Airtight Case

Hey all,

I wanted to share my latest creation, thanks to what I have learned from the great XS community. This has been done before, by a number of members here at XS, I take no credit for coming up with this idea, but I wanted to show my version of this often neglected design.

The Airtight Case :thumbsup:

So I modified a window airconditioner and turned it into a chiller last summer. Since then I have been fighting, struggling, and wasting lots of time fighting the dreaded CONDENSATION :eek:

But now, thanks to this, condensation is a thing of the past...

I am condensation free running at -20ish res temps, chilling the gpu / cpu and the case itself. CPU temp reads -10c, gpu temp (6800gt) is broken, a cool 256C :p: and Case ambient temps hover at -2C :woot:

On with the pics. Here we have the Entire Case

And again

Homemade err "Custom" ;) GPU Block

Cables going out and standard cable plugs no tricks here :p:

Next we have the seal around the tubes

The Water Block notice the suspicious lack of insulation :)

A radiator inside the box ??!?!?! in a Chiller loop :eek: Yes. pumping -10 C liquid through it, and then blowing air over it helps overcome the heat buildup from having a sealed box.... infact as I mentioned before, the onboard temp sensor reads -2C ambient, and my GPU ambient reads 5C before erroring up to 120C... point being I actually need to insulate the outside of the box lol. More on that later.

Silica Gel need to keep the air in here dry, airtight boxes only work when there is no moisture in the air (just to clarify that)

The outter cable seal yes thats our good friend Hot Glue ;)

Not so much of a "case", but it works! ;)

That looks amazing. Great ideas with the cables and the hot glue and the radiator inside the case to dissipate the heat generated by the motherboard.

Now, you have to figure out how to get a CD drive working from within there.

Looks great.

Outside of the tubes Silicone Seal this time, -20C was a bit to low for hot glue to handle long term

The whole thing all sealed up


Semi-transparent makes it easy to see what the hell is going on in there if problems arise (none yet though)

You can see my chiller in the background in this shot neighbors still think its an AC unit :rolleyes:

Not much to say about this but its got the half in half out thing going on heh




So there we have it. Now I bet you are asking ... where are the Xtreme Benches and whatnot. Well I have not have time to do many yet. 2 reasons, first I have been testing this carefully to ensure it actually works. And for the record it does, 6+ hours on daily for a week now, no condensation at all. I have primed for 4 hours, and the case temp rose to a horrid 1C :banana: So I would say it works.

The other thing is my 6800gt thinks its too hot and clocks down so far I feel like I am benching a geforce 2. So I need to flash the bios as discussed in many threads here on XS.

I will post again soon with more actual results. Until then, thanks again to this community. Everyone here rocks, I never even dreamed about this stuff before I came here... now I live for it.

-edit

Hardware specs:

3.2 E C0 (14 multi option) at 4.1ghz (thats before this mod, hope to get more)

1gb ocz pc3700eb (have yet to find max timings and speeds)

6800gt that should work great with a bios that doesnt thermal throttle

2 x 74gb raptors raided, I think they like sitting in -1C ambient air :)

PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI .... This thing overvolts when cold ..... outside the box the 12volt rail was 12.2 ...... inside its at 12.9 this is measured with a DMM, and I have not touched the pots. The other rails went up as well, but not as much. I guess the de-rating curve works the other way when temps drop lol

That a really cool case. I might want to try that now. I have a couple parts lying around.

lol, gj, tho, i must say, i dun think its completley air tight until u whip out the seranwrap, and wrap the edges of the lid :D

A nice big long strip of the handy man's secret weapon duct tape works better than seran wrap for sealing the lid. I bet the box starts sweating when the temp inside is -2. :p:
Also, try using seal string or something like it as a sort of weather stripping before you put the duct tape strip on, it works quite well. :D

Nice Frozendeath, very nice!

Yes, its not a 100% seal yet, as I was testing I needed to open it a lot, but now that I know it works, tape along with some spring clamps should hold it :)

And sin, yes it gets all wet and condensed water starts running onto my desk. I have a sheet of 1inch thick foam insulation, I need to cut that to the proper size and glue it to the box.

I think the overall heatload should go down once the box is not exposed to room temperature air.

How long for benchies? :banana: Great job! :toast:

Usama aka Ferrari Freak

Very interesting! Any pictures of the chiller?

Sure, here are some pics

I'm sorry I cant show you more inside detail as its hanging in my window but its a homemade res (1 inch thick foam sheeting silicone sealed together to keep it water tight) with the evap submersed in it and the tubes are just pushed apart to opposite ends of the box.

anyway here we are:


Front of unit
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/g/.../mainfront.JPG


Control Panel
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/g/...ED/control.JPG

Resevior (cant show the inside as the camera wont properly get there with the unit in the window) here is the design:

Top down view
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32270&stc=1
Notice the coolant is forced through the evap atleast twice, this greatly improved my pull down time, 25C to - 15 c in only 10 mins, max low LOAD temp of -32C normally in mid neg 20's. The temp varies depending on season, 90F outside condensor temp in summer, or 15F condensor temp in winter :p:

Best real life res view
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/g/j/gjg151/ED/res.JPG


The pump (350gph)
http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/g/...ED/bigpump.JPG
silicone sealed the entire front to prevent possible cracking, then pipe wrapped it for good measure :)

Pump has been wired into the systems controls as shown above, that one knob can do:

Pump only, just runs pump, nice for a quick startup as it acts like a normal water loop heat is transfered into the res

Chill only, pump does not run, just gets the res liquid super cold super fast

Pump and chill, the main use chill the res, flip over to this and boot the comp

Benches coming soon...

Awesome setup! Coolest chiller systems I've seen. I hope to build my own chiller this summer, and this is definitely an inspiring thread. :toast:

Insane! I'm in the middle of constructing my water chiller, i think i'll go for your idea and built myself condensation proof case (no need to silicone the motherboard - no problems at RMAs :P).

very cool thing :)

amazing setup u got there. cant wait for some results...

You got me so inspired i'm constructing my own airtight box right now :D

Nice Tiborrr, Airtight is the way to go. Benches Coming tomorrow after work.... finally :banana:

First round of benches:

System specs:
p4c800E-D vdroop and vdimm modded
1gb OCZ pc3700 EB ram @ 3.01v
3.2E C0 @ 1.5v (droop mod overvolts at idle)
BFG 6800 GT @ stock everything due to bios cold bug (will fix asap, this weekend I hope)

I do not think I have found my true max, 260fsb needed 1.45vcore, this needed 1.5vcore, not sure what the highest safe voltage for a pressy is, but I think this was a good first run.

On with the benches, all 2d at this time as my GT is at stock as mentioned above.

CPUZ validation link
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32571&stc=1

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32572&stc=1

Ram in depth (not totally tweaked yet, won't go over 253 fsb 1:1 @ 3.1v so 5:4 for now)
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32573&stc=1

Super pi, windows xp, not tweaked or anything, just closed some programs and gave pi realtime status:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32575&stc=1

Sandra Stuff, yes that mem bandwidth is low :( :(
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=32576&stc=1

More soon, 3d benches when my GT stops throttling below 15C
Any benches you want to see, I will try to do requests. I know these are no where near world records lol :p: but this is a crappy pressy at -20C totally uninsulated :cool:

I am strongly considering a dothan and adapter, hell with no insulation needed that would be a super easy upgrade and I could run my mem 1:1.

Very nice indeed, like the temperatures a lot. Just one more question. How big is your water chilled reservoir (in litres/galons).

Thumbs up! 8)

The whole loop holds just under 1.5 gallons of liquid. I feel its enough to keeep temps stable, but not so much that it takes 2 hours to get cold :)

That's about 6.5-6.7 litres. Sweet! I'm planning 10 litres tank. The whole thing will be on an modified computer board (pc case on top, cooling system on the bootom) with wheelies to make transportation easier :D

Hah. I have been thinking sometimes this same project if i get to compressors some day but i guess it wasnt so original idea as i thought :)

Put some silicagel bags in there to kill every last bit of humidity.

I would place only mobo&stuff in it to insolation but i realize it requires quite a job to get all cables from there properly.

Why woun't you put your HDD and PSU aswell? They would sure be grateful :)

Yeah, his air is just warm enough that they won't have issues.

That is pretty darn cool..... if I wasn't such a chicken with my hardware (computer has double-duty since I work at home too) I'd do it :(

Well done Frozendeath, that's pretty darn cool! :) No pun intended.

I didn't think the temps were going to be that low. The 1GHz OC on your chip looks good. Keep it up! :D

Well done indeed and pretty damn cool looking! :toast:

Just ordered a Ct-479 and 730 Dothan :eek: :woot:

Can't wait to see how that fairs in here. With no condensation I do not need to insulate the adapter, which was my main concern before.

Will update once that gets here later this week.

Dothan is here, no benches yet, first lets cover how it is mounted...

A little work on the lathe with some filing turns 3/8inch bar stock into these...another view for clarity.

Next they are mounted onto the motherboard using a screw up through the bottom. Right and Left

The whole socket is shown here, it is hard to see but there is a foam shim around the entire core.... you guessed it, it's the stock shim that was stuck to Asus' heatsink :p: why reinvent the wheel when someone already did ;)

Now we sit the block down, and realize that the jumpers and power connector DO hit, so we bend a bit, and add a dab of solder and we get to here

A close up of the mounting

Finally the finished product



Benches coming soon as I get more time to play :D

I reallyl like the mount you made. quote innovative. Props to you for thinking of the idea.

