diy radiator. old condenser from aircon

[nipps]

has anyone thought of using an old condenser from an old aircon as a radiator for a liquid cooling system?

finding a de-gassed aircon unit is not hard and they are not hard to take apart. i was thinking of putting 2 low rpm 300mm fans on this one to cool my pc with minimal sound.


this radiator has to loops. im planning to have one cool the cpu and one cool the chipset and gpu.


however i do have a few problems...

one- is this a good idea?

two- cleaning, there is some sort of oil in the copper pipes. any idea on how to clean it out?

three- volume, this radiator fits a fair bit of liquid in it. the idea of savaging a radiator is to do this on a budget. where can i find coolant concentrates that i can mix with distilled water. iv been looking at HydrX but im still finding it hard to get a decent price here in Australia.

cheers all

[Waterlogged]

Condensers are ancient tech that we moved away from a long time ago for a few good reasons. Read this (Link) and you'll understand those reasons.

[nipps]

Condensers are ancient tech that we moved away from a long time ago for a few good reasons. Read this (Link) and you'll understand those reasons.

thanks for the advice.. makes sense to me. thats scrap metal now.

i can get my hands on a copper core car radiator thats probably the better option

[pby5cat]

careful with the car rads, some times the rad tubes are soldered to the tanks with a lead/tin mix.

I guess u might be able to find a ROHS compliant one, that would have no lead in it.

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

[Conumdrum]

Yea, but lead/tin solder mix doesn't hurt a WC rig. Car radiators work great, but coming up with some BIG fannage can be an issue.
BIG, meaning size. BIG, meaning hard to find one with low enough noise and good enough flow/pressure ratings. Can be done, no question about that.

[nipps]

careful with the car rads, some times the rad tubes are soldered to the tanks with a lead/tin mix.

I guess u might be able to find a ROHS compliant one, that would have no lead in it.

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

this is the one im looking at

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....#ht_1863wt_905

i sent a message asking about it the reply was,
THE TANKS ARE PLASTIC, THE TUBES ARE BRASS, THE FINS ARE COPPER AND THEY ARE ALL BONDED USING SOLDER. HOPE THAT HELPS.

theres a lot of threads about using car radiators they all say aluminum is bad with copper blocks but thats not new.. none of them seem to comment on the solder in a copper core radiator.. im thinking that if it were a problem it would corrode the actual radiator anyway, and if it were surely there would be a seal between the lead and the liquid to prevent contact.

any thoughts?

[nipps]

Yea, but lead/tin solder mix doesn't hurt a WC rig. Car radiators work great, but coming up with some BIG fannage can be an issue.
BIG, meaning size. BIG, meaning hard to find one with low enough noise and good enough flow/pressure ratings. Can be done, no question about that.

haha thanx for answering my question as i was asking the question. ill be buying that radiator now.

cheers ill let you know how i go.

[pby5cat]

I brought up the solder metals due to possible corrosion issues. I am no expert in water cooling but this sounds like classic galvanic corrosion.

What about am AC box fan that you would put in your window to cool you room. you might be able to use a light bulb dimmer on it.

[fallwind]

I posted a thread about my car rad here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=237007 Unfortunately, imageshack ate the picture of the fan setup. I just made a shroud out of MDF and used 3 Antec 200mm fans. They are silent on low or medium speed and have more than enough airflow.