cathode

I just finished reading Nol's bong cooling guide and came up with an idea: what if you used a two stage setup where you had a closed loop that ran through the computer, and the open evaporative loop that cooled the first loop.

For how to implement this, I thought of taking a piece of copper pipe, and soldering a set of 2-4 spiraling fins (very shallow/loose spiral, maybe 1/4th turn per inch), putting that in an acrylic or pvc tube, and spraying water on it from the top. the water would run down the fins and air from a fan at the top would assist with evaporation.

Only disadvantage I see is increased cost, but the major advantage is you would be able to use a higher quality coolant in your closed loop, and dust or other contaminates would not become a problem.

fart_plume

you would still have a slight loss due to the extra transfer between heat exchangers but you would still get better temps with your setup.

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cathode

Well what i'm thinking of now is like a box underneath my case (the case would bolt to it) and having like a loose set of back and forth copper pipe with fins. air would blow through the front and out the back (not up, don't want to get too much moisture near the actual components).

Inside the box would be the copper pipe with the closed coolant loop running through it. Water would be sprayed directly onto the outside of these pipes with their attached fins, and the air would evaporate the water directly off of the pipes.

Even with the price of copper this should cost me less than any of the high end radiators and theoretically I'll still be able to get ambient or sub-ambient temps in the cooling loop.

Another idea to reduce condensation would be to create a fan controller that used a thermistor to control the fan speed so that it never brought the pc loop coolant far enough below ambient to cause condensation. Would this work as i hope?

The Mad Mule

I'm sorry I must be missing something here. I always heard the word "bong" referred to in the drug sense. What does it mean in this scenario?

cathode

Well my idea might not be a "bong" cooler anymore, but see NoL's Bong Cooling Guide.

JEK3

You're talking about using some form of heat exchanger. Sounds reasonable. Also, you could mix additives in your cooling loop to keep your blocks clean.

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gtarmanrob

LOL i rekon. i came in here going ok, wth, people are talking about bongs and cooling them???



bet we had the exact same expression on our face when we clicked the read and started reading the first few posts.

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The Mad Mule

^ Haha definitely.

DIRTYDUCK

First of all a couple of guys and I have been talking about the double loop thing for a few weeks now. The Idea being that you would just have a normal bong but at the bottom of the bong tube you would have your RAD from your other loop to catch the cold water. the problem with this is that you would need to make sure that your rad was all copper or you will be mixing up corrosion. with your copper pipe and fins idea it would work fine but I think the best way to do it would be to run a copper coil up the bong tube and have the air blowing on it while the water trickles down through the copper coil.

What you are talking about is like a swamp cooler...I have also thought about doing this with my bong res. However there are a couple of problems I see happening.

You have to refill your res every 3 days or so, it would be good to keep this in mind when putting your pc on top of your res. Don't want to splash up and get your rig when filling. You should be able to figure out a way where this wont mater though. I would also make sure to get a HUGE res...mine is over 20gallons and I still have to fill it every 3-4 days.

If your putting your "swamp bong" on the floor you want to make sure you have a up spout for the air/mist. If its close to the floor you might get moldy under your res or ruin the carpet. I have found that I get a fine mist up to 3' away from the top of my bong. even though my pc sits right under it, it never gets any of the mist. (you can put a mirror down to see if you are gonna collect mist.)

As far as condensation you will have a hard time getting your temps that low (air conditioning could do it and so could putting your intake fan outside.) my house stays at 24c and I can only get my cpu down to 21c or 32c on full load. you can always google the due point in your area to make sure but my due point is around 50F so I have a long way to go before I get that low.

It would be really cool to build a swamp bong with a bunch of copper sheets as a water fall. although this would work better as a "tower" I think..

If you are really planning on building a bong cooler let me know I am sure I could help you think up new ideas...I am also needing inspiration for upgrading my bong. I love my bong I can't believe more people don't use them...I really like the sound I get out of it, helps me sleep '

WOW sorry for the long post

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cathode

I will almost certainly be attempting something like this within the next month or so. I'm currently working on getting my new computer case painted and tweaked, and also for some more disposable cash to purchase the necessary liquid cooling supplies.