Cannibalize Cheap Wine Cooler?

[nick name]

So browsing the interwebs I stumbled across a mention of this wine cooler on sale for under $40.

 

https://www.walmart.com/ip/RCA-4-Bottle-Wine-Fridge-RFRW041-Black/484979892

 

Anyone here willing to do a tear-down to convert it into some sort of chiller?  I mean for under $40 it must be worth it to some industrious soul here. 

 

Heck, even if you simply mount a radiator where the door would be I imagine it could do something for you.  Probably not the best method, but it's a start.  

[Fakmykak]

Refrigerators are not made to handle a constant heat load, it wouldn't work very well.

[nick name]

2 minutes ago, Fakmykak said:

Refrigerators are not made to handle a constant heat load, it wouldn't work very well.

Very aware of that.  

[Fakmykak]

1 minute ago, nick name said:

Very aware of that.  

Well what is your question then? 

[SolarNova]

Wine chillers/coolers are almost always TEC based. Most certainly not designed for any constant non ambient heatload.

 

Would not be useful for a PC

 

Unless u seriously augmented it with more TECs and heatsinks, the likely single or double low power TEC(s) inside it wouldnt be able to sufficiently chill any air passing through it for the rad. The way these things work is a slow and gradual chilling of the internal air being recirculated.

[HanZie82]

This would cool worse then a non ventilated case...

So whats the question again?

[nick name]

19 minutes ago, SolarNova said:

Wine chillers/coolers are almost always TEC based. Most certainly not designed for any constant non ambient heatload.

 

Would not be useful for a PC

 

Unless u seriously augmented it with more TECs and heatsinks, the likely single or double low power TEC(s) inside it wouldnt be able to sufficiently chill any air passing through it for the rad. The way these things work is a slow and gradual chilling of the internal air being recirculated.

Ahhhh, I was trying to find out what the cooling solution was for these.  If it is a TEC then disregard.  

[nick name]

20 minutes ago, Fakmykak said:

Well what is your question then? 

I was thinking tear it apart and just use the cooling solution within, but I just learned it's a TEC so what I was thinking (small compressor, etc) wouldn't work out.  

[HanZie82]

1 minute ago, nick name said:

Ahhhh, I was trying to find out what the cooling solution was for these.  If it is a TEC then disregard.  

I was looking for it too, as i was in doubt.
But could not find anything mentioned about what type of cooling soluition is used. So im guessing it must be Peltier element.
I mean the pump for the compressor alone would be that price of the whole thing, afaik.

[nick name]

19 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

This would cool worse then a non ventilated case...

So whats the question again?

I wasn't thinking to build in it.  

 

Using it at is I was thinking remove the door and mount a rad to the front to draw the cool air from within through the rad.  Though I knew that wouldn't do much even if it had a stronger cooling apparatus.   

[nick name]

3 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

I was looking for it too, as i was in doubt.
But could not find anything mentioned about what type of cooling soluition is used. So im guessing it must be Peltier element.
I mean the pump for the compressor alone would be that price of the whole thing, afaik.

See and that's why I was thinking it was a stellar deal to cannibalize for its parts.  But not if it uses a TEC.  

[HanZie82]

4 minutes ago, nick name said:

I was thinking tear it apart and just use the cooling solution within, but I just learned it's a TEC so what I was thinking (small compressor, etc) wouldn't work out.  

Even a small compressor would not work. As those are not meant to be on 24/7. And you would need it to be for computer use.

There are those compressor thingy's tho that can be on always. Maybe check for that if you're really interested.

But i think for this thing it would be more advantagous to cut out the cooling and use this as a case with holes cut out. That might be a better cooling solution then the actual cooler.

 

 

Just now, nick name said:

See and that's why I was thinking it was a stellar deal to cannibalize for its parts.  Not if it uses a TEC.  

Yeah unfortunatly.
But usualy if it looks to good to be true, it is.

[Fakmykak]

3 minutes ago, nick name said:

I was thinking tear it apart and just use the cooling solution within, but I just learned it's a TEC so what I was thinking (small compressor, etc) wouldn't work out.  

If you want to do sub ambient or sub zero cooling. Just go LN2. It is honestly so much easier......

[nick name]

1 minute ago, Fakmykak said:

If you want to do sub ambient or sub zero cooling. Just go LN2. It is honestly so much easier......

But it's temporary.  

[HanZie82]

Just now, Fakmykak said:

If you want to do sub ambient or sub zero cooling. Just go LN2. It is honestly so much easier......

Nah its a price thing.
Active cooler for 40 bucks. But it was not what we tought it would be.

[nick name]

1 minute ago, HanZie82 said:

Nah its a price thing.
Active cooler for 40 bucks. But it was not what we thought it would be.

Precisely.  

[Fakmykak]

1 minute ago, HanZie82 said:

Nah its a price thing.
Active cooler for 40 bucks. But it was not what we tought it would be.

Your not gonna find anything substantial enough to cool a whole computer for $40. Not to mention it is not as easy as plugging it in the wall and all of a sudden everything works flawlessly. lmfao

 

4 minutes ago, nick name said:

But it's temporary.  

Yes LN2 is temporary. But isn't your idea with the fridge also temporary? Your can't use it 24/7 due to condensation. 

[nick name]

2 minutes ago, Fakmykak said:

Your not gonna find anything substantial enough to cool a whole computer for $40. Not to mention it is not as easy as plugging it in the wall and all of a sudden everything works flawlessly. lmfao

 

Yes LN2 is temporary. But isn't your idea with the fridge also temporary? Your can't use it 24/7 due to condensation. 

