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Posted by: SirAndy Nov 24 2008, 07:12 PM

I'm looking for a small model Air Conditioning system.

Is there such a thing?
Andy

Posted by: Vacca Rabite Nov 24 2008, 07:22 PM

Functional, or just a static model?
For cars, houses, what?

Zach

Posted by: r_towle Nov 24 2008, 07:23 PM

Mini AC unit for a model car???
Probably need to make/modify that.

Mini AC unit like a house AC unit?
I would suspect yes its available at a decent architectural supply shop...

If none of the above work for you, try two part epoxy, the thick clay type epoxy.

My son does alot of custom modeling with small action figures (WarHammer)
he uses alot of the epoxy and a dremel.

Rich

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 24 2008, 07:49 PM

Functional, small ...

I'm building a custom gaming PC and sucking warm air over hot components just doesn't cut it.

I've got a overclocked nVidia card (GeForce 8800 GTX) that you could cook eggs on as soon as you run any App that really pushes the GPU.
It comes with a huge fan build in, but even then, it'll just cook the board after 10 minutes or so.

And then there's the two 3GHz dual CPUs ...


I'm looking for some *real* cold air to feed to the monsters ...
Andy

Posted by: ws91420 Nov 24 2008, 07:55 PM

Don't they make a liquid based cooling system for that?

Posted by: Vacca Rabite Nov 24 2008, 07:56 PM

Liquid cooling? Its proven tech, and simpler then a model A/C unit. If you use non-conductive liquid, spectacular failure won't even ruin your equipment.

Zach

Posted by: kwales Nov 24 2008, 08:02 PM

You have several choices..

Live in Cinci and put the box outside in the 20 degree below normal air (darn global warming)

Water cooling (too bad for the fish in the tank)

A small windo AC unit with a cold air duct to the box.. (free room heat)

A squirrel cage fan from a HVAC unit (big airflow and quiet)

and Peltier effect local coolers for cpu's
http://popular.ebay.com/ns/Business-Industrial-K-Z/PELTIER-THERMOELECTRIC.html

Ken

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 24 2008, 08:03 PM

Ok, anyone got any pointers?

I need something that is flexible enough to be installed in my own PC ...
Andy

Posted by: URY914 Nov 24 2008, 09:02 PM

Buy a used race drivers cool suit and wrap it around the PC.

Posted by: ws91420 Nov 24 2008, 09:15 PM

Here's a cooling site. http://www.frozencpu.com/

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 24 2008, 09:24 PM

Ok, a few things ...

- All water cooled systems i found so far are for the main CPU only. That won't do me any good for the GPU ...

- A water cooled system will only be as good as your ambient air temperature.



So, a real mini AC system would seem like the better choice. I would get actual *cold* air i could direct to where i need it ...
Andy

Posted by: Vacca Rabite Nov 24 2008, 09:55 PM

You could run liquid cooling to anything you wanted. Just add the liquid ready heat sink and plumb in some plastic tube. Gamer nerds do it all the time.

If you want to get fancy, you can then run the coolant to a source of refridgeration.

I have never seen a small enough working AC unit for desktop computers, but I am sure that they have them, especially for enterprise level servers and such.

Zach

Posted by: messix Nov 24 2008, 10:01 PM

tony is coming down to your neck of the woods and that is his expertise. buy him dinner and drinks and he might have some thing for you.

Posted by: r_towle Nov 24 2008, 10:08 PM

look up "peltier devices"
http://www.peltier-info.com/

First decent AC unit for a submarine.
Used in IRaq for cooling CPU's and who humvee/truck full of computers.

There are many systems for this..

there are many companies the make cabinet AC systems for computer related cooling
http://www.americool.com/

Rich

Posted by: abbott295 Nov 25 2008, 06:09 AM

Can you put it in the refrigerator? I thought of that looking at the americool site and seeing their 'enclosures.'

But don't mind me, there are lots of people who know more than me. I only vaguely understand what it is you need to cool. technological ignorance strikes again.

Posted by: So.Cal.914 Nov 25 2008, 08:47 AM

http://www.eicsolutionsinc.com/faq.htm

Posted by: davep Nov 25 2008, 08:59 AM

I'm the Technical Manager for Koolatron where we have been making Peltier cooled boxes since 1975. There are mini A/C units, but I'm not sure just how much cooling capacity you require. They consume a lot of power as well, so that may be a concern. A small compressor based system might be more suitable.

Posted by: STL914 Nov 25 2008, 11:50 AM

They've been putting AC units in CNC control cabinets for years now. If you have access to a machine shop that has CNC equipment, maybe you can find what system they have and go from there.

Posted by: pete-stevers Nov 25 2008, 05:41 PM

Andy not sure if a mini bar fidge has the capability of absorbing the heat of the unit you are trying to cool, but you could run a liquid into the fridge and back into your pc via small copper lines, or you could encase the unit you would like to cool and inside the enclosure run the cooling coil ...

a used fridge would cost peanuts,

Posted by: pete-stevers Nov 25 2008, 05:47 PM

or just plumb your part inside of the fridge

Posted by: kwales Nov 25 2008, 07:12 PM

Anything that cools with electricity makes heat, how much cooling do you want?

Mebbe a block of CO2 in front of the air intake....

Or the shifty trick of venting a CO2 fire extinguisher into the cooling intake.... like a millitary Comm system that I worked on. - The system passed the qualification tests, but never worked in the field. We figured out that the previous contract owner used that trick....

