Ok, I'm Chilled. I'm Chilled. Relax....56K Warning! - Overclock.net

Naja002 · 06-05-09

Well, I've had a lot of fun with my other projects, but I realized a while back that a chiller would probably be my best bet all the way around. So, after doing the car rad(s)--indoor/outdoor, geothermal, bongs and HVC....I finally decided to do the chiller-thing.

Of course, the chiller scraps everything else...except the indoor rad--I can still use that for winter heat.

I started surfing around checking out this years A/Cs, rechecking on coolers, etc. I wanted one of the Coleman 150qt. 5-day coolers....but I ended up going with an Igloo Polar 120qt., because of price and availability.

Still a good cooler, but the Coleman 5-day's (Extreme/Marine) reviews are outstanding!

Anyway, I ran into a snag with the window that I had always intended to mount the A/C in (yeah, I've been thinking about this for a long time)--most/many of the smaller A/Cs require a minimum 14" window opening (height), but there are a few that don't. In the end though it didn't matter, because I said screw the window, I'll pull the rads and reverse the fans and blow some of the heat out the window.

So, while still trying to talk myself out of this for at least a while longer (

)--I started surfing craiglist. I found a small Frigidaire 5KBTU locally for $50. Said: "Screw it". Picked up the cooler. Picked up the A/C. So, this was done....just a little assembly required...

So, this is what I've come up with:

Plumbing coming out of the chiller headed toward the PCs:

Return to the chiller:

I really wanted electronic thermostat/controls and "Energy Saver", but I would have had to buy a new A/C, so that would have about doubled the cost.

I cut a small opening in the lid for the wires, etc to pass through:

Filled it with weather stripping foam just to help prevent the transfer of air:

Marked my spot for when I close the lid:

Pix of the guts:

I added a small 11w 200gph pump to help circulation inside the cooler. It definitely helps even out temps:

2 temp probes side-by-side:

These are the low end temps that I have it set for--the compressor kicks on:

And then kicks off at:

I set this up in the morning and it ran fine all day. No problems whatsoever. About 20 hrs later--I had alarms going off. I checked the coolant temp=116F/46C. I'm not 100% sure what the cause of it was, but I think and guessed that it was the temp probe. I'm assuming that the part exposed to the outside of the cooler was effected by the low ambient temps--so the compressor didn't kick on. So, I put some tubing over the probe length to help it read the temp inside the cooler only. Seems to have worked:

I haven't had any problems since....:up:

When the compressor is off the unit uses 47-48w for the fan motor. When the compressor is running it uses right at:

I took some on/off cycle times. The off cycle averaged 11min 55sec and the on cycle averaged 12min 12secs. So, for me that's close enough to say that it's going to run ~50% of the time. Problem is: that's ~5 cycles every 2 hours or 60 cycles/day. Seems like a bit much. So, I added 6 more gals of water. Hopefully that will help it cycle just a bit less. I encountered a small leak toward the top of the return bulkhead fitting. So, before I can add anymore (water or anti-freeze) I am going to have to remove a bit of the fluid and tighten that sucker up a bit more. Once it's sealed properly I can add quite a bit more fluid. Physics says that there isn't much I can do about the 50% run time. But it also says that more fluid mass should reduce the number of cycles/day.

Here's a 38sec video showing the circulation and return flow:

No, I'm not interested in sub-zero, etc. I'm sub-ambient now....just above the dewpoint<--worst case. Hoping I stay just above the dewpoint.

Cost:

A/C--$50
Cooler--$57
Anti-freeze--$55
I had everything else.

Other then a few very minor issues....I really didn't have any problems setting this up. My estimate is that it should cost ~$20.29/month to run this, so:

Looks like I'm ready for summer!

ApogeeGT water blocks:

Goes from the chiller/pvc to this manifold and then to the PCs:

Crunchin' Boinc: WCG + GpuGrid:

Index of prior Projects:

Yes, Another Car Radiator Thread....Major 56K Warning!

Bong! Bong! Bong! --56K Warning!

Horizontal Volenti Cooler.....56K Warning!

The Hole…Geothermal Loop…56K Warning!

corky dorkelson · 06-05-09

Wow great work! Really great temps on the 775 quads! Boy your i7 sure is a volcano, though. Man those suckers run HOT!

