Surlyjoe has seen all sorts of crazyass radiator setups. Shit,
I pride myself on being able to get that "surly's spray paintin in the closet
again" look from my friends for puttin together some nutty ass contraption
from crap I found in the dumpster and runnin water through it! From jam jars
to kiddy pools, every day you see something new. Most work fine, some suck
ass, some cost a fortune and some are free. One thing that you don't see much
of is portability. Seeing as how my LAN party rig is water cooled the last
thing I wanted was to walk in carrying a radiator from a 65 ford with a house
fan zip tied to it, or better yet a 50 gal cooler full of ice,LOL. Needless
to say, I needed a compact portable radiator that didn't clash with the "HuggyBear
" image I was trying to portray. I already stated that I preferred a remote
unit (can't remember where though) to keep the heat and noise off the desktop,
so my search for something to put it in began . I looked all over town and
ended up with a $2 tool box that my radiator (the heater core for my 78 Merc
cop car) wouldn’t fit in. After I kicked the dog a few times I started looking
around the garage.
After I excavated my pile of shit I stole from work, I found
this old drill case. Further investigation revealed it was just big enough
to fit all my crap in. No sooner had I whipped out my "leatherman ultra" that
you could shave a gnats ass hairs with, the phone rang. After kicking the
open knife across the room I attempted to reattach my severed toe. With this
task accomplished I proceeded to hack the crap out of the drill box so I could
mount my shit inside it. Once I had carved it up I decided the best way to
mount the radiator was "cheap ass heat sink style" and proceeded to crank
some screws into the aluminum cooling fins. After several hours of trying
to repair the holes in the radiator core i had gouged with the screws, I decided
the best way to mount it might be zip ties. This proved to be effective and
kept the shit off my forehead as I didn't have to put my head up my ass with
this fastening method.
I was able to squeeze two 3 in. "shack" 120 volt fans in the top and put a
cheap ass dimmer switch on it to adjust the noise level. So far I have only
used it on our test system. No matter what we throw at it (128 watts of stacked
peltier). The output is less than 2c above ambient. As you can see it is pretty
small for the power it punches (and it matches my 5 inch elevator tennis shoes
I wear to LAN parties!)
Dr Surlyjoe
