Passive water cooling

[jamesavery22]

I am starting to get a feeling that I will need to use massive ammounts of water if I do a closed passive WC set-up...how about more water?

...

If there is no contact with outside air in that system, just water->plexiglass->air then it really is pointless. The more water you have the longer it will take to reach a max temp, but it will still reach the same max temp (well a little lower because a tad bit of heat energy will be dissipated into the air through the plexiglass and you have more surface area, but barely any). The only way your idea will work is a evaporative setup. You will just be making your own shower head and have a very small tower.

That review that was on overclockers.com really wasn't a good example of a passive setup. His might really work only because its an old p3 setup so he's probably dealing with very little heat, like 50w. And his setup was evaporating. Just very slowely. Im sure his tuperware thing wasnt completely air tight. And you could even see in every pic the water that had evaporated then condensed again and was dripping down the sides.


Anyways you aren't going to get too much help with your:

I still really want to have it look cool. That is the main thing that is getting in the way right now. I want to do watercooling, but not a car rad or something, I want it to look cool...

frame of mind.

Lots of people come in here with the "bling" mode on and throw reason right out the window. Most people here look for performance and recommend solutions that revolve around performance. Not center pieces.


If your really want your idea to work, read up on evaporative cooling. You want the smallest droplets you can make, the most droplets, and you want those droplets to have the largest possible "hang time."

If you want other ideas heres what I'm doing. Basically the same thing as the others with large car radiators. Im just using a baseboard pipe

 

[Graystar]

I am starting to get a feeling that I will need to use massive ammounts of water if I do a closed passive WC set-up...how about more water?

With the quality of heatpipe coolers today, there's just no reason to anything like this. A Nexus fan is going to be more quiet than the pump you're gonna need to run that system.

 

[datura3]

If you want other ideas heres what I'm doing. Basically the same thing as the others with large car radiators. Im just using a baseboard pipe

Is that a nalgene res? nice.

 

[Otter]

My take on the aesthetics of a cooling system is that form should follow function. Anything that's well engineered will have a certain beauty, and copper, whether polished or allowed to turn brown, looks pretty good anyway.

That said, I do understand the computer as an art form. Besides being a machine, it is also a piece of furniture and a means of self expression. As you learn more about cooling, though, designs that go out of their way to show off start to look rather silly -- like a car with exaggerated rocket-ship tailfins trimmed in flashing neon.

It's your computer, though, and if you like that kind of thing, go for it. Just make sure it also cools the chips.

 

[jamesavery22]

Is that a nalgene res? nice.

Yeah but that POS cracked. Don't think it liked the epoxy I used to hold the barbs together. Its not the HDPE nalgene. Nalgene the brand sells a bunch of crappy things like that bottle I got from eddie bauer. I got the real Nalgene HDPE stuff here:

USPlastics.com

 

[datura3]

Yeah but that POS cracked. Don't think it liked the epoxy I used to hold the barbs together. Its not the HDPE nalgene. Nalgene the brand sells a bunch of crappy things like that bottle I got from eddie bauer. I got the real Nalgene HDPE stuff here:

USPlastics.com

Got it. I work in a wet lab

 

[Soong]

I HAVE THE SOLUTION!

 

[Graystar]

re:transparent aluminum

It's called synthetic sapphire and is used for things like watch crystals and the windows of bar code scanners.

 

[Soong]

It's called synthetic sapphire and is used for things like watch crystals and the windows of bar code scanners.

Action: Soong hands Graystar a sense of humor.

 

[Otter]

LOL. Who needs transparent aluminum? Diamond is clear enough, and it has a much lower thermal resistance.

 

[Graystar]

Action: Soong hands Graystar a sense of humor.

Action: Graystar hands it back saying "I'm all set, thank you. It's just that people don't reallize there is such a thing."

 

[Soong]

Action: Graystar hands it back saying "I'm all set, thank you. It's just that people don't reallize there is such a thing."

Damn it I know something like it exists, that doesn't mean that wasn't funny.

 

[Graystar]

Damn it I know something like it exists,

Hey that makes two of us!

 

[Oroka Sempai]

Must be fake, it is on a Apple


well... what if I put a water cooler cooling system in the loop? I have a old one that works well, and it is quiet.

