Woohoo! New bong cooler finished!

D

dderidex

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 31, 2001
Messages
6,328
Pretty straightforward 'bong' design, as these things go.

Feet are simple 2x4s screwed into the base. Used LOTS of liquid nails and plumbers goop to keep everything watertight.

case.jpg


That's a 120mm fan on top. Don't seem to actually NEED it, cools almost as well without, but, hell, after going to THIS much effort? Leaving it on! (Still, it's really loud, so I'll probably get a voltage limiter or something to tone it down). As you can probably guess by having it actually plugged in, the top part is removable. Helps when filling it up again (and, with the fan on, it DRINKS water!). I can see when it needs filling, of course, by the cear tube I put in at the bottom.

Anyway, temps...

'Before'
CPU - 111.2 F idle / 129.2 F load
VGA* - 64 C idle / 74 C load
*VGA is not on the loop in this test, this is the standard cooling for it

'After'
CPU - 86.0 F idle / 89.6 F load (with fan) / 96.0 F load (no fan)
VGA - 32 C idle / 35 C load (with fan) / 37 C load (no fan)

Those temps were taken on an unusually hot day in sunny Bend, OR, by the way. High desert and all.

Oooh, and diagram:

cooling_tower.jpg


This is the system in my sig, with the exception of the 6800nu replacing the 5900XT. And the watercooling system that I am now selling off.
 
do you have any links on how those things work. Thats an awesomeo drop in temperatures. and it looks really nice
 
that looks really good. but i have no idea how they work :confused:
 
It's basically a phase change system for poor people.

You can't see it in the pic, but I ran some tubing up the back of it (again, more liquid nails so it if 'flush' with the back of the PVC tube) to the top. At the top of that, a right-angle adapter goes into a hole I cut in the PVC tube. I screwed a showed head into that.

Hole drilled in the bottom for the pump to draw water from, holes cut around the side to allow air in (you can see the 4 'balconies' I did to keep the water from splashing out), and that's basically it.

The pump pulls water from the bottom to the CPU block, to my northbridge block, then to the VGA block, and back out. From the VGA block, it runs up to the top of the PVC tube and sprays out the shower head. As the water falls, it gets two cooling actions on it:

1) Basic air cooling as a radiator does - heat energy from the water moves into the air. Only, because the water is in *direct* contact with the air, and a WHOLE LOT MORE of it (really, how many 80mm radiators could you stack in that tube?), it cools very well.

2) The bigger cooling effect is the phase change. Any group of water molecules of a given average temperature will have some variety as to their energy state. So, the *average* temperature of the water does not need to be anywhere near boiling for evaporation to occur. Which is helped by air molecules rushing past the water. Well, some of the falling water DOES change state (liquid -> vapor), it takes an ENORMOUS amount of heat energy with it. Making the water left behind much cooler.

The net result is that my water temperature never exceeds ambient - at least, not by a measurable amount. If I had a bigger tube, it's entirely possible that the water temp could fall to quite a bit below ambient - but, aesthetics were important, here (wife insisted), so dimunitive it is.

The downside is that this sucker evaporates an INSANE amount of water. Something like a coffee cup worth every hour. If I turn the fan off, that drops down to much more reasonable levels (but, then, as you can see above, I lose a bit of temperature). To me, it's worth it. I'm in the high desert, and my house's ambient humidity is hovering around 25%. I could USE a humidifier in the place!

BTW, working on 3dMark03 runs now. *Almost* at 11K!

Sources:
This is, as far as I know, the first article on building a 'bong cooler'.

The method has been improved since, but this is the style I went with (modified for aesthetics, of course).
 
that is by far one of the coolest (double meaning?) looking cooling solutions i've ever seen! how much did that cost?? did it take you very long to build?

i went to read up on the original article about building them, and i'm very interested in this project.
 
That is one sweet looking setup. It looks totally pro. Do you have any picks of the build?
 
MikeP said:
That is one sweet looking setup. It looks totally pro. Do you have any picks of the build?
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Sadly, no build pics. Two reasons:

1) The last one I did (few years back) botched horribly and killed a CPU (to be fair, I don't think it was my workmanship that did it, but the crappy cheap-ass CPU block. Anyway....) Since I had no way of knowing until I tried it if it would even work or not, I didn't really feel like creating a 'photohistory of failure' if it didn't.

2) It took a LONG TIME to do. Used up something like 3 tubes of liquid nails, 2 tubes of plumbers goop, a full can of primer, spray paint, finish, etc. Also, all the measuring and cutting and fitting, waiting for parts to dry across sections of the project, etc. Keep in mind we are only talking about an hour or two of work a night, perhaps every other day. Still, total project time was something like a month and a half.

IceWeasel said:
how much did that cost?? did it take you very long to build?
Click to expand...

As to time, kinda answered that above.

Cost was real cheap, though. For the tower, anyway. 6" PVC pipe section, roughly 30" (bought pre-cut) was $2.00 or so, I think? I got the cheap 'thin' stuff, since that allowed me to use the end caps you see there (the end caps on the thicker PVC are REALLY hard to work with). The end caps were $4 each, IIRC, and I needed two of them, obviously.

The 2x4s I used for the legs were scrap wood I had laying around, just cut them all to the same size and trimmed the corners off to make it look cool. Put three long wood screws per leg through one of the PVC caps into the legs to hold them in place. Then, layered about 2 or 3 layers of plumbers goop over the screw heads (inside the PVC cap) to prevent leakage (and made sure they were absolutely covered to prevent corrosion, too).

Drilled a hole in that cap - in the exact center - exactly big enough for one of these to tightly screw in. Once I made sure it fit, I unscrewed it, lined the inside of the hole with liquid nails, and screwed it in. Once that set, I layered over the edge of that several times with plumbers goop (always waiting for drying between layers) to make sure it was a water-tight seal.

That's the same method I used for the tube you see on the side, by the way. One of them in the side of that bottom cap (with the legs and the adapter in the center) facing up, and one in the PVC tube facing down. I simply ran some of my spare 1/2" tubing tight between them for the 'level reading tube'.

For the balconies in the side, I just used a dremel cutting disk and cut little squares in the side of the PVC tube. I then used some 4" flat bottomed PVC end-caps and cut them in half, rounded out the flat edge on the inside, to fit them to the sides of the tube. Again, liquid nails to hold in place, then plumbers goop for watertight.

As to the fitting the PVC tube to the base...I filled the inside rim of the bottom cap with liquid nails, and squeezed it in. Once done and set (since it was only 30"), I could still reach down and plumbers goop up the inside of the joint several times to make sure it was watertight.

On the top, I cut another hole just large enough to fit one of these. Secured into the hole with, as you'd imagine, liquid nails.

I then bought a fine-spray shower head off eBay for cheap ($10?) and removed the mounting arm from it when I got it. I instead plugged the shower head into this adapter. The shower head had a threaded pin in it's neck to tighter to whatever you attached it to....but I didn't think that'd be enough, and I was sure it wouldn't result in a watertight bond. So...yeah, liquid nails. PLUS the screw. Have to be certain!

Anyway, that adapter fits perfectly into the elbow, so with a little teflon tape to make sure it stays watertight, I screwed that in. Nice thing is that if I ever want to replace the shower head - or remove it, for cleaning - it just unscrews.

For the tubing running up the outside, I just ran the 1/2" tubing straight up the side, held it in place with - well, liquid nails again. The 3-prong power outlet for the fan on top is the result of cutting one of those 3-pin to 4-pin power adapters in half and using a length of heavy-duty speaker wire to extend it. I ran that speaker wire underneath the outside tubing, pushing it into the liquid nails before it set and before I put the tubing over it.

The cap on top is pretty easy. Just found a 120mm LED fan, trimmed the edges off a bit to make it fit inside the 6" cap, traced a circle around where the opening of the fan is, and dremelled that out. That done, I dremelled 4 holes around it where the mounting brackets would be, and used some pretty big wood screws to hold the grill and fan in place. I cut a small hole in the side of that to run the fan cable out to the 'outlet' I had run up the side, shortenned it, and used heat-shrink tubing on the hole thing.

Errr...kinda long-winded, but I think you can see this part of the project was REALLY cheap.

miro said:
how much water volume you have in that thing?
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8 liters? More or less.

(EDIT: FIXED LINKS. Note that the product line for the adapters is Toro's "Funny Pipe". Virtually all Home Depot stores stock the entire line.)
 
Fixed links in the part descriptions. Dunno why Home Depot lets you link directly to images, but not the product page where you can BUY the items. What kinda logic is that? Anyway, links fixed.
 
So how often do you have to fill that thing? Also do you have any zoo-keeping problems, or does the constant evaporation take care of that? Looks sweet, nice work.
 
server_error said:
So how often do you have to fill that thing? Also do you have any zoo-keeping problems, or does the constant evaporation take care of that? Looks sweet, nice work.
Click to expand...
Only just started, but I understand biotics are a likely problem in a system like this. I'll be picking up tablets or chemicals or whatever they used to keep nasties out of house evaporators. Basically, it's the same thing as those, so whatever works for that should work here.
 
man is so freakin sweet can we get some more pic of it by any chance i want to admire it more
 
he wants 100 and you have to come get it

im shure if he did ship it it would probably run about 30-40 bucks added anyway
 
Well, turns out I *didn't* kill the graphics card. Just had a small leak from being careless with the hose clamps. Problem solved, everything cleaned and dried, back up and running!

