Anyone ever thought of using a regular water cooler?

[Flybye]

http://www.avantiproducts.com/waterdispenser/wd29ec5.jpg

Take this for example. The resovior that cools the water is about 3/4 of gallon, and you can stick up to a 5 gallon jug of water on it. Of course, we all know there are ways of modifing it for a custom cooled unit :D This thing is only about $40, which is why it caught my eye, and you will have access to ALL new parts.

The only thing I can possibly think of is that this thing won't cool the water fast enough with a water pump sucking out the water.

Am I right to assume this? :confused:

[Drake]

You are correct. Such coolers rely on heat inertia. If you put a heat load on them they won't work.

[Flybye]

What if you were to modify it a bit?

Maybe installing a longer evaporator or longer coils in order to cover a larger area?

I'm wondering because I keep seeing people use water fountain compressors with big custom evaporators.

I'm just paranoid about getting a used compressor (if I even go that route) I'd hate to slap it all together then have the compressor die a few days later :mad:

[Player0]

Tons of people have used watercoolers. None of them work all that well. Not without serious customization. They really arent powerful enough to cool a CPU down.

[Synthohol]

i have the guts from one waiting to be modded.
the half gallon resivoir will and has turned 1" of water to ice when i crank up the thermostat.
i was thinking of just using coiled copper or a rad to dunk in the cold water just for cooling but not using the chilled water directly for cooling the cpu.
i wont waste my time if you think it will be a bust.

[Flybye]

Synthohol, how would you install a thermostat on one that doesn't have one to begin with?

I see units with them and units without them. Does it basically adjust the expansion valve to allow more or less freon to pass?

With a chiller, wouldn't dipping the evaporator in the water be more space efficient than also having to have a water radiator in the reservoir with the evaporator?

[illmatik]

You also need to look, my buddy has a unit similar to that in his office (smaller though), and its using pelts instead of a compressor.

[dicki]

synth: i run the chilled water through my loop and it works really well, having a completly seperate circuit would reduce the cooling power a lot but it should still work ok...

FYI i am using a pub beer chiller to cool 5 litres of water, this thing has a compressor and dense radiator that fits into a space about 18" * 12" * 12" and even that take many hours to bring the water temperature down with the cpu running. anything smaller than that would struggle even more.

dicki

p.s. it makes the room really hot! the compressor and radiator get very very hot running constantly

[Flybye]

I don't know what I want to do anymore LOL.

At first I thought of just a custom watercooled setup using a huge mid 60s Chevy Impala Heatercore (about 9"x7"x2" or 228mmx178mmx51mm), a 250+ gph (946+ Lph), a 3 gallon (11.3L) or so reservoir, an 8" (203mm) 800cfm high performance automotive fan, and a water block for the GPU, chipset, and CPU.

Then I started seeing how cheap a 110v compressor can sell for on ebay, and THAT made me thinking of a chilled unit. Compressor, condensor out the back, and evaporator inside a 5 gallon or so reservoir. Then the complications of "Well, how big a compressor do I need to get and what size of a condensor should I have in order to be able to cool the water in the reservoir fast enough.

Damn this IS a pain in the ARSE! Maybe I'll just stay with my cheapo heatsinks & fans LOL :P

[Synthohol]

Originally posted by Flybye
Synthohol, how would you install a thermostat on one that doesn't have one to begin with? mine is about 15-20 years old, there is an inline potentiometer on the thermoprobe line:)