mini fridge case?!!

[watchman]

Hey guys
i had one of those stupid ideas like i ussually have , and i am wondering has any one done or is it possible to make a case out of a mini fridge for the PC, but the fridge still has to be working. this then would sort out all the heat problems . or would it just create condensation?
cos then you could also store your beer inside you pc, now wouldnt that be great

 

[Matt Jason H]

A fridge is good at cooling things inside it, that's true. But a PC actually generates heat, unlike, say a can of beer which just sits there and losses the heat it accumulated being outside of the fridge. Because there's no ventilation in a fridge, they have a weak vacuum seal, heat wont be conducted away and expelled as well as a standard case.

Good idea, but unfortunaly wont work this time

If you are interested inj explorign the idea of heat exchange (as a fridge does with gas tubes) you might want to look into TECs or thermo-electric-coolers, which are usually small ceramic plates that are extremely good at shifting heat from one side to the other, creating a very cool side and a very hot one. The down side is they are quite inefficient, in that they generate heat themselves, and are very power thirsty, but they're fun to have a play with if you're interested in that stuff. I've seen the odd article on fitting one between your CPU and heatsink/waterblock

 

[watchman]

oh well it was a good idea at the time, and no i dont really fansy playing with power hungry things hehe, i nvr modded in my life i was just wondering. i am thinking of modding my old crappy case at the mo to see how hard it is to mod, then if i am succesful i will mod a Coolermaster Centurion Case , i will post my pics as soon as i get time to do some modding
thnx for the reply though matt

 

[Matt Jason H]

cool, why not make a project log?

 

[cnd]

Maths Time

The idea seems great to me

1. The fridge's seal will cut out the noise of the PC cooling fans
2. some bar and wine fridges have lovely cases and clear glass doors
3. the air-tight seal will keep crappy dust and **** from building up on the PC fans etc
4. beer and pepsi fit in it

A loaded-up PC is going to suck around 350 watts - pretty much all of that has to exit the PC in the form of heat.

I think that 1 watt raises one ml of water by 1 degree celcius; or something like that.

So - the PC is going to *generate* 350 watts of heat constantly.

The sexy-looking black wine-fridge I saw in the shops today (with a lovely glass door) was rated at 110 watts - that's how much juice it uses up *moving* heat from the inside out to the cooling fins at the rear.

It takes a lot less energy to move heat around than it does to generate it (that's why reverse-cycle air-conditioners are cheaper to run than heaters).

All we've got to do is work out the math - perhaps someone out there already has a PC and a small fridge, and they'd be willing to do us an experiment? Shove the PC and a thermometer into the fridge, and see if it heats up past room temp, or of the fridge can get the heat outta there faster than the PC can make it?

 

[ChristopherP]

condesation WILL ruin your components, so DONT try it LOL

Read many a review on this scenario.

 

[cnd]

hehe - yeah; except that...

A) I don't plan on opening it (it's a server I wanna put in mine)
B) server currently lives in my garage, so it's sucking dust, car exhaust, and moist salty sea air through its guts 24/7
C) I doubt the fridge is gunna manage to keep the PC much (if anything) below room temp, so nothing should condense even if I do need to open the door occasionally.

I'm thinking of messing with some tubs of hot water and a thermometer to see how many "watts" of heat the fridge can get rid of (hmm? maybe a toaster in it - I wonder how much juice those things use)

 

[Raje]

I think we need to build this case from scratch, or at least get very technical about this, we have some pros and cons about using a frige, and sadly they all must become pros.

Pros- Slient, Air tight,very clean, no thought cooling(if it works).
Cons- large size, uses a lot of electric, possible damage to all pc components(condensation)

So far, everything about the actaul Frige box is a pro, the only trouble we are having right now is turning it on, we face the trouble of condensation and don't even know if the frige is capable of cooling the pc. I seriously doubt a mini fridge could keep my system cool for very long, as per my post "PC or Space Heater".