Another thought I have been having is makeing a tower of weaving copper tubing?

 

[Xymurgy]

What about vertical copper tubes that go through the box - water flowing across the tubing, with the insides of the tubes exposed to air. At least you're giving the heat somewhere to go, which is what this design really needs.

 

[Oroka Sempai]

Yeah, I mentioned that a few posts back, but no one said anything about it.

 

[ls7corvete]

If there is no contact with outside air in that system, just water->plexiglass->air then it really is pointless. The more water you have the longer it will take to reach a max temp, but it will still reach the same max temp (well a little lower because a tad bit of heat energy will be dissipated into the air through the plexiglass and you have more surface area, but barely any). The only way your idea will work is a evaporative setup. You will just be making your own shower head and have a very small tower.

That review that was on overclockers.com really wasn't a good example of a passive setup. His might really work only because its an old p3 setup so he's probably dealing with very little heat, like 50w. And his setup was evaporating. Just very slowely. Im sure his tuperware thing wasnt completely air tight. And you could even see in every pic the water that had evaporated then condensed again and was dripping down the sides.


Anyways you aren't going to get too much help with your:

frame of mind.

Lots of people come in here with the "bling" mode on and throw reason right out the window. Most people here look for performance and recommend solutions that revolve around performance. Not center pieces.


If your really want your idea to work, read up on evaporative cooling. You want the smallest droplets you can make, the most droplets, and you want those droplets to have the largest possible "hang time."

If you want other ideas heres what I'm doing. Basically the same thing as the others with large car radiators. Im just using a baseboard pipe

Do you have any info about how much heat a section of that stuff will handle? I have wanted to do a case with two lengths of that going across the top of the case.

 

[Trios]

I HAVE THE SOLUTION!

ROFLMFAO. That's awesome, but I think nobody else here has seen IV or something. Obviously the thread-starter didn't get it...

 

[clocker2]

What about vertical copper tubes that go through the box - water flowing across the tubing, with the insides of the tubes exposed to air. At least you're giving the heat somewhere to go, which is what this design really needs.

So, basically an inside-out radiator design, eh?

Yeah, I mentioned that a few posts back, but no one said anything about it.

Mainly because it wouldn't work.
In essence, this entire design is just a bong cooler with the most critical component left out- the air/water interface that allows for evaporation (i.e. heat transfer) to occur.
As originally proposed (and with the suggested "tube", etc. modifications), what we are looking at is an overly complex reservoir, not a radiator.

Depending on the volume of water this holds, temps might be OK for a limited amount of time as the water heats up but after that the PC would need to be shutdown and the watermass allowed to revert back to room ambient.
I have no idea what this cycle time might be but there is no way this design works as a full time cooling system.

@Oraka...
I appreciate the desire to reinvent the wheel but you first have to understand how a wheel works.
Perhaps if you studied how a successful waterloop functions and the various events/conditions that make it so you could find ways to improve it.
This attempt however completely ignores basic first principles and is doomed to fail.

 

[Oroka Sempai]

ROFLMFAO. That's awesome, but I think nobody else here has seen IV or something. Obviously the thread-starter didn't get it...

Yes, I know Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home quite well, and how Scotty offers Transparent Aluminium to a guy, in exchange for a sheet of the stuff to create a tank for a humpback whale they are stealing. I even remember Bones mentioning that maybe it was scotty that invented the stuff, so it wont alter the time line. I just felt the apple was more funny, on a massively PC orientated web board.



clacker2: I understand the concept of a bong, I understand that a closed loop made of plastic will hold the heat in, slowly building up the heat. I want to create something new, if everyone who wanted to create something new listened to all the people who say 'I appreciate the desire to reinvent the wheel but you first have to understand how a wheel works.', not many new things would get created. Some times you have to think outside the box/rad, come up with new ideas, modify those ideas, come up with new ideas...

Come on guys, this is for fun. If it don't work, I wasted a few hours of time and $20 in plexiglass. If the whole concept is 100% flawed, and will not work in any manner, no matter of any modifications, then lets come up with new ideas. Don't just say it wont work and that is it.

If form strictly followed function, we would all be driving army tanks and living in concrete bunkers. Creativity is the catalyst of innovative creation.