My air cooled TEC water chiller project

[Scarlet Infidel]

I have been toying with trying to build a realtively cheap TEC water chiller. General oppinion suggests its a waste of time, but im deteremined to give it a go.

Its not intended to run sub-zero, but this seemed the best place for it. Also, i started on another forum, so im just going to link to that. In retrospect my posts tend to ramble a lot (as no doubt this one will) but there are pretty pictures now and then.

I just thought someone might be interested and can help out with suggestions and (more likely) criticism. Please tell me if im not meant to link to other forums like this, i dont mean to break any rules.

Link

 

[Pseudonym]

just read your design and starting to build log. seems like an interesting concept and well thought out.

I'd also agree that option 4 might be the way forward if this would make the copper sheet big enough.

are you still going double layered?

Also, to bend your plastic (if you still need to that is) i'd recommend reading THIS thread. i've posted the page he does it on, but the whole mod is sweet so you should check it out.

Keep us updated.

 

[Scarlet Infidel]

Thanks for the link, ill check it out. I doubt ill be doing the plastic like that in the end, but you never know.

It will be single layered, at least to start with. The double layer was just an idea of expanding the design once ive seen if it works or not.

There should be some more posts up in the next day or so with some pictures of progress.

 

[Scarlet Infidel]

Heres a picture of my initial design to tempt people to check the link:

 

[Mr. Smith]

Can't see any of this at work, banned!

I haven't seen your design but you might want to rip off the cool(sh)it borras or something? It's like a little water chiller with 6 tecs, you attach it to your w/c loop to chill the water...

Oh, and you will need to insulate all the pipes if you go below ambient. Of course all this might be irrelevant because I can't see your design lol

 

[Scarlet Infidel]

Can't see any of this at work, banned!

You'll just have to check it at home then...

I haven't seen your design but you might want to rip off the cool(sh)it borras or something? It's like a little water chiller with 6 tecs, you attach it to your w/c loop to chill the water...

I wanted to build this well before Id even heard of coolit. But yes, you are right, im basically trying to build a much better, quieter (though less compact) version of their systems. The fact that coolit exists and their products work, albeit pretty badly, makes me more confident that this wont be a total failure.

Oh, and you will need to insulate all the pipes if you go below ambient. Of course all this might be irrelevant because I can't see your design lol

Noted. I want the system to take the water a little below ambient, but not below dewpoint. So I wont need much in the way of insulation.

 

[Mr. Smith]

Wow, I was expecting some ghetto paint diagrams and some crackpot idea but what you have done should work!

How well it works is another matter, my experience of tecs is the hot side is HOT! Dumped a ton of heat into my loop so I'm not sure how well your heatsinks will dissipate the heat produced... I was using a 320w pelt on my e6600 though

If this works well I might take one off you?

 

[ai_01]

if u want it just near ambient, why would you need 6 tecs? unless they are all at 60w or less. you could just use one 320w tec and you should be fine, and then have a regulator on it to adjust the voltage, instead of 6. just a thought

 

[Scarlet Infidel]

How well it works is another matter, my experience of tecs is the hot side is HOT! Dumped a ton of heat into my loop so I'm not sure how well your heatsinks will dissipate the heat produced...

Well this first one is a bit of a prototype/proof of concept type of thing. If works ok ill try and improve on it with some experience gained and a larger budget.

The thing with TECs is that the lower the voltage you run them from their maximum the greater the ratio between power consumption and heat they can pump. Unfortunately the temperature difference across the element also decreases.

Im using this property to allow me to deal with a large heatload without consuming too much power, though this wont lead to very low temperatures (which is fine, I dont want to deal with condensation. I can always turn this into a lower temp chiller later).

 

[Scarlet Infidel]

if u want it just near ambient, why would you need 6 tecs? unless they are all at 60w or less. you could just use one 320w tec and you should be fine, and then have a regulator on it to adjust the voltage, instead of 6. just a thought

Im using 10 for this. They are all 137w TECs.

Th reason is, running a single high powered TEC will do the job, but will be less power efficient.

This means I would probably need a seperate PSU (my design runs off the existing PSUs 5v line) which costs money, takes up space and makes noise. Not to mention higher power bills and killing the planet.

Also It would require more elaborate cooling, probably a seperate watercooling loop. Which again costs money and makes a little more noise.

Just to emphasise a point, this project looks big and expensive, but isnt. Due to the brilliance of eBay, the 10 peltiers came to £17.50 inc postage and the 10 heatinks came to £19.99 inc postage. So I should be able to build this whole thing for not much more than a PA120.2.

 

[cutter]

I have been toying with trying to build a realtively cheap TEC water chiller. General oppinion suggests its a waste of time, but im deteremined to give it a go.

Its not intended to run sub-zero, but this seemed the best place for it. Also, i started on another forum, so im just going to link to that. In retrospect my posts tend to ramble a lot (as no doubt this one will) but there are pretty pictures now and then.

I just thought someone might be interested and can help out with suggestions and (more likely) criticism. Please tell me if im not meant to link to other forums like this, i dont mean to break any rules.

Link

 

[cutter]

Hello. My name is Cutter. I have reading the post and I am water cooling my ASUS Rampage with a boreaus chiller from CoolIT systems. I am worried about condensation and have read articles about coating the board with dragon skin. Also, you mentioned if you stay a few degrees above dew point, the changes of condensation will be less. Any help will be appreciated. Cutter