watercooling idea

[kudos]

i have an idea but don;t know if any one has tryed it yet.
but if u was to uses some coper waterpip instead off some plastic tubing. would;t this cool the water as it flows thorght the pipes?

[The Overclocker]

i cant really see the benifits, the water will get warmed up by components such as the hard disk, graphics card, psu ect also it is very hard to work with

[Szech]

The only benefit I can think of in using copper tubing is that if your heat exchanger were higher than your water block, and the pump failed, it might serve as a crude heat pipe (thus preventing thermal death). If anything, it's not going to melt like vinyl lines, but it's a pain to work with, so I don't see it as being very feasible.

[Crash893]

well most likely if you were going to do copper pipeing then you would have coper go to about 5 inches or so to the cpu then some sort of flexable hose from the pipe to the waterblock and back.

[Gravity Man]

I've actually been toying with the same idea, I'll probably try it out sometime in the future although it's not high on my priority list

[r0ckstarbob]

yah it'll help if the water is warmer then the air inside your case. which it will be. how much will it help? it depends. maybe not much, maybe quite a bit. basic priciples of heat transfer apply to this though. water will try to find equilibrium with the air outside your copper piping and effect a certain amount of heat transfer. it's exactly the same thing as radiator piping without the fins or a fan to blow over it, and if you're using your watercooling setup in combination with fans and have good airflow inside your case, you'll likely get better performance still. using plastic or rubber piping, theres no heat transfer occuring. using copper, there will be.

hot liquid + cold air = warm liquid. it's just a matter of scale and degree.

[r0ckstarbob]

Originally posted by Szech
The only benefit I can think of in using copper tubing is that if your heat exchanger were higher than your water block, and the pump failed, it might serve as a crude heat pipe (thus preventing thermal death). If anything, it's not going to melt like vinyl lines, but it's a pain to work with, so I don't see it as being very feasible.

melted vinyl lines? wha????

[Szech]

I was referring to this (http://www.overclockers.com/articles298/) poor guy's experience with lines melting after his pump failed :cool:

[IFMU]

That would seriouslly be an interesting setup... Ive thought about it a couple of times but dismissed it quickly however due to how hard it would be to bend all the piping an whatnot... Not only that, it would end up being built for one setup... period... bending anything after the inital set might not work that well. So for myself would make it unfeasable... Im switching out parts and whatnot every other day it seems...

but...

just my 2 coppers...

[SavageHenry]

Copper wouldn't kink like vinyl will, but to get 3/8" or 1/2" ID copper will be pretty pricey, and the bending will be difficult . . . copper will also withstand much higher pressures than vinyl or silicon, and flared tube fittings withstand higher pressures than barbed fittings, but that shouldn't be important unless you're using a monster pump.

Be careful what alloy copper the tubing is made of. . . . commercial copper tubing often has phosphorous added to add strength (or flexibility, I forget which). This really hurts its heat transfer abilities.

Even so, some pipe insulation or something would probably eliminate most of any unwanted heat transfer between your case air and your coolant.

[r0ckstarbob]

good advice savage henry

oh, by the way... a method to avoid kinking your copper when bending it...

fill it with sand and use a torch to warm it up so it will bend easier.

as far as insulating it... well he wants to increase the heat transfer properties of his system by using the copper piping. if he insulates it, he's kinda shooting himself in the foot. it's doubtful that the water in the pipe after it's been over the CPU is going to be colder then the air in his case. you're right though, by using the copper piping, that heat will escape through the piping into the one place it can, which is the case, so he'll want at least a little air flow in there to evacuate whatever heat does come off that extra copper.

on a slightly different note, if you're going to go this copper route... i'd certainly suggest only using the copper piping from the CPU to the radiator and not from the radiator to the cpu. while it's likely that the water comming from the cpu to the radiator will bennefit from the extra copper piping because the water will be warmer then the air - if your radiator is any good it's very likely that the water going TO your cpu IS going to be colder then the air inside your case and using copper piping from your radiator to the cpu will do just the opposite of what you want and affect a certain amount of "pre heating" of the water. heat transfer works both ways remember. the water just wants to find equilibrium. it doesn't care how or when it does it. thats up to us.

so only use the copper for the drain off the cpu, not both ways.