Quote:
Originally posted by Axle
Hey Gerwin, not to thread jack, but hope you don't mind- I borrowed your idea?
My very own rad. Or winter rad, rather. For my summer one I plan on copying you even more....would you mind?
more here
Again sorry for the OTness!!!
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I don't mind at all that you copied my idea, but there's something fundamentally wrong with your design: There's nothing to prevent the water from taking the shortest route from the intake to the outlet. All the vertical pipes will be unused. See my drawing (sorry I'm not an artist). That's because going from inlet to outlet through the horizontal pipes is shorter and easier.
If you would move the inlet to the lower corner and the outlet to the upper corner of it, then whatever route the water takes, it's equally long. See second drawing. Thus you ensure that all pipes are used.
Another reason I put the inlet on the lower corner of one side and the outlet on the upper corner on the other end is this: When the water comes in, it's divided between all different possible routes, depending on how many vertical pipes you have. This means that in each vertical pipe, the flow rate is extremely low ( [flow rate]/[nr of vertical pipes] ). This is good for cooling. The air that gets into your system when filling it, is going up, so will collect in the upper parts of the rad. No problem there. But at some moment, it has to come down again into your computer, and the pump has to compensate for the tendency of airbubbles to rise. When the flow rate is low, the pump won't manage. But in my rad, when water is coming down, it's already collected again into 1 vertical pipe, and so the flow rate is high again, and the airbubbles will be easily pushed down by the waterflow.
In your rad, all air will gather in the upper part of the rad, above the level of the inlet and outlet, and probably stay there, because the water will flow on the lower part.
Try your rad, and then try my ideas (would mean resoldering, ouch), and you will see that with my design, the flow resistance is extremely low because of the low flowrate in the majority of pipes, that the cooling capacity is good because of the same reason, and that it get's rid of air very quickly, especially if you don't put it exactly straight, but the outlet slightly higher than the inlet.
What I do really like in yours is the way you 'folded' it, so that it's more compact, I will copy that from you I think, and that you soldered it instead of using those ugly compression fittings like I did. Keep up the good work.