Power Supply for Triple Peltier Setup

[michaelzhao]

Exactly what the title says. I need a PSU to potentially run not 1, not 2, but 3 peltiers.

I'm planning to run this off a Eheim 1260 Pump (613 GPH which is around 2330 Liters per hour). There is going to be 1 loop. 1 CPU Waterblock, 2 GPU Waterblocks.

I'm going to use the MAZE 4 waterblock on all 3. I'm planning on using a 226 watt peltier for the CPU and a 169watt peltier on the GPU'S. I'm planning on doing SLI which is why I want a triple peltier setup.

Only snag, I have everything planned out in my case on how its going to run, but I need a strong PSU.

I found this site which specializes in PSU's of all sorts. But I don't know which one to buy. It has to fit into a CD-ROM Drive Bay.

However, I'm not great on electronics. Anyone know which one to pick up? Has to power 3 Peltiers. Each peltier has a power draw of around 15 Volts I think. But I can run them undervolted if need be because neither the GPU or my CPU can output 169 or 226 watts respectively. I am actually planning on running them undervolted. Also, each Peltier is a 12 V Peltier.

If anyone has another site they prefer better for buying these esoteric power supplies, please share! Thanks for any help in advance....


PS: First post! Referred here from the DFI-Street forums. We overclock like hell... but esoteric cooling setups like this merit special attention....

[ricecrispi]

MeanWell DC 600 Series.

Since you are running of 12 V find the Wattage by find total draw for all three pelts .
1x 226W pelt + 2x 169W = about 45 amps

[michaelzhao]

I'm looking and I don't see a DC-600 series. I also don't know if it should be single or multiple output. Do you mean the SE-6000-12?

Its 600W PSU and sends 50Amps through 12 V. Would that work?

I'm a noob, could you actually pick out the exact PSU for this purpose?

[mx]

PSU
A new PSU capable of powering those three TECs won't be cheap, and if you want one that fits inside a CD bay it will be 2-3 slots high. Like ricecrispi wrote MeanWell probably has a suitable PSU, google can probably help you find a reseller. I'd try ebay instead, although you probably won't find one that fits inside a CD bay there.

EDIT: If you run them at 12V you only need ~45A which isn't very much. You won't have any troubles finding a PSU that fits in one CD bay slot and it won't be very expensive. (I was thinking 18W+ TECs.) SE-600-12 looks like a good PSU, altough you might want to look for a PSU with more than 12V, preferably one that's adjustable between 12 and 15V so you can find the sweet spot for your setup where you get the lowest temps.

Pump
Why Eheim 1260? It's not very cheap, it's big (and ugly!) and it doesn't perform very well. Sure it's got ~2400L/h but it won't perform anywhere near that in a real loop with only 3.7m head pressure. It eats 65w(!) and most of it probably ends up in the water, but I guess 50w extra to cool wont make much of a difference to you since you already have 500w+ in the loop. A couple of DDC-Ultras would give you 8-9m head and ~1000L/h with top mounted inlets, and they would dump around 20w in the water. This would most certainly give you a much better flow than the 1260, with less then half as much heat dump! If you want extreme performance get an Iwaki MD30.

Blocks
Why maze4? I'd go with Swiftechs MCW60-T or Silverprops Cyclone FusionSLT for the GPUs and maybe a modified Apogee for the CPU. MCW60-Ts cold plate and insulation should fit on Apogee too since it's almost the same block, it may require some minor modifications though.

Radiator
You will need a really good radiator to cool this beast, which one are you planing to use?

[billbartuska]

Originally Posted by michaelzhao

I'm planning to run this off a Eheim 1260 Pump (613 GPH which is around 2330 Liters per hour).

That 10gpm will be about 1gpm in practice. You need to estimate the flow resistance in your loop and then calculate actual flow from PQ curves.

[michaelzhao]

Originally Posted by mx

PSU
A new PSU capable of powering those three TECs won't be cheap, and if you want one that fits inside a CD bay it will be 2-3 slots high. Like ricecrispi wrote MeanWell probably has a suitable PSU, google can probably help you find a reseller. I'd try ebay instead, although you probably won't find one that fits inside a CD bay there.

EDIT: If you run them at 12V you only need ~45A which isn't very much. You won't have any troubles finding a PSU that fits in one CD bay slot and it won't be very expensive. (I was thinking 18W+ TECs.) SE-600-12 looks like a good PSU, altough you might want to look for a PSU with more than 12V, preferably one that's adjustable between 12 and 15V so you can find the sweet spot for your setup where you get the lowest temps.

Pump
Why Eheim 1260? It's not very cheap, it's big (and ugly!) and it doesn't perform very well. Sure it's got ~2400L/h but it won't perform anywhere near that in a real loop with only 3.7m head pressure. It eats 65w(!) and most of it probably ends up in the water, but I guess 50w extra to cool wont make much of a difference to you since you already have 500w+ in the loop. A couple of DDC-Ultras would give you 8-9m head and ~1000L/h with top mounted inlets, and they would dump around 20w in the water. This would most certainly give you a much better flow than the 1260, with less then half as much heat dump! If you want extreme performance get an Iwaki MD30.

Blocks
Why maze4? I'd go with Swiftechs MCW60-T or Silverprops Cyclone FusionSLT for the GPUs and maybe a modified Apogee for the CPU. MCW60-Ts cold plate and insulation should fit on Apogee too since it's almost the same block, it may require some minor modifications though.

Radiator
You will need a really good radiator to cool this beast, which one are you planing to use?

Thank you for the PSU recommendation. Point definitely taken.

As for the pump recommendation, absolutely great advice. I'm looking into that right now and digging around. Truth be told, I picked the Eheim 1260 purely based on the fact I didn't know what other brands and it looked good. I don't know anything about dumping Watts into water... lol. But i'll look into the pumps you recommended as well.

As for the waterblocks... could you give more background to the changes? Like why would the waterblocks you picked out beat the MAZE4? I thought the MAZE4 series is pretty much top of the line for TEC cooling.

As for the radiator. I was planning on using either this Black Ice Radiator or this Black Ice Radiator. I just don't know if my setup merits the second radiator.


Also, I'm a complete noob to watercooling. Feel free to blast any of my product suggestions by suggesting something else, something better, or something of better value. I'll be glad to take all suggestions.

I'm pretty much a big fan of steep learning curves. First watercooling experience ever and I'm diving into triple TEC cooling.

[michaelzhao]

Originally Posted by billbartuska

That 10gpm will be about 1gpm in practice. You need to estimate the flow resistance in your loop and then calculate actual flow from PQ curves.

I'm sorry. I didn't understand the two graphs at all. What do you guys mean? Do I take how much feet of tubing I have and follow it on the graph?

[mx]

If you're a WC noob you should spend a few nights reading this forum and the stickies over at XtremeSystems.com.

GPU block
There's no TEC block test so it's kinda hard to say which one is the best. I don't even know of any decent non TEC GPU block test so there's a lot of guestimating involved in this business!

I'd choose MCW60-T because it comes with an 188w peltier while maze4-1 only comes with an 80w peltier. You could buy a new TEC though, but I still prefer swiftechs diamond-pin matrix design over DDs maze design. MCW60-T does cost almost twice as much as maze4-1 though. If you choose the MCW60-T keep in mind that it's a 12-19V TEC. The sweet spot is between these values so you should get a PSU whats variable.

CPU block
There's no blocks on the market that can compete with Danger Dens maze4-1 CPU block, mainly because there is no other blocks on the market. You could get a Swiftech MCW5002-T but that's not an alternative unless you can live with alu in your loop. MCW60 and Apogee are pretty much the same block so MCW60-Ts coldplate should fit on Apogee too. I'd choose the teoretical "Apogee-T" over maze4-1 because I prefer diamond-pin grid over maze.

Radiator
I haven't read any tests on the new GTs but I doubt that their much better than the old BIPs. I read somewhere that there's no point in getting a single pass rad (X-flow), I think I read it on ThermoChills site. I'd say you need at least a 3*120 rad, preferably a ThermoChill PA120.3. It's the best you can get! Here's a thread over at XS where marci shows just how good it is. CoolingWorks rads should be in the same class as ThermoChill but I haven't seen any tests. Cooltek/Swiftech MCR are kinda good too but a lot cheaper. I'm using a 6*120+ car rad to cool my peltier rig. You can get a decent car rad very cheap.

Pump
A common newbie misstake is to just look at the pumps max flow. Max flow is how many L/h the pump could manage with zero restriction. Hence you will never reach max flow in a real system with restriction. You need head (pressure height) to overcome the restriction from blocks and hoses in the loop. So the higher head the pump has the closer you'll get to max flow in a real loop. But you can't just buy a monster pump and expect low temps either because heat dump is another important factor. Fountain pumps and such use lots of watts and most of it ends up in the water, in a fountain it doesn't matter but in a computer every watt is important.
We want pumps with:
1. High head
2. "Enough" flow
3. Low heat dump
Max head and max flow are just the extreme points in the graph billbartuska posted, what really matters is how the graph looks between the extreme points.

And these are just the factors that determine how the pump performs, there's lots of other things to consider. Like sound level, size, looks, price, MTBF(Mean Time Before Failure), etc...

[ricecrispi]

The meanwell is good for 226W and 169W pelts with sweetspots between 9-12V. The MW DC 600 model has adjustments from around 10-14V. I think is more of 10.5-13.5V in range adjustments. Cost $150 or more and you will never see one on EBAY

I'm only estimating 45 amps on guesstimate not even approximation by calcuations. Plus you don't want to use all 50 amps on psu and keep it just below 90% total.

1) I would go with WCing only. You don't have to know about WCing to build a WCing or pelt setup but i think you over your head with the pelt setup. Just reasonable suggestion

The apogee cpu block is smart MX. You should email gabe on that one and tell him make it an option.

[n00b 0f l337]

You need a waterblock that can cool the entire TEC. The maze4 does not do this. Find and purchase a Swiftech 6002 and customize a coldplate.

[michaelzhao]

Originally Posted by ricecrispi

The meanwell is good for 226W and 169W pelts with sweetspots between 9-12V. The MW DC 600 model has adjustments from around 10-14V. I think is more of 10.5-13.5V in range adjustments. Cost $150 or more and you will never see one on EBAY

I'm only estimating 45 amps on guesstimate not even approximation by calcuations. Plus you don't want to use all 50 amps on psu and keep it just below 90% total.

1) I would go with WCing only. You don't have to know about WCing to build a WCing or pelt setup but i think you over your head with the pelt setup. Just reasonable suggestion

The apogee cpu block is smart MX. You should email gabe on that one and tell him make it an option.

Excuse my ignorance, but... whos Gabe?

Also, I'm a pretty stubborn person. I think I'm pretty much set on doing this at this point.

[mx]

Gabe is the man behind Swiftech.

I ventured into watercooling because I wanted to try peltiercooling. It did cost me hundreds of dollars more than I initially thought and it took over a year, but I did manage to get everything working. Phase change would have been a lot cheaper and a lot colder!

[ricecrispi]

Originally Posted by n00b 0f l337

You need a waterblock that can cool the entire TEC. The maze4 does not do this. Find and purchase a Swiftech 6002 and customize a coldplate.

I did that. MCW 6002 and bought my own coldplate used thremal epoxy because i could bolt it on. Might work better than apogee because of the larger base and the design. Apogee focuses a lot of cooling at the center.
Buy cold plate at aquastealth/becooling or frozencpu.

Pelt cooling is not easy or simple by anymeans. A lot of little stuff you have to do like rigging the psu, powering pelt, condensation proof, buying gasket etc. If you build your own kit you have to replace bolts and screws and stuff. DIY is much easier and worth the extra cost.

[michaelzhao]

I forgot to mention. My processor is heatspreader free. I ripped it off, so its a bare core.

Can I still Peltier cool a naked processor?

What waterblock should I get for it? Will it put too much pressure on the die if the waterblock is concentrated?

[Brians256]

1. Yes.

The cold plate underneath the peltier will do two things for you: enable sufficient clamping pressure on the TEC and allow heat to move from the small die to the entire area cooled by the TEC. Remember that the TEC surface is not very heat conductive. Individual spots on the TEC surface will get very cold, but lateral heat movement is not what TECs are designed for.

2. Probably a Swiftech 6002 or an Apogee with a customized coldplate. Heck, a Maze4 would work fine too.

Didn't n00b Of l337 already answer this one? The key is to have a coldplate that can apply good even pressure to the TEC while still mounting correctly to your motherboard. Your biggest temperature differences are going to be in the proper pressure on the TEC, TEC selection, TEC Power Supply selection/tweaking, and radiator effectiveness. The actual block isn't going to be the biggest issue if you can get a good coldplate/mounting for it.