The intro maybe long... u can skip it if u want

The intro
So...i salvaged an old fridge, it originated from my dad's restaurant where the fridge was rusted quite seriously. one day it starts tripping the power, due to the old age of the fridge he decided not to call the technician instead

I requested those guys from the fridge repairing shop to send that old fridge to my house while they bring in the new fridge. By the way that old crap was a domestic fridge, i din took a pic of it as i the chances of breaking one of those old copper tubings. It even lost its wiring diagram, great...now i gotta find out which is which by testing it manually.

Found out that the defrosting timer was the culprit, wired things up directly to the mains...moment of truth........"zeeenng"....the compressor shook a lil....OMG...its still working.
Went to the front, strip of the alu cover plate.....the cooling coil was giving a fog effect like those cryo tanks but way less in size and volume .
Thats when my imagination flew sky high


Heres what i've done so far,
stripped the cooling system out, easy?? no, the catch is strip it off its casing or wateva u call it without puncturing the tubes
(Theres a 3 star rating on the fridge door, dunno wth izit though)

Attach it upright to my window's iron rods(hot side outside my room)
Cut some corners of the glass for the cooling coil's tubing with a glass cutter
Made a box out of polystyrene to house the cooling coil
Fixed pipes to the box
Installed a centrifugal aka blower fan(picked up for RM40 from a car AC technician from his pile of AC junks)


Heres the completed poly box, insulated the copper tubes with nitrile foam tube, 80mm pvc pipe attached along with the blower fan.





Tht fan is really strong at full force...i have difficulty opening my eyes when direct to my face during testing.
(this is a stupid way to test a blower, it could pick up a lose screw or rock or should the blades give up and shatter. it would launch it straight to my face)
During the cleaning, i noticed the carbon brushes are almost worn out. Got myself a pair of new carbon brush for RM10

For those who want to get replacement brushes
They have most shapes and sizes, else fails, they can reshape/resize one to the exact match on the spot, Soldering service provided too.
Great Eastern Carbon, located at jln loke yew. Next to the cemetary. If u live outside kl, u can PM me
I notice someone's Dremel is dead due to a worn out carbon brush


3 speed fan controller, off..slow...medium...full.
The 80mm pipe was cut offed at the top and siliconed to the base of the poly box, i did this to duplicate as much as possible to the way it cools in the fridge, drawing air at the bottom while a fan is at the top sucking. Manufacturer have reasons of doing so...so its best to keep it the way it was



The piping....top cold air, bottom hot air. Class O 80MM PVC pipe, RM28/piece so far used up oni 1, gonna need 30ft more
Its cheaper to buy one whole piece than buying seperate. I wonder how low can i bring the air temp before the pipe starts condensing lots of water. Sry bout the cacings, not tied up yet





The entire rig is gonna be covered up in poly as well to keep the room's heat out and prevent condensation. Im planning to lay a layer of alu foil on the inside of the poly to create a farraday cage and to prevent statics, i think the poly is pretty good at getting static build up.
But i'll not cool it past dewpoint, the coldest i'll planned to go its 8'C cause HDD min temp is 5'C.
PSU is gonna be excluded from the luxury of air-cond cooling
ROMs, yes. a large block of poly will be attached to the tray. it'll be shaped to taper in from outside in with matching shape on the faceplate to limit thermal exchange, moisture and cold air flowing out.

The cold air its gonna come in in between the psu and router



As far as i reached now, the exhaust or suction hole, a pipe will be attached to the bottom. The hole was made by drilling a ring of holes and a gentle nudging with a chipper. reason it was made this way was to make the sharp pin like ends so that when i push the pipe in, it'll grip the pipe, pulling it back out will just make the pins dig deeper into the pipe. it'll save a lot of work to attach the pipe to the casing, just push in, and it'll stay there.


Your helpful comments are needed as i might be heading for some mistakes i yet to know. Such as galvanic corrosion i din thought of, the cooling coils has some plastic wrapper around the copper, while fins are alu, the copper will sooner or later corrode the fins, counter measures taken though

This post has been edited by radioactive: Jul 23 2007, 01:50 AM

WAH.. im amazed.. hardcore modding eh.. you even think about the dew point temperature.. but still it's a risk if it really goes below the dew point, imagine the consequences that it'll bring to your CPU.. condensate formed around the board and circuit!! (and i don't know what will happen next)

But nevertheless, this is indeed a great idea of modding, and since you've thought about it, i think control the temp is crucial part.. will keep track in your thread hehe.. *thumbs up bro*

This post has been edited by nicholas_1213: Jul 6 2007, 07:12 AM

this is excellent man....

next round pls put in larger pix (800*600).

