This test is brought to you by Kriegen from Overclock.net, he sent me his brand new pump to test for the community. I'm going to test it at several voltages and create pump and power consumption curves that I'll later add to the Flow Rate estimator. Then I'll be sending Kriegen his pump back. Thanks Kriegen!!!
But before I run all of the tests, I figured I'd first post some information about the pump, a few pics, and give you all a chance to guess how well it will do.
Performance-pcs appears to be the only vendor with them:
Alphacool AP1510
The "6m" delivery height has my interest...Product Details:
Maximum output new defined! New revision!
With the external adjustable DC voltage converters (12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 Volts) you may adapt the delivery rate of your pump to your own configuration. The 1500 litres which are achieved at the highest level satisfy even the most pretentious expectations.
The pump is attached at the transformer, and the transformer at the power pack of the PC.
NO 115/230V connection is needed! The extra power cable is superfluous as the pump turns on/off automatically with the PC.
This centrifugal pump is conceived for the thoroughgoing continuous use. The pump sells with 36 months warranty. Due to the G1/4" internal screw thread, the pump is compatible with all types of connections.
Specifications:
Powered by OASE !
Pump performance: max. 1500 l/h
Delivery height: 6m
Power consumption: 17 W
Connection: G1/4"-connections
Sound level: approx. 21-35 dBA
Dimensions L x W x H: 115 x 100 x 80 mm
DC-voltage converter L x W x H: 118 x 75 x 60 mm
Weight: ca. 720g
And a few pics I've taken before the testing:
The pump and voltage converter next to a Laing D5 for scale
Impeller:
Test Setup:
Ready for data:
King Instruments Flow meter, Dwyer Digital Manometer, Voltage Meter, Amperage Meter, One variable PSU.
And the magic question...
Will it outperform a D5? A DDC with top?...hmmm
.
.
.
I'll let you know later this evening..
.
.
To Be Continued...
Update, results are in...
Here are the tests, I really didn't expect this at all, but the pump scales extremely well with increasing voltage. Keep in mind these tests were all done straight from my PSU where I closely monitored voltage to be precisely 12,15,18,21,& 24V to the nearest .1V. The supplied DC-voltage converter must draw some power in spikes because it continually tripped my bigger power supply, although I did test the voltage converter with another less sensetive power supply and it worked fine up to 18V where it started hitting the maximum 65 watts. So be forwarned on the voltage converter, it's probably only 50% efficient and will draw nearly double the power.
Regardless, the pump efficiency itself is very good, better than the D5, I'll be back shortly with some curves to try and show an efficiency comparison of Water Horsepower per watt.
Anyhow, here is the final set of curves with the associated power consumption...very good! I couldn't even test the 24V curve all the way out, it maxed out my 200" manometer, so I estimated two points based on the trend I was getting from the lower curves.
And to get some perspective on how this relates, I've taken the same and compared it to my D5 setting 5 @ 12V curve, as well as some published curves that Alex sent me.
Bottom line:
It gets about D5 or DDC performance at 15V, and RD30@18V performance at 24Volts...very impressive.
A couple of other observations to note:
Pressure was rather difficult to read in that it jumped around alot more than I saw with my D5 testing. I think this is associated to the impeller construction. A D5 impeller has a very rigid construction and ceramic bearing whereas the AP1510 does not.
Bottom line, the performance is outstanding, but longevity is unknown. I would probably run this pump with a meanwell or other higher quality PSU rather than the supplied voltage converter. The supplied converter was designed for it, so I can only assume it would work ok, but keep in mind the efficiency and extra power draw. I'm guessing you could see as much as 100 watts of power draw at 24V using the supplied voltage converter, but that's just a quick guess based on my quick test and tripping of my 65watt PSU at 18V.
I'll be back in a bit after I finish the Efficiency Curves....
Update Efficiency Curves done:
Ok, the first thing that came to mind after running the curves was that I needed to somehow compare the efficiency of the two pumps, to give you an idea of how much work you're getting per watt. More than anything I thought this might be a good general comparison of heat dump.
After doing some digging on the net I found a handy little equation for converting flow rate and pressure into "Water Horsepower". I was then able to make a nice comparison of "water horsepower" per watt.
So here that is:
It turns out the Alpha Cool pump is fairly efficient too. For most water cooling systems in the 1.5 GPM range, you get more work done per watt with the AlphaCool using the 12-18V settings compared to the D5. They are about equal when the Alpha Cool is running at 21V, and the D5 start being slightly more efficient after the Alpha Cool is set to 24V. All in all though, probably close enough to be insignificant, but it goes to show you that the motor efficiencies are pretty close per watt used.
One more note I forgot to mention, the pump undervolts very well too. I continually started and ran at 7V without any problem, so you could undervolt pretty easily as well.
Now what setting to run...good question. I'd probably start at 18V and tweak from there.
Update 11-23-07 Heat Dump Test
I ran one heat dump test to give a rough idea.
I decided to run the pump for one hour in my test loop, log temperatures with one of my waterproof thermometers and plot the increase in temperature. This gave me a decent set of information that I could figure a relatively accurate temperature change over one hour.
Results:
2,440ml of water = 2,440 grams of water
5.87 degrees C rise in temperature over 1 hour
Then taking the following equation I solved for heat
q=(specific heat of H20)X(grams of H20) x dT
=(4.18 J/g-K)x(4,440 grams H20)x(5.87)
=59,869 Joules
There is 3,600 Joules per watt-hour, so
Watts = 59,869/3600 = 16.63 watts.
My power consumption measurement at that particular setting was 24.84 watts.
So the percentage of heat dump is 16.63/24.84 or 67% of the pump power consumption.
This is the first time I tried to calculate heat dump, so let me know if I'm off base...
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks