Koolance's Response to Hardware Labs "The Copper Radiator Myth"

Interesting

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Originally Posted by Cathar

...It is (of course) impossible for the air-temperature to ever be more than the water-inlet temperature though. So the proof that they are defying the laws of physics still holds true based upon the analysis in this post...

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Two factors that may or may not be worth considering are compression and friction.

Air will get slightly compressed entering the radiator, then heated to up a maximum of the water inlet temperature, then decompress on exit thus lowering exhaust temperature.

Dunno if there is any noteworthy friction coefficient at these airspeeds, if there is it could heat the exhaust past water inlet temp.

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Originally Posted by Fairydust

Two factors that may or may not be worth considering are compression and friction.

Air will get slightly compressed entering the radiator, then heated to up a maximum of the water inlet temperature, then decompress on exit thus lowering exhaust temperature.

Dunno if there is any noteworthy friction coefficient at these airspeeds, if there is it could heat the exhaust past water inlet temp.

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Not relevant. It starts at standard pressure, and leaves at standard pressure.

Besides, even if it was relevant, the pressure changes we're talking about are just 100-120Pa (from the results), or ~1/1000th that of atmospheric pressure. The amount of temperature rise from that size of pressure change, starting at a standard atmosphere pressure would be absolutely miniscule.

Also, frictional heat from the airflow wouldn't show up in the calculated heat dissipation, since that's calculated purely from the water delta and water flow-rate. Air-flow friction warming the air up would make the air hotter, yes, but only hotter above the amount required to absorb the rated heat-load from the water.

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Originally Posted by Cathar

Not relevant. It starts at standard pressure, and leaves at standard pressure.

Besides, even if it was relevant, the pressure changes we're talking about are just 100-120Pa (from the results), or ~1/1000th that of atmospheric pressure. The amount of temperature rise from that size of pressure change, starting at a standard atmosphere pressure would be absolutely miniscule.

Also, frictional heat from the airflow wouldn't show up in the calculated heat dissipation, since that's calculated purely from the water delta and water flow-rate. Air-flow friction warming the air up would make the air hotter, yes, but only hotter above the amount required to absorb the rated heat-load from the water.

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Sorry brainfart, thought the last posts were about a measured exhaust temperature but after re-reading everything i see it was just calculated values.

This thread makes me realize how dumb I am. I don't understand most of the mumbo jumbo here. Thanks Marci and Cathar . . .

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Originally Posted by DarthBeavis

This thread makes me realize how dumb I am. I don't understand most of the mumbo jumbo here. Thanks Marci and Cathar . . .

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same here:(

This reminds me a great deal of the so-called "open letters" from Dolby Laboratories and DTS regarding Dolby's claim that their lower-bitrate AC-3 encoders could somehow produce superior quality than DTS's encoders at about one-third the bitrate -- which is about the most unimaginably arrogant claim imaginable, as both encoders utilize practically the same means of data compression (primarily based upon psychoacoustics).

Of course, Koolance has been even more bold and misleading than I could have imagined. It's both an angering and humorous situation in some ways, but also certainly somewhat saddening.

An aluminium rad would have to be slightly bigger due to strength weight ratio of aluminium, you need more of it for the same strength then you would say copper or brass.

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Originally Posted by DarthBeavis

This thread makes me realize how dumb I am. I don't understand most of the mumbo jumbo here. Thanks Marci and Cathar . . .

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Psst. Listen. It's easy. You can even fool yourself.

When reading the posts, nod slowly, raise your eyebrows slowly. From time to time mutter "Ah, of course." and "I see."

Look for tables of information, or summaries, read those. The rest of the stuff look at the big words and pick up keyphrases.

To kid on the rest of the forum ask questions like "Ah, but would the [keyphrase] have any impact on this?".

If Cathar, Marci, Hwlabs, or any of the experts posts and says they made a miscalculation or a mistake, quote that post and say "I was thinking that myself, but I didn't want to be rude and point it out"

If for some reason someone springs you, and catches you talking nonsese and corrects you, reply with "Sorry, that's what I meant to say".

It works a treat!

