Submerged Questions

[xxxAgentxxx]

Sorry, I didn't know where else to post this. I'm just looking into setting up an aquarium style submerged case for mobo and some components.

I was wondering if anyone can speak from experience on this matter and point me in some good directions on actions to take to actually GET IT DONE ;)

This is a reletively new thing, and I rarely see anyone talking about it, so I guess my questions are, pretty much everything... Recommended solution to use? Recommended tank or pump for circulation? What all can actually be put into that goop...?

I've wanted one ever since I saw the pic from the ATI Texas show where they had the AMD custom built mineral oil aquarium, mine won't be cooled like that one, nor will it look as flashy, but I absolutely want my rig running in something like it. No condensation, no humidity, consistantly lower temperature, all while looking pretty cool. In the future I'll be looking into some additional cooling features for it, but first thing is first, I need to actually get the base done.

Links, pics of some already made / running, recommendations, brainstorming on possibilities for upgrading in the future, ect, are all welcome.

Thanks,
Agent

[xxxAgentxxx]

BTW, this is a very nice forum, but you need to place a disclaimer in the sign up on dental damage... my jaw has hit the floor atleast 20 times now... and it could be grounds for a lawsuit. :P

[MaxxxRacer]

well u would want it cooled with phase change i think. a chiller would be the best option to keep the liquid nice and cool.

possibly an iwaki MD20RLT pump with the input to the pump near the top of the liquid where the warmer water is and an ouput back into the case at the top on the opposite side of the case.

as to contstruction i would suppose an actual glass aquairum would work just fine. not sure what kind of fluid u would want though.

[xxxAgentxxx]

well u would want it cooled with phase change i think. a chiller would be the best option to keep the liquid nice and cool.

I read a post made by a guy on here that said he left it right at room temp, and that the mineral oil he used never got higher than 1 degree more than room temp. I wanted to start off with that before I worry about cooling the liquid down (at some point I WILL be doing that), I just figure the oil would have to be MOVING in order to keep things like CPU / GPU cool enough, but then again, I have no idea how a motherboard in a tank full of oil needs to be maintained... perhaps uncirculated oil alone would be enough to keep it cool since its sitting in 10 gallons of the stuff. I also thought about putting a passive HS in replacement of the typical HSF they come with, then just doing like you suggested and placing a submerged pump inside to keep everything circulating. I would only imagine that would be enough to do the job, even at room temperature, and still OC better than just air alone.
Another possibility is to mount 120mm fans aimed in the general direction of the RAM / CPU / NB / GPU, but I think a cleverly aimed waterpump is what I need here. Which brings up more questions, like how long a waterpump is going to last submerged in mineral oil... I'd imagine it's less corrosive, a pro, but thicker and harder to push, a definate con. I have alot of investigation yet to go, perhaps we should turn this into a sticky, or even give it it's own dedicated forum, as I think this is truelly the wave of the future. Once you all see popular names posting great results after using this stuff, and they say "AND IT DIDN'T BLOW UP!!" it'll bring on a whole wave of people ready to setup their own. haha, as you can see, I'm still sceptic about this...


as to contstruction i would suppose an actual glass aquairum would work just fine. not sure what kind of fluid u would want though.

I figured that much :D One guy was saying the best stuff to use is $500 per gallon... Figuring on getting probably a 10 gallon aquarium, that means it's going to cost about $4700 more than I'm willing to spend :nono: I guess I should ask, more specifically, does anybody know of any non conductive oils that are not toxic / not FLAMMABLE (that won't cost as much as a car)? I'm not so sure I want electrical equipment sitting inside a 10 gallon tub of gasoline in the same room I sleep in... needless to say, I wouldn't sleep well at night... heh, oh yea, thats another reason I want to get this running, this room gets to be like an oven in the summer with this damned thing in here.

[xxxAgentxxx]

10 gallons is probably overkill, likely 5-6 gallons would be large enough to leave a little room to work with inside, yet not have a big ass tank in my room.

[AACDIRECT]

I was at TXGF and know the system you are talking about. The guy who built it is a friend of mine. He used mineral oil as the fluid. You do have to cool the oil as it will warm up over time. He tried it without any cooling and the system became very warm over time. (Takes awhile for 10 gallons of oil to heat up. :D ) He added a TEC with a heatsink attached to the cold side in the oil and the hot side had a sink with an extremly noisy high flow fan. He used a pump to circulate the oil and "blow" it accross the TEC's cool side heatsink. All said and done his temps are about that of an air cooled system.

Long story short...looks really cool but not great for keeping things cool.

Also remember that mineral oil is less dense than water. This means that any water introduced to the system goes to the bottom of the tank. Keep this in mind if you plan on cooling the oil below room temp. Condensation can be you enemy as over time it can collect at the bottom and short out the mobo and such.

[xxxAgentxxx]

That's an eye opening post. Thanks for the heads up. You single handedly took a month and a half of on and off daydreaming, and crushed it in roughly 2 minutes of typing, haha.

@#$%, back to the water cooling drawing board...

[MaxxxRacer]

LOL.. well if u want to setup a regular watercooling system just make a thread and in 15 minutes ull have plenty of suggestions. and if u want to do that take a "quick" read on my very introductory guide to watercooling. it has alot of useful information in there that i have found even ppl who have been watercooling for a while are obvlivious to.