You CAN get water temps to within a 0.3C tolerance over an entire test with a radiator and fans. I have done it. It is a bit of a pain because it requires a lot of fiddling with the fan speed, waiting a minute, fiddling again, and so on. Still it is possible and could in theory be automated.
What is the real problem with rads and fans is the sensitivity of the system to room temp changes. ACs wreak havok. Changes from summer to winter are an issue. Over an 8 hour cycle or so the room temp is hard to keep stable. A chiller deals with all of these. In principle, choosing water temp set point suitably warm makes it at least POSSIBLE to work all year round. You may actually need to switch to a poorer radiator if it gets really cold in your basement in the winter.
Anyway there are some things that preclude success (using a bucket to measure flow rates, using a compunurse to measure temperatures). Using a radiator as a cooling source is NOT the kiss of death but it will quickly make testing into a chore best left to trained monkeys.
Just wanted to throw that in there.
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