evap cooling your radiator

[Whomp]

I was kinda laughed out of Ars for this suggestion, but I'm goint to try evap cooling my radiator.

I'm building a mini swamp cooler, which will mount the radiator just behind the pad. This way, I'm drawing evap cooled air through my radiator.

My big swamp cooler keeps my house 30F cooler than outside temps, why couldnt I achieve something similar with my little guy cooling my rad?

I know stacking cooling solutions is intrinsically inefficient, but evap coolers don't draw much, and If I can lower my temps a few degrees ....

Any thoughts?

[ezlid]

Rather than build a mini-swamp cooler, how about this?

Build a misting sytem to directly spray on the rad. Some fan ductwork to keep water off the fan and a small cheap pump to power the mister circuit. Of course an enclosure to contain the spray is needed too and act as a reservoir.

Sort of like a bong, only different.

[Whomp]

If I already have an enclosure, ducting, a small pump ....

hmmm, all I need to do is add a fan and a pad and I have ...

A small swamp cooler!

But you got the concept! Seems to me this would work at least marginally well.

[ezlid]

My thought is to eliminate the pad and use the water mist on the rad to do evap cooling directly. The air blowing on the misted rad will cool better than blowing through a pad. I think. I haven't tried it yet, but the misting used for crowd cooling works pretty good.
With or without a pad, it will reduce the air temp thru the rad below ambient, which is the limit in pure air/rad cooling.

Let'em laugh. Won't know til it's tried.

[jtroutma]

I had a very similar idea that I wanted to try myself.

Take one of those externally mounted AC units and remove all the refigeration equipement but leave the radiator and the fan. Plumb the radiator to the computer. Setup a small misting system just inside the unit where the fan forces air over the radiator so that the mist is forced throught the radiator. Mount the whole thing outside. It would be a swamp cooler that should do reatively well at cooling a computer and use very little water at the same time.

Why wouldnt it work? (Possibility: high humity area......)

[Whomp]

It won't work for everyone. But then neither does water cooling. I live in the desert, and it WILL work for me. How well it works is the fun part of the trip.

If I can find a host, I'll post pics as I go.

Whomp!

[ezlid]

Most people would think that this can't work in high humidity locales. I have been at the beach with air temps in the mid 90's and water in the mid 80's, and of course high humidity. When the wind hits your wet body it can be chilly, even though the air temp is very high. Evap cooling doesn't know the difference between skin or metal. It works better in low humidity, but it also in high humidity as well.

My wife bought an outdoor misting system that is hooked up to a garden hose. I want to use that as a basis for a mister-based rad cooler. I only need to get a second pump for misting. I have all the other parts. Need the time too.

Keep us posted Whoop.

[punish3r]

Whomp and ezlid, if you want to take it a step further, look at what they're doing with intercooler sprayers on turbo cars now. Used to be you had an identical setup to the one you're describing here (a fine water mist spraying the intercooler) but then the sanctioning bodies got in a hubbub about water on the track. Now, they're using liquid Nitrous to cool the intercoolers! Identical setup, but with nitrous instead of water. Anyway, I just think it would be badass to have a computer with a NOS or Zex or NX sticker on the side with a reason for it being there!

[JaNoZ]

hmm hey guys....

arent there guys here who live near a lake or small bit of water near the house to pump that cold water to chill the pc cooling water in your radiator (big one) plenty of water-> no concern of getting out of cold water :P
its better than air could get ever...

only harder to build....
btw let the fish play outside the radiator cooling system!

[redleader]

I was kinda laughed out of Ars for this suggestion, but I'm goint to try evap cooling my radiator.

Really? I don't remember that thread. Its funny, you're here because you feel ars didn't listen, Infidel is at Ars becuase Bill made fun of his stuff here.

Anyway I'd think carefully about that radiator though.

First becuase its a very poor way to do things. Only a tiny amount of heat is drawn from the evaporating coolant during the phase change. The vast majority comes from the water that doesn't evaporate. This makes sense because the mass (and therefore heat capacity) of the evaporated coolant is negligable compared to the mass of the liquid water. You end up chilling the water a lot more then you chill the coolant in the rad. Then the chilled water won't evaporate as quickly due to reduced vapor pressure. The result is a huge loss in effciency.

OTOH if you flipped the setup around, that is dumped the processors heat into the evap unit, you gain a lot of effciency becuase the processor's heat can power phase change reactions in the evap.

How would you do this? Drop the rad into the evap's tank. This way you'll have your CPU power dissipation working for you and not against you. You'll also keep the rad cleaner since it won't be filtering the air leaving the evap.