View Full Version : Work in progress - Extreme Mod
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:18 AM
Here is my work in progress for all of you who have given input over the last few weeks. Let me start with early on:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:19 AM
Another view:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:20 AM
Add some of this:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:21 AM
Making a couple of these:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:21 AM
And one of these (not a potato gun):
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:22 AM
Mixing it all up into this (case goes on later this week, I temporarily hooked it up to test it, though):
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:22 AM
And more:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:23 AM
Eye candy closeup:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:23 AM
Some guts:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:23 AM
And some more:
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:27 AM
Eventually, I can hook up to four PCs to this cooling loop all in parallel via the manifolds. It is as simple to drain as flipping open the valve at the bottom of the air trap/bazooka res and waiting a few minutes. Then just undo a couple of plugs and hook the new PC into the loop. I should have three machines on it within two months (I'll have pix of the first one on it later this week to early next week, depending). The PCs will be in old school desktop cases, stacked like 4U cases without the rack. Nice, compact, and efficient.
What do you guys think?
Arcturius
11-18-2002, 10:52 AM
What kind of pump is that? Will it be able to produce the kind of pressure needed to move water through four loops?
Also, where do you find an ATX desktop case? All I've seen in the last few years is MicroATX (and really tiny ones, at that.)
bigben2k
11-18-2002, 10:53 AM
FYI... if you have an air leak problem, look at the ball valve.
I ran tests last weekend, and although I can't confirm it yet, the valve might be leaking in air, through the handle. It probably wasn't designed to maintain a seal under negative pressure.
I'll let you know.
[edit] actually, I won't be able to test it for another three weeks, so you'll find out before I do!
Wow... impressive... How many galons of water does that thing take? Im using ABS tubing for my res as well and its amazing. Once cemented together its like one solid piece of plastic... and its soft enough to be very workable.
One thing Im really curious about is how well do you think that Rad will work without fans at all lieing horizontally... I think I might be able to fit one of those beasts externally on my case, but it aint worth it unless I can be fan free.
Also, not sure if you'll like the idea but how about making "rack" out of wood with your heat exchanger/'pump etc in that box being the "base" of the rack... Im talking about a very simply frame. If youve already predetermined the sizes of the pcs youll have in your rack (4u for example) you can setup the tubing going up the side (maybe opposite side of the res) branching to each pc. With disconnects you wouldnt even need to flush your system to add a new machine... just add more fluid to the res after the machine starts...
airspirit
11-18-2002, 11:04 AM
Since I'm using desktops, I'm just going to slap on little rubber feet and stack them without a rack. I contemplated doing exactly what you suggested with the rack, but I decided against it just to help ease assembly/disassembly for maintenance. As far as capacity, it can contain 4.25 gallons of coolant with 4" of room to spare at the top of the res. It takes a little while for the water temps to change depending on use, and for a multi-PC cooling loop, that is very important to me.
As far as a fanless mount of this radiator, you could probably get away with it, though I would personally want at least a Panaflo M on 5V blowing over it (you can't hear it at all at over a foot ... outside of the range of hearing) just for safety. If you run it fanless you'll be a little warmer than a BIX running with push/pull fans (in my experience with it), as long as you have over 1.5 GPH flow through your system.
airspirit
11-18-2002, 11:07 AM
Ben: I have no air leaks at all, from watching the coolant loops. I was very careful with that, and these are some extremely tight fitted valves (takes alot of muscle to turn them).
Arcturius: The pump is a Danner Supreme 350 GPH utility pump. As soon as a second PC goes on, I'm upgrading to a 1200 GPH Gen-X Mk4, and it WILL be able to pump 4 loops easily. The case I'm using will be the Enlight 7200, which you can check out on a few dozen Pricewatch sites.
bigben2k
11-18-2002, 12:33 PM
Wait until you get the new pump...
hmm... Im using a ball valve in my setup at the bottom of the case and have no problems yet with air coming in... Actually, the whole setup primes in no time whatsoever....
I think it has to do with the type of valve and the make of it.. these kind of valves tend to work really well :
http://ambient.no-ip.com/exhaust.jpg
airspirit
11-18-2002, 12:48 PM
Oh, my new avatar is a picture of one of my vicious weasels when it first saw my project. Talk about a kodak moment.
bigben2k
11-18-2002, 01:06 PM
Originally posted by airspirit
Oh, my new avatar is a picture of one of my vicious weasels when it first saw my project. Talk about a kodak moment.
