Air Conditioning a room with water cooling? Possible..?

[GoldMember]

Alright.. I run a 1.4ghz Tbird OC'd to 1.58Ghz (weak.. I know.. I got a chip that is sad for OC'in )

I use a 172w peltier and a DangerDen Maze2-1 on an Asus A7V266-E board.
I also use a SuperCube Radiator from DangerDen.. along with an external tubberware resevior that has 2 gallons of water in it and an Aqua Via 360GPH pump.

My setup is as follows...

Resevior ----> WaterBlock ----> Radiator (with 120mm sunon 114CFM fan) ----> Resevior.

Simple enough.. Now to my question.

I am on the 3rd floor.. and just recently 2 years ago had it insulated. Over the cold winter I noticed that my water cooling rig was spewing a lot of hot air from the radiator.. Enough that it actually kept the room pretty warm with out the space heater on. (NO hot air from the furace gets up here.. none at all)

So I went down to my local home depot and bought me some round aluminum vent tubing.. ya know the kind that you can scrunch up. I also got some foil tape.. I used the tubing on the back of my radiator.. I used the foil tape to tightly secure the tubing to the back of the radiator so all the hot air blown out travels up the tubing.. which I put on the cieling and ran it to the center of my room. I run bout 16' of tubing from the back of my machine to the center of my room. Well the cold dwelled outside all winter.. and the PC kept me nice and warm with out having to run a space heater and run up even more electric having this power suckin peltier and a space heater. Well.. now it's reaching middle 70's and even this coming week low 80's here in PA. Now I most certainly do not want more heat up here . It's time to think about air condition this room.. Or atleast keeping it 10 degree's cooler then outside and keeping the humidity out too. But I don't want to spend 300 dollars on my project to just keep it 10 degree's cooler! My theory is as follows: (it's a lot of reading .. but it's good readin)

As I stated over the winter I noticed the heating effect... I realize that I am getting a good deal because the water heats up and stays hot.. so it's not like I am using 300w of peltier energy to put out the heat.. I'm really getting a great deal because when the waters heats up it stays up.. peltier or not. So it's not like I am getting all of this heat because of a huge energy transferance.. It's really small when you think about it. So onto the AC deal...

I had the idea that if I can heat.. I can cool.. I had some pretty crappy idea's of how to do this using peltiers... The reason I want to use peltiers is because a team of 3 lower wattage peltiers will take less energy then a 5,000BTU window air conditioner. I never thought about the humidity though.. an AC will take out the humidity.. how will my system do this? I don't want cool but humid. Over time I've been thinking of plans on how to do this setup. One night I was over at, overclock-watercool website.. I saw this thing that cooled your water.. I thought.. what the hell?! When I inspected this device more.. I noticed that the creator was using 3 peltiers in a config of 2 water blocks.. He clamped the pelts down inbetween 2 specially made blocks. The cold side of the blocks had your systems water running through it.. the hotside of the blocks had it's own radiator and resevior and bump. Well if you already have your systems resevior water cool.. then you don't need a radiator right? And since this water is pretty cold already.. you wouldn't need a peltier on your CPU either! So you would just take your radiator and put it on the second system that you had to have to cool the hotside of the peltiers. So I started getting idea's.. The creator of this device was expirencing temps as low as 40f or about 10C I believe... So I thought.. AC units put out a max of 60F air.. that's pretty cold considering that it's humidity free. I thought if my water was 40F or 10C and I was blowing air through a radiator that had that cold water traveling through it.. I'd get some pretty cold air out in return. Water now enters my radiator right this second at 108F and leaves the radiator at 97F. My water temp in the resevior is approx. 107F and the air that is coming out of my radiator up the vent tube is 103F. Now imagine if that was cold water going through.. at 45F... That'd be some COLD air coming out of the vent tubes.. right? Also the colder I keep the hot side of the peltiers in the block setup.. the colder the cold side would be.. which means colder water!

I got crackin on a lot of idea's and theories that might fuel my fire some more. The most logical of the bunch I've recently thought up. Here is my setup (In theory).

Lets start with my water cooling system.. for my machine. I have: Resevior ---> Radiator ---> CPU block ----> special waterblocks with 3 peltier setup ----> Resevior.

I will take the 172w peltier off of my CPU .. that way less load will be on the water. Now.. the water leaves the resevior at say 40F.. enters my radiator.. where the cold air is blown off into my room.. enters my CPU block at about 42F to 43F.. Exits my waterblock at 46F and enters into the special waterblocks (the cold side of course) at 46F and leaves the cold block at 43F... enters back into the resevior.. 43F. Sounds logical.. right? Temps might be a bit off... But it displays my point. Maybe I should have it, water leaves resevior, goes into the special waterblock, then into the radiator? What if I had it.. resevior, special block (2 peltiers), radiator, CPU, back to a 2nd special block with 2 peltiers, resevior?

That might be better.. Anyway I want to use 3 50W peltiers.. or maybe higher.. I am going to find the ones that are the most efficient with electric.. the highest rating with the most efficiency.

Now on the hotside of the special block..

I'll have it, resevior, special block, radiator, resevior. I am not just using any little radiator though. I've had the idea to run the setup like this.

I am going to build 2 special plexi-glass boxes.. the first one will hold the hot equipment.. and the box will be around 4Ft tall.. the second will hold all cold equipment and will measure in around 3Ft. (these sizes aren't dead set yet.)

The hot box (as I call it) will hold all hot equipment.. as I stated before . I will have the hotside of the special block resevior in there.. the radiators.. the switches for fans.. pumps.. all that. I picture this box.. perfectly clear. I am thinking of either using a real small box fan inside.. wrapping the flexible copper tubing around the box fan.. this will give me a huge cooling area to blow off hot air.
Or using 3 120MM 114CFM or higher fans.. Having 3 hole cut outs in the back of the box.. and using the copper tubing there.. wrapping it around in a circle.. or a left to right format.. Then putting the 120mm fans right up to it.. and bolting them in place.. Then using the aluminum vent tubing.. 3 tubes to carry that hot air right out my window. I'll use neoprene rubber on my window to seal the cap in the window that I'll have.. to keep out the rain and hot air. I'll have a fan in the box.. probably a small box fan.. blowing air right over the sealed anodized aluminum resevior.. so hot air gets taken offa it and sent right outside. I'll have a 2 gallon resevior in there. I'll also have a fan at the top of the box.. taking hot rising air right out and sent outside. I'll keep the water for the hotside of the special block as cool as possible. I'll install switches for all of my fans.. and run the peltiers and fans off of a PC power supply.. like a 400w.. I'll mount all of the switches on the front of the hot box.. real easy to turn them on and off and so forth. I'll even install switches for each power supply. So I have 3 home made radiators.. each with a fan.. taking out hot air.. I am running this system at 1/2" also. If you get the picture in your head.. good.

For the cold box.. I'll have the resevior for my system in there.. I'll have an intake for this box.. an aluminum vent tube properly placed in my room.. I'll have a fan in it to bring in humidity.. when it enters the box and hits the cold air and the cold radiator water will form.. the humidity.. and it will drip in the box into a pan.. This will take the humidity out of my room by transfering it into a solid.. (water).. just like an AC unit. I'll use a ComAir Rotron 235CFM fan inside this box to get the cold air from the radiator of the cold side of the special block into my room.. get my drift? I don't know how I will setup the cold box yet.. to get the most efficient cooling.. But cold will be seperated from hot items.. and my humidity problem is taken care of for the most part.. I just have to think of the radiator I will use for my cold system.. I don't want to use the SuperCube alone because that only has so much space.. I want to use something that will give me a large area of cold copper tubing.. Maybe I'll use the same small box fan idea in the cold box.. that will give me a large place for humidity to change over to water.. and also give me a large amount of air flow.. But I want to keep the boxes sealed up from noise as much as possible.. accept for the aluminum vent tubing of course.

Anyway.. that's pretty much it.. Thank you for reading this large post.. please let me know if you think it will work.. and if you have any idea's to add.. please do so. I don't want to blow my load on this just to find out it doesn't work well.. or an AC unit would've worked a LOT better. I don't care about the room it might take up.. or all the vent tubing.. I mainly want to do this as an expirement.. but also to try and find an alternative for my water cooling system..other then heating .

Thank You!!

 

[GoldMember]

Also.. this setup will save me electricity over an AC unit. I rather look foward to the work involved.. just as long as the fruits of my work are plentiful.

 

[GoldMember]

jeez.. no one here cares to talk about this?! I thought this was a tech forum!

