[BjC]

Hey guys I just joined the forums and I wanted to show you the oil psu me and my buddy made... we made it from lexan, glue, and silicone... the oil we used was vegetable oil, which conducts none whatsoever. We ran the test for about 3hrs and as you can see below the oil got up to 105 degrees F, so it wasnt hot at all. tell me what you think.







Click these for the test pics....

[[SaS]hornet]

different.....................

[d94]

to the forums bro!
very nice mod and temps
but im not sure i could trust veggy oil in my tower.. even if it was non-conductive
are you going to be using it in your machine?

[BjC]

Well like I say this is only a test... so im not trusting that in my rig. yet. One day our goal is to make a computer entirely cooled by oil, or some other liquid... I know this will be extremely difficult, and may just end up going water cooled. But we shall see, also that psu has a lid but i didnt get a pic with it on, and it was also on for the test. the psu is a 350w...if anyone has any hints or tips please fill me in... btw thanks for the welcome

[fordman]

Hello

to forums


Fordman

[Evil_Eye]

Welcome to the forums!

That looks like a pretty interesting mod. What other oils do you plan on using? I've heard that vegatable oil turns rancid in conditions like that.

[Cap'n Pedro]

FYI, mineral oil (from a chemist/phramacy) is much better that veggy oil. Vegetable out will start to smell (like a chip shop) and can get stuff growing in it (I think).

But apart from that, nice mod!

BTW, did you just bond it, or use something like silicone sealant? Because I would definately recommend it.

Oh, and is there still a fan in there to circulate the oil or is it still?

[BjC]

Theres no fan in it... the oil stays still, thanks for the suggestion about mineral oil, I'll look into that... and we first used a plastic solvent to glue the box together, silicone is just a safety. Thanks for the input.

[EvilCloudStrife]

doesnt oil end up deep frying when it gets hot? surly there must be something better to cool the PSU. i donno what though...mmmmm... deep fried power supply

[BjC]

Yeah but its not even hot its just warm... 105 isnt close to deep frying temp, I stuck my finger in it and didnt feel hot at all.

[IWasHungry]

Ahaha, that is sweetness.
As long as the air sealed inside the PSU isn't humid, I don't think nasties are going to be a problem.
However, there's gotta be something better than vegetable oil, albeit I'm sure it won't be as cheap. Nice work.

[Ven0m]

Heat should result in some oil circulation - fans might help but I don't think they'll be a must. It's a great thing when you want to chill all these coils without noise.
If this PSU was exposed to high load, it would produce pretty much heat. Some kind of heatsink might help - like bidirectional - one part in oil, one on air.

Great idea. Perhaps they'll start making such passive PSUs. Were there any problems that are worth reporting? Personally I'm interested in "copying" this idea...

Could you perform some long-term tests and tell temperature difference - PSU <=> ambient and how much power computer used?

Your mod is unique as it's PSU only. Cooling entire computer with oil is a bit difficult, when computer is "high performance, high power". You simply get better results with WC as it's got more effective blocks and you need to chill oil somehow as it will be warmer and warmer without some kind of radiator. WC on critical parts + oil on rest + secured disks might look interesting tho.
Modding whole computer to mineral isn't that great sometimes and requires a lot of effort. PSU-only oil mod on the other hand looks very practical, much easier and maybe even worth suggesting for overclockers who look for silence.

Very inspiring, thanks for input and welcome to the forums.

[BjC]

Thanks guys... I did forget one thing, that is we did a dry run first (without oil) and the temp got over 130 F in like 1 minute... then we put oil in and after 3hrs it was 105, like I said above... also we had every plug used on that psu during operation... 3 hdds 2 cd roms and 1 floppy drive... And was weird cause it was so quiet, it was hard to tell if it was on...

[fldrice]

Vegetable oil will eventually go bad. I've seen some people use mineral oil for submersion cooling, but never for very long.

[largon]

Temps seem unbelieveably low...

Don't think that temps are under control just because oil itself isn't warm. If oil isn't warm, something else must be.
I mean, the heat must be somewhere.

First thing I thought was heatpockets. Try poking different components with your thermometer.

Replace the veggie oil with liquid paraffin. I'm not absolutely sure, but it shouldn't be conductive. At least it won't get rancid, because it's 100% synthetic. Shouldn't be expensive either.

[threeme2189]

very cool mod dude!!!

[BjC]

Thanks for the advice largon... I dunno where I could find liquid paraffin, any idea?

[Sjaak]

Wow nice.

As said, find a better liquid cause this will start to rot eventually.

[Skeen]

Just use mineral oil, but don't get baby oil because the added fragrances and such are conductive (I've read). It'd be cool if you got a pump and pumped the oil into a small radiator, just put the psu on its own loop. Depending on the case, it may not even take up too much room, just squeeze it behind the optical drives.

Originally Posted by BjC

Thanks for the advice largon... I dunno where I could find liquid paraffin, any idea?

Its lamp oil. Again don't get anything with a fragrance.

[Category 5]

Why not try some fluid XP. THat stuff cools pretty well, and is completely non conductive (works for submersibel applications).