Yes, Another Car Radiator Thread....Major 56K Warning!
After starting to get bored, I started looking for a new project--a PC cooling type of project. I was going to do the copper pipe in the crawlspace along with some other possibilities. But after reading threads about the use of car radiators--I decided to check it out for myself. My initial participation started in this thread--Post #131:
Seems that the biggest complaint that I found was--car radiators are made of aluminum. Ok, a lot of them are, but not all of them.....
So on with the show:
The PC water cooling system is currently setup to cool 3 PCs (cpu & nb) running 100% cpu power crunching for WCG-cure cancer. At the moment, only 1 PC is connected to this system--the others will follow....
On May 20, 2008 I purchased the below Car Radiator.....with a plan:
Add a Mag Drive 9.5 pump:
Next add the Famous 55gallon Blue Barrel:
A bit of PVC--and the plan starts coming together....
I decided to offer each PC its own incoming water, so I figured that the easiest way to do that would be to create a manifold:
I decided to make the manifold for 3 PCs, but left the extra PVC space in order to add more later--if necessary.
The manifold is installed with 1" tubing running down through the floor into a crawlspace:
Yes, some "wire-management" is in order....
In the crawlspace it connects back to 1" PVC pipe:
I decided after-the-fact to add drains to the system at the lowest point:
It then runs a few feet up and into an Out-building:
I'll worry about covering things up later:
Once the radiator arrived, I had to check the fit of its new home:
Power Options! With summer upon us, things are warming up and with a radiator this size--a little bit of air movement will go a long way.
So, in order to restrict air movement to only through the radiator--I needed to make a shroud and seal things up. (Please ignore the a/c filter--I didn't end up using it):
After all of these "projects" you can see that I still have all my toes......well, on one foot at least!
Shroud built, door and radiator sealed--Time to add some Power!
The barrel/pump plumbing above has been changed.
On high these fans will use ~63 watts each. On medium= ~50 w, and on low= ~40w. Not bad at all for the cooling they will offer.
A little bit of foam insulation goes a long way.....
None needed on this one though--nice tight fit:
Next its time to finish up the plumbing and get the radiator hooked up!
Now the plumbing to and from the 55 gal. barrel--has to be sealed for a closed loop:
The red handled ball valve is for priming the pump:
Into the barrel from the PCs:
And then back out of the barrel to the pump:
I originally put the pump on top of the barrel. It worked that way, but made priming it a real PITA! So, I dropped it down to the floor. Now I use the ball valve to prime the pump, and once the siphon is created--gravity helps feed it.
So, I filled it up with this hard tap water and let the system flush for a few days. Ran into a few minor problems and fixed them.
Now, on June 2, 2008, I have a Q9450 OCed to 3.4 on a GA-G31M-S2L running 100% on Boinc and cpu temps of 46-50C (ambient outside is 30C/85F) and fans on low. I believe that the bottleneck to better temps are A) the current ambient and B) the Apogee GT and MCW30 water blocks.
No Problem for me though.....I will be more than happy crunching at those temps and removing all that heat--OUT--of this room. The cost savings on the A/C should help pay for the cost of running the pump and 2 fans. Good Deal!
When I replace the tap with distilled the temps should get better.
First PC hooked up to the manifold:
This PC will have an open-case home soon:
I left extra tubing in order to not waste any more than necessary when I finished and located this PC's home:
Ambient outside right now is ~67F/19.4C. The Q9450 is still @ 3.4 running 100% on Boinc and temps are: 40, 39, 39, 39.
I'm curious to see what happens when I hook up the next PC.
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Great setup, removing the heat (and noise) from the room is really awesome!
I hope you can expand that easily, it looks like overkill for "only" 3 crunchers to me
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Does that pump even flow enough for all of that?! Insane, but I would definately go for a stronger submergable pump
That was a question that I had in the other thread linked in the first post here. The answer--for 1 pc is--Definitely: Yes! There is plenty of flow for this one pc. I'll have to wait and find out on #2 and #3. I think it will do 2 just fine--and maybe all 3. But if the theory holds that flow rate doesn't matter--then it will do just fine! The radiator is triple core which allows greater flow than single or dual core, so life is good. Also, with the bulk of this setup being 1" pvc--the pump should be right at home....
Take a look at the other thread when you get a chance--My participation starts at Post #131: using car radiators...why not?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcool
Great setup, removing the heat (and noise) from the room is really awesome!
I hope you can expand that easily, it looks like overkill for "only" 3 crunchers to me
Getting the heat out of this room has become somewhat of a big deal for me. With summer coming--this room is starting to cook. And by removing the heat to where the A/C doesn't have to deal with it at all--Yep, life is Good! I picked up a "kill-a-watt", so I'm going to check some things out when I get to it.
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