See sig for newest score.
 
dderidex, on Xoxide Forums, we were talking about your work of art. Thanks for putting up the diagram of the parts and the air intake and such. Concering the problem with alot of water being pushed out, the overclockers.com guide addressed that. They said that by putting a mesh filter over the exhaust, they cut down on the majority of the air being pushed out (i read the article about 6 times :D). Another reason why you have so much water flowing out might be because the fan is very close to the showerhead, and thus that sucks alot of water out, but again, the mesh might fix that. Now a few questions
1. If you had put more vents in the tower, do you think that temps would go down?
2. Do you suffer from dust going in the bong cooler?
3. What fan are you using on the cooler?
 
awesome job man! Ive been wanting to build one of these baddies for the longest time, I like some of the ideas you had there with the air inlets on the side and the bigass fan on top, very nice!
 
Duke3d87 said:
They said that by putting a mesh filter over the exhaust, they cut down on the majority of the air being pushed out (i read the article about 6 times ). Another reason why you have so much water flowing out might be because the fan is very close to the showerhead, and thus that sucks alot of water out, but again, the mesh might fix that. Now a few questions
Click to expand...

Well, that last time I read about that on OC, they mentioned that the guy could feel 'sprites' on his face over the top of his tower from the water droplets. I cannot. In fact, I don't feel anything leaning my face over the top but really, really humid air. I honestly thing the spinning fan blades do a better job reflecting the water back down than a mesh filter would.

If you had put more vents in the tower, do you think that temps would go down?
Click to expand...

It's a possibility, but I would be concerned with structural integrity at that point. I have 4 right now, all around it. I don't think it limits airflow that much, though. I figured the size of the opening in the top less the size of the shower head interrupting the airflow, and I think the holes I have cut so far matches well enough to make this a non-issue. Besides, it keeps the water at ambient while I'm running a 2.8ghz core, how much cooler would you WANT it?

(Okay, okay, if you really wanted to know - the trick to making it cooler is to get more phase-change happening to the water. Easiest way to do this is to make the tube LONGER, so the water has farther to fall and is exposed to more air. I thought about it, but I just didn't want the think dwarfing my computer - it would look stupid. Plus, at the current high, it's very stable with the legs I built on it, I didn't want to introduce instability from being top-heavy.)

Do you suffer from dust going in the bong cooler?
Click to expand...

Amazingly, no, not that I've found. I think the high speed fan blowing up all the time does a good enough job of keeping it away. Plus, the vents are open very close to the side of the tower - they don't stick out far. I think the current the fan generates seems to be enough to keep the problem at bay.

What fan are you using on the cooler?
Click to expand...

Lemme check.
...
It's a Galaxy 120mm red LED fan. Same kinda Xoxide sells, I think. I may post on that forum.

BTW, the tower IS for sale if you live on the West coast and wouldn't mind driving to meet me somewhere for a delivery.
 
Chaballaman said:
lol wat a pos.. ill give you $5 cos i feel sorry for the time u wasted.
Click to expand...

This looks like a good time to step in and remind you of the rules of the forums. One in particular comes to mind:

(1) Absolutely NO FLAMING OR NAME CALLING. Mutual respect and civilized conversation is the required norm.
Click to expand...
 
it is upsetting at times to see the forums when they are in this state. We are all a community here and we need to stick together.... Constructive criticism is one thing but an insult is another, we all need to try and get along and have a good time that is what these forums are for :D Now back on topic I LOVE YOUR BONG COOLER, it is very visually pleasing and it serves a great function I wish you the best of luck in future projects :D
 
dderidex said:
It's basically a phase change system for poor people.
Click to expand...

Hahahaha, tru dat :D :D

EDIT: Missed the little argument above...no negative comments from me. Bongs may be a tad bit ghetto, but that's what HardOCP is all about, eeking out max performance. A bong isn't pretty like some water cooling system, but the performance/price ratio is quite pretty :)
 
Deadlierchair said:
Bongs may be a tad bit ghetto, but that's what HardOCP is all about, eeking out max performance. A bong isn't pretty like some water cooling system, but the performance/price ratio is quite pretty :)
Click to expand...

Hey now, *this* bong *was* pretty cool. Check out the pics on the first page! Painted to match my case, similar lighting.

I must say, it did look pretty sweet, and you can't argue with the performance. 2.8 ghz is nothing to sneeze at!

Only thing that sucked was the constantly needing to fill it up.
 
Yeah, I have to admit, your bong is pretty damn sweet.

Maybe an auto water feed with a toilet tank swith on it to trailer it up a bit? :)
 
Dude, that thing IS sweet! It made me think twice about how to redo my water cooling setup, but because of the refill aspect of it, I stayed with a closed loop.

Excelent work though! It kinda looks like it's ready to be hung under the wing of an FA-18!
 
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