Actually, you're really not supposed to understand because you haven't attained legendary status. You are still part of the n00b caste and are not qualified to comment. Your role is to accept whatever is said at face value.

The conditioned response should be: "I see" and "of course" and you are expected to adopt what is said as gospel because the truth is dispensed by legends. After all, unless they specifically admit to a miscalculation, they are never wrong because they are industry pioneers and they know what they are talking about, even though you don't understand a word.. refer to my previous comment about not having attained legendary status.

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Originally Posted by Cathar

This is NOT an easy question to answer. We must always factor the properties of the coolant into the overall performance aspect. While it may be possible to design a superior aluminium radiator for pure water use (I really don't know - I didn't research that) the reality is that copper/silver makes for the best performing affordable waterblocks, and we simply cannot mix aluminium and copper together in a pure water system without incurring devastating corrosion. There must alway be some amount of anti-corrosion protection added, and this will always negatively impact the overall performance of both the radiator and the waterblocks.

Further, since it cannot be guaranteed that users will always take the required steps to provide corrosion protection for their systems, this then automatically invalidated the choice of aluminium as a potential radiator material, and that is why I never researched it.

Without knowing the amount of corrosion protection required, and the level of performance degradation incurred as a result at the waterblocks, it is impossible to state which is the higher performing item. We may conduct short-term tests using pure water, but the reality is that an all copper system can be run pure-water-only, while a mixed-metal system must be run with coolant. This is then another flaw in any testing methodology that does not account for these requirements. If we're testing aluminium against copper, we should also be running 50:50 coolant/water for the aluminium scenario, and pure-water for the copper scenario, because only THAT will reflect real-world use.

So, you see, the question is not easy to answer, and due to the non foolproof nature of the use of aluminium in a non-pre-packaged product, we didn't even consider it as a realistically viable end-user solution.

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[Old post ^ , sorry]
What if, for aluminium based radiators, aluminium based waterblocks are used?
If we assume that people know mixing metals in a loop is "dangerous", a test could be done with an all copper loop, and another with an all aluminium loop.

Perhaps such a test would result in far too many variables to comprehend, brand A copper waterblock will no doubt perform different then brand B aluminium waterblock, but this way the aluminium loop will not suffer from the added coolant as much.

Because of the very good properties of copper (and maybe a bit of history), copper is the way to go if you want to watercool.
Your very good post about tube dimensions (and how the end results don't differ much) might be applicable to the properties of radiator materials as well? Given the wall thickness between water and air medium, how much do different metals of a radiator actually contribute to the overall cooling performance?

[On a side note: I am willing to admit that I want to build a watercooling loop using a reserator 2 and a zalman gtx waterblock... will be my first, but decided to go with that because 130W VGA and silent don't go together air cooled]

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Originally Posted by Halk

Psst. Listen. It's easy. You can even fool yourself.

When reading the posts, nod slowly, raise your eyebrows slowly. From time to time mutter "Ah, of course." and "I see."

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omg... that's what I do :eek:

Anyone notice that ever since this "test" was released that the [H] forums have imploded?

They must be taking it [h]ard over there...;)

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Originally Posted by ranker

Anyone notice that ever since this "test" was released that the [H] forums have imploded?

They must be taking it [h]ard over there...;)

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Don't worry, it was from the server upgrades over the weekend :clap:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Halk

Psst. Listen. It's easy. You can even fool yourself.

When reading the posts, nod slowly, raise your eyebrows slowly. From time to time mutter "Ah, of course." and "I see."

Look for tables of information, or summaries, read those. The rest of the stuff look at the big words and pick up keyphrases.

To kid on the rest of the forum ask questions like "Ah, but would the [keyphrase] have any impact on this?".

If Cathar, Marci, Hwlabs, or any of the experts posts and says they made a miscalculation or a mistake, quote that post and say "I was thinking that myself, but I didn't want to be rude and point it out"

If for some reason someone springs you, and catches you talking nonsese and corrects you, reply with "Sorry, that's what I meant to say".

It works a treat!

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Ahhhh.....I see the impact of what you are referring to. I was thinking that exact same thing myself, that was the keyphrase I meant to say.



