We’re not 100% sure what exactly is going on here. It appears to be a massive evaporative cooling rig for a computer, though the title has us wondering if it doesn’t have any other uses. There isn’t much of a description, but we felt the sheer magnitude of this cooling system warranted some publicity. Some digging around shows that this was out in 2003, but it is new to us.
[via reddit]
It’s actually quite a poor design, the water running down the side walls isn’t doing much of any cooling. Some of the good evap towers on ocforums.com (Like mine, Pro*Banshee), have been able to get at far as 12 degrees BELOW room temperature depending on humidity
spellcheck!
Sounds like a recipe for corroded components to me.. pumping water saturated air insde a PC isn’t my idea of a good one!!
@dan
your probably right, but the fix would be as simple as switching the sprinkler at the top out for some type of vertical drip fixture.
Also, though this hack is practically the definition of overkill, at least the designs clean enough to double as a decoration. If I had a house with a dedicated computer room, I’d definitely consider building something like this.
Its bee years since i’ve seen one of these, sure takes me back
stevothedevo, you don’t pump water saturated air round any thing with this. think of it like a radiator in a water cooling system. you pump water round (the wetter the better)
Uhhh… all I can say is “YOU CAN PUT YOUR WEED IN THERE!”
Damn, I was gonna comment something about weed, but blurry beet me to hit(match bowls?). Hrm, now I gotta think of something post related…
Wonder if you could capture any energy back from the falling stream of water?
Looks like a a skimmer from an Aquarium. Gets proteins out of the water like the sea foam you find on the shore.
A ‘discription’? n00bs.
Heh, A bit overkill, But neat. I built a system for a friend one time using one of those little hotel ‘fridges and a coil of copper tube, Kept that PC pretty darn cool. We thought about building the PC into the ‘fridge but condensation was an issue so we didn’t.
these used to be all the rage, with many different ideas to help the water cool.
Discription, lulz.
hehe man … its an electric bong … all love tho weed is a good safe way to ge inspiration and to de-stress at the end of the day xD
Lol, man that’s a big bong. They are an awesome cooling method. I used to have one as well. Was about 5 foot high with a 2100 Lph pump. Kept my PC cool but made me go to the loo alot.
Also I have heard that you CAN NOT use this to smoke weed with. Would be too expensive to fuel it anyway.
evaporative coolers, like all equipment, require maintenance. legionnaire’s disease, caused by the bacterium legionella pneumophila and related bacteria … “may be found in purpose built water systems such as cooling towers, evaporative condensers…” [3] as such, it is critical that evaporative coolers be properly installed and adequately maintained according to their manufacturers’ recommendations.
I honest to buddah came to this page expecting a massive bong.
Twin CRT’S!!!
this thing suxx:
you’ll need to change the water because of the dust(this thing use the air to directly “cool” the water but it didn’t cool too much and the dust in the air will be trapped in the water damaging the components)
For the people who people who are asking for a description, this works by having a tank of water in the cooler, pumping it to the top of the tube and spraying it back down with a sprinkler head. This cools the water by giving it more surface area to evaporate and lowering its temprature. The cooler acts as a heat exchanger between the cool water circulated above it and a closed circulating system between the cpu block and a coiled copper tube inside the cooler so the water going exposed to the air is never the same water going to the cpu block. The end effect is essentially replacing a traditional water cooling system’s radiator with a copper pipe in a fish tank with its filters going all the time to evaporate it and keep it cool.
The sound of running water would always make me have to pee if I was using that thing.
To each, their own. But looks like overkill to me, unless the builder was going for a Rube Goldberg like modern art effect. That it is for smoking weed, and hopes the prosecutor, will buy, the it’s a CPU cooler description…
what this is, is a bong connected to a computer via an intercooler: the computer uses closed circuit water cooling that is chilled in the base of the bong. as for the bong efficiency? it might be ok; the interface between the spray of water and the air is massive, so it should run fairly cool, although i doubt it’s much more than a proof of concept (it doesn’t appear you can actually smoke with the bong, either)
That’s so 2003! I mean, come on, look at those cabinets and appliances!
@mike How do you think you’re supposed to refill it after the water evaporates?
some water will evaporate very slowly, and escape out of the top of the tube. This is not evaporation cooling. it’s more like air cooling the water. EVAPS work in a sealed unit where gas is compressed to liquid, all the heat is removed and the liquid becomes very cold. Then the liquid is pumped onto the heat exchanger where it instantly evaporates, removing all heat and leaving the coldplate at the liquid’s ambient temperature, as how a refrigerator works. this is just a showerhead. it’s a redneck’s radiator…