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Any thoughts on a passive rad?

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S

Skeen

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Oct 7, 2004
Location
Cincinnati
I've been into water cooling for some time but the only solution I like is a large fishtank. I have a pump hooked up to the VC and one hooked up to the cpu. The fishtank I have is quite enough (28C and 30C respectively), but its not self contained and I have to deal with dust and dog hair getting into my blocks.

What's a good passive rad?
 
The first one that comes to mind is 20 feet of 1/2" copper pipe hung on the wall.
Someone here did that once, but placed it behind the desk (not ideal).
I have no idea how well an Opteron would work with that, it was some time ago in the socket A days i believe.

Thin walled refrigerator tubing would be what I'd try (and considered myself at one time). Heat transfer is better with the thinner material, and there's no soldering involved as your 1/2" tube would clamp right onto it.

*someone here posted a link to a guy that coiled fridge tubing in a spiral inside a piece of duct piping. That would make it more compact, and make use of a heat stack effect where it would generate it's own airflow (mildly) from heat alone.
That's another one I considered trying one day...a dry bong if you will.
 
Last edited:
IIRC the car rad did work - someone tried it last summer. Then he decided to put fans on it and we heard little else after that.

Someone else spiraled 3/8" tubing on a round metal plate and hung it on the wall.

I've though about attaching, then grouting and insulating (1" or more of foam), 3/8" or 1/2" tubing to the bottom half of my basement wall. Here in MO ground temps 3' down or more are ~58°F. If it's insulated enough the tubing should stay close to that temp since concrete/grout conducts as good or better than soil ...
 
Mycobacteria said:
Large car rad?

Lots and lots of water...
Click to expand...

Why is that a problem?

QuietIce said:
IIRC the car rad did work - someone tried it last summer. Then he decided to put fans on it and we heard little else after that.

Someone else spiraled 3/8" tubing on a round metal plate and hung it on the wall.

I've though about attaching, then grouting and insulating (1" or more of foam), 3/8" or 1/2" tubing to the bottom half of my basement wall. Here in MO ground temps 3' down or more are ~58°F. If it's insulated enough the tubing should stay close to that temp since concrete/grout conducts as good or better than soil ...
Click to expand...

Hmm, Interesting concept...
 
Mycobacteria said:
Large car rad?

Lots and lots of water...
Click to expand...

We all know a drop of water can kill a $600 vid car just as easily as Hurricane Katrina could. ;) I look at things in this way: you shouldn't be screwing up a tiny H2O NB cooler setup any more as you should a 15 gallon server farm setup. In for a penny, in for a pound...

I'd suggest you just run a water-water intercooler setup. Get a decent heater core (from a caprice), use that in your closed-loop setup, and simply have it dunked in the tank. As long as you don't have fish that live for 40 years, lead poisoning is not going to be an issue, and a few hours in a good solvent and deturgent cleaning sesion will take away any other problems that could kill your fish.

If you were to put it on the far side of the tank, about half way up & flat, I'd guess you'd end up with a slight convection current that would still allow it to work fine. Zero issues with contaminants, but still silent.
 
Heater cores aren't big enough. Car rads work and someone I almost did business with used an old Mg rad (I waited too long and he sold it). The thing is to find a small cheap rad using copper. I've found lots of expensive copper rads on ebay.

I'm thinking of going the opposite route and making a waterfall out of my cooling loop. At least I could say its artistic. Don't think Niagra. Think a thin sheet of water running down a bunch of creek rocks or rubber balls or whatever.
 
Skeen said:
Heater cores aren't big enough.
Click to expand...


You're right, heater cores aren't enough...by themselves. Passive water-to-air isn't enough, but if you have it water-to-water 'intercooling' in a large tank and get a convection current (aka water movement) going in that tank, and use a large enough tank, it will be no different than JUST using a tank (besides having zero contaminants). When you think about it in the sense that air moving very fast soaks as much heat up as water that's barely moving, you'll understand.


My suggestion is to buy a heater core (caprice or suburban) return it if you need to. Stick that in your current tank (pun not intended) on your hose, and you'll be able to see if it works or not. If you order it from a place that will give a full refund, there's nothing but some time lost.
 
To cool passively, it's all about surface area. Copper tubes run in a zig-zag pattern have good results. I think Hoot has a system like that.
 
Bing: The original question was for a passive radiator. Your design is intriguing, and worth checking out or possibly even building, but it requires fans, which defeat the original poster's intent.
 
I was "suggesting" that since he mentioned the word "loud" and was considering a bong ! ;)
 
if you have a swimming pool sized res then the water would take forever to heat up...

This way you dont need a radiator or lots of copper tubes...
 
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