I like your style, I just do...Scots don't mess about, do they?

ranker lolz.

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Originally Posted by Marci

Brass that we use is 151W/m-C (87.23k). That's 85%Cu, 15%Zn - specific heat of 380J/kg-C

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thanks marci. Always happy to see a manf. putting up specs.

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Originally Posted by MaxxxRacer

thanks marci. Always happy to see a manf. putting up specs.

w/mc??? its usually rated in w/mk... im confuzzled.

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K & C are interchangable when in that format as the scale of the units (as opposed to the absolute value) are identical.

I wonder if Koolance has seen this thread or is planning a response. HWlabs, will your company be posting a rebuttal to their test like the previous time?

Been out for a while, work mostly...

Some friends from Aluminum radiator supply industry gave us some tidbits to consider.

Alloys are usually based on AA3003 for CAB (controlled atmosphere brazing) but modified for better structural and corrosion resistance by additions of Mg ,Cu and Zn.

Claddings - AA4343 or AA4045 typically.

Thermal conductivity influenced greatly by alloy type, typically 0.4 cal / cms Deg. C. (that's only about 167 W/m-K)

So looking at things, its not pure Aluminum as nor are the thermal characteristics as dramatically different as they would like people to believe.

And if for anything else, the alloy owes corrosion resistance to a helping of copper.

MPE, or multi-port-extruded tubes, used in the Koolance radiators have wall thicknesses typically of 0.25mm, and huge liquid-side pressure drop characteristics.

I'll leave it to you gentlemen for now to see what the implications are.

Will pop in from time to time with more info and results once the radiators arrive and the testing is done.

Ok, well I can add some maths on the impact of the brass wall.

If we're using 16mm wide tubes, and the copper fins are 0.07mm thick (fairly typical for traditional cores), then every fin has 2 contact points with the brass tube of 0.07x16=1.12mm², or 2.24mm². Now, if we've got a 12x12cm core, that has 12 tubes and 13 finned regions, of 16fpi, that 75fins per region, or 75x13=975 fins. That means 2184mm² of surface area between the tube walls and the copper fins, or 0.002184m².

Brass has a thermal conductivity of 159W/mK. The walls of the tubing are 0.2mm thick. The thermal resistance of the walls to the fins is therefore:

((159 / 0.0002) * 0.002184) W/mK, or 1736W/K.

That's 0.00058C/W

i.e. For a 200W heat-load, the tube-fin interface is contributing 0.115C to the water temperatures.

Okay, so there's some solder there too. Typically around 60W/mK, but nothing like 0.2mm thick of it though. The fins are pushed against the tube wall when the solder melts and holds them there. The solder-gap is miniscule. 0.05mm would be over-stating it. Still, even if we were totally pessimistic, we could say that the solder bridge is doubling the tube-fin C/W, so of our 200W heat-load, ~0.23C of the water temp rise would be due to the tube-fin thermal junction.

The best 12x12cm radiator with an extremely high speed fan blasting will get a C/W of around 0.03C/W, or a water-temp rise of 6C in total for a 200W heat-load.

i.e. Our tube-wall thermal impact is just 0.23/6 = 3.8% of the total thermal problem. As fan speeds decrease, so will this impact become an even smaller proportion.

i.e. The best that we could ever hope to achieve over a brass/copper radiator would be a 3.8% improvement given a 100% thermally perfect wall-fin material & interface, and even then I was being generous with some of my assumptions.

All this talk of 35-45% is pure tripe.

Depending on the precision of the solder bath attachments on a tube mill, the thickness of the solder cladding should be anything from 0.015-0.025 mm.

Then there is of course the difference between lead and tin's thermal conductivity but both are negligible in this application.

In response to the negligible gains possible comments made by Cathar (who I have mad respect for, took me forever to do all those maths myself) I have to ask if the issue could be slightly improved by using a different formulation-something like ambronze, or nickel silver (those are just examples, I know their acoustical properties, not their thermal properties)...

I understand that one of the issues is that we are still limited by what the radiator can absorb in order to dissipate, and that is governed by the thermal capacity of the metal. Is there a metal that would serve as an even slightly superior conductor that is available in some quantity? There's always pure copper, but that may/may not be cost effective, but I'm wondering if there are other metals worth pursuing...

