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has anyone built a PC inside a mini-fridge?

T

Toadster

Senior member
i'm thinking that if you could route the power to the components and somehow vent the warm air out - it would be a pretty 'cool' mod of a PC case... (no pun intended, well -not much of one) 🙂
 
Seems like a neat idea, but you have to worry about the condensation that will build up as the components heat up and cool off again.
 
Originally posted by: Toadster
i'm thinking that if you could route the power to the components and somehow vent the warm air out - it would be a pretty 'cool' mod of a PC case... (no pun intended, well -not much of one) 🙂
Click to expand...

wont work. Think about how quickly a fridge/freezer goes up in temperature with the door open, the compressor will eventually blow out if you leave the door open for a long time. Now try adding a heat source (Your PC is a major heat source). Your going to nuke that compressor damn fast. The main reason a fridge works, is it is well insullated, so when you put something in, it cools down to the ambient temp, and remains there. Then the compressor only has to cool enough to keep everything there. Since nothing in a fridge is adding heat consistently it works.

Also, think how long a luke warm soda takes to cool down in a mini-fridge...

*edit* your better bet (and this has been done on xtremesystems) is to buy an air conditioner and find a way to cool a water cool setup with it. They are much more capable of running around the clock, and generally cheaper than a fridge.
 
Or, run your water cooling setup through a radiator(s) in the mini-fridge. Doesn't have quite the downfalls of an entire system in a mini-fridge. I've been working on one for a long time but, my other projects keep stealing me away.
 
Only time I'm aware of something like that was when someone put a 386 inside a fridge, using beer cans as heatsinks, and overclocking it to see how far they could overclock it and play games normally unplayable with that chip due to the slow chip speed. The CPU eventually died. The users took pictures of the whole project, including consuming the "coolant" after the experiment was over.
 
Originally posted by: Toadster
i'm thinking that if you could route the power to the components and somehow vent the warm air out - it would be a pretty 'cool' mod of a PC case... (no pun intended, well -not much of one) 🙂
Click to expand...

A mini-fridge will not work as a case. The compressor could never handle the heat output of a modern computer. Sure if you gut the fridge, forget about using it as a fridge, put holes for air/water cooling, yeah you could make it a computer case, but not using the case itself for cooling. People have tried in the past and all have pretty much failed due to the limited capabilities of the compressor and cooling systems used in the mini-fridges (they really have a poor design overall, just good enough to keep something cool, not cool a heat generating source.

If you do want to use something like this, well you have three choices.

1) Gut the fridge, put big intake/exhaust holes with big 120mm fans in them, remove the fridge's compressor/phase change coils, you will not be using them.

2) Custom mod the compressor, phase coils, air exchanger, refrigerant with more powerfull stuff (basically a much larger compressor, a coil that has more surface area/structure (more coils), bigger/larger/better designed air heat exchange unit, and possibly better qualit refrigerant and then maybe, you will have enough cooling power to handle the system, but then you will also need to put in de-humidifier crystals, and insulate some components to keep possible condensation from occuring

3) Don't use a mini-fridge, but a deep cycle freezer (which already has all the upgrades stated in solution number two, except for the dehumidifing crystals/protective insulation.

Well, I guess there is also option 4, which is forget about the idea in the first place.
 
Originally posted by: TrevorRC
Originally posted by: pkme2
I bet one could adapt this USB beverage chiller to cool your computer case.
http://www.xoxide.com/cool-it-usb-beverage-cooler.html
Its cooling plate is quite unique and I need to pick one up to see how it works. Since its is powered by USB, its compact.
An accidental find.
Click to expand...
Peltier, perhaps?
Click to expand...

I was just thinking, that is probably a very low wattage peltier. Most cuz a soda isnt generating heat, so you could survive using virtually any peltier to cool a drink.
 
Yes, I need to stay within the air-cooled peltier parameters, water cooling is not acceptable, plus condensation too.
An intake fan with a peltier or something that will furnish regulated cool air for any rig. If it works and is cheap, it could makes a difference.
 
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