Using a pelt instead of a radiator

CNYC · 06-17-2003, 04:03 PM

I just bought a pelt in hopes of avoiding a radiator for a watercooled setup I am planning to build.

Do you guys think this is possible? I bought a large copper heatsink/fan to cool the hot side and I am hoping to submerge the cool side in a water resevoir.

I have two pelts one 80watt and one 150watt.

Also the pelts come with the standard molex connectors for ATX PSU's. Should I use a Normal ATX powersupply or another kind? If I use a normal ATX power supply how do I turn it on since it isnt attached to anything? (no motherboard etc.) I am planning to house the pelts, pump, resevoir in another case. Is this recommended?

KnightElite · 06-17-2003, 04:59 PM

This is an intrisically inefficient way to do things... if you're going to use a heatsink to cool the CPU in the long run, you can do it more efficiently and just get an MCX462-T. You will get better performance.

And don't use molex to plug in TECs, they're known to melt when high current flows through them

.

SparkedFire · 06-17-2003, 09:06 PM

yes this would indeed be inefficient. 220watts of pelts or 2watts of fans for a rad. Think about your power bill here. If you are not going to use a pelt on the chips waterblock then i think the water would actually begin to get cooler than the air temp, which would then cause you to use insulation in your setup. you must also cool the hot side of the pelt so an efficient (loud) fan will be needed. you could use a device like a DigitalDoc to controll the fans on the hot side of the pelt.

bigben2k · 06-17-2003, 11:08 PM

You'll also find it difficult to air cool the hot side of a 150W pelt: 80W has been found to be the upper limit, under air cooling.

You might want to read Kev's article: http://www.procooling.com/articles/h...ter_chille.php

(btw, he didn't clamp it right, but you'll get the meaning either way).

Quote:

Originally posted by CNYC
Also the pelts come with the standard molex connectors for ATX PSU's. Should I use a Normal ATX powersupply or another kind? If I use a normal ATX power supply how do I turn it on since it isnt attached to anything? (no motherboard etc.) I am planning to house the pelts, pump, resevoir in another case. Is this recommended?

As long as the PSU can deliver the current that's required, you'll be OK. Usually, a single PSU can't do it, hence the other article, about hooking up 2 PSUs together.

You're a long way from getting there: keep at it.

Alchemy · 06-17-2003, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bigben2k
You'll also find it difficult to air cool the hot side of a 150W pelt: 80W has been found to be the upper limit, under air cooling.

You might want to read Kev's article: http://www.procooling.com/articles/h...ter_chille.php

(btw, he didn't clamp it right, but you'll get the meaning either way).

I'd strongly recommend against reading this particular article. Kevin might be a smart guy and all, but that particular writing involves some badly designed experiments and some extremely invalid conclusions, the details of which I informed him several months ago.

Sadly, the few technical articles on this site that enroach onto science territory tend to be hit-or-miss.

Alchemy

bigben2k · 06-17-2003, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Alchemy
I'd strongly recommend against reading this particular article. Kevin might be a smart guy and all, but that particular writing involves some badly designed experiments and some extremely invalid conclusions, the details of which I informed him several months ago.

As much as I agree with you, I'd like to hear more about the details, if you're willing to share them.

Personally, because of the complete lack of clamping, i dismissed the conclusions.

A similar setup has been built by someone here (with clamping), and he reported good (not excellent) results.

Brad · 06-19-2003, 03:08 AM

no. just no. go buy a radiator

CNYC · 06-19-2003, 04:43 PM

I would really like to avoid the radiator as it is large and I've heard a radiator can only cool the water to about room temperature.

I'm about to experiment using silver/epoxy combination to bond a custom waterblock to the cold side of a 80W pelt and an SLK700 or Thermaltake TR-M2 to the hot side.

I read the article that was linked and from what I understand he was circulating water from one sink to another.

The cooling efficency may have something to do with the amount fo water being passed. So for my experiment I will be using a small resevoir (less than 10oz I suspect) and a pump that can circulate water very quickly.

My goal is to get the water temp between 10-20 degrees below the ambient room temperature (my room temp is about 60-70 degrees F in my case.)

I still am not sure how to power all of the equipment from a spare ATX power supply. I've heard I can short circuit the motherboard connector. Anyone have instructions on how to do this? Does it mean if I do that when I plug the ATX power supply in, it will turn on without any on/off button control?

