radiators for mineral oil

[plzdontbetaken]

I am drawing up a custom case for a mineral oil submerged computer. I wont actually be building the system for awhile because it is just a fun project for when I have extra time but I need help deciding on radiators for it so I can make sure the case fits them.

I want a low rpm setup that will be able to handle tri-sli and a high overclock on the cpu. I was thinking using two of the TFC XChanger 480s.

Would this be a good choice for radiators?

Thanks

[Spawn-Inc]

if i was gonna mess with oil, i would get the Black Ice X-Flow Stealth GTS. as far as i know it has the least resistance of the rads out there.

that plus some light oil.

[dengyong]

If it's going to have oil running through it then you wont need a computer rad. You can use a free flowing aluminum oil cooler for automotive apps like this one. > http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DE...9/?image=large

[fallwind]

Use a car radiator. It should present zero restriction if the pump draws from the bottom outlet on the rad and it has plenty of surface area to help dissapate the heat from the oil. I don't think you have to worry about copper/aluminum corrosion so you can use one of the aluminum/plastic rads that are popular these days. I'm putting together a car rad setup for my rig, gonna use 3-4 200mm fans on it. I'm getting tired of my temp gauges showing a 10c delta water-to-ambient so it's time for some overkill!

[plzdontbetaken]

Why do you recommend a car radiator for something like this versus computer radiators that are designed to fit in the computer case?

Also, can you link me some websites that sell car radiators?

[millertime359]

Check E-bay and local junk yards.

[Edward88]

Originally Posted by plzdontbetaken

Why do you recommend a car radiator for something like this versus computer radiators that are designed to fit in the computer case?

Also, can you link me some websites that sell car radiators?

Because pc radiators dont work right with mineral oil . . .

They are designed to run with water, or coolants

[demonkevy666]

Originally Posted by Edward88

Because pc radiators dont work right with mineral oil . . .

They are designed to run with water, or coolants

lol, they're used to cool a coolant doesn't matter what coolant it is, be it water or oil.

I don't you'd want to buy a used car rad, with crap in it.

[plzdontbetaken]

here is a mineral oil pc using a computer radiator to cool the oil. They get 50 degree temps with a oced qx9700 and a gtx 280.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

Scroll down to the bottom. They were using a MagiCool Xtreme Quad 480 Radiator

And agreeing with the post above, I would want a new radiator so that it is clean.

But I think I will be sticking with computer watercooling radiators because they are designed for computer fans.

Anyone have input on what they think would be the best computer radiator for this type of application? And why if you don't mind. =)

Thanks

[fallwind]

I recommended a car rad because it will have way less restriction with oil compared to a PC rad. Also, oil doesn't transfer heat as well as water so having a larger surface area for cooling the oil would be useful. If the rad has to fit into a PC case then yeah, a car rad is out of the question regardless.

Used car rads are fine as long as you get them dipped and flushed at a rad shop, they come out looking new. I chose a used one because the local rad shop has dozens of them in the back and I can just go in there and pick one out that suits my needs. All new rads have to be special ordered which makes it difficult to choose since I can't see it first. I'll post a thread on this when I redo my loop in a week or so.

[plzdontbetaken]

Well that makes sense I guess. I look forward to you post =) How did you mount fans to the car rad? I guess I will think about doing an external car rad if it will be much better for oil. I didn't think there would be much of a difference. Or enough of one to make it worth the trouble except for being cool.

[muddocktor]

I can tell you another reason why you need to consider using a car radiator too: Oil is a very inefficient heat removal medium and with a highly overclocked cpu and a tri-SLI setup you will be putting a massive heat dump into the oil. I work in the offshore drilling industry and the fluids we use for cooling, lubrication and cuttings removal are both water and oil based. And I have drilled wells in the same area to about the same depth with both water based systems and oil based systems and the oil based systems consistently run 25-50 degrees hotter. And that is due to the oil not being able to shed the heat while in the surface system as efficiently as a water based system. As a consequence of this, you will need more surface area on the radiator to handle the heatload. Another few things for you to think about with using mineral or synthetic oils too are it's effect on seals and plastics in the system and also the viscosity of the oil too, which will directly affect the pump you use in the loop. Some oils have a very large viscosity change with temps and the thicker the oil gets when the system is shut down the harder it will be for the pump to catch prime when the system is started. I've seen the 100 hp centrifugal pumps we use offshore have to have 1-2 feet of extra head to prime with oils over water, even when using an oil as thin as diesel or some of the PAO's in synthetic base systems. Also, the specific gravity of oil is much less than water, which also directly affects the pump's ability to prime. A typical oil will weigh around 7 lbs/gal and water is 8.33 lb/gal.

