Im my quest to make a watercooler, I decided I needed somewhere to house this thing. From there the design changed a little bit, and it became more of a hybrid seperate unit that sat next to the computer.

So the design consists of now, 4 80mm radiators, my watercooler rev2 (made out of a peltier, a 120 watt pelt, a P4 heatsink with a 120mm fan, and an apogee extreme waterblock), A huge custom made reservoir with a removable top to add ice (For benchmarking), a meanwell 320 watt power supply, a via aqua pump, all inside of a modified Old chieftech case.

This case will sit next to my current case, to offer all the cooling needs this system requires.

Here you have it.... Project Intercooler.

I started off by cutting up a chieftech case to remove the front and rear panels. The rear will be used to house my radiators.





I wanted to modify the front panel so that I could make it all one unit so I could see right threw it for my custom reservoir. I plan on glueing the door shot, and filling in all the gaps so its all one front solid bezel piece.




Next I Started making the reservoir that that will hold all my cold water
but first I needed to make room for it, So I cut a hole into the top of my case with a plasma cutter, and then cleaned it up with a grinder



Then I used a piece of 5 inch down PCV pipe and cut it to size




Then Im going to block off the bottom by epoxying a strong peice of plexi glass to the bottom, so it will be water tight and hold water



three of the four radiators, the will be mounted on the back, as soon as I come up with a mounting solution




Ill then cut another hold, right behind the reservoir, to mount my watercooler



Ill mount the meanwell powersupply at the bottom of the case about... here



More to come soon.

Pics speak for themselves

Quote: Originally Posted by Ace123 Pics speak for themselves

What type of air cooler is coling the pelt?

Quote: Originally Posted by s1ugh34d What type of air cooler is coling the pelt?

All copper coolermaster S775 cooler from frys with a 120mm adapter and silverstone 120mm fan

Nice pics...they do say alot!

You have some realy good fab skills, and aren't afraid to stretch the design front

Quote: Originally Posted by Ace123 All copper coolermaster S775 cooler from frys with a 120mm adapter and silverstone 120mm fan

Thats gonna be loud, i like the design though. I wanted to setup a dual pelt chiller for my loop. with a few heatercores though (like 4), with its own case. Never got around to it, but for the performance, you could get something like this....ProCooling.com

One of the biggest things I wanted to build this for was an easy way to add Ice to a system for benchmarking without having to get a pan and take your whole loop apart so you can shove the tubes into the pan of ice. This setup will allot me to do this whenever I want because the reservior is so big.

I needed to mount the pump and I was struggling with some ideas when I Popped off the back cover to the pump.... and what do you know.... the bottom is hollow.

Ok..so the bottom is hollow, how does that help?

And if you are going to use it for ice...your going to have to insulate the motherboard and cpu of course.


Of couse you can always use a bit of dry ice placed in a metal container if you realy want to juice them temps! (Once the ice has chilled the water)

it being hollow on the bottom allowed me to tap into the case of the water pump, and mount it efficiantly to the top of my power supply

I remounted the powersupply with the pump, and started to mock up some cooling lines






I found this power supply, and I gutted it so that I had a box to house all my wiring and connections. it also provided me with both a switch for the meanwell power supply, AND a place to put it.



Next up, wiring and finalizing the loops pattern and hoseing.

How many watts is that pelt, and whats the second PSU for, fans?

"I found this power supply, and I gutted it so that I had a box to house all my wiring and connections. it also provided me with both a switch for the meanwell power supply, AND a place to put it."

I believe the pelt was a 130watt unit. I will be upgrading it to a 300 watt unit as soon as initial testing is over.

Quote: Originally Posted by Ace123 "I found this power supply, and I gutted it so that I had a box to house all my wiring and connections. it also provided me with both a switch for the meanwell power supply, AND a place to put it." I believe the pelt was a 130watt unit. I will be upgrading it to a 300 watt unit as soon as initial testing is over.

300 watts, is hard to cool on air. My recommendation is run the water cooling loop on the hot side, and then have another loop on the cool side, a simple sheet of plexi in between the two loops, making another kewl addition to the case, and you'll have two loops in one Res.

