bong/closed loop idea, seems great, am i not thinking of something?

[DigitalChaos]

I'm back after a few months, i see the community has been changing and growing strong. cool to see.

Ok, take the idea of a bong cooler, and mix it with standard water cooling and you have this thing. It is a standard watercooling setup, with the rad sitting in a bong system that is completely separate. I have seen similar things, but nothing exactly like this.

the heatercore is at the bottom of the shower tube, but above the fan.
benefits of this:

The air comming in first cools the rad

The air also cools the falling water via evaporation which cools the rad more

the rad will be wet, and alot of evaporation will happen here, causing even more cooling on the rad. this also stops alot of the splashing noise.

the air from the fan will cool the rad just fine if the bong runs out of water, or something in the bong dies.









now, im sure there are a few tweaks that could be done to this to better the design, or even design flaws, thats why this post is here =)
have at it guys.

[DigitalChaos]

OH I ALMOST FORGOT!!!!!

i want something to coat my heatercore to protect it from the water. I know i probably wont have a problem. but i dont want it to start oxidizing in the water and messing it up... or any of the other fun things that can happen, as the bong loop will not have any additives in it, and it will probably be straight tap water. heh... if i even ran distilled, it would start costing more than gas for my car!

anyway, i was thinking normal spraypaint would do the trick, but i was looking for something more durable, but not expensive.

any ideas?

[Dix Dogfight]

If you want to go all the way it's possible to add a peltchiller that cools the water to the cpu and it's hot side is cooled by the bongwater.
I know peltchillers aren't that effective but the hot side would be really cool since bongs tend to cool the water to below ambient.
Just my two cents

[DigitalChaos]

well i really dislike pelts cause they are power hogs, and arent safe enough to put in a computer system i spent lots of $ on.

mainly im looking for slight additions, different orientations to the parts, and a certain type of coating for the heatercore.

along with any thoughts as to the performance and if it would be worth while.

thanks for the comment though

[ssjwizard]

i think it would work OK the problem with adding the radiator is that it will add alot or resistance to the air loop for one. and 2nd your adding yet another medium that heat has to be transferd from. what id do if i were you is get a set of pumps that are inline compatable hook one up comming directly out of the waterblock that goes to the shower head and have the to cpu in the bottom of the res this way the warm cpu water never mixes with the cool bong water which lowers its efficancy. yea you have to watch the watter level a little closer but i think that the temprature gain is worth it. just make a habbit of filling it before you go to work and it will never go dry.

[Limeygreg]

I had thought about doing that some time ago, when bongs were first starting. I was researching indirect evaporative coolers for my house (nobody makes one in the US though). It occured to me that your primary system could have additives in the water and the secondary would have distilled water (get an RO unit). You could use regular tap water but it needs changing on say a monthly (or less) basis to keep down the mineral build up.

The radiator would become what is called the "wet deck" in evaporative chillers. These wet decks range from the very simple "aspen wood fiber pad" to sophisticated "s" channel cross flow membranes where water flows one way and air flows across it.

I would suggest putting the radiator higher in the bong tube if you can and putting it at an angle off of vertical, that way it would catch the water and make it run across the fins while air would be passing over the fins and water on it's way up the bong. You could probably reduce the water flow to a fine sprinkle and it would be effective.

If you are worried about corrosion how about a stainless steel heat exchanger? Maybe an epoxy based marine paint would keep the corrosion at bay, but just a very thin layer. There is actually an "anti-fouling" marine paint that is used on ships and boats, it works on the principle that it slowly sheds the surface molecules and that retards marine grow on the hull as it makes it tough for it to stick.

[DigitalChaos]

limeygreg.... that wood fiber pad must be what i saw at disney.... it was a greenhouse with 1 wall made out of the corrogated giant carboard lookin stuff... water was very slowly keeping it wet, with big fans behind it. this cooled down the entire greenhouse.

it was this that got me thinking to use my radiator in a similar fasion, but to cool just the rad, not the air.

[Can O' Beans]

Overall I think it is a good idea, and might as well try it. If ity doesn't work as good, just go to normal bong cooling.

I like Limeygreg's idea of angling the heatercore. You would have the water flowing down the one side of the fin, and cool air making more contact on it's way up the back side of the fin.

[ssjwizard]

i had an idea. now instead of having the watter run across it how about putting the heater core at the top of the unit and get rid of the shower head. what i mean is shroud the heater core to a pipe fitting the return lines goes in and goes across the fins of the core then down into the evaporative tube? the watter would be cold get warmed and then become cold again all in one fall.

or shroud a pump to the heater core that sits on the bottom of the bong and then have a 3rd pump run the watter up to the top of the tower at the shower head.

i just came up with a 3rd method. its dual shrouding the heater core. first shroud the watter comes in and goes through the fins 2nd shroud the watter is reduced back down into the tube then goes to the top of the cooling tower through the shower head like in a normal bong.

[DigitalChaos]

yea, tilting the core is probably something i will go with

ssjwizard- those are some cool ideas, ill definately play with the concepts while making this.