Naja002 · 06-05-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by corky dorkelson

Wow great work! Really great temps on the 775 quads! Boy your i7 sure is a volcano, though. Man those suckers run HOT!

Thanx! and Agreed! But the i7 is running 4.1 on an ApogeeGT block at 70C or under....highest core average is 68C. ApogeeGT Blocks really just can't handle the i7. Once spring/summer temps started showing up I moved it from 3.8 to 3.4. Now I'm at 4.1 24/7.....

Daney · 06-05-09

Those temps are awesome man, great job.

I wish I could do something like that :P

Keep it up, +rep.

eclipseaudio4 · 06-05-09

Nice build! But you gotta do a sub zero run just for some benchies and to see what your chip will do. Plus It's cool to see your temps @ -*c with full load at a very high OC.

Gill.. · 06-05-09

Awesome job, learned a bit....

Love that you use BOINC too, I think you and I are in the minority. I use it for benching and stability testing (enigma and Seti enhanced). I do this responsibly though (so as to not screw up the crunching).

I just installed Ubuntu first time recently and was able to bench BOINC in Linux versus Vista.... interesting observation - when run in Linux, it trounced my numbers from Vista... trounced it!

If you're interested (if you haven't run this test yourself - which I'm guessing you have)
Linux Ubuntu x64 (AMD 940 BE @ 3.7)
Measured floating point speed3577.99 million ops/secMeasured integer speed11408.74 million ops/sec

Vista x 64 (AMD 940 BE @3.7)
Measured floating point speed2957.14 million ops/secMeasured integer speed9096.79 million ops/sec

Pretty crazy huh?

Again good work and good post.

Naja002 · 06-07-09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daney

Those temps are awesome man, great job.

I wish I could do something like that :P

Keep it up, +rep.

Thanx!

Quote:

Originally Posted by eclipseaudio4

Nice build! But you gotta do a sub zero run just for some benchies and to see what your chip will do. Plus It's cool to see your temps @ -*c with full load at a very high OC.

Thanx!

, but: Sorry, not gunna happen. There are 3 rigs on this cooling system, so I would have to prep for condensation for: 3x CPUs, 3x NB, 5x GPUs. Too much work. I'm a Cruncher, not a Bencher.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gill..

Awesome job, learned a bit....

Love that you use BOINC too, I think you and I are in the minority. I use it for benching and stability testing (enigma and Seti enhanced). I do this responsibly though (so as to not screw up the crunching).

I just installed Ubuntu first time recently and was able to bench BOINC in Linux versus Vista.... interesting observation - when run in Linux, it trounced my numbers from Vista... trounced it!

If you're interested (if you haven't run this test yourself - which I'm guessing you have)
Linux Ubuntu x64 (AMD 940 BE @ 3.7)
Measured floating point speed3577.99 million ops/secMeasured integer speed11408.74 million ops/sec

Vista x 64 (AMD 940 BE @3.7)
Measured floating point speed2957.14 million ops/secMeasured integer speed9096.79 million ops/sec

Pretty crazy huh?

Again good work and good post.

From what I understand Linux 64 is faster than windows. I checked out Ubuntu, but moved away from it after about 5hrs of head banging. Synaptic Manager? Uh, sorry, but there's nothing "intuitive" about that. Personally, I would think that with all of the people working on it worldwide--it would be much more "user-friendly". I OC my crunchers, so I need to keep an eye on temps--especially when setting up the OC. I could not get the dohicky installed to display temps. Nobody else could seem to understand what the issue was....so, it didn't get fixed and I moved away from linux. I guess I just really need a guide that will take me by the hand and walk me through the park. I've found one or 2 since, but lack the motivation to "embrace" linux again. I will sooner or later, but right now it looks like later.....

A bit of an update:

Putting the tubing over the temp probe seemed to help, but only some. Ambient temps in the out-building directly effect the mechanical thermostat, so when temps outside (/in the out-building) get below the set temp--the mechanical thermostat shuts the compressor off and leaves it off.

