Modular Liquid Chiller

[KrowniK]

So mindchill has been busy in the passed 3 months. He designed a TEC chiller that you can add as many as you need to the line and it will lower water temps further to a point. It contains the driver power internally and has water cooled MOSFETs to help regulate power supplied (The height is slightly less than in the picture. Those MOSFETs were air cooled). It is made from Delrin with a plexyglass top.



It does need the controller for it to work and protect against condensation, and it connects via a 6pin PCIe for power. The 2 other smaller connections beside the 6pin PCIe are for connection to the controller, and relay connections for the next chiller inline. There is an RBG LED in it that changes from Blue to Red as the duty cycle increases. It also comes with a 10K Thermistor that connects to the controller to measure and prevent condensation.

A single module runs about 144W and has a capacity to move 150W with a difference of 11°C lower than your water temperatures. The maximum it can move before complete saturation is ~260W.

A chain of two modules runs 288W and has a capacity to move 300W with a difference of 11°C lower than your water temperatures. If you were to cool the same load that the single chiller is able to move at 11°C which is 150W, the duty cycle of the chillers would be 50% where the single would be at 100%. Or if you were to run the two chillers at 100%, the temperatures available for 150W load is 27°C difference than water temperatures. When you chain them together, you increase the amount of heat they can move in total, and you increase efficiency of cooling the same load by reducing thermal resistances. When 3 are chained together you get 432W power used, with the ability to cool 450W with a difference of 11°C from water temperatures. If you were to cool a load of 150W with 3 chillers, you should get about 33°C difference from hot water temperatures temperatures after thermal losses from the block.

Once I get my hands on these, I will perform testing of my own to see it's capabilities.

This is a very good chiller when you have condensation paranoia. The controller has a built in humidity sensor, ambient sensor and uses the connected Thermistor to measure cold water temperatures, all in order to prevent condensation from forming on your CPU. By preventing you from going below depoint + 2°C it eliminates the need for insulation on your water cooled devices.

NOTE: All of the values calculated were after thermal losses were applied, and as if dew point protection from the controller were disabled. This is to give you the final value on the cold side of the chiller, not the TEC. Due to other loses from a pump in the cold loop, losses through thermal resistances on your waterblock and whatever heat is transferred from the surrounding environment, the final temperature supplied to the CPU will be a degree or 2 higher.