No competition, why only HWlabs?

[Marci]

Should be done somepoint beginning of next week... and now I've got a motorbike to repair after dropping it this morning doing 60 round a roundabout

[Marci]

Could also be useful to produce a list of suitable fans for use with it from other manufacturers as well as PAPST as an alternative in case of market availability... These Xinruillian cheapy fans I muck about with are silent in the 0.18a format but have no info on generated air pressure... will poke about and see what I can find out...

[Cathar]

Do you have access to the Yate-Loon/Tricod fans over there, which are slightly modified, rebadged and sold as the Nexus brand fans?

These are perhaps THE fan of choice when it comes to low-noise radiator fannage. Not quite as powerful as the Papst 4412FGL's (~80-85% at a guess), but certainly MUCH quieter.

If you're having trouble finding them locally, I can send some over to you.

[Marci]

Ah.... Nexus... yes, most likely.... will find a link for you to check...

EDIT: http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/...t_Fans_72.html

But 120mm out of stock - have just e-mailed Graham for an ETA but usually a month or two, so if you could get me some any quicker that'd be most appreciated...

As for your market, I would say that it would extend to pretty much any nation with a healthy economy outside of the USA (i.e. including Australia and New Zealand, as well as parts of SE Asia). Down here we would have plenty of buyers for such a radiator.

Have you factored in cubic footage / weight on the shipping side of things? All depends ultimately on courier, but if it's billed by cubic area then it works out silly money.... if it's by weight it works out average, but then all down to what quantities the distributor in that area would be buying in (at the mo we don't have any distributors in that neck of the woods). I'll investigate that tho.... will work out dimensions and weight of a typical order for 20x rads and contact courier and work out roughly what we'd be looking at to ship to those regions...

[Hoot]

I don't understand the obsession with 120mm fans. There are several OEMs of 180mmx50mm fans like the Patriot. While they are a tad big for the "Chevette" 150mm cores, they are a perfect match for the "Camaro" 180mm cores. The 24V Patriot, run at 12V is very quiet. With the fan and radiator having the same OD, you don't have to make a sloped shroud. Straight wall works perfectly. Given the tolerance of the Patriot for resistance, only one is needed in a pull configuration. I've tried two in push-pull with no improvement on heat exchange though they are louder. I have my shroud set at 25mm spacing from the intake side of the blades to the fins of the radiator. The Camaro radiator cost the same and sometimes is cheaper than the Chevette one, depending upon where you get it and it has 12mm ID tubes on it already. Despite the Camaros greater dimensions, it still fits inside a tower, though not offering much "wiggle room". You can pick up the 24V Patriots from several surplus houses here in the states for around $12US new or $10US used. Surely other countries have surplus houses? Food for thought...

Hoot

[Cathar]

How many were you after?

They cost £4 each here (incl. tax), with shipping to the UK being around £2 each, unless you're talking about dozens of them.

Alternately I'll ship you a quantity in exchange for a PA160.1 core.

Unsure about shipping arrangements to Australia for you - typically these things are done by weight here in Oz, unless you're talking about "buying" a portion of a shipping container.

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Hoot

I don't understand the obsession with 120mm fans. There are several OEMs of 180mmx50mm fans like the Patriot. While they are a tad big for the "Chevette" 150mm cores, they are a perfect match for the "Camaro" 180mm cores. The 24V Patriot, run at 12V is very quiet. With the fan and radiator having the same OD, you don't have to make a sloped shroud. Straight wall works perfectly. Given the tolerance of the Patriot for resistance, only one is needed in a pull configuration. I've tried two in push-pull with no improvement on heat exchange though they are louder.

There are NO quiet >120mm fans that I am aware of. All the Comair-Rotron style fans certainly have very noticable amounts of bearing noise.

Need to remember Hoot, we're talking about the near-silence obsessed here. Fans that you can barely hear (or not hear at all) in a quiet room, with everything else turned off, in the middle of the night.

[Marci]

Expect an e-mail from me imminently Cathar....

EDIT: YGM

[Cathar]

On that low-noise topic, the "goal" here is to approach something of a low-noise utopic setup. I would suggest:

Laing DDC (with optional inlet modification)
The PA160.1 core as defined above
A single or double-push-pull Yate-Loon/Tricod/Nexus/Papst 4412FGL fanned setup attached to a Rheobus
3/8" or 7/16" ID tubing
A CPU waterblock of moderate pressure drop that performs well at ~5LPM which is the sort of flow rate we'd be expecting with said pump/radiator/tubing

Such a setup would be marrying the multi-faceted goals of near top-end water-cooling performance in a compact(ish) and near silent (read as: have trouble distinguishing if system is turned on at all in a quiet room) format.

Sure, can knock off a further 3C or so off a 100W CPU by boosting pump + radiator size, but could still achieve close to that in near silence as well by adding a second PA160.1 radiator.

i.e. make water-cooling be all that it can be.

[Marci]

Hmmm.... can anyone remember where the ThermoChill CPU Blocks fell in the testing tables?? I know they were more suited to low flowrate 1048ish pumps than 1250 pumps... but would they fulfil this criteria? We have loads of em that never sold for S462 / s478 that I was contemplating getting tops made for to conver tup to A64 / LGA775 to try and move the last of the stocks and then discontinue, but if the block fulfils this criteria then it may be a case of making the changes then putting them back into production and remarketing...

Obvious aim that I'd been looking towards here is ThermoTube res, PA160 rad, DDC or CSP-Mag Pump, ThermoChill Block so that we finally have a 1/2" (or 7/16" if I can find all the right barbs) based British Manufactured kit that has been made to the specifications of those who know, which was one of the original reasons for ThermoChill existing in the first place...

i.e. make water-cooling be all that it can be.

Check yer e-mail and hopefully we can work together to do that!

[Cathar]

Originally Posted by Marci

we finally have a 1/2" (or 7/16" if I can find all the right barbs)

Just a FYI, the beauty of the 7/16" ID tubing is that it easily slips over 1/2" OD barbs for a snug fit that doesn't require clamping.

The tubing that I use, and recommend, is this one:

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/pro...duct%5Fid=7689

Item No: 54047

Really good stuff. Much easier to work with than 1/2" ID tubing, slips over 1/2" OD fittings as noted, bends tighter radii without kinking and with MUCH less effort, does not sacrifice flow-rates if using less than 3 metere of it when slipped over 1/2" OD barbs, and is slimmer and neater looking.

[Marci]

Bookmarked, noted, and enquiry e-mail for trade supplies in quantity sent!

[Hoot]

Originally Posted by Cathar

There are NO quiet >120mm fans that I am aware of. All the Comair-Rotron style fans certainly have very noticable amounts of bearing noise.

Need to remember Hoot, we're talking about the near-silence obsessed here. Fans that you can barely hear (or not hear at all) in a quiet room, with everything else turned off, in the middle of the night.

The only thing that meets that criteria is a moderate to low CFM centrifugal blower and the size precludes mounting it in a case. I graduated from loud PCs when I migrated to water cooling several years ago, so I appreciate quiet solutions. In my P160 case, with the sides on, the 24V Patriot , run at 12V is almost inaudible. Certainly not obnoxious like my push-pull 120mm Panaflos were when I was using a "Chevette" core, though their noise was mostly attributable to having the pull fan not far enough away from the radiator fins (~12mm) and hearing the forced air rivulets sheer against the blades.

Edit: Also consider the EBM/Pabst 7112 available from MPJA for the "Chevette" class of heater cores. Its 150x38mm size matches the 150mm footprint of that class of heater core perfectly.

Hoot

[JSimmons]

Why can't we delete our own messages?

[maxSaleen]

Really good stuff. Much easier to work with than 1/2" ID tubing, slips over 1/2" OD fittings as noted, bends tighter radii without kinking and with MUCH less effort, does not sacrifice flow-rates if using less than 3 metere of it when slipped over 1/2" OD barbs, and is slimmer and neater looking.

...Hard to believe that I could reduce the tubing size and not take a hit in flow rates. If Cath says so, though, I'll take it as gospel.

Any chance the 1/2" tygon would fit over 3/4" fittings? Would this help flow rates if coupled with an appropriate pump (a mag 5 or an Iwaki 20RLT off the top of my head). :shrug: :shrug: :shrug:

[|kbn|]

Why not use a fan better suited to watercooling - if one exists?

More airflow = more noise.. but as much pressure as you want, not much niose?

What if a over rated (in torque) motor was used, but with a resonably low rpm (for a fan).
Its the airflow and bearings that seems to make all of the niose, not the motor?
The motor wouldnt slow down much with restriction.. giving the same airflow but capable of several times more restriction.. = better cooling..?


And fans are cheaper than rads (I think!).

What about blower style fans instead of axial?

Or am I compleatly wrong about current fans not being perfect?

Also, is there any link between fan thickness and presure ability?

Originally Posted by cathar

There are NO quiet >120mm fans that I am aware of. All the Comair-Rotron style fans certainly have very noticable amounts of bearing noise.

Need to remember Hoot, we're talking about the near-silence obsessed here. Fans that you can barely hear (or not hear at all) in a quiet room, with everything else turned off, in the middle of the night.

Ive got a 172mm nidec (TA600DC A33142-10), seems to have bearing noise,not sure which type of bearing but any idea to quieten it a bit?

[Cathar]

Centrif. blowers have a different optimisation point. They also tend to be a lot noisier than axial fans for the same level of air-flow, and they are not exactly things that can be mounted conveniently inside a case.

Keeping in mind that we want sustained air-flow through the radiator that is at least around 43CFM. 43CFM of air-flow has an inherent C/W of 0.04, meaning that a 0.04 C/W is as good as you can get given perfect heat transfer from the radiator into the air flowing through it.

If you take a look around the web, you won't find many blowers that can deliver 43CFM against pressure for low noise, where by "low noise", we're talking about ~20dBA noise levels. If you don find one, chances are it's also a fairly large unit, quite costly, and being run at very low speeds.

Remember, we're also talking about cost here. Hard to compete against a ultra-low-noise, small, compact, and light $5 fan with a large, heavy, noisier $50 blower, even if you can argue that the blower is better for pure performance.

The whole point with making the radiator larger than the 12cm axial fan was to decrease the air-flow resistance to the point that the low-speed low-noise axial fan is operating very high up on its flow curve. i.e. you don't need the pressures provided by a blower to get good performance out of the radiator.

Sure, as Hoot say's, if the radiator is now 16x16cm then let's stick a 15 or 16cm fan on it. Yes - you could do that and get better performance, but what I'm talking about here is extracting the most performance possible for the least effort (on the fan's part) and cost and noise.

To me, it just feel right that I'm matching a super-quiet, $5, 1W powered fan to a radiator designed to work with its specific traits, that provides cooling performance that matches larger/noisier setups. Yes - of course we can stick a larger/noisier fan on it, but then that's moving away from what I perceive to be the primary design goal.

Match the fan/radiator setup with a super-efficient super-quiet 5-10W pump (my other dream - but 15-25W will have to do for now until that day) and we have a setup that kicks anything else in the teeth quite hard in every respect (less power, less noise, low-space, smaller ID tubin, better cooling, moderate cost).

Maybe I should move to Europe.

[|kbn|]

Originally Posted by Cathar

Centrif. blowers have a different optimisation point. They also tend to be a lot noisier than axial fans for the same level of air-flow, and they are not exactly things that can be mounted conveniently inside a case.

Keeping in mind that we want sustained air-flow through the radiator that is at least around 43CFM. 43CFM of air-flow has an inherent C/W of 0.04, meaning that a 0.04 C/W is as good as you can get given perfect heat transfer from the radiator into the air flowing through it.

If you take a look around the web, you won't find many blowers that can deliver 43CFM against pressure for low noise, where by "low noise", we're talking about ~20dBA noise levels. If you don find one, chances are it's also a fairly large unit, quite costly, and being run at very low speeds.

Remember, we're also talking about cost here. Hard to compete against a ultra-low-noise, small, compact, and light $5 fan with a large, heavy, noisier $50 blower, even if you can argue that the blower is better for pure performance.

The whole point with making the radiator larger than the 12cm axial fan was to decrease the air-flow resistance to the point that the low-speed low-noise axial fan is operating very high up on its flow curve. i.e. you don't need the pressures provided by a blower to get good performance out of the radiator.

Sure, as Hoot say's, if the radiator is now 16x16cm then let's stick a 15 or 16cm fan on it. Yes - you could do that and get better performance, but what I'm talking about here is extracting the most performance possible for the least effort (on the fan's part) and cost and noise.

To me, it just feel right that I'm matching a super-quiet, $5, 1W powered fan to a radiator designed to work with its specific traits, that provides cooling performance that matches larger/noisier setups. Yes - of course we can stick a larger/noisier fan on it, but then that's moving away from what I perceive to be the primary design goal.

Match the fan/radiator setup with a super-efficient super-quiet 5-10W pump (my other dream - but 15-25W will have to do for now until that day) and we have a setup that kicks anything else in the teeth quite hard in every respect (less power, less noise, low-space, smaller ID tubin, better cooling, moderate cost).

Maybe I should move to Europe.

We both want silence
I know very little about fan, radiator, and watercooling design.. Im just suggesting that instead of low restriction rads, to achive the same with as-quiet fans, but much higher restriction, same noise, but also same airflow.

Where you say effecient, what do you mean? efficent in fan power? noise? airflow?
I think noise is most important, then air flow.. I couldnt really care how much power it takes within a resonably amount.. as long as the noise and performance are both good.
Would having less restriction, make the airflow less effective? much like a single large channel in a waterblock i less restrictive but compared to many smaller ones or jet impingement it performs a lot worse aswell.

Im currently using 2x200mm heatercores, with airflow in series, with a 172mm fan which is not THAT noisy. Its rated for 12w - 24v 0.55A (which is noisy!) but I have been running it at 7-10v (At a guess ~3-6w = 6-12v?) which is much much reduced niose - but the bearing used in it are crap.. with good bearings it would be almost silent - I think.

What causes noise in a fan?
Like a water pump, I think its not so much the actual motor but instead the bearings and the flow rate.

.'. keep flow the same, use the worlds best bearings, but chose a motor that is LOW RPM (dont want high pitch whine - I think below 1000RPM, maybe down to 500?!) also over-rated enough so it will require a LOT more restriction to slow it down than your going to get from a few rads in series. Might want a bit more power but are you going to hear any difference..

I think the ideal rad would be 180*180*100, much like my two rads together... *but* also with a higher FPI - how much will that affect performance assuming constant air flow?

I want the most airflow, for the least possible RPM, with the most possible pressure.
I think low rpm is important in reducing noise caused by bearings?

edit:
Done some quick tests and I have observed a few things which should be obvious...
1) air restriction does not slow down fan that much, instead the air bounces back through the fan
So all I can think of really, is a really wide fan, with blades curved so that they give the maximuim flow and pressure - allowing the RPM to be dropped a lot. ..

Anyway.. time for me to let this thread get back to where it was..

[maxSaleen]

I think the ideal rad would be 180*180*100, much like my two rads together... *but* also with a higher FPI - how much will that affect performance assuming constant air flow?

This is moving away from the original goal of optimizing a radiator for a specific fan. Cath specified roughly 43cfm of flow with a pressure I'm too lazy to look up. For these given specifications, Caht's design works best. Increasing the frontal area, 180x180, might help performance. Increasing the depth to 100mm would actually hurt performance as it would reduce airflow. Increasing the FPI count might also hurt performance as it would also reduce airlow.

I want the most airflow, for the least possible RPM, with the most possible pressure.
I think low rpm is important in reducing noise caused by bearings?

I think we all do. I was excited the first time I fired up a 12cm tornado, but the novalty wore off in about a minute as I began to lose my hearing. Until someone comes up with a maglev/magdrive fan we are stuck with traditional bearings/sleeves and traditional motors. Perhaps deeper fans with more blades and more curvature to the blades would help with back pressure. This is going into territory where I can only speculate.

[Marci]

Half of the noise generated by a fan/rad combi is from the friction of air passing over the fins. You increase the FPI, the noise level increases also. As either FPI or Core Depth increase, a fan with higher pressure is required to penetrate. Most 120mm fans with higher pressure mean higher noise output due to higher CFM. Higher CFM means more air blown over fins means more frictional noise.

air restriction does not slow down fan that much, instead the air bounces back through the fan

Waste of good air... if it's going anywhere other than thru the rad, it's inefficient.

Maybe I should move to Europe.

I'll go make up the bed in the spare room...