Cooling with just one rad

[trn]

I'm sure trn is watching with delight

I sure am I was inspired by others builds here, mostly Fallwind's excellent work. Its great to see people take the basic car rad idea and adapts it to their own needs and enviroment (and I think this is going to be a great iteration )

OC, your rad box is great. My rad holder resembles a construction site dumpster in both look and size (your hose adapter does look like a toilet plunger though )

[tiro_uspsss]

Well, I can try to get a fan controller for it, that would reduce the output to about half and bring the power used to around .25Kw

I've always wondered about simply placing a rad in a big tank of water

[Origin_Unknown]

I've always wondered about simply placing a rad in a big tank of water

something like this?

[tiro_uspsss]

something like this?

that'll do nicely!

u could drop the rad in there *&* use it as the res

[trn]

I've always wondered about simply placing a rad in a big tank of water

You will very slowly heat up the water and eventually the water tank will act as a not very good radiator and disipate the heat into the air. The larger the surface area of the tank the more effective of a radiator it would make.

Now if anyone lived near a lake, sinking a 100m or so of tubing on the bottom of a lake and using that to radiate heat into a lake would work pretty damn good I think. Kinda like a nuclear power plants often do A river or stream would work well with a radiator I would think, keep some flowing water moving over the rad.

[EtaCarinae]

You will very slowly heat up the water and eventually the water tank will act as a not very good radiator and disipate the heat into the air. The larger the surface area of the tank the more effective of a radiator it would make.

Now if anyone lived near a lake, sinking a 100m or so of tubing on the bottom of a lake and using that to radiate heat into a lake would work pretty damn good I think. Kinda like a nuclear power plants often do A river or stream would work well with a radiator I would think, keep some flowing water moving over the rad.

Nearby were I live stands the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. I am not sure if they do it already but I know they had plans to cool their computer center with the cold water pumped directly from the lake.

[Panther_Seraphi]

Eta they would probably employ a dual loop system in series so one loop cools a radiator and then the other loop to cool the components.

[Otis11]

Now if anyone lived near a lake, sinking a 100m or so of tubing on the bottom of a lake and using that to radiate heat into a lake would work pretty damn good I think. Kinda like a nuclear power plants often do A river or stream would work well with a radiator I would think, keep some flowing water moving over the rad.

I've thought about trying this... but I don't have nearly enough rigs... or a lake.

[artemm]

Plate HX

One loop cools PCs, other loop with cool water (geothermal, chiller, lakes, whatever.. lol)

Naja002 had some great creative cooling projects. Wonder where that guy went

[D_A]

I've thought about trying this... but I don't have nearly enough rigs... or a lake.

Someone here dug a geothermal loop into their yard. Didn't have to dig down super deep either, from memory.

[Otis11]

Someone here dug a geothermal loop into their yard. Didn't have to dig down super deep either, from memory.

Yeah naja did his geothermal loop... haven't seen him around recently.

Quite an interesting read for those of you interested

Also has:
Car radiator
Dual bong cooler
Volenti Coolers
Even used a small AC unit to chill a multi rig loop.

Ambitious guy... Miss seeing him around.

[OldChap]

Romir did one too Large style... http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ght=GEOTHERMAL

[trn]

Romir's was the mother of all geothermal loops. He rented a big-ass backhoe to dig up his yard

[Biker]

Oh man... I need somewhere bigger to live....and near a lake

[Rubycon]

Instead of a car radiator has anyone ever investigated using an old Air Conditioning condensing unit with a defunct compressor? Mount your pump where the compressor was. I would think they would be giveaway items. Uses all aluminum instead of steel radiator fins. It would certainly be more stealthy in the yard and comes with a built in fan mounting solution.

It's a novel idea however there would be a LOT of work to get it water ready. Refrigerant carries oil though the system that would need to be cleaned out (if that is even possible). Also there are restrictive components (expansion valve commonly called the metering device) that would need to be removed.

Probably the fastest way to get high capacity cooling would be to use a fan coil. These can be found everywhere and often have decent blowers in them. Connect the blowers to shore power (120/220V) and use a contactor with 12V coil from your PC power supply to shut them off, etc. A motor master (variable speed controller for PSC motors) could also be employed. Connect the copper piping to your loop(s) and get ready for some crazy capacity. In cooler seasons it could also help with heating the air!

