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Marco · 03-17-2002, 02:20 AM

Hey all! This is [H]ard|Core from hardforums. It was brad's idea to get my posting over here, so if anything goes awry, blame him

This is my first post here, so go easy on me...

Just wanted to share with you guys (seems there are many familiar faces here!) my latest project, an electronic water level gauge. Yes, the pictures are the same as the ones I posted on H, but the accompanying explanation is all-new! (What? Nothing to do on a sunday afternoon? Bullshit!)

The device^^. Consists of a probe and a 6-LED visual output thingy. I'm using it to monitor water levels in my bong. For the uninitiated, by "bong" I don't mean the smokable variety. In a nutshell, the watercooling bong is simply a device that cools the cooling medium (water) by allowing a small part of it to evaporate (a process I once saw referred to in documentation for an industrial evaporative cooling tower as "sacrificial cooling"). This allows the bong water to acheive temperatures up to several degrees lower than the surrounding ambient air. How much cooler this will keep your CPU is naturally a function of your CPU heat output and the quality of your waterblock.

The above shows the inside of the display component. The gauge was assembled from two cheap hobbyist "Water Level Gauge" kits. Works by activating a transistor when water bridges two electrodes.

The box is a generic hobbyist electronic project box, drilled as needed by me on a small (and antique!) drill press I have at home.

The whole setup runs off a 12v line run out of my box to power the bong fans.

Here you see a detail of the probe component. The probe was built out of seven parallel skinny wires housed in half an IC packaging tube. Works fantastically, and the tube provides some shielding against splashing, as well as giving the probe rigidity. You might notice that there are only 6 LEDS, this is because the lowest wire is a reference wire, it is located right at the bottom of the tank. Each of the other wires is spaced 4cm above the previous. That gives a range of about 24cm, adequate to cover my ~30cm tank.

Here you have the gauge installed on the bong and actively monitoring the water levels.

Thanks all for your attention, comments/ideas are welcome.

03-17-2002, 02:20 AM	#1
Marco Cooling Neophyte Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 79	Electronic Water Level Gauge Hey all! This is [H]ard\|Core from hardforums. It was brad's idea to get my posting over here, so if anything goes awry, blame him This is my first post here, so go easy on me... Just wanted to share with you guys (seems there are many familiar faces here!) my latest project, an electronic water level gauge. Yes, the pictures are the same as the ones I posted on H, but the accompanying explanation is all-new! (What? Nothing to do on a sunday afternoon? Bullshit!) The device^^. Consists of a probe and a 6-LED visual output thingy. I'm using it to monitor water levels in my bong. For the uninitiated, by "bong" I don't mean the smokable variety. In a nutshell, the watercooling bong is simply a device that cools the cooling medium (water) by allowing a small part of it to evaporate (a process I once saw referred to in documentation for an industrial evaporative cooling tower as "sacrificial cooling"). This allows the bong water to acheive temperatures up to several degrees lower than the surrounding ambient air. How much cooler this will keep your CPU is naturally a function of your CPU heat output and the quality of your waterblock. The above shows the inside of the display component. The gauge was assembled from two cheap hobbyist "Water Level Gauge" kits. Works by activating a transistor when water bridges two electrodes. The box is a generic hobbyist electronic project box, drilled as needed by me on a small (and antique!) drill press I have at home. The whole setup runs off a 12v line run out of my box to power the bong fans. Here you see a detail of the probe component. The probe was built out of seven parallel skinny wires housed in half an IC packaging tube. Works fantastically, and the tube provides some shielding against splashing, as well as giving the probe rigidity. You might notice that there are only 6 LEDS, this is because the lowest wire is a reference wire, it is located right at the bottom of the tank. Each of the other wires is spaced 4cm above the previous. That gives a range of about 24cm, adequate to cover my ~30cm tank. Here you have the gauge installed on the bong and actively monitoring the water levels. Thanks all for your attention, comments/ideas are welcome.