Frige case box is awsome idea, air tight and noise proof, but could we use the fridge box case and some outside cooling source. Know any one in the Air Conditioning industry that could help. But for right now I have something you can test. How much space do you have in your pc??? You could try to place in a block of Dry Ice. Dry ice is very very cold and does not melt, just disperses into two NON Flamable gases. But we still run the slight risk of condensation. The PC components generate heat, so the air around the pc components is constantly being warmed. Now we introduce cold air to cool our warm components. Before our cool air can reach the components it must past the warm air. Inevitably mixing and now we get moisture. Mini Friges has been around for a long time, and computers have been around for a while. Would we still be using fans if it was going to be simple???

 

[Me__2001]

how about dividing the fridge into cold and room temp sections, the pc in the normal side with a small vent for the PSU heat,then a water cooling resevoir and radiator in the cold half. it would keep the pc quiet in the normal side and the cold side could keep the water cooling extra cold

 

[KGB-911]

I saw a pic of a fully working case made out of lego and another one of a case made out of a suitcase / briefcase thing.

they both looked so good!

 

[Raje]

how about dividing the fridge into cold and room temp sections, the pc in the normal side with a small vent for the PSU heat,then a water cooling resevoir and radiator in the cold half. it would keep the pc quiet in the normal side and the cold side could keep the water cooling extra cold

See this man is thinking!!!!!!!! I was researching this online and it hit and I can't belive we were all so blind. Yes leave the friged set to room temp, room temp for most will be lower than the pc, plus even just a little lower than room temp will not cause condensation.

But for seperating it, I'd have to say, look for a mini fridge with two seperate compartments, or be ready to do some serious insalation. Again, the cold half of the fridge is going to cool the common wall, and well you know, moisture will form.

I also found a decent looking fridge with a digital temp control and some other goodies.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/cubegoodies/toys/6ad2/images/

 

[Me__2001]

how about one of those fridges with the freezer box in them, you could disconnect the fridge half somehow and then you have a freezer in the -15C range to cool the water (just have to keep the water moving all the time to prevent freezing) and the fridge half is insulated and quiet

obviously you take the food out first !

thats a nice fridge, bit small you might be able to get an HTPC in it

 

[Raje]

Hey me I think your on to something now, so we want to install the water cooling parts in the freezer and run the tubes to the fridge unit??, just add a lil 'anti-freeze" to our mix and we got a substance that can get hella cold and we have solved the condensing bit, (though we need to keep everything relativly close to room temp)---as long as the hoses running to processor and video card don't condense. But yes this is seemminly getting more and more practicle. Also, do we have to set the freezer to its coldest settings, can't we just set it to damn cold so I can dink my beer without freezing the back of my throat.

So I'm thinking that as long as we k

 

[Me__2001]

freezers are usually adjustable so you could probably bring the temp to around -5 to -10 but the heat from the water will raise the temp a few degrees , i was thinking the PSU would keep the PC section warm but may need some sort of vent to release the hot air to prevent the other components overheating this could probably be achieved by the hole needed for cables or a silent 80 mm fan.
the pump could be one that fits inside the PC case itself to keep it out of the way and then the only feed to it is from the resevoir that is connected to the radiator in the cold section (both in the cold section to aid cooling), the pump will need to be pretty substantial as the whole system would need to have waterblocks i.e. CPU, GPU, HD and anything else that gets hot

if you were to run the tubes from the pump to the resevoir through two holes in the door to the freezer that are nice and tight it will prevent the cold air coming into the warm section and condensing, there may however be a problem with condensation on the tubes and waterblocks due to the temp of the water but this could probably be sorted with some heat insulation.

im pretty sure that with some testing i may be able to get this to work, i just need to find a cheap fridge, water cooling setup and some free time

 

[Raje]

I say cut a hole in the side of the fridge area and mount the PSU so that the exaust fan(or a fanless PSU be best) was pointing out of the case. And sealed with fire caulk. One of the pros to this mod was the fact that it was gonna be air tight so no dust would ever get in.