Seriously, buy a small window AC unit, run a hose from the vent to the card, and turn on the AC cooling and fan to max. The AC can vent into the room or, vent it outside. In any case, making the level of coolingyou seem to need means a lotta BTU's. Those britsh thermal units are small, so it takes a lot of them.

Or, if you don't mind noise, a vortec tube that runs on compressed air....
Blows hot air out one end and cool air out the other... No one can explain how they work, but they are not pseudoscience.

http://www.newmantools.com/vortex.htm

Ken

Posted by: r_towle Nov 25 2008, 07:16 PM

Anything that cools makes heat....all AC systems make heat

Rich

Posted by: kwales Nov 25 2008, 09:27 PM

I reworded that statement..

Ice doesn't make heat, and a CO2 tank blowing down doesn't make heat.

Heat was produced in making the ice and pressurizign the CO2 tank, but the action of the ice and CO2 tank is separated by time from the heat.

Ken

Posted by: jcd914 Nov 26 2008, 12:06 AM

Go oil cooled! It fits with 914s.



http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

Posted by: rktmn247 Nov 26 2008, 12:21 AM

Drinking fountains have small ac systems. With water blocks for the cpu's and the gpu and a recirc sys to cycle the water continuously it might work or you could get one of these. I don't know if they do the gpu though.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1793

Posted by: Chris Hamilton Nov 26 2008, 12:26 AM

Vapochill and Prometia made cooling systems like that.

The best system you can do is a chilled water cooling system if you're trying to cool a CPU and a video card. You're gonna need a TON of insulation and wrap, but I've seen these and they work quite nicely.

The idea is that instead of a radiator to cool the water down to above room temp, you run chilled water over your components to cool them off well blow room temperature. A modified window AC unit can be used for this.

Peltiers don't work for computer cooling, there are simply too many watts of heat to move, and peltiers only create a delta of temperature, they don't have an evaporation temperature like a real phase change cooler.


One of my favorite methods of cooling a computer is with a bong cooler. You use a big PVC pipe apparatus and a shower head to spray the water down a 3" or 4" PVC tube to a reservoir at the bottom. The evaporation of some of the water cools the whole system down quite nicely instead of just using a radiator to cool your water.


I can draw up the plans for any of these if anyone needs one of them.

Posted by: SirAndy Nov 26 2008, 12:31 AM

My GPU is enclosed and the video card has a huge fan on it that blows air through a plastic housing.
The GPU is not exposed on the board, so adapting liquid cooling would be a bitch.

Thanks for the link, that unit looks interesting, but again, no cold air. And it only fits one sort of CPU ...
Andy

Posted by: Chris Hamilton Nov 26 2008, 12:32 AM

You have to remove the heatsink and fan on the video card. ( it's easy ) http://www.dangerden.com makes waterblocks that fit all the important areas of your video card.

Posted by: Chris Hamilton Nov 26 2008, 12:36 AM

Here's your 8800GTX version http://www.dangerden.com/store/product.php?productid=257&cat=0&page=1

Posted by: pete-stevers Nov 30 2008, 02:00 PM

Andy did you come to a conclusion on this??

Posted by: Jeffs9146 Nov 30 2008, 05:25 PM

I have 3 chilling cores from cold water dispensors that could be adapted to do something!

I was using them to cool the water in my salt water fish tank! Let me know if you would like to experiment with one!

Posted by: Jeffs9146 Dec 1 2008, 04:24 PM

Here is a photo of the chilling units that I have!



Attached image(s)

Posted by: Chris Hamilton Dec 3 2008, 01:39 PM

That's pretty slick, what's the wattage on it?

Posted by: Dr. Roger Dec 3 2008, 04:25 PM

is there any reason you couldn't gut a cheap mini-freezer

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/hsh/938744938.html

and duct the freezing cold air right on top of the your graphics card heat sink/fan?


You just want a stable source of freezing cold air, right?



Patent pending.....

Posted by: Dr. Roger Dec 3 2008, 04:31 PM

or, even better, free mini freezer...


http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/zip/942854313.html

Posted by: SirAndy Dec 3 2008, 07:47 PM

They're not build to create large volumes of cold air. Think about it, a fridge or freezer has zero (0) airflow. It only cools what is in it. If you start sucking air out of the freezer, you need to replenish that air. At which point air will be flowing through the freezer way to fast for it to do any cooling to the air.

Plus, how do you get the air in/out of the freezer? The surrounding insulation is achieved by a hollow space with a vacuum. If you drill a hole in the wall for a hose, you destroy the vacuum and thus lose the insulation ...

Andy

Posted by: SirAndy Dec 3 2008, 07:51 PM

No conclusion, but i did rig up a temporary fix of sorts.

I turned the computer sideways, removed the side panel and added a second, larger fan that blows ambient air right into the fan of the video card. That second fan gets it's air through a duct to prevent preheated air from being sucked in.

Now the heat can freely escape out the top without the CPU heat preheating the GFX card above.

It seems the system runs more stable now, the GFX card still gets plenty hot thought.

I'd really like to find some permanent solution with cold air, not water ...
Andy

Posted by: r_towle Dec 3 2008, 08:54 PM

You really only have two choices
Either use a system that benefits from the chemical change from gas----liquid---gas to remove the heat, like a standard AC unit using refrigerant....

OR
use a thermoelectric device.

To run a test or at least have a toy to rip apart...go get a DC powered cooler from an RV store...I have two, they work great.
This is a thermo electronic device that works.
The whole unit is contained in the lid...no need to cut or build anything.
It has the fan built in and blows cold air...just add some funky duct work to test it.

Rich