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Thread ID: 50344 2004-10-18 02:44:00 Small Chillers Lohsing (219) Press F1
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282218 2004-10-18 02:44:00 Hey guys, is it possible to duct the air outflow from a small (say 1 Kilowatt) chiller into a PC? Would there be issues of condensation or not?

Am interested as I am thinking of ducting some air from a chiller in another room directly into a PC case to cool all the components...

More of a "could I do this project" rather than a "need to do this project".

Lo.
Lohsing (219)
282219 2004-10-18 02:54:00 You might easily have condensation problems. Inside the chiller, the air is dried by contact with the condenser. If you then push cold dry air into a warm/humid box it will probably cause some condensation. I would be most concerned about hard disk drives which have a fine hole and a filter so the air inside them is at the same temperatiure and pressure (and humidity) as their environment. The equalisation is slower than it would take water to condense on the inside metal surfaces as they were cooled below the dew point of the air already in the drive.

Computer rooms use air conditioning aimed at a stable temperature at around 18-20°C. Chilled air ar ?4°C might be a problem.
Graham L (2)
282220 2004-10-18 02:57:00 Hmmm... you may be right there... I wonder though, how do server rooms work? Some of them are downright chilly... Wouldn't the heat from the PC's cause a similar condensation issue?

Lo.
Lohsing (219)
282221 2004-10-18 02:59:00 Oops - didn't read that last part carefully... All becomes clear now!

Lo.
Lohsing (219)
282222 2004-10-18 05:37:00 ... For a minute I thought you meant "small Chilling Silencers" !!
Misty ]:)
Misty (368)
282223 2004-10-18 08:16:00 > Computer rooms use air conditioning aimed at a
> stable temperature at around 18-20°C. Chilled
> air ar ?4°C might be a problem.

hhmmm, doesnt seem right when there is a liquid nitrogen cooled pc, which is most likely working at -10°C???? but its a overclocked 1.33Ghz athlon-c to a 2.234ghz. now to find that link.........
Prescott (11)
282224 2004-10-18 08:19:00 around on the weekend while flicking thru pc mag at whitcoles (to tight to subscribe)there was a pc with what looked like a n2 bottle hooked on the back,might be worth a read to see how they got around the condensation problem ferrite (4221)
282225 2004-10-18 08:22:00 damn sorry didnt see prescotts reply ferrite (4221)
282226 2004-10-18 08:34:00 They might only be using it to cool the CPU Raikyn (6293)
282227 2004-10-19 02:52:00 Yes Prescott, and IBM used water cooling for the IBM360 modules,and Cray used Freon in the Cray 1. IBM even used liquid helium for the attempts at Josephson effect computers (they failed because of the thermal stresses on all the I/O wires as they warmed the box up to work on it and cooled it down).
It's not a problem cooling a CPU to reasonable temperatures, or even mildly unreasonable ones.

But this case involves blasting a stream of cold air into the computer box, not cooling the CPU on its own. An icy atmosphere is going to cause condensation inside disk drives. I wouldn't want to risk it.

Astronomers use Peltier coolers for their CCD cameras. They have trouble with condensation and have to use clever tricks to stop it. LN2 is even worse.
Graham L (2)
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