I've thought and thought, tried to insulate the thermostat, etc. I have quite a bit of experience from my +30yrs dealing with reptiles, aquariums, etc. I cannot see any reasonable, simple way to overcome this. So, I went ahead and bought 1 of these:

Ranco 111000

I looked at the Johnson Controls. I have a couple of Helix Proportional Controllers, but they are Proportional, so they won't work in this situation. Anyway, the Ranco have been around for a long, long time. They are used by zoos and aquaruims worldwide. Many, many animal keepers (public or private) use them. Convenience stores, restaurants for their coolers/freezers. In all: they are tried and true. Very reliable units.

They offer heating or cooling (not both on single stage), temp range from -30 to 220F, and a Differential range: 1° to 30°F.

They are designed for use with resistive loads (motors) and will resolve this issue 100%. The differential range will allow me to set the temps at which the compressor kicks on and off. With the mechanical thermostat it's 5F. Now I will be able to set it anywhere from 1-30F.

I'm hoping it gets here this coming week. I did not buy the wired shown, so I need to pick up the wiring, get it wired up and installed. Until then: My water temps are 63-68F and humidity stays ~50% in here, so condensation starts forming at about 84-85F/30C in here. I'll have to keep the A/Cs running until I get this setup. I usually turn them up to 82F when I'm not here/working. The ambient right at the PCs goes up to 85-86F which is too high=condensation.

Fingers crossed on no more major issues between now and then....

Naja002 · 06-12-09

Well, the controller arrived a couple of days ago. I had picked up the wiring--went with 14 gauge. Call me crazy, but I would rather burn up the controller then burn down the building! I'm just kinda quirky like that!

I got it wired up, no problem, but had 1 minor issue. While waiting for it to arrive, I learned that the probe (sensor) is not supposed to be submerged. Well, that kinda screws things up!

So, I had a choice:

1) Purchase a $30 "Bulb Well Assembly", pay another shipping charge and wait a bit longer, Or....

2) Improvise.

I chose #2.

First was coming up with at least a temporary fix. I considered siliconing, epoxying, etc the sensor and wiring, but I really didn't want to do that. So, I got out a couple of aquarium heater holders and some pvc:

I knew this was going to be temporary, so I glued the bottom submersed cap on, but not the top cap. Drilled a hole in the top cap that the sensor would squeeze through and then babysat the system for a little while. Actually worked pretty good really.

The thermal conductivity of pvc is like 0.19 or something low, so I was curious what my temp range was going to be. I set the differential for 2F--it turned out not to be more then ~4F which is actually pretty darn good. But not good enough.....

I knew I had a +1Ft piece of 1/2" copper pipe laying around, but also knew that I did not have any caps for it. So, a stop by lowes fixed that and while I was there I went ahead and picked up a rubber grommet. Yesterday I was pretty tired and I knew things could hold another day, so I procrastinated until today. Got my butt out there and got this fix fixed!

Sweated on the bottom copper cap:

Got the grommet over the sensor and a hole drilled through the top cap:

Even though I could have sweat the top cap on and inserted the probe after things cooled--I knew that some time in the future I would want to remove that probe--the hole is tight, so I can't necessarily just get it back out. I chose to silicone the cap on and silicone over the grommet and wiring:

I have no intention of submersing the top of this thing, so the silicone should do a good job of keeping the moisture out long term--that's all that's really needed.

So, next I needed to mount it into the cooler. Why not go with a good thing already? I knew that the heater holders would not clip onto the copper pipe because it's just too narrow. So, time to improvise again.

Took a small scrap piece of 3/4" pvc, cut it into 4 pieces, clipped 1 piece into each heater clip and slid the copper setup right down in there:

Picked up a couple more gals of anti-freeze at walmart when I hit lowes, so I added that:

So, now there is ~7.75 gals of anti-freeze and 17 gals of water.

I need to do another time study to see how long my on/off cycles times are now. I doubt I'll do it today, but hopefully some time this weekend.

Just a larger view:

Oh, yeah, I fixed the return bulkhead leak by loosening the bulkhead and siliconing under and all around it. Not the preferred way to go, but useful in these types of situations. The preferred route is no leaking bulkhead to start with....

So far so good:

Max temp over the last 30+ mins is 70C. The mins kinda worry me though. I may move everything up a couple of degrees after everything settles in. I would rather move my max temp up to say 75C than deal with condensation!

Oh, and I lowered my OC down to ~4.0 for now.....

More Updates at Post #25