Waterchiller and passive resevoir?

[dave1920]

Here are some pics of my test rig that I am using to assess my waterchiller, Titan 150.

I know that it is not the most powerful piece of cooling equipment ever but firstly I only want it to chill the water to between ambient and zero and secondly I enjoy playing with all this stuff and I can't afford the more expensive versions. So my question is this if I am cooling the water to around 10 degrees is a passive resevoir, like the zalman shown, or the XSPC series that I am interested in, counterproductive? I know that these components use the temperature difference between the water and the air to normally dissipate a minor amount of heat. If however the water is cooler than the surrounding air will these components warm it up any amount? I had considered that using a resevoir like this or even a spare radiator might pre-cool the hotter water. The test setup is using a venice 3500+ and a 6600gt both with thermaltake blocks. The water temp coming off the chiller is around 10 degrees with the chiller set to 4 degrees. MBM5 says the cpu is 22 degrees so I hope the nexxos blocks for the final system are better than the thermaltake ones.

So passive resevoirs help or hinderance?

 

[Ham]

Hinderence. They will be adding heat to you below-ambient water, causing you chiller to work harder and therefore will result in premeture death.

Also:

INSULATE YOUR LINES!

or you will get condensation, it will drip on somthing and boom goes your components.

 

[FarFarAway]

Hinderance

and please use blocks other than thermaltake or I'll come round your house and steal your chiller

And as Ham says Insulate your lines

 

[dave1920]

Hinderence. They will be adding heat to you below-ambient water, causing you chiller to work harder and therefore will result in premeture death.

Also:

INSULATE YOUR LINES!

or you will get condensation, it will drip on somthing and boom goes your components.

Yeh I agree, thanks. The reason I am playing around is to see about the condensation no evidence of anything yet as I don't think the chiller is powerful enough but I might insulate it anyway thanks for the reminder.

Hinderance

and please use blocks other than thermaltake or I'll come round your house and steal your chiller

And as Ham says Insulate your lines

LOL I know they're crap. From one of my first attempts at watercooling back in the day when I bought things like the thermaltake rocket. This is a bits and bobs pc that is just to test the waterchiller as the cpu has a similar wattage output to the e6600 that I want. I use nexxos xp blocks in my main pc but I like the look of the new apogee gt.

I will insulate the tubing but is greasing the pins or pcb laquer over the m'board overkill. I don't really fancy either of them as they are considerably more difficult to undo compared to the insulation.

Dave

 

[FarFarAway]

Ahh fair enough then. You gonna grab a sweet D-Tek CPU block and a nice Eddie GPU block? :stickpoke

 

[dave1920]

Depends how much time and money I have. If I have the time i'll dissassemble my main rig test the Nexxos XP blocks with the chiller. Its difficult to find reviews comparing all the good blocks in a scientific test. Also I intend on getting a 8800gts at some stage and 95% certain it will be watercooled but I am interested to test the air cooling on it first.

Dave

Ps as you may notice Im using zalman silicone tubing as its the best i've used, kinking whats that? But connections are a pain. It doesn't even fit the alphacool 11mm compression fittings any ideas for connections to fit 1/4" threads and 12-13 mm OD tubing, I think its 8mm ID.

 

[Toxcity]

Well that water system looks awesome!

BLOODY HELL look at the size of that rad! WoOt

8800GTSs cooler is awesome! trust me! I can get mine to 600/2000 on stock cooler!

So who knows what its like underwater!

 

[Ham]

Another thing to keep you eye on mate is the pump. I dk from the pic what model it is, but many don't like cold.

 

[NoL]

Ah its not the cold Ham as much as it is the slush. When you get colder, you generally run anti-freeze, now anti-freeze around -10C or 0C is 100% fine to pump around if your pump can take it. But as the temp drops it gets like a slushie and that kills your pump. Never insulate a pumps motor housing though, just the impeller.

 

[dave1920]

Oh never thought about the pump. Well I use the alphacool series and I have an 1510 and 2 701's. From this sort of prelim testing I doubt the water will go lower than +10 degrees, should that be okay?

Dave