And yes insulating the tubes a bit sounds like it may damper out the condensation, plus the closer the mother board is mounted to the side of the fridge the less tubing would be needed. The last question, how would you mount all the drives, ??? Are they going to be mounted in the door to deter opening of the fridge or is that no longer a factor since we are trying to keep it just under room temp now.

Also, whould we ever be able to turn off the water cooling system ?? would leaving the super cold water running on a dormant pc cause damage?? Oh yea, and some food for thought, salt is a very inexpensive anti freeze-----

 

[1nteger]

I say you plug the fridge in, fill it with beer and drink it all while playing Call of Duty on your fast cool PC housed inside a proper aluminium chassis...ok it's a bit more boring than modding a fridge, but do any of you have the slightest idea just how much room a full set of PC components will take up?? Where's the beer gonna fit?

 

[Raje]

In the freezer section which has had it temp set to around 50 degrees. Also imagine that the mini fridge used will have to be about the same saize as a college dorm fridge, 3ftx 1.5ft. Assuming that we only need to fit the resovoire and pump in the freezer we should have room for a 6 pack. Also your pc components take up less space than the pc tower they are in, so I'm sure that they will fit nicely in the fridge. The only troublesome pieces I see will be PSU and motherboard. PSU should almost be mounted outside of case or as close the the freezer area as possible, and most likely inset it in the frige wall so it can exaust itself outside of the case.

 

[cnd]

Another con: it's questionable whether a fridge compressor is going to be happy moving this amount of heat around 24/7 (might wear out quicker).

Compression cooling is pretty simple - Pv=nRT - and fridges use convection to get rid of the heat externally, so the way I see it is this:

A fridge can get rid of X amount of heat (where X should in theory be more the hotter the inside of the fridge gets); or to put this the other way - if you "graphed" the temperature of a fridge from switch-on until it gets cold, it should be a curve (not a line) - the colder it gets, the longer it gets to continue getting even colder? I might be wrong, but logic suggests that the hotter the outside heat exchanger gets, the more heat it can get rid of.

A PC is going to creat Y amount of heat - more under load, less when idle.

If "Y" happens to be a point anyplace on the graph (that is - if Y is less than X) then the net affect should be that our PC does not overheat (at least not until the fridge motor dies from working too hard; at which point the PC should overheat fatally in under a few minutes). Depending *where* on the graph Y sits - our internal fridge temperature could be anywhere from 5 or 6 degrees C up to 30 or 40 degrees C - anything above room temp means we don't have condensation problems.

The sexy wine fridge I saw yesterday used an internal fan to move the cold air past it's internal cooling element. Most other small fridges I've seen don't do this - they just rerly on convection inside (hot air rises, so they put their cooling element up the top someplace). This might make a difference - fans obviously assist convection, so a fan on the internal heat exchanger will probably be necessary? In fact - if you want to keep beer cold, you're probably going to have to sit it in the outflow from the heat exchanger, otherwise it'll be getting warmed by the CPU (hehehe; CPU assisted beer warmer... maybe for the English

Here's what wine fridges look like;
http://www.bizrate.com/buy/products__cat_id--18005100,keyword--wine fridge,sfsk--3.html
some of the yummy ones: http://www.beveragefactory.com/refrigerators/wine/dwc310bl.shtml are less than the cost of a modded PC case anyway, and look better

 

[cnd]

Yikes - "Hassle free Auto-Cycle Defrost" - we're going to have to disable the defrost for sure.

(defrost works by switching off the compressor, and firing up a heating element for a set period of time, to melt any ice off the cooling element)

 

[cnd]

Finally - I don't think venting anything outside the fridge is a good idea.

If the fridge is actually working - you'll be venting out the cold air.

PC's get rid of heat by blowing air over things and letting the hot air "go away"

Fridges get rid of heat by *trapping* air, moving the heat out of it to an external heat exchanger, and letting the heat *outside* go away.