How cold can I go?

[Shadow_Storm56]

Simple question, I live in canada and as winter approaches my roof radiator is exposed to very cold temps. This is never an issue as long as I keep the fans off if it gets too cold. Recently I made it so the loop temp is monitored by 2 of my main pcs sensors and this controls the outside  fan speed and thus my loop temp. So I can set the minimum at whatever Temp I want. The room is usually below 20c and I have the loop temp set to go to 15c at the lowest. Could I go lower? Should I keep it higher? Thanks! 

[Bombastinator]

“Roof radiator”. You running a custom loop and ran your radiator outside your house?

[Shadow_Storm56]

3 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

“Roof radiator”. You running a custom loop and ran your radiator outside your house?

Correct, Why heat the room and cool it with AC when you can just dump the heat outside?

[Firewrath9]

Check your dew point:

https://www.calculator.net/dew-point-calculator.html?airtemperature=40&airtemperatureunit=celsius&humidity=40&dewpoint=&dewpointunit=fahrenheit&x=100&y=25

Monitor internal PC temp, and humdity.

[Bombastinator]

That’s certainly commitment.  You put holes in your house.  The issue is temp variability and condensation inside the house.  A cold enough coolant is going to cause condensation on the tubes  and “furniture” maybe?  This will put water in your computer.

[Shadow_Storm56]

1 minute ago, Firewrath9 said:

Check your dew point:

https://www.calculator.net/dew-point-calculator.html?airtemperature=40&airtemperatureunit=celsius&humidity=40&dewpoint=&dewpointunit=fahrenheit&x=100&y=25

Monitor internal PC temp, and humdity.

Internal temp is easy but humidity is less easy. 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Shadow_Storm56 said:

Internal temp is easy but humidity is less easy. 

Physics won’t care.  Got to keep the temp above the dew point.

[Shadow_Storm56]

Just now, Bombastinator said:

That’s certainly commitment.  You put holes in your house.  The issue is temp variability and condensation inside the house.  A cold enough coolant is going to cause condensation on the tubes  and “furniture” maybe?  This will put water in your computer.

Haha I put the tubes out through the window, also I am controlling the loop temp by the pc controlling the fans. As of now in the years I had this setup I never had condensation on tubes or in the pc. Only new thing is the fans automatically turn on and off now

[Shadow_Storm56]

10 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Physics won’t care.  Got to keep the temp above the dew point.

Haha fair enough, in general this house usually does not have high humidity. I'll pick up something to measure humidity... or maybe just stick with the range I know is safe

 

Best is in the summer though, If I get time to game then I can not cook myself out. Plus it cools two servers. But seeing how much I can cool things is nice too

[Tamesh16]

1 hour ago, Shadow_Storm56 said:

I'll pick up something to measure humidity

you can use an online calculator to measure the dew point, with ambient room temperature and humidity as the variables 

so a nice small humidity and temperature sensor would work very nice for your need (examples links below)

example Temperature and humidity sensor

 http://www.dpcalc.org/

 

for example in the calculator 

a ambient temperature of 20 ^oC, and a dew point of 15^oC (so you set your pc at 15^oC as minimum) , the humidity of your room has to be less then 75% RH to prevent condensation on your pc 

[Moose36]

I think you may want to look into calculating the dew point on the go, by using a combination of pressure, humidity and temperature sensors.This will ensure that you always are as low as you can be, which I assume is what you want

I've found this thread, you might want to look into the practical way of completing this project https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=567732.0 .

Overall, the aquaero devices are very flexible(I have two of them for my two watercooling loops) and offer very precise control over your loop, even if you decide to not look at humidity, but only temperature and pressure, which probably makes it even simpler, as both these sensors are manufactured by aquacomputer themselves

I'd also recommend insulating the socket quite well.

[Shadow_Storm56]

12 hours ago, Moose36 said:

I think you may want to look into calculating the dew point on the go, by using a combination of pressure, humidity and temperature sensors.This will ensure that you always are as low as you can be, which I assume is what you want

I've found this thread, you might want to look into the practical way of completing this project https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=567732.0 .

Overall, the aquaero devices are very flexible(I have two of them for my two watercooling loops) and offer very precise control over your loop, even if you decide to not look at humidity, but only temperature and pressure, which probably makes it even simpler, as both these sensors are manufactured by aquacomputer themselves

I'd also recommend insulating the socket quite well.

I thought about somthing arduino related at one point, that seems like a cool idea as it would maintain things percisely and keep it as cold as possible. Lots of good advice here, thanks! 

[Statik]

What are you running in your loop? How does the water not freeze inside the rad/tubes in the winter months?

[Bombastinator]

4 minutes ago, Statik said:

What are you running in your loop? How does the water not freeze inside the rad/tubes in the winter months?

This really needs a crude cartoon.  Just saying..

[Shadow_Storm56]

18 hours ago, Statik said:

What are you running in your loop? How does the water not freeze inside the rad/tubes in the winter months?

Theres enough heat put into the loop to keep it from freezing in the winter since the fans shut off. Also flowing water does not freeze as easily as standing water