Evap cooled rad...?
 

lick your finger. (okay, okay, wash it first you grubby little cretin). now blow on it. cold? good.

i reckon that if i put a rad inside a evap tower, and had the shower head making it wet, and the fan blowing cool air past it... would it get very far below ambient?

i'm gonna draw a diag.

The water in your evap tower would be cooled to (or close to) the dew-point. The coolant in your heat exchanger would be a hair hotter.

The problems? Constantly providing more water to evaporate, and possible mineral/biological build-up on the heat exchanger.

Did you tried it already?
If it's cleaned frequently it shouldn't have any deposits.
I use a tower and installed a simple in-line filter, using deep well water ain't to dirty.

Yeah, I've seen this done before (can't remember where, sorry :(). It should work fine, though the results won't be quite as good as with the water from the cooling tower going straight to the water blocks.

why?

isnt it just adding another step with its own inefficiencies to the setup? your dripping cold water on the radiator, essentially using the radiator as the stuffing in the chamber.

but rather than using the water directly to cool the PC, your cooling different water with water.

be like... Ill run the cold water out of the faucet over the radiator. skip that and just run the faucet water straight into the PC.

just a thought. I guess the setup does keep the inpurities associated with the open system evap system from entering the PC cooling components.

Yep, it'lll work. You'll get performance somewhere between a bong and a normal radiator. If you use distilled water in the bong section, that would get rid of the mineral buildup problems.
Well water is likely to have quite a lot of dissolved minerals - look inside your kettle to see how much mineral build up you are likely to get. If there isn't any you won't have any problems.

Also, you may well be able to make it much more compact than a standard bong - the vast majority of the performance benefit will come from the water evaporating on the radiator, not in the bong section.

just spray water onto the radiator, and blow a fan on the radiator. the radiator IS the bong section then, getting both the standard cooling properties of the air over any bare metal, and the heat transfer to the wet metal from water evaporating.

for those familiar with cars, this method is used for intercoolers, often its a setup like your windsheild wiper fluid. hit the button and it sprays a mist onto the intercooler, further cooling the radiator, and thus the air inside it.

I dont know, since im by far less familiar with the physics then the rest of you guys, but, putting a rad above the showerhead, using it to capture some of the water fog, and letting the actual vapor leave only, could it be possible?

(Meaning you run the cooled water through the rad, it will most likely heat up to a slight extent, since your suddently blowing "hot" vapor / water on it... It should as sutch capture the bigger water particles, and even condense some, altho, the air pushing through the rad will slightly cool it aswell...)

I dont know, to me it seams to be a more logical solution, if someone if persistant about a rad...

Blow me out of the water now mates, explain whats making this none working (i allready know it should raise the temp a bit, no idea how far, and the only reason for actually doing it should be to try and limit the water loss...

B!

it works pretty well
i'm doing it with an heat exchanger in copper similar to the "volenti mini bong" (but really smaller) and with the tube closed. i keep that in a bath of water and i have 2 80 mm fans @ 7v blowing on it.
it keep my barton 2500 @2.4 Ghz under 35 C (even when the water bath is dry :D, temps stay around 40 C)

With small design modification that could work.

but regardless there are long term issues with using copper finned rads in this way , calcium buildup , dust build up and corrosion of the copper will choke up the fine fins of the rad eventually.

The easiest way to stop water droplets blowing out the top of a shower head bong is to install a "switchback", get a pair of plastic wall vents that use slotted angle grilles like so ////////, you flip the other one around and mount them back to back so they liik like this;
/////////
\\\\\\\\\

the air passes thrugh but the heavier water droplets can't take the turn and hit the grating and drip back into the bong.

Not at all. The bonged rad to a normal radiator, is like a water chiller to a pelt. What you've said is like saying a water chiller adds another step of inefficiencies and so would be worse than a non-chilled loop.

Yes, I agree it might be better if he just bonged it, but it still might be better than a normal rad setup.