Case Mod Arctic Rain - Evaporative Cooling Build

[Blarte]

thats just answered one of my questions... I was considering asking.. Is there a way of recycling the evaporating water, sort of a condensing tube ? then you'd not have to refill the case
Love unique and this is a very nice well built unique case

[InitialDriveGTR]

Originally Posted by Blarte

thats just answered one of my questions... I was considering asking.. Is there a way of recycling the evaporating water, sort of a condensing tube ? then you'd not have to refill the case
Love unique and this is a very nice well built unique case

Yes and no. I've come up with a few designs to chill and condense water vapor passively, but they would have to be huge, at least three or four times the size of the case itself. The other option for that I was looking at was using a small air conditioner unit from ICEQube in the USA, where they have small 1000BTU A/C units that could mount to the back of a cooling chamber on the top cooler. But I got a quote for the A/C unit at over 1000 USD so I'm set on that for now.

Refilling the coolers really isn't an issue. It's all automated. It senses water levels have dropped, and it fills it self back up to a certain level depending on flow rate.

And thanks!

[Redd13]

Loving this build. its great to see an unusual idea.. do you know how effective the waterfall section is compared to a normal 360 rad? and the same for the upper swamp cooling bay?
definitely thinking my next build may incorporate some similer ideas!

Thanks and keep up the amazing work!

[InitialDriveGTR]

Originally Posted by Redd13

Loving this build. its great to see an unusual idea.. do you know how effective the waterfall section is compared to a normal 360 rad? and the same for the upper swamp cooling bay?
definitely thinking my next build may incorporate some similer ideas!

Thanks and keep up the amazing work!

Well the last evaporator based computer I built could cool a 5Ghz 2600k at 1.46v wile only raising water temps about 2c above idle. I used a radiator with a heater blowing on it to try and simulate a thermal load, and it still didn't affect the temperatures that much.

Once I get the new waterblocks and my GTX670 in I'll be able to get a better idea.

[Redd13]

cool thanks!

[Journeyer]

Ah, this reminded me of my own cooling setup about ten years back. I built a 2m dual bong cooler which functioned after much the same principle. It was not a closed system however, and as such I did have to top up the reservoir from time to time again. But it did prove quite efficient, and certainly more than validated the concept. Bong coolers were all the rage back then (well that and peltiers), and I'm thrilled to see someone picking up the slack from that era today.

Excellent work sir, carry on. Will be watching with interest.

[InitialDriveGTR]

Originally Posted by Journeyer

Ah, this reminded me of my own cooling setup about ten years back. I built a 2m dual bong cooler which functioned after much the same principle. It was not a closed system however, and as such I did have to top up the reservoir from time to time again. But it did prove quite efficient, and certainly more than validated the concept. Bong coolers were all the rage back then (well that and peltiers), and I'm thrilled to see someone picking up the slack from that era today.

Excellent work sir, carry on. Will be watching with interest.

Yeah I kinda wish I had been into computers like this back then. I had seen on many forums how the bong coolers had proven themselves, but it was a technology that needed a lot of refinement in other areas.

I'm an electrical/mechanical engineering co-op here in the USA for Bose Corporation (better sound through research yadda yadda) and I've gained a ton of experience from other engineers on how to take things and really shrink them down. Albeit, my coolers probably can't get the same marks that your 2m dual cooler could get, but mine does pretty damn good for something integrated into the case itself.

"The only way to get better cooling is to innovate and try new ideas. Better cooling through research I suppose" is what Dr. Bose said to me. Considering how far that general concept has gotten him, I'll go with it.

As for zee updates to my build, here ya all go:

8/13/2012

I have decided to scrap my old CPC connector based cabling. It was bulky, and really interfered with a lot of other things, and I did that back before I knew where I was going with the evaporative coolers in terms of their design and fitment. Jumped the gun on that one.

Anyways, white paracord sleeving, white heat shrink (all evenly matched of course, I'm going to buy a LOT) and groups of three wires into braids. I am in love with this. I have 200 feet of white paracord and 15 feet of white 3:1 heatshrink on it's way, and should all be here hopefully by saturday.













Even if I decide I don't like the braids, I can just take them out later on

8/15/2012


[Talking to nategr8ns on overclock.net] I dunno, I'm thinking I'm still going to sleeve them. The small wire diameter due to lack of sleeving would look great in a bitfenix prodigy, but not in a huge full tower like this imo. BTW, I highly recommend never doing what I did here. I had to break out my old 120W soldering iron to get this thing soldered properly.



Something I noticed when I sleeved the original wiring in white was any brightly colored wire tended to bleed through the white paracord. Problem solved.