You should just directly mod it to phase change

yea...all close up...but to be safe, i'll try to seal it as tight as possible,
i found out that the roms are actually quite strong if u make it just right, the point where the magnetic clamp starts to lock the disc.
i hope it'l be strong enuff to make airtight. none the less, i'l put a water sensor near the roms. i think i made one with those hobby kits they sell at jln pasar...now where did i place it

U missed the galvanic corrosion out, in the cooling coils, there are copper and alu parts, I removed a plastic wrapping thinking it was useless only to find myself re-opening the poly box and cover it back with some silicone when i read some article regarding corrosion.

i use ayam brand psu, so its cheaper to replace one than the long term cost of maintaining one. the compressor runs at around 200watts, nothing near a 1000watt range of a 1hp AC. It makes me question the cooling capacity of the unit. So is better to exlude

I won't run it fanless, the only fans tht'll run will be the proc hsf and psu. the poly should dampen out the noise generating by the hsf and hdd seeking noise

ok...will do next time.

muahaha.... cool freezer mods..... dude, your using the small freezer or the big one for kitchen use?

hey guys.. have you all thought about those silicon spray (those water repellant stuff)? i wonder if it can help water-proof the entire internal system..

just a thought..

why not salvage those parts and build a phase change cooling system.....temps can easily go down to -30C. Fridge definately have a compressor (obviously), a condensor and a filter. All you need is a teflon hose or better still use copper hose and a selfmade evaporator. And with all this, voila....u have a ultimate cooling system.

I dun have welding torch and the refrigration gas cost around rm300 per tank, and theres hardly any AC technicians out there having the patience or willingness to do tht. they rather take tht back and bring it back tomolo with a rm200 bill.

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Added on July 6, 2007, 10:13 pmalready decided that looong time ago. somewhere in december 2005. if u guys remember the mega atx worklog which was grounded due to lack of parts and funds. waterblocks were not so easy to obtain back then, i waited for few months, the blocks din reach the supplier and my college is starting too so i abandoned it.

I built a rack out of 1/2 inch L shape iron rods. then i bolted it to the wall. so it was permanent from then onwards.

This post has been edited by radioactive: Jul 6 2007, 10:13 PM

There's no water in the system. How the hell is galvanic corrosion gonna happen then without an ionic solvent? With nothing to dissolve the aluminium ions, they're going nowhere even with the difference in electrode potentials causing the aluminium to ionise easily.

let me give a rough estimation....u have a fridge....so that means u have a condensor, a compressor, and a filter/dryer puls a cap tube.so u need to buy:

1) Map gas + head = RM100
2) copper block = RM20
3) copper pipes = RM100 (max)
4) r22 refridgarent = RM85
5) some insulation materials = RM50(max)

Thats about it.....plus it looks a lot more neater than having so many pipes running around ur room. and it is movable. Well, you could have ask around as i am willing to guide you along the way. There is also no worries about corrosion. Perfect...period.

This post has been edited by extremeocer: Jul 7 2007, 01:28 AM

refrigeration 101

i hope this helps had this for quite sometime now although i didnt find it any use to me hope it helps u in your modding best of lucks


i also found this interesting website something like your mod asetek

This post has been edited by psyduck united: Jul 7 2007, 02:09 AM

yup read thru....its explains refrgeration cooling but not really onto phase change cooling....

But nevertheless, the refrigerants page is very helpful though missing a few gasses like r410a or r1150...but it was still very informative.

Hmm..the charging part seems complicated. Nonetheless its not gonna scare me away. will try it out when i have the budget to lay my hands the tools i need. seems fun all the way...im addicted to DIY

@extremeocer
are those lads at mico helpful? the shop facing to the jln peel traffic junction...u know....

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Added on July 7, 2007, 2:24 amohh im not into overclocking btw. i mod for the sheer fun of it.

