Project: Lian Dragon - Small update March 22nd, 2005

Nice setup, almost identical to mine... ok, well not that close. But we have the same case and psu! lol

Um...ya...since 75 is soooo fast and all. I guess you arn't the type that street races to 140+ often

 

In my Caravan?

 

I'm increasingly thinking of making a homemade phase-change cooling system. The parts aren't too expensive, actually, they're pretty much the same as any regular watercooling setup out there, maybe even cheaper. But then again, the reason the Prometia is so damn expensive is because they have something I don't: fabication facilities, and they offer something I can't: convenience of just being able to pop one in and pretty much have it work...Oh, and a third thing: Engineers. Enough said. Rant over. Anyway, I think I would like to dabble in the fine arts of phase-change. I found a great guide on how to build a phase-change system at overclockers.com, which I may follow.

 

Ok...I bought my R134A compressor off of eBay for $34.50, including shipping.

So I guess I've committed myself to homemade phase-change. My dad just bought me this monitor tonight:

Question: Should I buy an A64 fan and heatsink just until I get my phase-change system up and running? Or should I stick it out until I put it all together?

Also, does anyone know where there is a fairly accurate capillary tube length calculator, or at least a formula? I need to be able to know, because of the specs on the compressor, and because I would like to end up getting the optimum performance out of the system. Ohhhhhh...cool update (no pun intended) that I just thought of: I live down the street from a full CNC machine shop. I thought that I would walk down there to see if they might help me with my senior project, and lo and behold, who was the first person I ran into? THE PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY. He said he'd be glad to help me, so I think I'm going to design and CNC a custom waterblock for my phase-change system. Anyone have any ideas if a phase-change block is designed any differently than a normal waterblock? Thanks a lot! Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about what I might be doing.

 

The president of the CNC shop said that my dragon sidepanel design would cost me about $2500 dollars, because of the fact that it would be on a mill, not on a cutting table. So I asked him where there was a machine shop that does laser cutting or waterjet cutting, and he suggested another one I live very close to. So this is the design that I want to have cut into the side...took me a few minutes to draw it up in AutoCAD 2004:

Any thoughts?

 

looks really sweet, and the mobo you got is a awesome mobo, i love mine, if you OCing and it fails you just hold teh retsart button in and it rests the bios if you hold it for the certian lengh of time, such a great mobo,



and the CAD window looks sweet, just can't wait to see it cut out, will look uber sweet

 

are you intending to do some major over clocking???? phase change seems like way over kill if yer not... air cooling is more then adequate for a normally clocked cpu the stock hsf's work quit well and there are always better 3rd party sinks for a lot less then you prolly end up spendin on a phase change system not to mention the cost of a new cpu if it go's badly (trust me phase change is deceptively simple but its a bit more complex then it appears) defiantly if you really can live without it do your home work and check around the net for more info i know there used to be a lotta good resources on the subject (although it has been a couple years since ive really checked i abandoned the idea as an unnecessary risk not to mention complete overkill) although i am starting to lean back towards liquid as a coolant cause i saw in another thread here there is an affordable water substitute for sale some where..though i cant for the life of me remember exactly which thread it was if nothing else a simple homebrew w/c rig would end up cheaper in the end most likely…but in any case I wish you luck on your project and hope it all works out for the best

BTW : love the window cut out definately sexeh

 

Thanks for the info, but I still am definitely going for a phase-change cooling system. This would pretty much guarantee me a perfect score on my project, and I am also definitely going to overclock to its maximum potential. Thanks for the info, and keep it coming! Leave some feedback as to how you like it.

 

just out of interest were did you get autocad 2004 from as i am using autocad 2002 at school and would like to use it at home aswell. how much did it cost you and were did you get it from?

thanks

 

Actually, I belong to a robotics/engineering team at my school, and as part of the team, we were all given licenses to run Autodesk Mechanical Desktop 2004. As you probably know, AutoCAD 2004 is a part of the Mechanical Desktop package. So I still have the license, which is why I use the program. Basically, it was free (as was AutoCAD 2002, Autodesk Inventor, Discreet 3D Studio Max V.6...)