Please link me to any other articles you guys know of that are related to water chilling, or avoiding the use of a radiator if any exist. Thanks for all the replies/info so far.

bigben2k · 06-19-2003, 04:54 PM

First of all, before your gong ho enthusiam takes over, you should read this article by our own OnDaEdg, about how critical the pelt clamping pressure is. Forget the thermal epoxy.

From a spare ATX PSU, you can fool it into starting, by shorting a couple of pins on the motherboard connector. You might want to go through the article on that one

.

Otherwise, I think you're on your way, except for that 150W pelt, because you'll find that you'll have a hard time cooling the hotside with an HSF, but hey, live and learn.

Here's a similar idea, by one of our own french counterparts.

SparkedFire · 06-19-2003, 04:56 PM

an 80w pelt may barely do the job. a higher watage pelt might get you below ambient.

WARNING! WARNING!

Condensation is an issue if you achieve below ambient temps, so insulate those tubes and waterblocks! If there is a risk of damaging hardware due to condensation, keep a towel nearby and your eyes open.

WARNING! WARNING!

althoe i would like to see the results.

bigben2k · 06-19-2003, 05:01 PM

I think our very enthusiastic fellow already stated he intends to use both an 80W and a 150W pelt. An 80W by itself certainly won't do.

Condensation will be an issue, and ya'll ought to read Joe's article on the chems of watercooling: pay special attention to Conformal coating.

What we're still missing, for some reason, is a good link to a condensation chart. Condensation not only occurs at different temps, it also is significantly affected by humidity.

redleader · 06-19-2003, 06:09 PM

If you're hell bent on chilling use a compressor. The power requirements from pelts quickly become insane for reasonable performance.

Also, you need a rad and watercooling for the hot side of the pelts. You're going to fry (or boil) your system if you try and aircool them.

bigben2k · 06-19-2003, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by redleader
If you're hell bent on chilling use a compressor. The power requirements from pelts quickly become insane for reasonable performance.

Also, you need a rad and watercooling for the hot side of the pelts. You're going to fry (or boil) your system if you try and aircool them.

That's good advice.

I believe that the objective here is to air cool pelts, which means using two or more 80 Watt pelts. Still not energy efficient, but it will work, and without rads.

CNYC · 06-20-2003, 12:53 PM

Well here's my progess, after reading that article on clamping pressure I am wondering how I am going to attach the heatsink/fan to the peltier. I certainly can't drill through the peltier without causing some damage to it.

I am guessing I will have to sandwich it inbetween the heatsink and a waterblock and use some screws to apply pressure.

I am planning on using some plexiglass mounted to the bottom sides of the heatsink fan. What is a permanent adhesive that can withstand over 20lbs of clamping pressure? I chose plexiglass cause of the inexpensive cost and because it's not a very good material to transfer heat so it wont interfere with passing heat to the screws and inadvertenly to the cold side.

I've thought of this idea for sometime and the conclusion that I drew was that the water needed to have more surface contact with the cold material. Also the conclusion that the fellow who did the sink test drew was that water pulled heat away more efficently than it let it go so the water I am guessing would need to have longer/greater surface area contact with the cold surface and circulated back to the cold area as quickly as possible. So I am planning now to use less than 10oz of water in the whole setup.

bigben2k · 06-20-2003, 01:23 PM

Good.

Now run a search for the XJinn waterblock: it's a multi-layer cross-drill design.

As for mounting it, nylon screws might be an option, but you'll have to spec them out carefully, because those pressures are above what a normal nylon screw can handle. You could use many of them.

Otherwise, you ought to look for a large heatsink, and that doesn't mean that the heatsink must be meant for a CPU

. Check out various shops, like www.allelectronics.com www.mpja.com www.mouser.com www.digi-key.com or whoever you can think of.

Since87 · 06-20-2003, 01:36 PM

Just to give some perspective on the performance you can expect...

Here's JoeC's review of the MCX462+T at Overclockers.

The MCX462+T uses a 226 Watt TEC.

A 150 Watt TEC and an 80 Watt TEC gives a total heat pumping capacity of 230 Watts.

The MCX462T has only a coldplate between the TEC's coldside and the CPU.

