24/7 Chiller and dew point questions

shaolin95 · April 8

Hello,
I am planning to setup a chiller as my stepup from long time using 360mm AIOs. I was curious about condensation and understanding how cold I could go without issues.
For instance my Acurite 5-1 sensor outdoors is telling me dew point is 25º F right now which is typical in Utah it seems.
Does that help me determine the safe temps I could run?

I am going to be getting someone to assist with the tubing to avoid leakings since I have not done REAL water cooling yet but very excited about this new project.
Thanks

ShrimpBrime · April 8

You want to insulate everything. The board front and back, the waterblock needs to get wrapped and also the tubing.

But for all that trouble, just to chill some liquid, you'd be better off getting a single stage unit to make it worth while IMO.

If you are doing this on a modern AMD system, it's a waste of time and money while the Ryzen chips don't start to scale up with cold till around -50c or so.

Lobstar · April 12

On 4/8/2021 at 4:47 PM, shaolin95 said:

For instance my Acurite 5-1 sensor outdoors is telling me dew point is 25º F right now which is typical in Utah it seems.

Your chiller would need to keep the water above the dew point. So if the dew point is 25º F then you must keep the chiller operating above 26º F to prevent condensation. The dew point is the temperature the air needs to be cooled to in order to achieve a relative humidity (RH) of 100%.

vsteel · April 13

You want to keep your chiller about 10 degrees above the dew point to allow for some fluctuation in the dew point and in the chiller itself. That is a normal buffer that companies run. If you can control things really well you can always drop it some in the future and monitor the results.