[trn]

OC, any project updates?

[OldChap]

Had a bunch or trouble trying to decide how to do the res for this but I sealed the connectors onto my temporary solution tonight so I will be flushing and leak testing tomorrow....maybe some pics of that and what got done so far. By next weekend should be up and running and then I can give some details of temps, flow, power used by pump and fan....all that sort of stuff.

I have been wondering, with your setup do you see much fluctuation in the temps from day to night? I have been looking into adding a 45 gallon barrel (as a res) to use as a kind of heatsink as it would take longer to heat up more water during daytime on hotter days....

Maybe something to play with around July or August

[trn]

I have been wondering, with your setup do you see much fluctuation in the temps from day to night?

I do see temperature fluctuations from day and night and of more so from the seasons and outside temperature. I haven't been monitor temperatures one bit recently because the system has handled the highest day time temps of 90F or so and still the hottest cores are in the low 60C's.

The giant reservoir is interesting, I would think that the radiator would make it less effective though. If the reservoir is cool at night, then the day heats up, then the radiator will have sub ambient degree water running though it and the warm day air will heat it up.

I think that the best think to do is estimate what a warm summer time day temperature will be, then plan the system to cool all the cores well enough even on that warm day. Water cooling seems to work well enough, without measuring I feel like the water that has passed through my radiators is very very close to ambient temperatures even after being warmed by 15 crunchers.

The fewer custom built connections in the loop the better I think. I just applied a ghetto patch of electrical tape today on my first drip in my loop. I think it was where I custom glued a barb to a PVC pipe

Look forward to seeing more pictures and progress OC

[OldChap]

Get a "just in case" roll of self amalgamating tape in your toolbox..... you will then wonder how you did without it

http://www.3mselect.co.uk/c-577-self...ting-tape.aspx (you will find it cheaper)

If it is needed then adding the tank would mean a small piping re-route in order that the returning water is fed to the rad, then the tank from which the pump would take a feed...but until I see some temps this is just a thought for now

[OldChap]

Now that I finally have the 3rd watercooled rig running I thought I would give an interim update on this

Just now there is a 920@ 4.1, a 950@ 4.4 and a q6600 on a fully watercooled rampage @ 3.6 only, so with this evening's ambients being only around 10-15 degrees I thought I would play for an hour or two

While I have been messing with the overclock I have run the MOAF at minimum speed but at that speed even though the Kill-a-Watt shows the fan drawing 50w the draw from the wall reads 150w

It has always been in my mind that this might run passive for at least some of the year so tonight I turned off the fan....

Bear in mind these numbers are from uncalibrated sources

At start..
ambient 13.7
watertemp 14.8
coretemp 59

after 1 hour
ambient 12.1
watertemp 25.1
coretemp 70

After 2 hours
Ambient 10.6
water 28.2
coretemp 72

Until I have more load I can run this passive under say 23 deg ambient and keep cores below 85 and that boys and girls is a temp threshold rarely passed for 5 months of the year

But I will likely run a thermostat...... because...

Fan on full: water temps over each of the next 10 minutes were start 28.2, 20.8, 14.9, 13.5, 12.6, 12, 11.6, 11.3, 11.0, 10.8, 10.7

Seems to work ok to me

EDIT: some pics:

The pump



The fan controller and head pressure guage


res and new pipework


Valvework for rigs

[disturbed13]

nice job

[trn]

fans do make a big difference

[D_A]

Put a solar panel up to run the fan, connected direct. When the day heats up the fan will run up on it's own.

[ggdh]

something like this?

Some of you may remember my silly idea here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=232458 which was some kind of inspiration (I guess) for my housemate. He placed a small (120mm, skinny) swiftech radiator in a house's water reservoir located in the attic (no idea what capacity, but I say 300L). Laing pump, some garden hose and it keeps the temperatures well below 15*C during winter (at near 0*C outside he had ~8*C on components) and not that much more in summer. At first he was concerned about water condensation on blocks/hoses but it eventually never happened.

I would say 200L reservoir would keep the components very cool and I would not be to concerned about heating the water up. Water has nice heat capacity and believe me or not the tank itself will dissipate heat well enough. Even though the water would not be replaced as in the case of our rez...

[D_A]

mmmmmm ... XS'ive cooling ... yeeeeeeeeeesss!