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water cooler project

crane on Fri April 30, 2004 10:25 AM User is offlineView users profile

I salvaged a working jug type water cooler from somewhere and I have a couple questions for you guys. It is a LG brand .5 hp compressor with a whopping 1.75 oz of R134a as a refrigerant. I know this thing is setup for intermittent compressing only as any longtime use will burn it up. What i'm using it for is to chill water for a water cooled computer. It works fine, but I'm concerned that its gonna toast on me. The factory condenser is about 3 ft tall and I've folded this down to a 1' x 1' square condenser and I've added cooling fans to help out heat dissipation. When the water pump is running,(circulating through the loop) the little compressor never cycles off to catch its breath. If I leave the pump off, the compressor will cycle on and off. I understand why ,of course.
My question is... would it benefit me to chop off the factory condenser and solder in a better condenser? I know my refrigerant capacity would increase along with heat dissipation from a better condenser,but would the increased capacity allow longer compressor life ?More than likely it would kill the little thing outright.
There is a TXV valve with several adjustments on it.....one is a dial type and the other are tiny screws labeled "in & out" and "colder". I cranked the one that says "colder" in all the way and it makes ice in my reservoir.
Just a silly hobby, but I don't want to kill the little thing needlessly. Hermetically sealed compressors are not understood by me at all.

NickD on Fri April 30, 2004 1:49 PM User is offline

Care to tell what kind of a microprocessor you are trying to cool? Seems like an overkill to have to use any kind of refrigeration unit, and the noise? That little fan in mine drives me nuts, LOL.

crane on Fri April 30, 2004 8:36 PM User is offlineView users profile

Its just a $59.00 AMD XP1700 1.47 ghz....that runs 2.2 ghz.
The .5 hp compressor is much quieter than 2 120mm fans pushing air through a radiator. It just sits there and hums slightly.

NickD on Sat May 01, 2004 8:21 AM User is offline

The average computer case operates as a very effective air purifier collecting all the dust in the world and depositing it over everything on the inside. I went through the useless effort of making heat sinks for the processor and power supply components to get rid of all the fans in one box carrying the heat to be radiated to the outside of the case. It worked very well and stayed cleaned, but the effort was worthless as that computer became obsolete within a year.

Bored to death driving on an expressway, I counted all the air cooling fans in my garage, shop, and home, came up to 89 such type fans that do the same thing and if that debris is permitted to pile up, will result in something burning up if not the fan itself from being block with piles of lint and dust. My more expensive test equipment uses filters, some are cleanable, others cost a fortune to replace, it's endless. The bottom of a frostless refrigerator can be a disaster area, I have already seen burnt floors due to excessive heat and the same concern is giving to cleaning these as changing a limited lubricated ball bearing on a compressor pulley, they go out of their way to make this job as miserable as possible. The bastards.

Lately, I have just been mounting a 3" fan directly to say a PIII processor heat sink in series with a decade resistance box to assure fan start up, but also to cut the speed, less speed, less dust, I think the last one is running about 7 volts with a resistor sized in series with the motor running off the 12 V bus, much quieter and I run the sink about 95*F while the processor is working it's can off. You don't want to freeze the processor as at lower temperatures due to contraction within the confines of the chip, the gate capacitance will skyrocket that both slows the chip down and also increases the dynamic current. The standby current in CMOS designs is almost next to zero, it's that constant charging and discharging of capacitance that runs that load current way up there into the several ampere range.

You can blow an expensive piece of electronic equipment by plugging it in when you bring it in out of the cold without letting it warm up first, that is why the instructions say, let it warm up first. This is due to very high surge currents and poorly designed equipment, your vehicle computer is most likely to blow when trying to start it in sub zero weather for example. So I don't feel you are gaining anything by using a refrigeration unit to cool your processor, check your input currents and you will learn what I am saying.

crane on Sat May 01, 2004 8:56 AM User is offlineView users profile

Wasn't really trying to "gain" anything....just wanted the little compressor to chill my water without burning itself up.I've since determined its way underpowered and would die quickly.

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