You seem to be missing the spirit in which this post was created.

 

And I didn't think the cooler would be strong enough to go below the dew point -- so no I wasn't worried about condensation.  I was hoping it could bring it down below ambient, but not by enough to create condensation.  

[Fakmykak]

4 minutes ago, nick name said:

And I didn't think the cooler would be strong enough to go below the dew point -- so no I wasn't worried about condensation.  I was hoping it could bring it down below ambient, but not by enough to create condensation.  

Dew point could be very close to your room temp depending on the humidity in your home. So if you had 40% humidity in a 75f room, dew point is 50f. At 60% humidity dew point would be 61f. You do not need extremely low temps to have condensation. What are you going to do, buy a dehumidifier just to lower your homes humidity?

 

What even is the point of this? You'll have to reverse engineer a fridge to cool your computer. Your temps won't be significantly lower due to how weak this thing is (may even have higher temps because these things are not designed for this). You will use quite a bit more electricity and your PC will be louder than before. All for like 20 Fahrenheit which will barely help your overclock.

 

Sounds like a massive hassle with marginal, if any benefit at all.

[nick name]

57 minutes ago, Fakmykak said:

Dew point could be very close to your room temp depending on the humidity in your home. So if you had 40% humidity in a 75f room, dew point is 50f. At 60% humidity dew point would be 61f. You do not need extremely low temps to have condensation. What are you going to do, buy a dehumidifier just to lower your homes humidity?

 

What even is the point of this? You'll have to reverse engineer a fridge to cool your computer. Your temps won't be significantly lower due to how weak this thing is (may even have higher temps because these things are not designed for this). You will use quite a bit more electricity and your PC will be louder than before. All for like 20 Fahrenheit which will barely help your overclock.

 

Sounds like a massive hassle with marginal, if any benefit at all.

Again, I wasn't expecting it to cool below the dew point.  But even close to the dew point is enough of a delta most people would love to achieve.   Double-digit reduction in temps for $40 and some ingenuity?  I can't imagine too many would scoff at that.  

 

So again, I think you are missing the spirit of all this.  

[bignaz]

It wont work. If you want a chiller go with a water chiller.

 

 

Think thing will get overloaded and then hold heat and heat up your system instead of cooling it.

 

 

It sucks. Its got an extremely small tec in it that wont cool anything for a pc.

 

 

Why do you people think Tec's are this amazing. This was all done years ago and they sucked then and they still suck today, Techs are easily overwhelmed " That one in that unit is way to small to do anything"  The one you would need would be close to 200+w and they are so extremely inefficient its going to be like putting in another GPU running it at full load. Then you still have to cool the hot side. Dont cool that enough the cold side gets warmer.

 

 

Nop its not going to work. Go do it then come back and post well it did work so we can all say told you so and you should of looked at post from the early 200's. You want more cooling how about you get some real cooling? Put that AIO in the trash where it belongs and build a real loop.  If crap like this worked it would be all over youtube. Every other post on here would be people asking for help with it or posting guides.

[nick name]

1 hour ago, bignaz said:

It wont work. If you want a chiller go with a water chiller.

 

 

Think thing will get overloaded and then hold heat and heat up your system instead of cooling it.

 

 

It sucks. Its got an extremely small tec in it that wont cool anything for a pc.

 

 

Why do you people think Tec's are this amazing. This was all done years ago and they sucked then and they still suck today, Techs are easily overwhelmed " That one in that unit is way to small to do anything"  The one you would need would be close to 200+w and they are so extremely inefficient its going to be like putting in another GPU running it at full load. Then you still have to cool the hot side. Dont cool that enough the cold side gets warmer.

 

 

Nop its not going to work. Go do it then come back and post well it did work so we can all say told you so and you should of looked at post from the early 200's. You want more cooling how about you get some real cooling? Put that AIO in the trash where it belongs and build a real loop.  If crap like this worked it would be all over youtube. Every other post on here would be people asking for help with it or posting guides.

Nobody here said TECs were amazing.  In fact -- after we learned that thing uses a TEC we gave up hope.  

 

And you're kind of a dick.  

[bignaz]

23 hours ago, nick name said:

Nobody here said TECs were amazing.  In fact -- after we learned that thing uses a TEC we gave up hope.  

 

And you're kind of a dick.  

Say what you want you just dont like when reality comes along.   Oh man found a chip on ebay for my civic. 150hp gain for $20!

 

What do you think it was going to use? Its a tiny cheap cooler that's made to "Chill a wine bottle." Not cool chill.  I mean i seen the picture and said yup that's at most a 30 watt tec.  Im sorry your hopes and dreams have been crushed. And here i'll play along.

 

d00d! thats so awesome! Your cpuz wil load at -20c at 5ghz!

[nick name]

44 minutes ago, bignaz said:

Say what you want you just dont like when reality comes along.   Oh man found a chip on ebay for my civic. 150hp gain for $20!

 

What do you think it was going to use? Its a tiny cheap cooler that's made to "Chill a wine bottle." Not cool chill.  I mean i seen the picture and said yup that's at most a 30 watt tec.  Im sorry your hopes and dreams have been crushed. And here i'll play along.

 

d00d! thats so awesome! Your cpuz wil load at -20c at 5ghz!

I'd like to amend my previous statement.  You are an absolute dick.   

 

Go back and read the thread.  Dick.  

[nick name]

Have you read through it all yet @bignaz?