Pump suggestions for large cooling plate

[JayLight]

Hi all,

So I'm doing a project that involves water cooling an aluminum plate (something like this: http://d6industries.com/liquid-cold-plates) that's about 5'' by 12'' with copper tubing 3/8'' OD. The device I'm cooling will be pulling about 20 Amps, and I need a way to keep the temperature stable around room temperature within 0.5 degrees Celsius. I've looked at the radiator/pump/reservoir combo systems on frozencpu (here: http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g30...ooling_Pumps-RadiatorPumpRes_Combo-Page1.html) but I think that might be a bit overkill. Any guidance or product recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thanks guys!

-Jay

 

[Mandrake4565]

Jay does it need to be aesthetically pleasing or just functional? Do not buy from Frozencpu, just an FYI they are all but out of business from last I heard. Performance Pcs, Modmymods are a couple of place to buy now, that come to mind.

 

[JayLight]

Jay does it need to be aesthetically pleasing or just functional? Do not buy from Frozencpu, just an FYI they are all but out of business from last I heard. Performance Pcs, Modmymods are a couple of place to buy now, that come to mind.

Hey Mandrake, thanks for the tip! It's purely functional. Oh, and the power output of the device will be about 100W at most. The most important thing is a stable temperature. I'm going to be running this for several weeks to a few months at least so it has to be able to maintain that stable temperature reliably. Also, since this won't be plugged into a motherboard, how would I go about running it?

 

[Mandrake4565]

Well this is what I do for my benching setup, it's not pretty to the eye but it works. I have a Danner Model 7 Mag drive pump, sitting in a Tidy cat bucket yes for cat littler , Cpu block and radiator. You said it will be pulling 20 a in the first post which would give you 240 watts to cool at 12v?!?! If you're only at 100w you should be able to cool it with a 120mm radiator if you want to play it safe or you are going to be cooling 240w get a 2x 120mm radiator. I have 2200 Rpm Yate Loon fans in push pull on the radiator and I have an old laptop charger rigged up to the fans to run them. The Danner pump you can plug directly in to any outlet and I've had no issues with mine after about 1 1/2 years of use.

 

[Johan45]

If that's the case you could get a small fish pond pump that would run off 120v. Manny and I both use them for benching.

 

[JayLight]

Heh, well the device won't be running at 12V. It's a low voltage, high current device so 100W is about right. The circuit that drives it isn't going to be cooled by this plate, since it's not as temperature critical. Haha, yeah I was tossing around the idea of using an aquarium pump actually, so long as I can control its speed. If I were to go this route, how would I go about hooking up a radiator to it? I'm using a corsair hydro pump/radiator for my home pc so I'm not too familiar with building my own cooling system from scratch ^^'

 

[Mandrake4565]

Hooking a radiator to it is the same as for any other pump, just get some tubing and clamps for it, IIRC the pump we both use has a 3/4 " outlet so I just bought a brass reducer from the plumbing store screwed it in and clamped some 1/2" ID x 3/4" hose on it. You can use barbs on the radiator to hook the tubing up. Here it is in all it's glory.

 

[Blaylock]

Jay, you mentioned in your first post that you need to keep this plate to within 0.5c of ambient. That's a pretty tall order. My guess is you're going to need quite a bit more rad surface than that. I don't have a formula but I would guess in the range of 120x3 or a 120x4 radiator.

I'm using 120x5 for my CPU which creates about 88w stock and around 125w overclocked. I'm at +3c from ambient with the same Yate Loon fans Mandrake has but only in push configuration just to give you an idea.


Mandrake that litter bucket makes me chuckle everytime I see it. LOL Works great though.

 

[JayLight]

Jay, you mentioned in your first post that you need to keep this plate to within 0.5c of ambient. That's a pretty tall order. My guess is you're going to need quite a bit more rad surface than that. I don't have a formula but I would guess in the range of 120x3 or a 120x4 radiator.

I'm using 120x5 for my CPU which creates about 88w stock and around 125w overclocked. I'm at +3c from ambient with the same Yate Loon fans Mandrake has but only in push configuration just to give you an idea.


Mandrake that litter bucket makes me chuckle everytime I see it. LOL Works great though.

Ah, apologies, I worded that incorrectly. The temperature STABILITY needs to be within 0.5C of the target temperature. I'm still deciding what the target temperature needs to be, probably a few degrees warmer than ambient, nothing too crazy. However, if it turns out we need to run it BELOW room temperature, well...then I'd have to add some TEC's into the mix or add an active chiller and that just makes things way more complicated, so we probably won't do that haha.

Haha, Mandrake oh my god, that is amazing. Fill it with ice and some beers and you've got yourself a sweet hi-tech cooler

Ok, awesome. I'll pick up a brass reducer from a hardware store. Thanks for all the help guys, I really appreciate it!! I'll update the thread if I come across any other issues.

-Jay

 

[Blaylock]

 

[Mandrake4565]

Mandrake that litter bucket makes me chuckle everytime I see it. LOL Works great though.

Well you can thank Johan he's the one that gave me the idea. What was really funny is the look the wife gave me the first time she saw it. Thought it was some sore of hydroponics experiment.

Haha, Mandrake oh my god, that is amazing. Fill it with ice and some beers and you've got yourself a sweet hi-tech cooler



-Jay

Better yet, fill it with 1 gal antifreeze and 1 gal of distilled water, hang the rad outside and get -15 to -20c water temps, albeit when the outside weather is cooperating, flowing through the cpu block and overclock the pee out if a chip.

 

[GTXJackBauer]

I think a 120.2 with Yate loons in push and pull should do the trick. 120.3 max as I'm sure you'll eventually hit diminishing returns.