Simple,easy to make, silent, evaporative cooling
 

This is more or less a "how to" for those interested in trying evaporative cooling, this design is based of one of my earlier designs that made use of copper tubing and required skills and tools to make that wern't available to everyone.

This is a revised design that can be assembled by pretty much anyone, requires no special tools, and all materials needed can be sourced easily and reasonably cheaply (and from the one place, Bunnings in my case)

This was my inital starting materials, a roll of 1/2'' micro-irrigation tubing, a collection of 1/2'' elbows and tees, couple of hundred small zip ties, large packet of "chux", and several dozen 60cm rigid micro-irrigation risers;

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap.jpg

First step is to assemble the manifold that all the risers screw into, the exact design and layout of this is dependent on what container you're going to use, you basically make it large enough to take up as much of the floor area of the container as possible, see later pics for clarity. The 1/2'' micro-irrigation tubing is very stiff and wants to retain it's rolled up shape, tame it with some hot water to get it straight (don't let the kids handle that job)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap2.jpg

Now for the "business end", get the chux out and cut each peice in half, when you buy the chux make sure you get a size that is suited to the length of riser you bought, systems with smaller pumps should use shorter risers to limit head loss. Now as per the picture roll up the chux on the riser and secure with some zip ties. repeat 40-50 times (or untill you run out of risers, or chux, or zipties)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap3.jpg

Now to put our components together, you may want to buy one of those T shaped pokey things that they sell with the micro-irrigation stuff (used to poke holes in the 1/2'' semi-rigid tubing) anyway space the risers evenly and poke a hole and screw them in (don't get anal like I did and actually calculate and measure the hole spacing) rough enough is good enough for this application.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap4.jpg

And you'll end up with something looking like that ^ . After intial testing I found that I didn't have enough risers to accomadate the water flow I had, I re-made the manifold and added more risers (47 in total), the end result is this;

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap5.jpg

I used a square container that can hold up to 45L of water, remember that water is heavy, you may have to brace your bench, like so;

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap8.jpg

I split the inlet up to get the flow a little more evenly distributed, but it's not essential to do.(ie, not a whole lot of difference, me=anal)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap6.jpg

here you can see the wire work (single strand copper wire) to tame the risers, which otherwise can tend to flop all over the place with the weight of the water.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap7.jpg

The "money shot", top temp is ambient, middle is water temp (NOT, repeat NOT cpu temp) , and relitive humidity at the bottom. This is cooling a 2100+@2.35, 1.85v, this is with 0 forced air, since it's winter I don't have the room fan going so the air is essentially dead still (and the evaporative cooling is just as dead silent)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap9.jpg


an overall pic;

http://users.bigpond.net.au/volenti/simple_evap10.jpg

note the inline filter, a must have, especially with the current generation of micro-channel/jet blocks.

Volenti = Bong God!:D

Wow, looking good...

I thought i had seen that kinda setup before over at OC.com but ours is alot cheaper, easy to make and a good performer..

Nice Work!

Very nice setup! :)

It's a very smart move replacing the copper pipes with plastic parts. It must be a lot lighter and easy to make.

You're inspiring me to improve my plain 5 gallon bucket; water always stabilizes between 30º - 35º, mostly related to load than ambient temp.

I'm thinking on a variation of your setup, where there's only a support structure for the wet pads, and water rises by capilarity instead of being feed from the top.

Please give us more details about the operation, like:

How much water "drinks" weekly this system, or how much and often are the refills needed?. Is it working 24/7 or how many hours daily? What kind of load has the pc, Seti? folding? or just normal work with plenty of cpu idle time? How much rises the temp after several hours of heavy load?

I've only had this setup going for just over a week, I havn't topped it up in that time, I estimate I may get almost month between re-fills, at least during the winter anyway (in southern hemis). In summer I think 2-3 weeks max will be the top up periods.

The machine only operates 6-7 hours a day, more on weekends, and about 50/50 idle:load ,websurfing, games ect

During my long Freelancer sessions the temp rises by a degree or so.

great idea. like you said, for those who dont have the tools. the only downside for this would be desk space for the cooler, i need to get a bigger desk.

how do you think the chux will last? the ones I've used in the sink deteriorate eventually... obviously these won't be used as much, but being wet all the time may make them deteriorate?

Also, alge, I guess you'd have to use some form of prevention for that as well?

Oh oh oh, one last thing (I promise!!), the filter you had on the line, I used to use those, the holes in it are pretty large, they wouldn't stop much crud from getting into the lines would they?

these chux aren't being subjected to the machanical stress/wear that sink chux would endure, so they should last a fair while, should get a year out of them at the very least, they are mostly synthetic.