Reason I ask is in the musical instrument field (where I spent a long time) new alloys have really changed the ability to influence the sound of instruments-andone of the reasons is that they heat up faster and hold that temperature, evening out tuning issues due to expansion/contraction. Beryllium bronze and ambronze are both in that category, and there's more work in sterling silver, gold, and platinum due to that as well.

Meh, I'm divorced from my books, but I hope I made that understandable...

More copper in an alloy is often touted to have higher conductivity but lower structural rigidity and for tubes, alloys need to be correctly done to enhance corrosion resistance.

Going to pure copper tubes, would have tubes become 3+ mm thick just to avoid dog boning, wherein the middle section of the tube across its width collapses, preventing proper tube to fin adhesion.

So whatever gains you wish to obtain, at least for the extreme PC application, would be mitigated by the thick tube width, i.e. high air pressure drop.

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Originally Posted by hwlabs

Depending on the precision of the solder bath attachments on a tube mill, the thickness of the solder cladding should be anything from 0.015-0.025 mm.

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Okay, so let's model for the worst case scenario then.

The worst thermally conductive solder is 32W/m-K. (soft lead solder)
Let's assume the worst case scenario of 0.025mm thickness for all fin-tube joins.

((32 / 0.000025) * 0.002184) W/mK => 2795W/K or 0.000358 C/W

Add that to our previously calculated tube-wall thermal resistance of 0.00058C/W

So we get a total tub->fin thermal resistance of 0.000938

Once again, applying that to our 120mm radiator with a ~200cfm fan on-board, we get 0.000938 / 0.03 => 3.1%

Okay, so following the worst-case scenario at every point, and using the worst-case scenario of an insanely high fan-power, the brass-tube->solder->copper fin impact is just 3.1% of the total problem.

For more typical slow-spinning PC fan powers, it's more like 1% of the total thermal problem. i.e. insignificant and justifiable.

I think that once again this highlights the nature of the automotive industry focus on the problem not being applicable to the PC water-cooling focus.

The auto-motive industry dealing in 3-30m/s air-flow speeds through a radiator, while the PC application is dealing with 0.3-1.0m/s air-flow speed typically. At 30m/s air-flow speeds (~1000cfm actual through a 12x12cm area), the brass->solder->fin approach could potentially be as bad as 20% of the total thermal problem, and this is where a brazed aluminium radiator of superior thermal conductivity in the tube->fin interface would start to win over the copper approach.

I think that this just shows that any company who continues to apply automotive industry principle to PC water-cooling is completely failing to grasp the huge differences between the two applications.

Worse, any company that uses automotive industry testing to justify their design decisions for PC water-cooling are completely and utterly wasting their time. Worse still, any company that attempts to use such in marketing and advertising is not only wasting the time of the customer, but is polluting the marketplace net-clue factor with misguided, misleading, misinformation.

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Originally Posted by Cathar

Worse still, any company that attempts to use such in marketing and advertising is not only wasting the time of the customer, but is polluting the marketplace net-clue factor with misguided, misleading, misinformation.

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There's been a lot of that going on around here lately and in the WC'ing in general. I'm hoping that all established and reputable companies and individuals, including those that participate on this forum speak out about this and call those individuals and companies out for their unethical behavior.

maybe you should sig that ranker.

"However, after submitting samples to an independent laboratory (KATECH), we are maintaining our original argument"

Just an observation regarding the test lab....

http://www.katech.re.kr/eng/index.asp

This is a Korean laboratory, eh?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1539784.htm

:rofl:

Err.. Koolance is a Korean company... Not making any statement.. but wouldn't a Korean company tend to use a Korean lab ?

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Originally Posted by IanY

but wouldn't a Korean company tend to use a Korean lab ?

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That wasn't my point...Did you check this link?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1539784.htm

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Originally Posted by BigBlueBoy

That wasn't my point...Did you check this link?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1539784.htm

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Yes.. very interesting :)

However, those are the misdeeds of one scientist in relation to stem cell research. I don't know how it relates to liquid thermal cooling. Perhaps you shouldn't make sweeping generalizations because such scandals can occur in any country.

