RoadWarrior
11-26-01, 12:28 AM
Hi guys,
I'm fairly new to the water cooling game, though have followed developments interestedly online for several years.
Anyway, as I have just made my mind up to take the plunge and build my own, I started pondering the consequences of pump failure. And they ain't pretty. So here's an idea I have had for a safety cutout, that should shut down the system to stop your CPU frying. It is not aimed at preserving data, after all in about five seconds longer you were going to lose it all anyway AND your CPU.
This is workable as a bit of a combo device, flowmeter and CPU saver, it won't work so well for you guys that have your pumps wired into the system power, but for anyone switching thier pumps seperately, I think it's a goer.
What I propose is a ball bearing, in a wider perspex tube, mounted vertically, say on the side or front of your case. with a restriction at the bottom, so it don't fall down the inlet and at the top to stop ot blocking the outlet, although water or coolant should have free passage around it in these positions. The inlet is at the bottom, the outlet at the top. If you arrange the bore of the tube and the size of the bearing nicely, it will be supported by the water flow some distance up the tube. If there isn't enough room around it it will shoot to the top, if there is too much it will barely lift off, I guess you want to aim for getting it to hover about midway. You will need to change these parameters if you use a higher or lower viscosity coolant, and flow indication differences between viscocities will not be comparable.
Now, you can see the ball bearing bobbing about at around your normal flow mark, any higher, you improved the flow of the system, any lower, you know you've got a blockage building, or a pipe half kinked. On the bottom, you've got NO FLOW!!!
Now, if we put a couple of wires/bars through at the bottom, we can have an electrical contact made when there is no flow. What can we connect this to?
I would suggest connecting one side to a splice off the PSU's power good line, and the other side to ground. Thus your PSU won't supply power when there is no flow. Result, no nasty accidents due to forgetting to fire up the pump first, and instant power off in the case of pump failure.
You will of course need to limit electrolytic conduction in your coolant to get a good signal out of this contact, and you should take measures to prevent scale in your system, otherwise, your failsafe may not work when you most need it to.
Ideas, comments, flames.????
If no-one did this yet, I hereby name it the RoadWarrior flowguard.
Road Warrior
I'm fairly new to the water cooling game, though have followed developments interestedly online for several years.
Anyway, as I have just made my mind up to take the plunge and build my own, I started pondering the consequences of pump failure. And they ain't pretty. So here's an idea I have had for a safety cutout, that should shut down the system to stop your CPU frying. It is not aimed at preserving data, after all in about five seconds longer you were going to lose it all anyway AND your CPU.
This is workable as a bit of a combo device, flowmeter and CPU saver, it won't work so well for you guys that have your pumps wired into the system power, but for anyone switching thier pumps seperately, I think it's a goer.
What I propose is a ball bearing, in a wider perspex tube, mounted vertically, say on the side or front of your case. with a restriction at the bottom, so it don't fall down the inlet and at the top to stop ot blocking the outlet, although water or coolant should have free passage around it in these positions. The inlet is at the bottom, the outlet at the top. If you arrange the bore of the tube and the size of the bearing nicely, it will be supported by the water flow some distance up the tube. If there isn't enough room around it it will shoot to the top, if there is too much it will barely lift off, I guess you want to aim for getting it to hover about midway. You will need to change these parameters if you use a higher or lower viscosity coolant, and flow indication differences between viscocities will not be comparable.
Now, you can see the ball bearing bobbing about at around your normal flow mark, any higher, you improved the flow of the system, any lower, you know you've got a blockage building, or a pipe half kinked. On the bottom, you've got NO FLOW!!!
Now, if we put a couple of wires/bars through at the bottom, we can have an electrical contact made when there is no flow. What can we connect this to?
I would suggest connecting one side to a splice off the PSU's power good line, and the other side to ground. Thus your PSU won't supply power when there is no flow. Result, no nasty accidents due to forgetting to fire up the pump first, and instant power off in the case of pump failure.
You will of course need to limit electrolytic conduction in your coolant to get a good signal out of this contact, and you should take measures to prevent scale in your system, otherwise, your failsafe may not work when you most need it to.
Ideas, comments, flames.????
If no-one did this yet, I hereby name it the RoadWarrior flowguard.
Road Warrior