Ugliest autocascade ever built out of scrap years ago.

I was too ashamed to show this pile of nonsense because it's so damn ugly, but here it is. Just a little backstory here, but my first autocascade I built back in early 2000 gathers dust and keeps getting stuff dropped on it in storage, so a few years ago I decided to make another out of junk I had left after I stopped doing this sort of thing. Recently I decided to make it even uglier and more powerful, so this is what it looks like now.

I threw on a lot of extra fans to keep the Chinese compressor cool as I don't want a burnout. Been there with the cheap compressors, don't want to be there again. Just trying to see what using old/cheap compressors could accomplish without a good 2nd stage gas, properly insulated ISHX and a good powerful compressor might accomplish.

Degrees are in celsius by the way.

There should be a graphic content warning on that image.

-105c very nice.

Haha thanks, not bad for propane and nitrous oxide. If I bought some copper tubing it would have looked better, but I was just using old copper pipe I had left over from the good old days, so I just made it work with lots of splicing. Having a decent compressor and refrigerants would have made a huge difference, but what can ya do? It was pretty fun to make a Frankenstein's monster and see if it would actually perform well.

Here is another picture of it at the lowest temperature I have got to so far, although it won't hold it. I just did it for the fun of it. I originally only planned on -80c but then wanted more. You know how it goes. ;)

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Originally Posted by aenigma

I was too ashamed to show this pile of nonsense because it's so damn ugly, but here it is. Just a little backstory here, but my first autocascade I built back in early 2000 gathers dust and keeps getting stuff dropped on it in storage, so a few years ago I decided to make another out of junk I had left after I stopped doing this sort of thing. Recently I decided to make it even uglier and more powerful, so this is what it looks like now.

I threw on a lot of extra fans to keep the Chinese compressor cool as I don't want a burnout. Been there with the cheap compressors, don't want to be there again. Just trying to see what using old/cheap compressors could accomplish without a good 2nd stage gas, properly insulated ISHX and a good powerful compressor might accomplish.

Degrees are in celsius by the way.

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Haha... :rofl:
Good stuff dude ;)
Have you shown your neighbors lol?, I can imagine it now, they probably think you've created a monster.
You created a living and probably noisy contraption lol.
Very cool :up:
How many watts does it use?

Is it portable? ... "yeah sure, if you bring a trailer..."
You should post this on guru3d, maybe it'll be the rig of the month lmfao...

Edit:
Someday I want one of these, as long as I can recover the power it uses up with solar.
I'de probably need a kw/hr or 2 just to recover for that though.
But is about what I use for my entire house lol.
I still want one though.
Someday ;).
I wouldn't mind maxing out my cpu that way though.
Or go sub zero liquid cooling, that's another route I was thinking of in the past (I'de use ethanol not methanol, I don't wanna die or go blind from a leak lol).

Nsfw*

That looks safe :up:

haha NEO, It draws about 600 watts.

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Originally Posted by alpha0ne

That looks safe :up:

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:rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aenigma

haha NEO, It draws about 600 watts.

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That's not bad...
So you'de need at least a kw of solar panels to cover it, give or take (I like to est min 2x, really probably needs to be 4x).
That's not to bad at all.

I'm gonna note that down for an avg, 600w's.
Likely gonna need 2400w of solar, about $2600-2800+ for cables, panels, and an inverter, just for a cpu cooler lol.
Totally worth it :D.
I know my est isn't right but still.
That 600w isn't actually a bad # though, I was expecting about 1kw/hr or so.
Thanks for the heads up :up:.

Yeah with 3 compressors you would think it would take a lot more, but they aren't very powerful and after startup and running for a couple minutes the wattage draw drops a lot. May even draw less than a lot of these new overclocked computers with 1000+ watt power supplies running at full load haha. On startup this will draw around 2000 watts for a 10-15 seconds if all 3 compressors start at the same time, but I stage them otherwise it will pop the breaker in the power strip since the bottom compressor whines about starting under that kind of load. In fact it will kick off from the internal overload protector. Pretty sure it's just about toast since it's from the 80's. It had a good run.

Would be nice to get one compressor for it rather than having to throw a bunch of junk compressors in parallel and in series to match one decent Copeland 1hp compressor. But that one is in my other autocascade next to it in that last picture. That's my old one I ruined up by going to a plate heat exchanger, Teyber evap and splitting a roll of the wrong size of capillary tube in half for both stages because I ruined my CPV while brazing and got pissed lol. One of these days I might strip all the insulation and set it up right so it gets to -100c again.