I'm still trying to figure out what Koolance was thinking when they started this whole thing.... :confused: I mean, it would have just taken one person in their entire office who knew anything about water cooling to say, "Hey, guys, wait a minute, we're wrong!"

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Originally Posted by HiJon89

I'm still trying to figure out what Koolance was thinking when they started this whole thing.... :confused: I mean, it would have just taken one person in their entire office who knew anything about water cooling to say, "Hey, guys, wait a minute, we're wrong!"

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I don't think that's how companies in that part of the world are run. The bozo up top opines. The underlings say "Yes sir, as always, you are brilliant, sir."

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Originally Posted by IanY

Perhaps you shouldn't make sweeping generalizations because such scandals can occur in any country.

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Perhaps Koolance shouldn't assume that...

...the typical WC enthusiast use fans that blow at 5 m/sec.

...water inlet temperture reaches 84 degrees C.

Perhaps Koolance had its back against the wall by HWlab's counter from last month and decided to come up some "quack" science to appease the percentage of novice enthusiasts who are not up to speed with the science behind the hobby....

I dunno...I just thought it humorous that Koolance's latest "scientific quackery" follows one of their national scandals.

It *is* funny.

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Originally Posted by IanY

I don't think that's how companies in that part of the world are run. The bozo up top opines. The underlings say "Yes sir, as always, you are brilliant, sir."

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LOL. That is so true and applies to all of Asia. Why? Because my father/mother has to convince his/her advisors/board members to give him their honest answer by pleading with them. They fear not only losing their job but also dishonoring the owners.

Companies in that part of the world succeed mainly due to the vision, skill and work ethic of their CEO. What he says goes. What he wants done is done. However, for every brilliant CEO, there are many others whose pride, ineptitude, and carelessness dooms the entire company.

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Originally Posted by ranker

LOL. That is so true and applies to all of Asia. Why? Because my father/mother has to convince his/her advisors/board members to give him their honest answer by pleading with them. They fear not only losing their job but also dishonoring the owners.

Companies in that part of the world succeed mainly due to the vision, skill and work ethic of their CEO. What he says goes. What he wants done is done. However, for every brilliant CEO, there are many others whose pride, ineptitude, and carelessness dooms the entire company.

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Really.. not too different in New York City lol :) We go on a rollercoaster ride with the boss. If you complain that the darn thing is going to derail, you get thrown overboard early rofl :)

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Originally Posted by IanY

Really.. not too different in New York City lol :) We go on a rollercoaster ride with the boss. If you complain that the darn thing is going to derail, you get thrown overboard early rofl :)

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Ouch, I'm glad I work for a laid-back company. We call our bosses by their first names and can criticize them all we want. My boss never gets in before 9:45am and I call him sleeping beauty when he finally comes in :D

Here's looking forward to a rebuttal response on HWlab's website to this. *nudge nudge* =)

HEatercores kill any RAD !!!! copper or aluminum

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Originally Posted by BigBlueBoy

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems...2/s1539784.htm

:rofl:

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I don't think this is relevant. Ethical ambiguity is all too present in numerous branches of the scientific community, not exclusive to one nation or one part of the world.

Dang! This a funny thread :rofl: And SDatl404 just makes it even more fun :clap: I'm sure someone have rads for really extreme high pressure cooling like 200-300 degrees celsius or more, they should be the über rads for WC at temps around 30-50 degrees then? And race car rads are made of aluminium, but thats due to the weight of copper compared to aluminium..

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Originally Posted by Cathar

If anyone wants to buy the Koolance radiator separately, for testing purposes, it can be done so here:
http://www.koolance.com/shop/product...roducts_id=241

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Darn.....never knew what a Koolance radiator looked like....interesting. Their radiators are almost exactly like what I pulled out of my Corsair Nautilus 500 system before I hooked it up.....I replaced the alu. rad. with a Black Ice rad before I assembled the contraption and used it.

Same fin density.....or so it seems to my uneducated eye....same round tanks on both ends. The Corsair rad, though, has straight 3/8" barbs on it, not the 90 degree block things the Koolance rad linked above has.