[Spawn-Inc]

the rad that they used has far less restriction then a pc water cooling rad, it's a single pass 7 row all round tube passive rad.

[plzdontbetaken]

This is the best mineral oil I have found: http://www.steoil.com/msds_sheets.asp#70T

Tech data:
http://www.steoil.com/pdfs/techdata-crystalplus70t.pdf

That pudgett system used a Koolance PMP-400 on the second mineral oil pc they made with the MagiCool Radiator and seems to handle being in the oil fine. I was planning on using two of those pumps... one for each rad.

I am not familiar with using a car radiator though... any idea on a good pump for pumping the oil through a car radiator?

@spawn: I think you are talking about the wrong rad. Scroll down the page. The one you were looking at was just the proof of concept. They built a new one and used quality overclocked parts down below with a pc rad with fans

[Spawn-Inc]

oops, looked at that picture too, but didn't notice the new rad.

[fallwind]

Originally Posted by plzdontbetaken

Well that makes sense I guess. I look forward to you post =) How did you mount fans to the car rad?

I chose a rad with nice smooth shroud mounting flanges on each side, that way my custom shroud could be a simple piece of 1/2" MDF plywood. I cut the wood to the shape of the rad and then cut 3 holes in it for the Antec 200mm fans I'll be using. The fan/shroud assembly will attach to the rad with 4 small wood screws. For fittings, visit your local hardware store plumbing section. Most car rads have 1.25" hose fittings so you'll need to piece together 2-3 adapters to go from 1.25" to 1/2". I'll have pics of all this later.

am not familiar with using a car radiator though... any idea on a good pump for pumping the oil through a car radiator?

Use any pump you want, I'll be using a D5 with ACDetroit top. Have the pump draw fluid from the bottom of the rad and return it to the top. This way it acts as a giant res and presents zero restriction to your loop. Gravity will pull the fluid through the rad so your pump doesn't have to waste power pushing it through.


As stated above, if you really do build it with tri-SLI and do some serious overclocking, you're going to need a massive rad (or multiple smaller ones) to dissapate all that heat.

[plzdontbetaken]

Well you kinda got me steerin towards the auto parts to cool the oil. What do you think about using a transmission oil cooler?

Like:
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DER-13320/?image=large for 3/8ths

or

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DER-13208/ for 1/2"


They say "no restriction or oil pressure drop" but I am guessing this is relatively speaking. How do you think something like this would do? A lot cheaper than pc radiators and they already work with standard pc tubing sizes.

Plus these would allow me to have pretty good flow rates with mineral oil.

[plzdontbetaken]

Derale 13504
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/DE...4/?image=large

http://www.derale.com/ --> can't do a direct link to the 13504

it will fit a 250mm fan
Something like:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/54..._Case_Fan.html


Think this would be decent cooling? Dunno if it will have enough surface area

Only has about the same area as the magicool quad 480 but it should flow a lot better with oil

[fallwind]

I really have no idea how those trans coolers would perform. But my gut instinct says there's not enough surface area on those tubes. Flow rate should be descent though.

[Praxis1452]

You want a single pass radiator to reduce restriction through the radiator similar to what Puget used. Their heatload was a lot smaller, so I'd say you'd need atleast 3 of those radiators for best effect. I'd say it'd be a better idea to do this passively, as that's the best thing about an entire system submerged in oil. With fans, you might as well just run a couple water cooling loops, it'll provide lower temperatures without too much hassle for similar effect.

So you want to run it passively. You need a lot of surface area. A lot. More than that single radiator. The radiators you selected would cause a lot of restriction with all those U-bends. It'd be better to have a single pass rad or connect a bunch of metal tubes with fins sticking out and not have too many bends.

If you really want to use fans or need to, I think picking the radiator with the lowest possible restriction is best. Single pass, with large enough channels.

[plzdontbetaken]

Can you link some of the passive rads you are talking about that can handle the heat that would be generated? Would really appreciate it =)