 

Your system set up is almost the same as on i am working on.

I am doing an entiere waterjet cut case of my own design, using the same mobo, vidcard as you are. As for the pelt set up. I found that i needed a powersupply of about 36Amps on the 12 rails to run my pelts and system at the same time. The sollution was the anatech truepower 550 server PSU.
What school do you go to?

 

I go to Webster Thomas High School, in Webster, NY.

GO WEBSTER SPARX!!!

 

if you really wanna good exotic set up do both phaze/liquid cooling use the phase change to chill the liquid as im asumine a more complex setup would make for a better score

 

I was thinking about it, but then I would probably end up freezing the water in the res if I were to chill the water with phase-change, considering the ultra-low temps these systems get. If I were going to do a water chiller system, I would probably just go with a pelt/water setup. Thanks for the input, though, always makes for good thoughts in my head.

 

I got some awesome news! I work at Staples, and I get a discount every so often. Here's the cool story: On Sunday, I didn't have to work, but I wanted to buy the monitor, because it was on clearance for $374.91 after a $30 rebate, because it was a display model, almost entirely unused. So, I went in to the store, and I grabbed it out of lock-up, and brought it to the front to pay for it with my dad (he was a little mad, because he thought I was getting a cheaper one). When I got up front, one of the guys I work with, Pete, told me he'd give me 10% off the price, because he wanted to get rid of it. Well, the monitor actually rang up $449.90. So we price guaranteed it down to $404.91, and then took 10% off of that price, which took it down to $364.43 (off of $404.91). But wait, Friday and today were Staples employee discount days, which is another 12% off. So I brought the receipt back into work today to get my discount, and that brought it down to a total of $316.70. Next, I wanted to reprint the rebate form, because I knew that it was out of the effective date. So I went back to the Staples.com rebate center, and I checked the SKU number, and guess what?! It is now a $100 rebate! So I am essentially getting a sweet 17" LCD monitor for $216.70! What a DEAL!

 

Ok...I just bought a new radiator (a brand new heater core for an Audi A6, actually) and I believe I know where I'm going to put it. The heater core (according to the dimensions they gave) is approximately 10.75" x 6.125" x 2". This is probably going to be mounted in the top of my case, and have two 150mm fans pulling filtered air through it. The r134a compressor should be coming either tomorrow or tuesday, and the heater core not long after. Just was curious as to your opinions on the 150mm fans, and the project in general. One thing, I don't mind noise, in fact, I sleep better with some noise because I used to live in a quite noisy area, and still haven't gotten over that factor at night. I know the fans are noisy, compared to other much smaller ones, but they also have a huge flow rate for still being classified a case fan. Hit me back with your thoughts!

Edit: Here is a video of it in action!

Edit 2: If I put a shroud, the radiator, and two fans in, I won't have much room left for any 5 1/4" drive bay drives or devices, so I think I'm going to make a shroud with one fan towards the center of the case. Ill try to draw it up later.

 

I got my compressor today! Here's a pic of approximately where I want to put it. The rectangle towards the front on top is the approximate size and placement of the radiator.

Let me know what you think!

Edit: I will probably need some help as to which lines are which on the compressor.

 

I think that there is no way you are going to come close to fully enclosing a home made phase change unit into a PC-65, good luck trying though.

 

Oh...I'm gonna make it work if it kills me in the process. Actually, the picture is pretty deceiving...There is significantly more room left in the case than it appears to have. Plus, I used the measurements they gave me on the item listings, and I tested the fit first, before even bidding, so I have a fairly good idea that it will work how I want it to.

 

phase-change needs a tough Rad (by that i mean it should be able to endure pressure of above 300 psi), are u gonna put the rad on top? So u would have to run all the copper hose up there?

And the control unit for the Compressor as well. Personally i dun think it fits either.

Orther wise Vapo and Promie would have not come up with seperating the chiller and the main compartment eh? (if it could be done your way)

But if u managed to do it, I'd love to see , raise the bar !!!