soft copper tubing

I have about 6 feet of soft copper tubing (0.5" ID) left over from an old engeneering project.



I'm about to switch over from air cooling to water cooling ... was wondering if there is any way I could integrate this in for better cooling? The stuff is soft and maliable, though if I bend it at too extreme of an angle, the ID will get effected at that point.

I'm buying s002wjh's old setup from the classified section. What if I use the copper tubing to get some more cooling after the rad for a second cooling? Like 0.5" space between the tubes and the radiator to prevent any airflow restriction but still get hit with the air comming out of the rad.

Well, it will help drop temps a TINY tiny bit. But adding that much hose can affect your flow rate more than it would be worth.

Play with Martins flow rate calculator and see what 6 more ft will do.
http://www.martinsliquidlab.com/

I wouldn't bother, but what the heck!

If you really want to use it and your not running a restrictive setup and have a good pump, i say corckscrew the tubing and then mount it in your case near some intake fans. This definitely wont help your temps very much but theres nothing like sweating some copper and a lil diy attitude.

I don't think your idea would help appreciably on temps with the copper tubing. Just not enough surface area. But you could use some cut pieces to go from the barbs on the radiator into the case (and just use a small cut piece of tubing to connect the copper tubing and barb). That should look good and also give you extra protection against kinking on the bend from the barbs into your case. Sharp bends are one area where that copper tubing would really come in handy for.

Thats a great idea!

adding it with extra cooling in mind won't make any noticeable difference.

However, soft copper can come in handy when you want to run tubing in a specific way that vinyl tubing just won't go. I've used soft copper in some places and it has worked very well.

It's also handy if you have a kinking problem routing your tubes around inside.
Just cut off 1/2" rings of copper, debur them, and shove them up inside your vinyl tubing with a wood dowel to the effected spot in the tubing.
No more kinks ever!

I've hard-plumbed a system with copper tubing before, and while it is a very neat looking result, it's a PITA when you want to move something later. Not to mention should you change to a different waterblock with a different barb config...you end up starting all over!

One thing to note is you can't see through the copper to see if there is any trapped air. I was thinknig of using copper pipe instead of tube to make my loop but decided against it for that reason. I was going to use a radiator in my case as radiators are the most efficient way of cooling in a closed loop system. Your idea will be unique but it won't perform as good. So you need to decided which you value more.

1/2" copper can be used to very good effect as a straight connector - almost no restriction compared to standard barb connectors.

Copper Ts are also more efficient than their plastic counterparts, again, no restriction to speak of.

Also note, tubing/pipe curves come at a cost. Any curve radius < 5" (for 1/2") adds restriction to the loop in addition to the normal (straight) pipe restriction ...

use it instead of hoses? looks really cool all copper tubing (but its kind of a p.i.t.a. to remove or change your hardware after that, because the tubing is rigid..)

with all the snow outside, I'm semi-tempted to stick it out the window and use it as a "outdoor window" cooling. lol. Like connect it after the rad for extra cooling by running the loop outside.

Steven-1979 said:

with all the snow outside, I'm semi-tempted to stick it out the window and use it as a "outdoor window" cooling. lol. Like connect it after the rad for extra cooling by running the loop outside.

Click to expand...

Gotta' be careful of condensation if you do that ...

the only viable option you have with copper tubing ( and i have done several of the extreme high end computers this way) is to heat mold bends and curves for video card blocks NB SB etc and use it as a form of better tubing for those parts BUT it requires a LOT of skill with not only copper tubing in general but with specialized equipment .
you also are making a permenant system for the case if you do it right.

the whole point of using copper at all is to make wider ID bends to lessen restriction that typical flexible tubing suffers from.
all the other ideas suffer from lack of balance .
your systems cooling is a balance of a lot of factors like resistance vs pumping ability and the ability to remove heat etc etc .
the thing yuo are playing with here is resistance by either adding or subtracting length and width of tubing ( curves are a type of overall function of this with a few more factors thrown in)

so by changing one part of the equation you effect the other side in some manner.

my guess is you are thinking the extra length of tubing gives the water time to transfer more heat in a lower DT setting.

unfortunately this does not work because the cross section of the tubes does not allow for nearly as much water to touch your solid medium ( copper tubing) SO you have added resistance to your system but with little cooling potential to balance the other side of the = sign

there is a specific reason why we use a rad and it greatly increases the amount of area that our liquid and solid mediums touch *

now its possible with the correctly matched pump that you can run a system made completely out of copper tubing but the flow rates are generally MUCH higher than what we use in home computing ( i have done some of these for industrial designed apps)

* i know that a small portion only , actually touches due to laminar but for simplification sake im leaving it as is

How would you like this cooling system ???

that system will run just about the same as a system without it because while its runs are straight and short it has elbows which is resistance where a soft tube system will have slightly longer tubes there will be no elbows .

gentle curves for copper tubing is where its at( hence heat molding them)