[redleader]

the top will bow at ~40psi
do not exceed 25psi

Thanks bill. So much for my experiment. Silly question though: is that 25 PSI above atmopshereic pressure or is that 25 PSI absolute pressure?

You would not be able to braze fittings to it because the block is soldered together so the solder would melt. You could allways de solder the whole lot and braze it together.

That might work, but i thought the bottom was already brazed. Site says "the base and housing are brazed together", which implies that the design simply isn't made for this kind of pressure regardless of modifications. I'll probably buy a 6000 regardless for watercooling. Then i could look at it and decide if i want to attempt that or not.

Originally Posted by 8-Ball

Bear in mind that the block will be on the LOW pressure side of the loop.

It's the condenser that needs to be able to withstand high pressure.

The evaporator needs to be able to withstand very low pressures, but the pins should stop the top from collapsing.

8-ball

Correct, however once you turn the system off the pressure will equalize as the liquid refrigerant boils. Boiling point of R290/R22 at room temp: ~170 PSI. Not that the system will reach that, final pressure depends on charge and volume, but having to carefully monitor my charge to avoid blowing the top would be annoying and error prone.

Worse, I have no idea how far below the maximum possible the final pressure would be, so its possible i'd assemble the whole thing, begin charging and have to start from scratch because the pressure would be too high.

A quick look at the properties of R290 suggests that at 2 bar, liquid would be very, very roughly twice as dense as gas. So if the high and low side had equal volumes, we might expect the off system pressure to be somewhere around 3 bars, or at least not drastically higher. I'll look up exact values, and do some calculations. Perhaps with a large enough accumulator on the low side, compressor off pressure could be kept below 25 PSI.