This post has been edited by radioactive: Jul 7 2007, 02:24 AM

Building a Phase change system isn't that difficult. Trust me...once you get the hang of it, its like taking a sweet from a baby. Though building a cascade system is a lot more complicated. Do you know how a refrigerator or perhaps an aircon works? if the answer is yes....you are already halfway there. Its really simple.

Building process thats the most headache....charging is relatively easy.

Anyway, i am a lost soul in KL.....i live in JB...it's been donkey years since i go KL.....

tihs site has something bout phase cooling system hope it helps i phase cooling

oh i forgot to add this site to My Webpage i really want to see how this mod is gonna progress

XS forums, thats where i got my info on building a dual stage cascade. Very informative. with those helpful gurus there....there is no way you could go wrong.....my cascade was a success....

for those of you who wants to build a phase change.....lemme know....i'll guide u along...

there's a Xtreme cooling section for phase change cooling in LYN but no cascade section.....so just post there as it had been quite inactive lately.

1st post pic resized to 800x600.

Went to Jln Pasar yesterday noon...some electrical components and a crucial addition to my stuffs. A digital thermometer, must have tool for cooling mod.

Any one knows the approx. lifespan of this thing? im planning to put it on 24/7 with a help of an adapter.


Saved some time and brains....just went for the kit. dun have to scour the net for the circuitry
A thermal relay kit. Basically i'm gonna have 2 of these, one to stop the compressor and one to start the compressor. As i have one from the previous school science project, i oni bought one. prolly im gonna set it to stop at 8c and starts the compressor at 15c. both thermal resistors are gonna be placed in the air stream at the suction/extraction hole at the bottom of the case.



Ahh...the old stuffs i dug up.
Left to right: light sensor relay, alarm controller, heat sensor relay(like the one above)
basically im gonna take out the LDR from the light sensor and hopefully its sensitive enough to sense some small current passing through water=condensation=big problem. a few strips of non insulated PCB placed near to the roms(theres possible air leaking in) and the mobo backplate area. it'll shut the entire system and turn on the alarm
the alarm...is well an alarm. it'll be hooked up to the modded ldr sensor relay so it sounds when condensation occurs.
another heat relay...much like the one above...made 2 yrs ago.



A parallel cable bought at lyp yesterday after i watched die hard at bts. its gonna be used to control switching on/off of the 4 rgb led i bought.


A PCB aka vero board. and some resistors, transistors and some self color alternating RGB LED. my original idea was to have those manually control RGB but since they have those self control types...why not? easier to create a disco for my hyper 48


^^Sry bout this blur blur pic, can't seem find a point to adjust my focus

Here...a 30sec vid of the rgb led in action. it cycles the color on its own...instead of waiting to construct a circuit, i just clipped it to my mouse's led. less chance of led screw up. Imagine those on my cm hyper 48's fan...sure gonna be bling bling
u'll notice blue draws more power as it sucked the power and the mouse led almost fading out



Guess wats this guys....this might seem familiar to some of you. I remember i have one lying around...so i dug it up for use


Heres the clue, its pretty obvious in this pic. im gonna use it on this mod.




This post has been edited by radioactive: Jul 10 2007, 01:52 AM

Added some bling bling to my CM hyper 48. it was made using those RGB leds i bought earlier. Powering on and off via software using parallel port, aka printer port. i suppose most printers dun use tht port any more.

Heres a short vid captured using my hp, my cam's batt ran out.




This post has been edited by radioactive: Jul 23 2007, 01:51 AM

Im sry guys to tell you all that i'm cancelling tis mod of any further progress.
My mod would not be completed.

this is due to the fact that i'll be planning to rent a room outside of my parents house. Which will be more or less in 45-60days time from now. Im sick of living with them especially my mom. I always believe that theres always a way out instead of an argument. each time i silenced myself and took a step back. they became more possessive. I can only do so much to tolerate.

I no longer see the benefit and interest of improving something in the place i no longer wish to dwell in.

goodbye. you guys were very helpful.

godspeed

good luck 2 u bro hope u get through this and also never give up ok ! perhaps moving out will ease your life and make u feel that there is always hope in having a better life and dont feel feel down there is more to life you know

lost anotehr adventurer, hope u find a good place to rent n perhaps continue ur mod there

Bro, find a way la to take the stuff with you..besides I'm sure your parents won't be using it..

sad news.. sorry to hear that..... don't just stop there dude,,,,, continue with ur mods....

Bro once your settled do continue ya!!!