Pc Water Cooling.

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Wed 20/Jul/16 10:39am*

Anyone here know a bit about PC water cooling?

It's not a PC but I'm trying to shift 150-250W of heat at temps around 0C cold side. I need cooling blocks which are 60mm square.

So main questions:
Are there any common computer cooling blocks that use 60x60mm square coolers?
Do the prebuilt units have fluid that will handle antifreeze?

gristle · *by **gristle** on Wed 20/Jul/16 3:24pm*

If it doesn't need to be pretty, a DIY heat pipe might work.
I'm not sure if anti freeze will work as the working fluid.
The only time I've made one was by sealing one end of a copper pipe, adding some water, heating the water to create steam to evacuate the pipe and then sealing the open end, leaving some water inside.
It worked really well.
You could solder one end to the hot block and the other to a heat sink

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Wed 20/Jul/16 7:20pm*

I started out looking at seperate water-blocks, pumps and radiators. Then I ended up buying a double fan radiator unit with pump and 60x60mm water block all together. Hopefully I'll have it in a week or so.
I'll see how it goes on the hot side and then if I need anything else on the cold or whether the existing heat-sink and fan will do. The major problem with glycol antifreeze is it's heat capacity is half of straight water. So 50% glycol and you've only got 75% of the heat transfer! I don't know what these suckers will use for fluid.

Yes I know heat pipes. They work best vertical and I can't really do that with this application. To make them work reliably horizontally you need capillary tubes in them. Which is more effort than I want to invest. I'd happily machine parts if I have to. But heat pipes would be too much trial, error and validation to check they were actually working.

Most of the water blocks (and complete units) have only a footprint around 40x40mm on the cooling face. Some are 60x60mm but to find more I guess I need to nail down the make and model of CPU/GPU that fits that. I don't know where to start on that one.

Wobbler · *by **Wobbler** on Wed 20/Jul/16 8:05pm*

I cant think of anything recent that will give you much larger than a 40x40 block or an approx circle of that. The mounting holes for the LGA1151 are 75x75 apart and that is one of the slightly larger of the recent mounting patterns. Some of the larger blocks might look bigger but they dont generally have full contact base across that size (because no one has a head spreader that size).

Which cooler did you get?

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Wed 20/Jul/16 8:22pm*

Wobbler wrote:I cant think of anything recent that will give you much larger than a 40x40 block or an approx circle of that. The mounting holes for the LGA1151 are 75x75 apart and that is one of the slightly larger of the recent mounting patterns. Some of the larger blocks might look bigger but they dont generally have full contact base across that size (because no one has a head spreader that size).

Which cooler did you get?

I ordered this: http://www.alseyecorp.com/plus/view.php?aid=758

The head on this one looks like a ~35x35mm finned section on a ~60x60 copper plate. Not ideal but should be better than most which were smaller.

I saw a Corsair today which had a decent size head. I think it was this one: http://www.corsair.com/en/hydro-series- ... cpu-cooler
But no specs on the head/plate size.

Wobbler · *by **Wobbler** on Wed 20/Jul/16 8:31pm*

They are prob all very close to that alseye one in dimensions, the fitments are all very universal today and the mounted up pic does not look anything particularly large. The hoses used on that alseye are the giant cunty type that is a pita in systems, might not be an issue for you.

You are about 3 days too late, I've had one of these http://www.corsair.com/en/hydro-series- ... cpu-cooler floating around unused for the last month or so but its gone into a system now so cant get any measurements.

happybaboon · *by **happybaboon** on Thu 21/Jul/16 12:22am*

Consider an Al or Cu heatsink with Peltier (thermoelectric) plates on it.
No moving parts = good. Highly controllable = good.

But mostly it would just be different in an interesting way.

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Thu 21/Jul/16 1:05pm*

The hoses shouldn't be a drama, well not more than the whole system anyway. I'm not sure how I'll fit it in/around existing stuff, but we shall see. Might be a complete re-organise. This one was pretty cheap for a new system. Can't wait to see if it works.

Peltiers are actually the heat source that I'm trying to cool. Prevent them heat-soaking. So adding more ain't going to help me.

danose · *by **danose** on Thu 21/Jul/16 3:27pm*

happybaboon wrote:Consider an Al or Cu heatsink with Peltier (thermoelectric) plates on it.
No moving parts = good. Highly controllable = good.

But mostly it would just be different in an interesting way.

we've had plenty of gear that used peltiers (thing like cooling ccd arrays) - definitely reliable, guess Dougal's only problem would be the practicalities of getting the heat out to the environment

not keen on water cooling - I remember what happened to the macpros with liquid cooling, works well when new, a liability as they age

Conners · *by **Conners** on Thu 21/Jul/16 3:30pm*

danose wrote:
happybaboon wrote:Consider an Al or Cu heatsink with Peltier (thermoelectric) plates on it.
No moving parts = good. Highly controllable = good.

But mostly it would just be different in an interesting way.

we've had plenty of gear that used peltiers (thing like cooling ccd arrays) - definitely reliable, guess Dougal's only problem would be the practicalities of getting the heat out to the environment

not keen on water cooling - I remember what happened to the macpros with liquid cooling, works well when new, a liability as they age

Dougal wrote:Peltiers are actually the heat source that I'm trying to cool. Prevent them heat-soaking. So adding more ain't going to help me.

Wobbler · *by **Wobbler** on Thu 21/Jul/16 5:37pm*

stack heaps of peliters ontop of each other untill they are far enough away from what you are cooling

sorted :thumbsup:

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Thu 21/Jul/16 6:25pm*

Wobbler wrote:stack heaps of peliters ontop of each other untill they are far enough away from what you are cooling

sorted

I have 3 spare peltiers right now. The thought has crossed my mind. :lol:

The reason I haven't is the idea that the thermal resistance and total heat gain will probably outstrip the cooling effect. So someone else should try it and tell us how it works.

happybaboon · *by **happybaboon** on Thu 21/Jul/16 7:22pm*

So... you basically need a cooling solution for your cooling solution?

I would have thought just chuck together a heatsink of the correct dimensions using aluminium and stick it on the peltier with some heatsink paste. If that doesn't work put a fan on the heatsink.

Wobbler · *by **Wobbler** on Thu 21/Jul/16 7:30pm*

http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/comp ... 853575.htm

tada

grunter than shitty watercoolers

ezy

Dougal · *by **Dougal** on Thu 21/Jul/16 7:37pm*

I'm out of room for a heatsink big enough. The problem with Peltiers is seperation of the hot and cold sides. You want lots of gap so you can insulate the cold area from the hot area. But you want minimum gap so you can have the best heat conduction out. The only way around that is a medium to shift the heat furthur away. Water cooling is one solution for that. Vapour-compression refrigeration would be much better. But I don't want to spend ~$600 on a small fridge and pull it apart.

The heatpipes all depend on what the working fluid is and what temp the phase change occurs. I can't get that info for the cheap ones and I really can't be arsed buying a lot to test them. They also work best vertically and my application is horizontal. My heatsink with 140mm fan is currently running around 50C. I want to pull it down as close to ambient as I can. 30C in a 20C room would be nice.

Watercooling is at least good for trouble shooting as it gives you another medium to measure. I don't yet know if I'll be able to measure flow-rate and calculate heat transfered from that.

Pc Water Cooling.

Who is online

REMEBER TO CLICK THE LINKS WHEN BUYING FROM VORB SUPPORTERS