Yeah, I'm sure it's looking forward to its new playpen!
airspirit
11-18-2002, 01:14 PM
When I first built the box that is exactly what we used it for. They're wierd like that. You should have seen them playing with the PVC (stealing and hiding it, in other words) while I was assembling the infrastructure.
airspirit
11-18-2002, 01:20 PM
It appears I will definitely be getting my Enlight case tonight (I have to pick it up at the FedEx ramp in Lewiston), so I should have this together with more pics for tomorrow (oh frickin' joy!). It's Dremel time ....
I think just to make it even easier, I'll just do a partial system dump to hook up the new case. I'm too lazy to drain the whole thing again. *sigh* I'm excited to get this phase of the project finished.
UnloadeD
11-18-2002, 01:20 PM
Saw this pump at harborfreight the otherday:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=1479
It might be nice having 1" of flow through all the pvc, and throttling it dowm once it reaches the tubing branches.
looks like a cool project, i'll be following this thread.
peace.
unloaded
bigben2k
11-18-2002, 01:50 PM
That pump is "cast-iron". I doubt that it's rated for continuous duty, and is probably quite noisy.
nuclear
11-18-2002, 01:55 PM
It's also probably quite more powerfull than most pump we use in watercooling. A little 1/2hp like that is closer to pool pump than watercooling setup.
airspirit
11-18-2002, 10:47 PM
Woohoo! The new case is installed and working wonderfully, with my laser printer sitting on top of the stack. Now all I need to do is install my Caravels and I'll be all set. This case is frickin' quiet, too. I'll have pictures up on Wednesday for you all (maybe tomorrow if I can sneak home with the digicam at lunchtime). I strung the hoses in through some empty PCI slots, so there are no holes on the sides of the case. The only problem with that was that I used more Clearflex 60 than I wanted to ... I'm going to have to buy more to put the third case on, but that's a while down the road. *sigh*
I do have to say that this case doesn't breathe very well. I'm running 37C on my CPU, and 39 in the case. Very odd. ;)
airspirit
11-19-2002, 11:41 AM
Pics will be up in a couple of hours. I'm going to have to run home, and I'll be snappin' pix then.
airspirit
11-19-2002, 01:14 PM
Here are the pics with the case style I'll be using. To envision the end of the project, try to picture three of those identical desktops stacked on each other with the printer up top. Here's the pics:
airspirit
11-19-2002, 01:17 PM
I'm still using the desk fan until the Caravels come in. It isn't really a good way of doing the cooling since the cooling chest is a closed box. I blow air in one side, and only a tiny flow comes out. I estimate I'm getting less than 20 CFM net, and this is a radiator than needs 100s of CFM to function correctly (I'll be at a peak of 1100 CFM with the two fans I'll be installing). If I'm getting 38C hard idle now, I wonder how low it'll hover when allowed to breathe.
And striking a sexy pose here:
airspirit
11-19-2002, 01:20 PM
Story about the router:
It feeds to a seperate 4pt WAP router, a 4/5pt hub, and a second dedicated WAP. There is too much networking going on in my borgpartments. That is going to be the greatest benefit is that it'll clean up my cable mess significantly.
bigben2k
11-19-2002, 01:52 PM
Nice work!
So, is it quiet?
Excellent. Very neat... I really like the way it turned out. And with the wooden container its probably very quiet:)
airspirit
11-19-2002, 03:08 PM
If I turn off the desk fan, it is nearly silent. There is slight vibration from the pump, but your ear must be within 1ft of the box to barely hear it. The front case fan is 5V and the rear fans are temp controlled by the PSU (Antec Truepower). I'm putting the Caravels on a ceiling fan controller, so overall I suspect that even when I have all three PCs on the loop, it will be less noisy than one typical OEM PC.
airspirit
11-20-2002, 08:52 PM
It's funny, but the loudest thing in the case is the hard drive. I didn't realize how noisy that bastard was until it got to sing solo, so to speak. I spent a couple of hours wracking my brain trying to figure out why the bugger was making any noise at all until it finally hit me. Go figure.
Can O' Beans
11-20-2002, 11:30 PM
Nice! :)
Looks good, AND is functional (table, etc..) ;)
airspirit
11-24-2002, 01:59 PM
Just got the ball rolling on a new pump ($150 Gen-X Mak 4 for only $65 shipped, hehe), I have the Caravels on the way, and in a week I'm ordering the block/clamp/case for machine number 2. By December 15th, I should be done with the second phase of my Evil Project.
airspirit
12-02-2002, 12:41 PM
The Caravels and pump are here. The fans pump air like crazy (do you know how fast a desk can be cleared of paperwork? I do, now ... ), and they are not quiet by no stretch of the imagination. They are like a middle/loud HSF, or a vacuum at about 100 ft. I'm going to set up a fan controller tonight in a non-regulated power strip that should allow me to quiet these mofos down. With how much air they pump, I should be able to slow them significantly (making them virtually silent in the confines of the cooling box) while retaining excellent air flow between the two of them.
The pump might take a little longer before I have real statistics on it since I won't be ordering the second case/block/clamp until tomorrow (it'll be complete by the middle of next week, or faster if Becooling is on the ball).
I may set up a dummy second loop with my BIX in place of the second water block tonight if I'm really bored, and string the new pump into it. It'll allow me to see what kind of flow to expect out of the new pump, as well as sound check it. The only thing I dread about that is the risk of miscutting the tubing (I don't want to order any more!!!), and having to drain and purge the system, however easy that may be. Plus, it'll throw off my temp measurements (they'll be completely invalid for this test) since instead of a second block adding about 60W of heat into the system, I'll have a radiator pulling some out. This will give me a chance to check the validity of the much maligned bypass theory, though. By design, the entire loop should now be at about 1" ID except for the individual parallel loops. This pump better not suck. No, wait, I mean, aw, f*ck it.
airspirit
12-02-2002, 11:28 PM
I have the new pump and fans on it. The fans are tuned to 50% speed, and the second loop (also new) has a BIX to simulate the resistance of a second block. Since there is no air going through it and it is wrapped in four layers of towel, it won't be doing much cooling. I opened the bypass to 30%. Time to do some prime95 and see where the temps take me.
airspirit
12-03-2002, 12:13 AM
Idle: 34C
Peak: 42C
I'm going to try this again later with the water flow optimized further and the fans all the way up. Mwahaha!
airspirit
12-03-2002, 01:40 PM
Idle: 34C
Peak: 41C
That's all, folks. That seems to be my best with everything tuned perfectly. The pump is in horrible condition (EBay unit) so I am returning it to the vendor for a refund and I have a nice shiny new one coming in a week with the other parts. The fans buzz something fierce from the controller, so I'm probably going to pick up a Variac to do the job right. In the meantime I'm going to go back to my old pump and plug my fans directly into the wall. The noise from the fans and pump combined sounds like a circular saw at about 20 ft ... very f*cking loud, and I can't hear myself think over it. I would estimate the sound levels to somewhere in the 70 dB range or higher (I've been in busy woodshops that were quieter).
All the parts are now on the way, though, so I'll have much to share next week.
airspirit
12-07-2002, 01:10 PM
I've finished phase 2. I'll be posting some pictures soon.
The hardest part of that phase was dremeling the damn cartridge off of an old Slot A Athlon 700 ... the bastard wouldn't come loose!
So far, there is little to no temperature change, but I'm still normalizing the reservoir temperature for testing purposes and trying to tune the bypass volume.
I'll have pictures and data early next week.
iroc409
12-09-2002, 02:56 AM
man, definitely props on the setup, it looks nice.
one piece of advice tho, with such a nice box, get rid of the duct tape :) duct tape rules, and is the fixer of all, but get some nice polished hose clamps or soemthing :)
airspirit
12-09-2002, 08:44 AM
The duct tape on the hoses protects the hoses from damage from the hose clamps (it is soft silicone) and damage from the entry/exit points from the case (sharp metal edges). The only other duct tape is holding my res manifold down onto my res, and I don't think they make hose clamps that big. ;)
Arcturius
12-09-2002, 10:01 AM
Airspirit:
While reading your article, and your comments about the restrictiveness of the radiator, I noticed that it looks the radiator is gravity fed. Am I correct in this, or do I have inlet/outlet confused in my understanding of Danner pumps?
Case "Gravity fed radiator"
Have you considered simply adding another inline pump to push the water through the radiator, as opposed to a bigger pump pushing the water up through your PCs, to the cooling tower?
Case "me confused"
I'm doubting this, since this case would mean that the pump is trying to push water into the res, and then the PCs are gravity fed...and the warm water rises to the top to be fed to the PCs...this must be wrong :p
Case "me really confused"
In this case, I'm simply having difficulty following hoses inside your cooling box, and I'm all messed up.
airspirit
12-09-2002, 02:39 PM
This is how it works. The reservoir serves as a gravity trap. What I mean by that is that the weight of the water in the res forces down through the tubing and piping in the cooling chest and primes the pump. Once the pump is turned on, it just needs to pump the slug of air out of the block loops and any excess air out of the radiator, and it is bled. The pump is fed a guaranteed supply from the res, and it pumps directly up to the blocks which drain into the res. The only effort that pump has to make is to pump upwards through the blocks, and suck water through the radiator and the restricted bypass. If the bypass is opened fully, nearly no water is pulled through the radiator. If the bypass is only partially open causing enough restriction to the pumps suction, it will also pull water through the radiator to make up for the slack. The one thing that the pump needs never worry about, though, is its water supply, because even if the bypass is completely closed, water will be forced by gravity through the radiator providing an endless supply for it to pump.
Does that make sense?
iroc409
12-09-2002, 07:18 PM
actually, they make hose clamps to clamp guages (like a tach) onto steering columns and the like, that might just work. then maybe you can put some padding over the hose so it doesn't get damaged, like some foam.
but still, i like the setup :D
airspirit
12-10-2002, 05:14 PM
Duct tape is doing good for me, and I don't mind the look. The benefit is that since it is so thin I can gauge the compression of the hose by the clamp to confirm adequate pressure on the hose.
I may change it in the future, and probably will need to when I start using the bottom port on the res. manifold. Until then, I don't see much of a point. Besides, with the positioning of my desks, it is hard to notice anyway.
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:31 PM
Here are some goodies for mah bruthaz:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:31 PM
And again:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:32 PM
And inside the box:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:33 PM
Some 10" fans for the air jockeys:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:33 PM
Some Slot A goodness:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:34 PM
And a different view:
airspirit
12-12-2002, 04:39 PM
It's coming along. Picture that with three of those cases stacked without the printer, but with a firewall/router on top keeping the peace.
Nothing ever gets above 44C. Total sound output is estimated at about 48 dB when the fans are on full (37-38 dB with them on low), but the sound is low toned, making it not nearly as bad as the equivalent in high pitched screamer fans.
The coolant is a distilled water and isopropanol mix. There is no smell from this system, even though the cap is not completely sealed (I don't want to teflon tape it ... it gives it a bit of breathability, though it means I will have to replenish the isopropanol occasionally due to slow evaporation).
bigben2k
12-12-2002, 04:57 PM
I don't know... I would have gone with the blower featured here (http://forums.procooling.com/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4964) if I was you.
What happened to the quick-disconnect fittings?
What's going on with the pump? I thought you were returning it?
I think you should try to mount that pump, instead of letting it lie at the bottom loosely.
Congratulations on the article, it's top notch!
airspirit
12-12-2002, 05:50 PM
I went away from quick disconnects to my current system out of fears of reduced flow. Currently, I just need to dismount the block and it will snake out the back of the case with no hose removal necessary.
The pump is mounted how it is due to size, and due to the fact that I watched it collapse 1" BRAIDED tubing due to extreme suction. I wanted to fit it on the PVC structure nearly directly to prevent this from fuxoring my PCs. It made sense to me. This lack of mounting (free sitting) also allows me to sit it on a bed of padding to reduce vibration, which is significant.
The first pump was returned and this one is a brand new unit.
A blower would be too loud for my tastes, and still not provide the air flow of these two fans (1100 CFM max between them both). The caravels were $40 for the two of them, which is a deal I couldn't pass up. It also looks badass, which doesn't hurt.
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