 

[Sukhoi]

I read most of it..looks quite interesting if it works.

 

[GoldMember]

jesus christ.. READ ALL OF IT!!

I need to know if it will work half decent before I got sinking dollars into it!

 

[Howard]

One thing - Evaporation would do it much more efficiently. Think hard and long about evaporation.


EVAPORATION OFREEVARR!!!

 

[GoldMember]

Yucky.. please just tell me what you are thinking.. It's hot.. and muggy.. I'm not in the mood to think .. more rain is on the way which means windows get shut and I get hotter .

 

[Yossarian451]

This whole thing reminds me of what we call a swamp cooler, a weird system for air conditioning common in desert and hot places like west texas. Not sure of the relavence but thought I would say something.

 

[GoldMember]

Do you have a website for this .. Swamp Cooler? Something I could look at one. or read about it.

 

[GoldMember]

I don't want the humidity that a swamp cooler would bring.

 

[Jerboy]

<< I had the idea that if I can heat.. I can cool.. >>



Not quite. You can heat from energy source, but with cooling you'd have to carry the heat you removed somewhere. It doesn't just disappear.



<< I had some pretty crappy idea's of how to do this using peltiers... The reason I want to use peltiers is because a team of 3 lower wattage peltiers will take less energy then a 5,000BTU window air conditioner. >>



Unfortunately, this is absolutely the opposite. Peltier is horribly inefficient compared to gas expansion refrigeration. The efficiency factor of Freon 22 system is about 1 to 2. For every watt of power you use, it can remove two watts of heat from cold side. Peltier is something like 2 to 1 (input wattage: cooling power), meaning for every two watts of input energy, you have one watt of cooling power.


Any kind of air exchange through window will not work. When you suck something out and pushes air outside, something else will come in from elsewhere in the house and you won't have any cooling effect.


Your setup sounds extremely complex and I'm not quite following it. If I were you, I'd get an automotive radiator. the fan and radiator goes outside and all that goes through the window is fan power wire and radiator feed pipe. Water pump circulates hot water from hot side of peltier to outside radiator, brings in outside temp water back into hot side of peltier.

You can do whatever you want with the cold side.

Have a look at my water cooling engine


Theoretically, if you put the whole unit outside, run the tubings through window and push it through a radiator inside it will carry 280W worth of room heat outside.




<< Also.. this setup will save me electricity over an AC unit. I rather look foward to the work involved.. just as long as the fruits of my work are plentiful. >>



I'm sorry, but it will not save you electricity, rather waste it big time. Your room will probably never cool since it doesn't have enough cooling capacity to begin with.

I'd ditch that hope before seeing the disappointment of facing reality.

5,000BTU=1460W cooling power

A small portable unit can have an efficacy of 1:1.6 regularly(heat absorbed vs. input power). If 1:1.6 efficiency, the compressor and fan together use 912W.

The heat output at condensor is 2372W

0.5(heat absorbed):1.0(input power) is not too far off for a peltier.

1460W cooling power means you need 2.92kW of electricity to run many peltier. To achieve this level of cooling you need about 20 160W peltier.(160W input, 80W cooling). 20 160W input/80W cooling peltier gives 1.6kW cooling(5450BTU/hr).



Anyways, to run twenty 160W input peltier, you need 3.2kW of input power. The output heatsink needs to dissipate 4.8kW.

To get 3.2kW of relatively smooth DC, you'll need a humongous capacitor bank on a single phase supply(if you do this, harmonic distortion on the line is horrific) or you can go without capacitors if you've three-phase feed.

 

[GoldMember]

That water cooling engine is nifty..

Thanks for sheding some light on my little theory. I think I am going to keep it a theory for right now. I can snag a I believe it's a 5,600 BTU A/C unit for like 150.00 which is pretty good. What I don't understand is, Energy Star Rating of 11...

 

[CTho9305]

At my college, the room where all the servers are is watercooled... there are pipes that run from the room to some evaporators on the top of the adjacent building. When that cooling dies, the backup relies on just running city water through radiators and calling in trucks that have giant air conditioners in them.

I think its glycol-based for the primary cooling, not water though.

 

[Goosemaster]

<< Air Conditioning a room with water cooling? Possible..? >>



Fish do it, so why should you.. GO for it.


