting it setup on the bench

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7769/dsc0031v.jpg

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/8931/dsc0030ieg.jpg

http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7907/dsc0019s.jpg

And the first pours start

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/5201/1002530v.jpg

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8523/1002531v.jpg

http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/8031/1002538y.jpg

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3334/1002533m.jpg

Here we start seeing some of the alcohol start to gel up, this is the inside of the LN2 chamber were alcohol has been blasted up in the tube.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/9742/1002567.jpg

And here its gelling up in the alcohol chamber

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/2661/1002572.jpg

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6998/1002575k.jpg

And what it looked like in the base chamber when we finished, it was pretty clogged up.

http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/3669/1002578.jpg

And the crazy bunch of rabid benchers who were dead tired but continued to bench away for 18 hours LOL !
Left to right – Me, Nick, Jake – Cpt. Planet, Shannon – Punx and ocgmj – George

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/2351/1002676.jpg

Video uploaded

Yep that alcohol leaking into ln2 chamber surely botched your temps. Installing probe against side of IHS is never going to see the right temps, its part of my recipe for running 06 though ;) you can get a ballpark at what temps you fail at. It helps in eliminating whether you need to add volts or if its a temp issue.

Next time attach Probe to bottom of pot with tape, bet you see a very small swing.

That thing is massive. Great pics!

Nice Buckeye!!:up: Always interested in new products and this looks very interesting. Great pics & I didn't realize you are an ol' cougar like me!:rofl::rofl:

Great read, thanks mate! :up:
Hope you guys had a blast there, although I gotta admit that was a pretty early start! :D
This pot looks amazing (and damn, it's huge :cool:). Pity about the leaks, but I'm sure you can do something about it. :yepp:
And vodka idea wasn't that bad, huh? :ROTF:

Edit: nice video btw! :up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Expat GriZ

Nice Buckeye!!:up: Always interested in new products and this looks very interesting. Great pics & I didn't realize you are an ol' cougar like me!:rofl::rofl:

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HAHA Expat, yup an ol' cougar I am, or I am sure I could be called a few other good names hehe :)

Thanks again Chew for your info and I will do that next time with the temp probe :up:

On this first encounter I clearly made a few mistakes and was extremely tired when we got around to getting this pot rolling. I will run this again in a more controlled setting and not be so tired.

All the benchers in the pic had been trying to get up here for a long time to bench and this was as good a reason as any for them to make the long trip.

I think we can get this bad boy tuned up a bit and get it to become more useful, that and not have a tired idiot running it LOL. It's a very interesting pot to run on LN2 that is for sure.

One of the neat things about it is, the center tube can be taken out and run on LN2 that way, it is a bit tall to run like that tho and this whole unit may be required to be down sized to work better. It's neat to see how it works with large pours and pulling down temps, but for actually running when the temps are pulled down a far shorter pot is more useful.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zalbard

And vodka idea wasn't that bad, huh? :ROTF:

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LOL Zal I was thinking about you when I went and picked up the vodka ;)

I wonder what kind of drinks you could make with vodka gelled up at -180c :ROTF:

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/618178.png
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=618178

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/1633/leeetsuace.th.jpg

Thanks for posted that Jake, I was waiting for you to do that :)

Nice job guys. That is a very interesting pot design, I watched Chew* play with it down in Austin while I doodled away with my F1EE. Still prefer the F1EE, not as flashy but 1/3 the height :D

I have a faster time somewhere on one of the drives I know that.

Nice chip. Hopefully when you get the leak solved you can show us some nice 3d as well from this pot.

Looks cool, especially when pulling down :)

What's the purpose of the alcohol chamber? I can't see that enhancing the cooling effects of nitro with any base design :shrug:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by G H Z

Looks cool, especially when pulling down :)

What's the purpose of the alcohol chamber? I can't see that enhancing the cooling effects of nitro with any base design :shrug:

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Bling factor. For max performance pull the inner tube and let it rip. Everclear helps keep the temps a tad more stable when dual wall, but its mostly for show. When sealed properly it actually works as well.

Thats what I have decied to do Chew, have a new set of tubes being made that are shorter. Aaron is a great guy to work with on all this, many ideas on how to do things. Some things are going to be very, very cool.

So with shorter tubes I can use it with inner tube installed or pull it out and go full boar.

I am pretty torn about having the tubes I have now cut down as it's just to sweet to see this baby running at 15"

But a second set of shorter tubes will be nice to have also, gives me many more options for setups. Very flexable.

That thing is so cool looking and love the movie. Thanks! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by loonym

That thing is so cool looking and love the movie. Thanks! :D

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HAHA Thanks :)

I am not a video person, yet anyway, did the best I could. It's not Simon quality but it's ok :up:

Getting ready for another round of testing :shocked::clap::ROTF:

:rofl:

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/8935/img1251k.jpg

http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/3139/img1250k.jpg

Are you sure that's enough? :D

^No.

Good luck with another round of benches.

Bench setup

Thanks Gigabyte for the Motherboard !
GPU was from Gigabyte GOOC 09

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/3236/pic0004i.jpg

A few frosty pictures :D

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/9844/img1256r.jpg

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8176/img1260z.jpg

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/858/img1259b.jpg

That's some amazing stuff. Looks like Vince is gonna be here with Sammy at Quakecom. :up:

Haha, buckeye, buy cascade just to use the top as a bench table :p:

I really wish I could make it to Quakecon, but to low on funds atm :(

LOL the Cascade makes a great bench top. :ROTF:
I use that Cascade almost everyday tho, and not just for a bench top LOL

So far though this pot is a dream to use, almost no baby sitting, just pour LN2 and bench away.

After mounting the pot turn on the comp and watch temps until about 50c or so. Give the pot a few twists to get it seated nice and tight. Screw the thumb screws down a bit tighter and we are ready to go cold.

I pour a full thermo of LN2 into the tube and watch temps drop like a rock and before you know it you are at max LN2 temps.

Seems the best use is aprox 1" - 2" of LN2 in the tube and that last quite awhile before needing any more.
You can tell without looking that its times for more LN2 by the sound. Pour some more and leave it. It really is no effort.