New Autocascade

[eshbach]

This is something DBlue135 and I built this summer for the XtremeSystems Autocascade Competition.

We used a 1/2 hp rotary compressor, R22, a fairly standard condenser, a home-built water-cooled condenser/phase seperator, etc.

Both stages return through a slhx to help the second stage condense.

The first thing we did was build the main heat exchanger.



Then we made the coils for our water-cooled condenser. These are 3/8" copper pipe and DBlue tells me it was not very fun to bend these:



We then put the coils together and added their inlet:



Then came the first version of our main seperator, which looked like this:



We decided the volume was too low so we rebuilt it. We also constructed the housing for the water-cooled section:



We picked up a cheap base board and gave a it a coat of blue spray paint. It's big enough that we don't have to be too careful with our layout, there's a lot of space. We mounted the board on casters and mounted the first few components to the board:





And we mounted our water cooled condenser and base to the board.

[eshbach]

Here's the whole seperator contraption:



Here's how it looks in the system:



And here are the filter-driers:





suction line HX and main HX hooked up now:



The evap is made out of that copper swiftech chipset cooler.

here's the heatsink (minus a few posts to make it fit correctly):



then here's the shell we made for it:



and here's the whole thing put together:

[eshbach]

The first shots of it working:





and finally, the finished product:

[speedyaxon]

Awesome! I'm totally impressed that you can do stuff like that. Probably just because I have never done it and know no one that does, but still, very nice!

Can't wait to see the coming overclock, good luck!

[eshbach]

load temps are in.

i'm using the 200W cartridge heater from McMaster. The load tester I made is kind of... ghetto. i thought i had a block of copper laying around, but i couldn't find it. all i could find was a copper rod and a bunch of pipe... so i improvised.

here's what i ended up with:





what i did was cut a piece of pipe about the length of the heating element, then cut a piece of rod about the same size. i flattened the pipe as best i could around the heater and then brazed it shut. then i brazed the rod onto the flat part of the tube.

i turned on the heater and let it get up to about 200 C (which happened very quickly) before i turned on the autocascade.



it took a little while, and i had to add some R22, but eventually the autocascade pulled it down below -50.



then i checked the temperature of the of the back side of the heating element. i figure this is a decent approximation of what the CPU die temperature would be:




So, I'd have to say I'm fairly satisified with how this came out. I had purchased a couple of good valves to go on this system instead of cap tube, but there were serious issues with shipping from poland, so that idea got postponed. if and when the valves get here, i'll redo it, but it's certainly usable right now

[Reign]

what are you going to put under there? waiting to see the results

[Thermo]

What are the head pressures under load?

[eshbach]

what are you going to put under there? waiting to see the results

I have an E6600 i'll be throwing under there this weekend, don't worry

What are the head pressures under load?

Pressure at the top of the phase seperator is 19 bar.

Pressure at the bottom of the phase seperator is 18.5 bar.

Pressure at the suction port on the compressor is 0.70 bar.

[r'aggro]

Where do you get the time to fab all this stuff together?

[eshbach]

Where do you get the time to fab all this stuff together?

heh, this thing has been in the works since june...

[Kappa2001]

looks and works really nice!
congrats

[Adisharr]

Nice man I like all the work you've put into it