Sunday, February 17, 2008
neoprene tubing insulation has arrived
Hooray, my neoprene tubing insulation has arrived.
Now I can get about doing my lower-than-ambient temperature computer cooling system. Bought about 5m each worth of 3/8" internal dia and 1/2" internal dia tubing insulation, setting me back about $20.
I had this idea when thinking about my water cooling system, first I thought about adding re-frozen ice-bottles to the water reservoir of my water-cooling system, then the idea progressed to the Coleman blue-ice substitute, then I had the idea of a peltier cooling, using a mini peltier bar fridge as the base. Because of that my initial water cooling idea has now progressed to chilled water cooling! So because of low-than-ambient temperatures, there will be condensation, and I purchased air-con insulating tubing.
So from an air-cooled over-clock, I have gone to water-cooling and now chilled water cooling! One level higher than an ordinary water-cooling setup, will I go to the next level of phase-change? Hard to think of that for now. So I was thinking of a complete chilled water cooling setup and then I had the idea about the lab water-chiller used for the chemglas vacuum tube and the RotaVac distillers back when I was with A*STAR.
So I checked the net for lab-grade water-chillers for RotaVacs and vacuum tubes and saw that simple 250-BTU coolers cost nearly $1,500. So getting one is out of the question, and they can only cool to about 4-deg Celsius, so then the dedicated water chiller idea came about! Since lab chillers are too expensive, so I'll be making a peltier water cooler of my own design. =) I've come out with a basic design, and it cost about $200 to build with the materials that I already have, if I didn't have the fridge to begin with, I'd expect costs to rise till $300 or so. I'll be going back to test it out!
Soon though, right now time is a luxury I don't have.
Of course, I have other commitments and priorities to attend to such as my Uni applications. I really pray that I can get into cmu, and get that scholarship, until then I'll be living in anxiety till the results come out.
But of course, I have another week to contend back in camp first before I have the weekend to work on my computer cooler. Then we'll see what kind of preliminary results I get.
More results and pictures to come soon!