Green algae doesn't occur but a thin light brown slimy deposit does eventually form on the objects in the res, however I've found that the treatments for it are more trouble than their worth, and simply do a strip down and clean quartley or whenever's needed.

the mesh in the filter does stop quite a bit, should see all the crud it collects when I clean it, anything that's small enough to get through is small enough to pass through the block without getting stuck.

What are your cpu temps?
idle?
load? (prime or rc5-72)

Volenti, two questions:
1. What pump do You use? It looks quite stout from the pics.
2. Is that white thing under the bench a UPS?
regards
Mikael S.

1. The pump is an Iwaki MD-20RZ, very nice pump, but , ignoring water block head losses, an eheim 1250 or similar would give adequate flow for the evaporative cooling. The only head loss from the evaporative cooling is it's height, there's really little loss from the internal structure it's self.

2. yes

is this more/less/same effectiveness as your old copper one?

it looks like you would end up with more surface area in this one by having so many tubes, but the tubes are quite small.

It has at least 3x the surface area of the copper version, if not more, and easily out performs it in passive testing (havn't tested both properly with forced air yet but I can't see the end result changing much).

evap cooling; more surface area wins, all else being equal.

Wow Volenti nicely done! *where's the little "worship me" posticon? lol

I know I am from America, but Volenti, would you enlighten me as to where I could find an inline filter like yours?

Volenti is hiding... :D

They can be found at pet shops (aquarium supplies).

Try a garden store. They're irrigation filters for small irrigation systems for gardens :)

I'm still lurking around, just not as active as I used to be :cool:

In America you can find these hoses and fitting in lowes in the lawn and garden area. We call it, drip irrigation. i would never have thought that drip irrigation could be used for such a thing. i landscaped for 5 years and i never heard of anything like this. my question is, how loud are your pumps? this is a neat idea and worthy of considering, im just curious what kind of noise lever are we talking about?

The evaporator part is completly silent if set up correctly, the pumps can vary in "loudness" depending on make, some of the good ones require a very quiet room to hear them at all. The iwaki has a faint "turbine whine" sound at close range but you can't hear it from 3-4' away.

While I'm all for increasing cooling capacity with simple methods, I have one major issue with designs like this. They take up too much space and as you noted, they weigh a ton. I'd like to see your grandmother try to pick that up and move it.
Secondly, I also see a problem with upkeep. Lets face it, most people today are not technically proficient, and are even afraid of computers. I would never give a layman a cooler like this, they wouldn't refill it (huge problem #1, run time) and they would probably kick/knock it over (goooooodbye computer).
Finally, cost. Filling a system like that with distilled water is definitely not cost effective, which means you're going to be dealing with corrosion and mineral deposits from your water supply. Nobody wants to take their system apart and scrub their blocks/clean their hoses.

I really don't want to seem like I'm raining on your parade, but the practicality of this solution is nowhere to be found.

?

This is merely an option for already proficient water cooling users to get cooler water temps with greater heat capacity compared to normal radiator based cooling.

Laymen don't overclock and they cetainly don't water cool, laymen buy Dell's ;)

as for upkeep, I've been using this for over 2 years now with normal tap water, any and all buildup occurs in the evap res, I get no buildup in the water block/tubing (I strongly recomend sticking to a single metal type though, either all copper/brass or all alluminium), mantainence is simply a full drain every 2 months or so along with rinsing out the in-line filter, takes like 10-15min.

the trouble is that with increasing heat densities of processors, essentially even purchasing a dell is like purchasing an overclocked system. but that is beside the point. again, it's the size that really bothers me... I achieve ambient temps with typical radiator watercooling that is all kept internal in a PC60 (my latest project, that I have yet to post!) Mantainence is fill your res with distilled water, probably less than once a year. There is really no comparison...
mine: small and low upkeep with ambient temps.
yours: huge and 2 month upkeep with slightly below ambient temps.

just a side note, any cooling system - more surface area = better cooling... not just evap =P

Ok so you think you have ambient temprature coolant, with a typically sized radiator, in an all internal setup? I notice you didn't say that it was silent.

did I mention that mine is silent?

"mine: small and low upkeep with ambient temps." Excuse me while I shout to be heard over the fan noise needed for "ambient temps"

"yours: huge and 2 month upkeep with slightly below ambient temps." silence.

compared.

hey hey hey, keep it fiendly guys. its ok if you dont like each others set up. i personaly dont like most of the internal or extrnal cooling systems because they are in fact very loud. and i dont really like the size of your evap. system. but both systems have attributes that impress me. volenti, would it be possible to make a single or even a multi pipe system that takes up lets say a footprint of around 12 inches or less and is maybe 2 feet tall or so. almost like one of those little desk top fountains where the water bubbles up just enough to come over the top and roll down the sides of the pipes except its made to cool the PC? its worth thinking about.