[ssjwizard]

yea i think the last idea is probably the best one normal bong but before the water goes up it gets warmed by the heater core so its warm by the time it gets to the top all the water at the bottom should be nice and cold allready.

[airspirit]

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showth...hreadid=112193

This guy did something similar. Your idea will work. You will lose a bit of efficiency from straight bong cooling, but you'll be able to use additives in your CPU water. Good luck with your project.

[bigben2k]

It wouldn't be my first choice, but I agree it would work.

This is basically a setup with 2 circulating loops, so why not get rid of the rad altogether, use a heat exchanger (tube in tube) and run the bong normally? I mean, your limit here is the heat exchange, and I'm sure you could improve from running a mist of water through a heatercore to using a more efficient way to exchange the heat to the second cooling loop.

[Daleorama]

I really like the idea, but just make sure to plan on having condensation on your water line.

I grew up in the desert, where all the houses had evaporative coolers, and I remember that evaporative coolers add a ton of humidity to the air. Once your water runs a few cycles through that bong, it will be pretty chilly. Now, with the heat transfer from the heater core, you are going to have to worry about condensation on the lines running to the computer. It probably won't be nearly as bad as with a pelt, but you probably will have to wrap up your water line between the heater core and cpu with insulation and tape. With that small precaution, I think your system will be awesome.

[Volenti]

Originally posted by Daleorama
I really like the idea, but just make sure to plan on having condensation on your water line.

I grew up in the desert, where all the houses had evaporative coolers, and I remember that evaporative coolers add a ton of humidity to the air. Once your water runs a few cycles through that bong, it will be pretty chilly. Now, with the heat transfer from the heater core, you are going to have to worry about condensation on the lines running to the computer. It probably won't be nearly as bad as with a pelt, but you probably will have to wrap up your water line between the heater core and cpu with insulation and tape. With that small precaution, I think your system will be awesome.

bong cooling will never drop the temp of the water below the dew point, so unless you get a sudden temprature change you won't get condensation.

[Daleorama]

Hmmm, well I know that the evaporative coolers we used back home could get cold enough to form condensation. This tells me that maybe bongs don't take full advantage of evaporative cooling. Maybe I will start an evaporative coolilng project of my own with the goal of maximizing the cooling potential of the system.

[DigitalChaos]

hrm.. lots of interesting info. i too am wondering how cold this could all get.

i have been running around home depot and ace hardware looking for tons of options.

ill let you guys know what ive got as a progress.

so far i got a $3 shower head, and "multi surface deck sealant" that i will coat my heatercore in to stop oxidation.

[Morpheus Kain]

I take it bong cooling wouldn't work too well because I live in FL near the coast with 90%+ humidity.

[airspirit]

Sorry. It probably would do no good because your air is already near or at the saturation point for humidity. The drier the environment, the more efficient a bong will run. That might also be why in the desert they were collecting condensation ... since the air is so dry it'll more readily wick humidity causing much greater drops in water temperature. Basically, that is how a vacuum evaporator works: by keeping the area above the liquid a vacuum (or close to it) the humidity is zero. This forces the a portion of the liquid to evaporate to get to the liquid/evaporate balance point for the ambient temperature. Since the steam is sucked out as fast as it evaporates, you can evaporate large quantities of water in very little time. By keeping your bong in a dry environment you'll get very good results. If you are in seattle or miami beach, it will do nothing for you. That probably answers the condensation question for y'all, too.

[Morpheus Kain]

-Starts looking at waterblocks and pumps again- THX airspirit

[redleader]

Hmmm, well I know that the evaporative coolers we used back home could get cold enough to form condensation.

No they can't.

Not unless it suddenly becomes very humid and/or very warm outside. And this effect would only last a short while before a new equilbrium is restored. Maybe in the early morning here in Tucson you might have that for a few minutes after dawn.

[ssjwizard]

i have an idea how about a mini evaporative cooler. like 4 pieces of evaporative pad walls inside of a larger box above your resivior. get 4 12" desktop box fans mount those in the walls of the main shell and above the evap pads you have a pvc ring the same lengths as the pads and every inch or so you have a small hole drilled at the center point you have a T that connects it all and the water comes in the one end this way the water comes in fills up the tube most of the way and will drain out pretty equaly around the entire ring into the pads where the water has to run down relativly slowly gets blasted by your fans. in your resivior you have your heater core dual shrouded. by shroud i mean using a piece of metal watertight at the seals with at the center of the top all you have is a hose barb and the same on the other end this way the water evenly flows across the all the fins then goes back down into a hose and up to the dranage unit. this should yeild pretty nice results the bottom res would have to be like 10-20 gallons though to keep it so you only have to fill every 10 days or so.

[semi]

Some times the air blowing through the wet mat on a swamp cooler ( evaporative cooler) will break loose droplets of water and float those droplets for a short distance. When these droplets strike an object they stick (to the outlet or ducting) and can look like dew is forming from the cold air when the water is not condensing.