DICE Chiller/Heat Exchanger
 

Before stepping into the LN2/DICE Sub-Zero world I've decided to experiment with a little DIY DICE Chiller/Heat Exchanger just for fun.

Why, you may ask. Well, for fun :). I had some extra fittings, spare home depot tubing, some stuff from the kitchen (shhh, hope the wife don't find out), scrap insulation from work and want to put them to good use. Also, through the use of QDC's, this little project could be a cheap and easy way to tap into sub-ambient/sub-zero temps for a few fun OCing hours then return to ambient water cooling on the fly.

My normal loop:
Res>Pump>Rad>CPU>GPU>Res

Dice Chiller Loop:
Res>Pump>Heat Exchanger>CPU>GPU>Res

I'll explain a little more in the next post. Need to get my pictures together.

OCM :thumbsup:

So here we go.....

20' of Copper tubing, dual pass hand coiled to fit into a 1gal cooler. The lid will not be used.

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02194.jpg

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02199.jpg

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02234.jpg


Insulated the cooler with 1" thick neoprene.

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02242.jpg


Test setup: Swiftech 355, 3/8 tubing, PSU, Kitchen Digital Thermometer, Cooper Coil, and Insulated Cooler.
Cooling Medium in Loop: 75% Anti-Freeze/25% DI Water
Liquid in 1gal Cooler (Heat-Exchanger): 3 Bottles of 91% Alcohol/1lbs of Dry Ice

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02813.jpg


Only heat being dumped into the loop is coming from the pump. This is only a Cooling Medium/Pump test to see if it will freeze at sub-zero temps or if the pump will stop operating.

Ambient Temp before starting pump

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02798.jpg


After 3 min of starting pump:

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02808.jpg

At this point temperature in the cooler is way below -50C. Cheap kitchen thermometer stopped working around -50C. Pump kept spinning but quit pumping. Liquid in the lines froze. Looks like the loop is way too effective of such a small heat load. Also, Liquid in loop needs some work.

After this test I tied strait anti-freeze but the little pump couldn't keep up because it got too thick.

Then tried 50% Anti-freeze/50% Alcohol and again the pump still issues pumping.

So finally I tried something a little different before I called it quits for the day.

Cooling Medium in Loop: 100% DI-Water
Liquid in 1gal Cooler (Heat-Exchanger): Tap Water/Ice from the freezer/1lbs of Dry Ice

http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/r...r/DSC02822.jpg


This test was a success. The rig was able to maintain 0-1C for one hour with 1lbs of dry ice in the cooler before I had to drop in another 1lbs. The DI-Water in the loop did not freeze since it was just above freezing. Pump had no issues pumping. Held 0-1C for 3 hours dropping 1lbs of Dry Ice in the cooler once an hour.

Now, I do understand that adding the heat load of a CPU and two GPU cores will increase temps above 0c. Hence the reason for me first testing Alcohol/DICE. I'll like to run the Alcohol/DICE test again with a better cooling medium but am pretty sure the pump will not keep up.

What do you all think? Suggestions?

OCM :thumbsup:

Subscribed! :D

dice is co2....i wonder how cold you'll get your fluids to....

Updated Post.

I don't fear the frost ;)

Looks like the best DICE bucket I've ever seeen ;)

Did you find the insulation locally?

Cool plan....way different than I had imagined.:thumbsup:

My question is why use the reservoir? To try to get all the air out?

I would say your pump is working much harder than it has to with the tubes going through the top. If your feed line, at least, came out the side(below the water level) there would be no air in the feed line to fight with. I found that air was one of the biggest obstacles. The other big obstacle was my waterblocks design. It's made for the fluid to pass very slowly and I had to open it up.

Dice or I mean nice! :D Keep the pics and updates coming.

Thanks. Got the insulation from work, pulled it from a pile of scrap.


The res will be not be on the chiller. It will be part of my ordinary loop. When I want to use the little Dice Chiller, I'll just disconnect my rads via QDC's and throw the chiller in the loop. Thats the plan for now, or at least till I can find a good deal on a pot. ;)


Thanks ;)

Its nice and thick, might be good for socket insulation with the F1, if cut out just right.