I had my EVGA GTX670 cheesecake overnighted to me, and will be here sometime today. This is my first GTXx70 card, and also my first product from EVGA. I'm excited

EK should also have parts to me next week I'm hoping.

[InitialDriveGTR]

I personally think it was a good idea to leave this part to last. That let me get the coolers working, and the majority of everything else set up and working. Then I was able to dedicate some time to making everything look nice. I hadn't been able to figure out what I wanted to do in terms of cleaning up the look of the top cooler. I've got about 20 sketches of various ways I had thought of making the top cooler's aesthetics, and I only modeled four of them. Eventually, I settled on this one:



I think it would keep the Azza Genesis 9000's lines well. Raised edges with a slightly lower middle, with nice broad curves. I wanted to integrate the Aquaero 5 XT into it as well. This should also give me a nice amount of space to run wires and water lines to the Aquaero.

Anyways, here's some pics of the parts all machined and ready to be sanded down to their final forms.










Ready for paint, and a few minor alterations. Right now, I'm planning on keeping the I/O ports as they are right here. I know what ever gets plugged in will interfere with seeing the Aquaero, but I figure one of the only times I won't anything plugged in there would be when I'm taking photos. Otherwise, not an issue.




See how the sides have a tapered edge? Should fit well with the tapered edges of the case itself.


















I'm going for a sort of "view through the ice" type of deal here. I want to frost the edges, and leave that center clean to see the water flow inside the top section.

[CptGooch]

This is the kind of mod that gets my blood pumping. Anyone can throw in a radiator to cool their water, and call it a day. Unique approaches like a evaporative cooler built in the case make me want to sneak home early to work on my own mods. If I were to describe "Arctic Rain" in one word, that word would be Inspiring.

This project log has really helped me think outside the box more. Thanks!

[Fonne]

Amazing build, really something new

Is the "frosted" top how it will look finish ? - A shame you live that far away, i would have cut a nice sheet of some "real" frosted plexi to make the top look really good ....

[InitialDriveGTR]

Originally Posted by Fonne

Amazing build, really something new

Is the "frosted" top how it will look finish ? - A shame you live that far away, i would have cut a nice sheet of some "real" frosted plexi to make the top look really good ....

Thanks!

It's just sanded at the moment. Not sure yet If I'm going to try and frost it or just mask it off and paint it.

Originally Posted by CptGooch

This is the kind of mod that gets my blood pumping. Anyone can throw in a radiator to cool their water, and call it a day. Unique approaches like a evaporative cooler built in the case make me want to sneak home early to work on my own mods. If I were to describe "Arctic Rain" in one word, that word would be Inspiring.

This project log has really helped me think outside the box more. Thanks!

I completely agree. I mean there are some rad based water cooling computers out there that are phenomenal, and they regularly inspire me, but I love to go against the flow. Glad I could raise the ol heart rate, updates over the next two weeks should help too lol





Had a very busy day today at work. I've been working on two early prototypes of Bose's Ride system over the least two weeks which is really cool:



Anyways I had the opportunity to take out the test vehicle today:





And when I got home, tried my hand at bondo. Sorry for the crappy S III pics. I was too lazy to get out my D5100. Can't wait to get that all painted over.

[InitialDriveGTR]

Teasers.

[monkeyfun]

You drew me in with evaporative and won me over with the braided sleeving. *modding swoon*

[Cheapskate]

Really neat idea. I can't say I can remember seeing an integrated bong/evap setup. The execution is first class too.

[rwb97]

Man!! THIS IS SO COOL!!! Shame about the condenser, I was having a think about it too, but yeah it would have to be fairly large.

[InitialDriveGTR]

Better photos when I get the water blocks in from EK!



[Burnout21]

This is bugging me, I can't figure out how your cooling system works. I understand evap cooling but I can't figure out the loop.

[InitialDriveGTR]

[InitialDriveGTR]

I've wanted to post one of these for a long time Thank you Gregor, over at EKWB, for helping out a new modder, Seriously, this means a lot to me.



Right now, I'm thoroughly impressed. Aquaero reports a max water temp of 27c, EVGA precision reported a max temp of 39c at full load after two hours, and Realtemp had a max temp on core 1 of 59c after two hours. I'm very happy. The coolers are also going through water a lot faster than usual. Which makes sense lol.



I'm considering throwing this radiator into the CPU/GPU loop for some added performance, plus the ability to run the computer without having to evaporate water.

[InitialDriveGTR]

Done for the summer. Next update will be in a couple weeks when I'm settled back into the routine of school.


















Side panel needs some finishing......