The setup being discussed will have two waterblocks between the TECs' coldsides and the CPU, but a bit more TEC surface area.

I'd guess the setup being discussed may give performance similar to the MCX462-T. Quite possibly worse.

Worthwhile?

06-17-2003, 04:03 PM	#1
CNYC Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: USA Posts: 8	Using a pelt instead of a radiator I just bought a pelt in hopes of avoiding a radiator for a watercooled setup I am planning to build. Do you guys think this is possible? I bought a large copper heatsink/fan to cool the hot side and I am hoping to submerge the cool side in a water resevoir. I have two pelts one 80watt and one 150watt. Also the pelts come with the standard molex connectors for ATX PSU's. Should I use a Normal ATX powersupply or another kind? If I use a normal ATX power supply how do I turn it on since it isnt attached to anything? (no motherboard etc.) I am planning to house the pelts, pump, resevoir in another case. Is this recommended?

06-17-2003, 04:59 PM	#2
KnightElite Cooling Savant Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Posts: 294	This is an intrisically inefficient way to do things... if you're going to use a heatsink to cool the CPU in the long run, you can do it more efficiently and just get an MCX462-T. You will get better performance. And don't use molex to plug in TECs, they're known to melt when high current flows through them . __________________ Can anyone else here say that they have a watercooled monster that's 45" tall?

06-17-2003, 09:06 PM	#3
SparkedFire Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Matrix Posts: 114	yes this would indeed be inefficient. 220watts of pelts or 2watts of fans for a rad. Think about your power bill here. If you are not going to use a pelt on the chips waterblock then i think the water would actually begin to get cooler than the air temp, which would then cause you to use insulation in your setup. you must also cool the hot side of the pelt so an efficient (loud) fan will be needed. you could use a device like a DigitalDoc to controll the fans on the hot side of the pelt. __________________ If you smell something odd coming from your puter, panic and run crazy. Shut her down and grab a towel. As to watercooling going mainstream: We are truely dedicated to it, we know everything, and we have perfected it.

06-19-2003, 03:08 AM	#7
Brad Thermophile Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Nuu Zeeelin Posts: 3,175	no. just no. go buy a radiator __________________ 2x P3 1100's at 1400, Abit VP6, 2x Corsair 256mb PC150 sticks, 20gb 'cuda ATA-III, 2x 40gb 'cuda ATA-IV in raid 0. 20" Trinitron. No fans 2x 2400+ at 2288mhz (16.0 x 143), Iwill MPX2, 2x Kingmax PC-3200 256mb sticks, 4x 20gb 60gxp in Raid 5 on a Promise SX6000. Asus Ti4200 320/630. Cooled by Water

06-19-2003, 04:54 PM	#9
bigben2k Responsible for 2% of all the posts here. Join Date: May 2002 Location: Texas, U.S.A. Posts: 8,302	First of all, before your gong ho enthusiam takes over, you should read this article by our own OnDaEdg, about how critical the pelt clamping pressure is. Forget the thermal epoxy. From a spare ATX PSU, you can fool it into starting, by shorting a couple of pins on the motherboard connector. You might want to go through the article on that one . Otherwise, I think you're on your way, except for that 150W pelt, because you'll find that you'll have a hard time cooling the hotside with an HSF, but hey, live and learn. Here's a similar idea, by one of our own french counterparts. __________________ WBTA (Water Block Testing Alliance) Nordic Hardware WC 101

06-19-2003, 04:43 PM	#8
CNYC Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: USA Posts: 8	I would really like to avoid the radiator as it is large and I've heard a radiator can only cool the water to about room temperature. I'm about to experiment using silver/epoxy combination to bond a custom waterblock to the cold side of a 80W pelt and an SLK700 or Thermaltake TR-M2 to the hot side. I read the article that was linked and from what I understand he was circulating water from one sink to another. The cooling efficency may have something to do with the amount fo water being passed. So for my experiment I will be using a small resevoir (less than 10oz I suspect) and a pump that can circulate water very quickly. My goal is to get the water temp between 10-20 degrees below the ambient room temperature (my room temp is about 60-70 degrees F in my case.) I still am not sure how to power all of the equipment from a spare ATX power supply. I've heard I can short circuit the motherboard connector. Anyone have instructions on how to do this? Does it mean if I do that when I plug the ATX power supply in, it will turn on without any on/off button control? Please link me to any other articles you guys know of that are related to water chilling, or avoiding the use of a radiator if any exist. Thanks for all the replies/info so far.

06-19-2003, 04:56 PM	#10
SparkedFire Cooling Savant Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: The Matrix Posts: 114	an 80w pelt may barely do the job. a higher watage pelt might get you below ambient. WARNING! WARNING! Condensation is an issue if you achieve below ambient temps, so insulate those tubes and waterblocks! If there is a risk of damaging hardware due to condensation, keep a towel nearby and your eyes open. WARNING! WARNING! althoe i would like to see the results. __________________ If you smell something odd coming from your puter, panic and run crazy. Shut her down and grab a towel. As to watercooling going mainstream: We are truely dedicated to it, we know everything, and we have perfected it.

06-19-2003, 05:01 PM	#11
bigben2k Responsible for 2% of all the posts here. Join Date: May 2002 Location: Texas, U.S.A. Posts: 8,302	I think our very enthusiastic fellow already stated he intends to use both an 80W and a 150W pelt. An 80W by itself certainly won't do. Condensation will be an issue, and ya'll ought to read Joe's article on the chems of watercooling: pay special attention to Conformal coating. What we're still missing, for some reason, is a good link to a condensation chart. Condensation not only occurs at different temps, it also is significantly affected by humidity. __________________ WBTA (Water Block Testing Alliance) Nordic Hardware WC 101

06-19-2003, 06:09 PM	#12
redleader Thermophile Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: The deserts of Tucson, Az Posts: 1,264	If you're hell bent on chilling use a compressor. The power requirements from pelts quickly become insane for reasonable performance. Also, you need a rad and watercooling for the hot side of the pelts. You're going to fry (or boil) your system if you try and aircool them.

06-20-2003, 12:53 PM	#14
CNYC Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: USA Posts: 8	Well here's my progess, after reading that article on clamping pressure I am wondering how I am going to attach the heatsink/fan to the peltier. I certainly can't drill through the peltier without causing some damage to it. I am guessing I will have to sandwich it inbetween the heatsink and a waterblock and use some screws to apply pressure. I am planning on using some plexiglass mounted to the bottom sides of the heatsink fan. What is a permanent adhesive that can withstand over 20lbs of clamping pressure? I chose plexiglass cause of the inexpensive cost and because it's not a very good material to transfer heat so it wont interfere with passing heat to the screws and inadvertenly to the cold side. I've thought of this idea for sometime and the conclusion that I drew was that the water needed to have more surface contact with the cold material. Also the conclusion that the fellow who did the sink test drew was that water pulled heat away more efficently than it let it go so the water I am guessing would need to have longer/greater surface area contact with the cold surface and circulated back to the cold area as quickly as possible. So I am planning now to use less than 10oz of water in the whole setup.

06-20-2003, 01:23 PM	#15
bigben2k Responsible for 2% of all the posts here. Join Date: May 2002 Location: Texas, U.S.A. Posts: 8,302	Good. Now run a search for the XJinn waterblock: it's a multi-layer cross-drill design. As for mounting it, nylon screws might be an option, but you'll have to spec them out carefully, because those pressures are above what a normal nylon screw can handle. You could use many of them. Otherwise, you ought to look for a large heatsink, and that doesn't mean that the heatsink must be meant for a CPU . Check out various shops, like www.allelectronics.com www.mpja.com www.mouser.com www.digi-key.com or whoever you can think of. __________________ WBTA (Water Block Testing Alliance) Nordic Hardware WC 101

06-20-2003, 01:36 PM	#16
Since87 Pro/Guru - Uber Mod Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Indiana Posts: 834	Just to give some perspective on the performance you can expect... Here's JoeC's review of the MCX462+T at Overclockers. The MCX462+T uses a 226 Watt TEC. A 150 Watt TEC and an 80 Watt TEC gives a total heat pumping capacity of 230 Watts. The MCX462T has only a coldplate between the TEC's coldside and the CPU. The setup being discussed will have two waterblocks between the TECs' coldsides and the CPU, but a bit more TEC surface area. I'd guess the setup being discussed may give performance similar to the MCX462-T. Quite possibly worse. Worthwhile?

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