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Originally Posted by teko

Dang! This a funny thread :rofl: And SDatl404 just makes it even more fun :clap:

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I also found it humorous that he cheers on Koolance, only to have gutted most of his loop for different parts to get better temps. ;)

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Darn.....never knew what a Koolance radiator looked like....interesting. Their radiators are almost exactly like what I pulled out of my Corsair Nautilus 500 system before I hooked it up.....I replaced the alu. rad. with a Black Ice rad before I assembled the contraption and used it.

Same fin density.....or so it seems to my uneducated eye....same round tanks on both ends. The Corsair rad, though, has straight 3/8" barbs on it, not the 90 degree block things the Koolance rad linked above has.

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You're right. I just opened my old Nautilus up and it looks very similar indeed. For those that are wondering, here's a link to a pic of it: http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.a...tno=333&pgno=5

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Originally Posted by teko

Dang! This a funny thread :rofl: And SDatl404 just makes it even more fun :clap:

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Tho he havent said a word since the test was deeper analyzed and completely trashed... :p:

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Originally Posted by mukmaster

HEatercores kill any RAD !!!! copper or aluminum

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I smell sarcasm in this statement.

But incase your not, PROVE IT.

I had a heatercore, and the MCR220 pwned it hardcore.

probably has a delta mounted to that heatercore though. hehe.
lets end this thread.

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Originally Posted by eXa

Tho he havent said a word since the test was deeper analyzed and completely trashed... :p:

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A very amusing observation. He should edit his statements to say "Koolance Rulez...at creating bogus tests" to save face.

Just a quick note to add to this thread, as it's only just been pointed out to me by Bill elsewhere... the Koolance radiator core HAS been tested via what we would consider to be "the normal approach"... http://swiftnets.com/Technical/Asses...erformance.pdf

The Corsair Hydrocool radiator is the same core, same characteristics, same manufacturer... just upscale the frontal surface area to match the comparison rad and extrapolate. ie: In the Swiftech Article, a 120.1 footprint rad is compared against everyone else's 120.1 footprint rads. The results / running order would be the same if upscaled to 120.2 vs 120.2, and ditto 120.3 vs 120.3... Someone with the maths knowhow could extrapolate this to match the surface area of the specific Koolance radiator, then overlay that against the rest.

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Originally Posted by Marci

Just a quick note to add to this thread, as it's only just been pointed out to me by Bill elsewhere... the Koolance radiator core HAS been tested via what we would consider to be "the normal approach"... http://swiftnets.com/Technical/Asses...erformance.pdf

The Corsair Hydrocool radiator is the same core, same characteristics, same manufacturer... just upscale the frontal surface area to match the comparison rad and extrapolate. ie: In the Swiftech Article, a 120.1 footprint rad is compared against everyone else's 120.1 footprint rads. The results / running order would be the same if upscaled to 120.2 vs 120.2, and ditto 120.3 vs 120.3... Someone with the maths knowhow could extrapolate this to match the surface area of the specific Koolance radiator, then overlay that against the rest.

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...oddly enough, it looks like the Koolance 2x120 would beat the MCR220. The Koolance EXOS-2 radiator is 77.2 square inches (10.75" x 7.2"), so that's 3.425 times the Corsair Hydrocool's wattage, for a total of... 633? Alright, I did something wrong.

I was also curious if there was a way to calculate the pressure drop for the larger radiator; considering that seems to be where the Corsair unit is really dying.

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Originally Posted by Marci

Just a quick note to add to this thread, as it's only just been pointed out to me by Bill elsewhere... the Koolance radiator core HAS been tested via what we would consider to be "the normal approach"... http://swiftnets.com/Technical/Asses...erformance.pdf

The Corsair Hydrocool radiator is the same core, same characteristics, same manufacturer... just upscale the frontal surface area to match the comparison rad and extrapolate. ie: In the Swiftech Article, a 120.1 footprint rad is compared against everyone else's 120.1 footprint rads. The results / running order would be the same if upscaled to 120.2 vs 120.2, and ditto 120.3 vs 120.3... Someone with the maths knowhow could extrapolate this to match the surface area of the specific Koolance radiator, then overlay that against the rest.

