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| About this blog: Computers hate me. They really do. Every time I try to do something unusual like add new hardware, something is guaranteed to go wrong. I decided to start writing about my constant problems so that someone else might benefit from my experiences - or at least laugh at them! |
View of prototype. | 
Closeup of fan intake. | 
Water spray jet. | 
Cooling coil on fan. |
With 6 computers on 24/7 my office generates an awful lot of heat. This is the prototype of a bong cooler that I'm building in order to try to shed some of that heat. Unlike most bong coolers this one will not be used to cool a single PC internally. For the prototype I attached a coil of 1/2" copper to a pedestal fan in an attempt to cool the ambient temperature.
Air is drawn in near the top by an IP55 rated 80mm fan and pushed downwards towards the reservoir, where it hits the water surface and escapes through holes drilled into the lid. Water is pumped from the reservoir, through a cooling loop (eg the one attached to the fan) and is then sprayed near the top of the tower. As it falls some evaporates which cools the system. This "air downwards" design - a departure from the typical bong cooler - should improve evaporation since it is also forcing air over the surface water in the reservoir, but it requires that the lid be fairly well sealed. There are also problems with small amounts of water leaking out from the joins (eg the lid is an upside down drain fitting so fluid is normally meant to go in the other direction).
NB: A bong cooler is named as such only because it bears resemblance to a bong. The only thing travelling through it is air and water. ;)
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