Nice work man. Your design is very similar to mine.
I just started building my system after many months of reading and with my work schedule it will be a slow process. I have scrapped the direct die and went with a chilled water setup, but I will have a second unit cooling my box. I think I will leave the Power supply outside of the box and put my raid inside. You had some very good ideas that I was trying to figure out and it looks like you solved a few of my problems. Keep up the good work and look out for posts on my build.

very nicely done =]

K would put something rubber between the adaptor and the mount you made JUST IN CASE!!!

Very nice....... :D :D

But as I see, most of these overclocked set-up's all use the DVI > VGA adaptor for the display :confused: :confused: Since you spend so much money on you PC why not spend a little on your display :p:

its probably a benching rig...therefore no need to have a fancy monitor :D or perhaps one of those crt monitors that are capable of true HD resolution

Ok short story here, I run 2 displays: viewsonic 17inch (forget the exact model as I am at work) and a homemade projector (quite a project that was)...

The viewsonic takes dvi and anolog in, homemade projector takes anolog only .... so I have 2 outputs, 1 HAS to be anolog for the projector, the other could be dvi, but the cost of a dvi extension cable to get outside of the airtight box was not worth the cost.....

So we have an adpater which the card came with, and standard vga extension :p:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by echow87

its probably a benching rig...therefore no need to have a fancy monitor :D or perhaps one of those crt monitors that are capable of true HD resolution

---

There are TONS of displays LCD's and CRT's that have HD resloution.......
;) HD starts at 1280x720 not 1920x1080 ;)

Yeah, but nobody likes 720p. It's smelly. :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by (sin)morpheus

Yeah, but nobody likes 720p. It's smelly. :P

---

I can't help that
:p:

I know this thread is really old but could you give some details about your chiller. Did you have to braze anything or were u able to use the AC intact? What kind of foam is that/where do you buy it? I just got a window ac to use, and I would love to replicate yours. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eclipsed

I know this thread is really old but could you give some details about your chiller. Did you have to braze anything or were u able to use the AC intact? What kind of foam is that/where do you buy it? I just got a window ac to use, and I would love to replicate yours. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

---

same request from me! i have an ac unit also, not looking for too hard of work without normal tools, cuz im only 15.

The chiller:

I have changed chillers since I first posted this, however the airtight box is the same, and is working flawlessly :) As for the chiller (I still have it just not using it) it is a 5100 btu AC unit.

No brazing was required, just some bending, glueing and wiring.

The res is made out of 1 inch think foam insulation. It can be bought at Homedepot in 4 x 8 sheets. just look for the big thick pink foam sheets :p:

The res was made as follows:

The foam was cut to size, then silicone sealed together. Once that dried it was tested to be water tight. Once I was sure it held water, I lined the inside of the res with a thick plastic lining. Basically like a clear shower curtain type of plastic. There were no seams in the plastic so that also held water. Once the res was lined with this plastic, it had 2 watertight walls. The plastic was the first, and if the should ever rip, the foam itself would hold the water.

Next the plastic was held to the foam with fiberglass tape. The corners of the foam res were also reinforced with fiberglass tape on the outside. This ensures that the corners will not break apart due to the weight of the water on them.

By leaving enough slack in the plastic lining as mentioned above, it fit the res perfectly when filled with liquid. That is to say, the water pushed the liner against the foam walls, there are no air gaps or bubbles between the plastic and the foam.

At that point only a slight bit of bending was needed to submerge the evap into the foam box.

Now in order to get to the evap, I have to cut the front half of the fan shaft (in my AC the inner fan blowing over the evap was running off the same shaft that the condenser fan was. So I cut the shaft to remove the evap fan, and that allowed the res to sit around the evap.

The lid was then made out of the same foam, and silicone sealed around the top edge of the foam res. Holes were cut in the lid to allow tubing to slide into it. The actual pump sits aside of the chiiler as it is NOT submerged into the res.

Hope that helps you better understand my chiller.



It served me well, but I grew tired of it hanging in my window (could never move my computer, even to another room in my house)

So now I am just finishing up a chiller built from scratch that fits under the air tight container. as seen below:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=36158&stc=1

and:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=36159&stc=1

and:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=36160&stc=1

finally:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...id=36162&stc=1



I am still tweaking this setup, thus you can tell it is far from finished, but I am very happy with it so far, the same performance as the window AC chiller, only smaller, and built right into the custom case I created :)


If anyone has more questions I will gladly answer them.

Awesome,
thank you soo much for the info! Your new chiller looks great too. I'ma college student so I dont' really have the tools or the room to make one from scratch, so your option looks great. Thanks!