Might get complicated, But I'd like to have an external W/C case (i did once) just for pelt cooling. a few of them 400+watt pelts and a A/Ced case for me.....

You wouldn't be chilling that loop strictly for air conditioning, eh?

the cool thing about a peltier is its ability to run much hotter than a cpu. a 300 watt pelt will only run at 300 watts at 15v.... my meanwell will only run it at about 220 watts which is alot more managable.

On to the work log.
I did 99* of the wiring today, trying to keep it as asthetic and hidden as possible

On the power supply I gutted, I trimed the switch wires so that I could use them


I cut off the ends to the power supply cord, and the pump cord. All 110 power is federally regulated to 3 colors. green is ground, black is Live (or hot), and white is neutral.
I trimmed the wires, and shrunk wrapped them for asthetics


connects with round connectors for function


I took a small piece of wire I trimmed off to make a connecting point for my power supply and my point


I ziptied it down inside, so that if there was any tugging on accident, it wouldnd tear out my wiring on the soldered sides (which are generally weak) and cause a fire.


Then I connected the two harnesses from the pump and power supply to three connectors, so that the one switch and power inlet would power both units. This is alot better than having several cords going in and out of the case.


Heres an adapter Im going to trim down, and use to power all my fans in the system off of the power supply


Here it is trimmed down ready to use as a power connector for my fans (bid geal right?)


Now I said I wanted it to look as good as possible right. I chose this wire simply because it looked awsome, and is deffiniatly asthetically pleasing


All crimped up and ready to deliver power to my peltier and my fans.
I wanted to seperate the power from the fans and the peltier, plus this lets me use more of this great looking wire.


Now ive terminated all the ends to be used for the varius jobs. Molex connector is for fans as youve seen, the two blue connectors on the blue/silver wire are for the peltier power, and the three blue connecors on the two black wires are to connect to the power inlet and switch for pump power and power supply power


routing wires for organization and asthetics


terminated, and routed up all wires into power supply case I gutted. This is the side that will not be seen. I cut a hole in the side for the black wires and fan wires, and I routed the blue wires around front for asthetics



This side will be seen threw a window.


Stay tuned.

I must say, it's looking good so far. The only concerns that i can see are (1), the hole the wires go through looks sharp (the slightest vibration or movement could cut through the pvc coating) and (2), the Pelt switching power supply is under the water loop and not above it, and finally (3) the spade connectors, are they for the Pelt? If so can they take the Amps? Sorry if it sounds so negative but i'm thinking of a similar project.

I like the way your project is going ,but the placement of the peltier power supply has me concerned .
With any type of leak you will end up with a ruined power supply and possibly risk electrocution .
At the very least attach the AC ground wire to the case AND power supply!

Good job so far.


P.S PM me if your ever interested in a custom waterblock for the hot side of the peltier.


EDIT

OK Im totally confused,you said your using air to cool the hot side of the pelt,soo...
why are you useing radiators on a chilled coolent loop???

Nifty trick to realign the PSU without major mod's, trun it so its beside the pump, might need to lengthen tubing, but you could make a mount to raise the pump off the case floor too.


Just a tip, the water + meanwell, always spells trouble.

No worries guys. I already have some non conductive fluid.
I do appriciate the show of concern though!

I only plan on chilling the loop when im benchmarking. just that "extra" kick. I dont see the radiators being a huge problem with blowing all my cold out of the loop. I plan on running all the seperate entities in the system on switches. so I can turn the pelt on and off, the fans, ect ect.

Im affraid I must report back that whilst firing this thing up for the first time to test the loop, I destroyed both radiators by tightening the fan screws in just a millimeter too far, puncturing the core.

Yesterday I ordered a new swiftech 3x120mm radiator and some yate loon 80cfm fans.

oh noes! o well, the triple 120mm rad should actually work better.

I guess Ill be the first to say,
WELCOME TO PC APEX!.
THat crazy welcome wagon should be here any second