Nice motor

 

[GoldMember]

I'm not using evaporative cooling though.. I'm relying on peltiers to chill the water going in the copper tubing.. so that way i can use a fan to blow that cold air off of the cold copper tubing.. to cool my room. I know that the water will be cold enough.. like 40F ... Which means I'll be blowing 40F air offa the copper tubing.. Will there be enough to cool my room though.. that's the question. I am on the attic.. it's not a real big room.. low cieling and about 20ft from wall to wall.. at the longest.

 

[atrowe]

<< The efficiency factor of Freon 22 system is about 1 to 2.... Peltier is something like 0.5 to 1. >>



Whoa. Big difference.

 

[GoldMember]

i am just going to use a damn A/C unit.

 

[jhu]

good call

 

[Jerboy]

<< I'm not using evaporative cooling though.. I'm relying on peltiers to chill the water going in the copper tubing.. so that way i can use a fan to blow that cold air off of the cold copper tubing.. to cool my room. I know that the water will be cold enough.. like 40F ... Which means I'll be blowing 40F air offa the copper tubing.. Will there be enough to cool my room though.. that's the question. I am on the attic.. it's not a real big room.. low cieling and about 20ft from wall to wall.. at the longest. >>



Forget the peltier air conditioning. Peltier module itself is only 1/4 as efficient as air conditioning SYSTEM. A/C only has air-refrigerant-air interfaces

Your system has (cold side)air-water-peltier-water-air(hot side) interfaces. Having this many thermal exchange interface further drops your already low peltier efficiency. My guess is that peltier A/C system is only 1/5 or 1/6 the efficiency of closed circuit evaporative phase-change cooling system utilizing Freon® 22 refrigerant.

To get 1kW of cooling, on a phase-chage system, you use 500W so your radiator/condenser only needs to be big enough for 1.5kW dissipation

To get 1kW cooling from peltier, you use 2kW of power and you have to dissipate 3kW at radiator. Bigger radiator means bigger fan means more power use.

 

[rgwalt]

Going with the AC unit is the best call here. Peltier coolers are very inefficient even compared to AC units. Your idea to heat your room in the winter is very good though, and you will always save money there. There are more efficient ways to heat a room, but what you are doing is making use of available energy that you are using for your computer. Good call.

You would have to use a lot more Peltier coolers to get the desired effect in you room. The power used would be pretty outragious. Think about it like this... If the type of system you described would work better than traditional AC, then it would already be in use.

The "swamp coolers" that were mentioned use the evaporation of water to cool air. Water will readily phase change in very dry environments (such as the desert), but changing phase requires energy. When the water evaporates, it draws the necessary energy from the environment and thus cools the air down.

Ryan

 

[GoldMember]

It would be a fun expirement.. sure.. I know it would work if I was in the smaller room of this house.. in the corner... But up here on the 3rd floor.

Yea, so I am pretty much just selling my water cooling system.. I have no need for it anymore. My chip won't go high enough to see a true OC. I am just going to use a nice copper HS and put this all clear 80mm fan on it. The fan has built in blue LED's so it'll be pretty dang sweet. 32CFM at 26DB-A.

Thanks for all the help. Consider this post dead.

 

[dkozloski]

A common system here is to use ground water from wells that is pumped and circulated through the same air handlers that are normally used for heating. The water comes out of the ground at about 34-36 degrees and does the job simply and for the price of pumping the water. Chemicals can be injected into the water to reduce hard-water scale in the pipes. A shallow, driven well in the ground below your window(you can do this yourself), a shallow well pump, some lengths of garden hose with some insulation on it, and an old unit heater with a fan and you're on your way. Run the exhaust water down the storm drain. Make sure you have a drip pan under the unit heater that is now a cooler to catch the condensation.

 

[sodcha0s]

About the swamp cooler....

They only work in low humidity areas. Wouldn't work so well in PA, but they are fantastic for cooling in the desert and anywhere the humidity is very low.

 

[FishTankX]

You can also vent air from the AC unit through the radiator to bring down your water temps..

 

[CTho9305]

<< About the swamp cooler....

They only work in low humidity areas. Wouldn't work so well in PA, but they are fantastic for cooling in the desert and anywhere the humidity is very low. >>



hehe, its so humid here right now (pittsburgh) i would die if I had a swamp cooler adding to it. the good thing about being an overclocker is you have spare fans to poitn at yourself when it is hot