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I never trust maths in situations like this. If this is to be done right we need real world tests of real world products, 3 fan and 2 fan. We have the results you posted (would rather see the actual Koolance radiator tested there) for 2 fan but not 3.

Time for someone to convince an unbiased external lab to do these comparison tests. :)

None exist. All external labs for testing heat exchangers would provide unrealistic characteristics for our application, as Koolance's did.

BillA's selling all his testing gear for $8000 USD if anyone wants to take up the challenge - that's about the only testrig on the planet at the moment designed from the ground up with the sole purpose to specifically test radiators of the PC type, and produce consistently repeatable test results via the correct methods.

Seems an unbiased source of money is required for it to ever take place... our data has been called as biased because we paid for it to be produced. This means no manufacturer can pay for testing for the XS audience and be beleived, so an end-user must be the one to shell out the cash who has no connection at all to any manufacturer. Realistically going to happen? Nope - lets face it, whose got a spare £2000 to shell out with no opportunity to ever earn it back? Only the manufacturers could do that...

The calls of bias data have resulted in the few PC-radiator testers around throwing in the towel and giving up on the job... ThermoChill no longer have access to testing facilities due to BillA giving up. Koolance use automotive thus data is worthless. HWLabs will pay for theirs to be produced... so that will be called as biased. Swiftech paid for theirs (well, twas produced inhouse by BillA whilst he worked for them - Ditto Coolingworks).

The community has sadly ruled out all it's options already. You'll never see empyrical data that can be represented as unbiased here imo.

Understood.

I guess when I use the term "lab" I don't really mean such. I'm looking more for a publication (2-3) who are willing to take 3-4 radiators from the top vendors and compare them within a given set of criteria:

Different fan speeds
Different heat source levels
Different fan noise levels

Not very scientific but the kind of info I think most are looking for.

Edit: Guess flow rates should be in there as well? Say with a variety of pumps at specific speed settings?

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Originally Posted by Marci

None exist. All external labs for testing heat exchangers would provide unrealistic characteristics for our application, as Koolance's did.

BillA's selling all his testing gear for $8000 USD if anyone wants to take up the challenge - that's about the only testrig on the planet at the moment designed from the ground up with the sole purpose to specifically test radiators of the PC type, and produce consistently repeatable test results via the correct methods.

Seems an unbiased source of money is required for it to ever take place... our data has been called as biased because we paid for it to be produced. This means no manufacturer can pay for testing for the XS audience and be beleived, so an end-user must be the one to shell out the cash who has no connection at all to any manufacturer. Realistically going to happen? Nope - lets face it, whose got a spare £2000 to shell out with no opportunity to ever earn it back? Only the manufacturers could do that...

The calls of bias data have resulted in the few PC-radiator testers around throwing in the towel and giving up on the job... ThermoChill no longer have access to testing facilities due to BillA giving up. Koolance use automotive thus data is worthless. HWLabs will pay for theirs to be produced... so that will be called as biased. Swiftech paid for theirs (well, twas produced inhouse by BillA whilst he worked for them - Ditto Coolingworks).

The community has sadly ruled out all it's options already. You'll never see empyrical data that can be represented as unbiased here imo.

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would martinm be a worthy replacement to BillA? i mean 8K is alot of money for specifically testing PC radiators, and martinm has proven himself reliable in many testing situations

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Originally Posted by biskitz

would martinm be a worthy replacement to BillA? i mean 8K is alot of money for specifically testing PC radiators, and martinm has proven himself reliable in many testing situations

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Unfortunately though like many of us here Martin is time limited by his day job/family/desired free time. :)

Thread revival :rofl:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MomijiTMO

Thread revival :rofl:

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Yeah I wasn't the one that did it though so that means it's ok for me to post :D

Of course it is. I just wasn't sure if you were aware.

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/8...onsirendy2.gif

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/3...warningrb6.gif

Necro thread now in progress!

Lol. This thread has gotta be one of the all-time classics. Every newbie should be made to read it as part of initiation into XS WC! :rofl: