Exploring Below Ambient Water Cooling

[thequn]

welcome back.

 

[cbrunnem]

LOL i seen a lot of test of a lot of tim's and the funny thing is every test is dramatically different esp the Mayo test that beets 90% of the TIM out there.

thats because most of the test you see online are basement test of sorts. they are statistically inaccurate as the sample sizes used are normally not high enough and the methods are inherently innaccurate. to get a good result you would need to use something more accurate then an actually cpu and heatsink. now doing something like that would not give you real word number but rather comparative numbers against other TIMs. now thats not to say that most online results you see arent good just not accurate or precise. theres no way you could be precise with a cpu/motherboard/heatsink combo.

What really matter to us, the users of the products, are the results from cpu/motherboard/heatsink combo testing, in hopes that we get the same results for ourselves.

Even those results can be different if the application of the TIM is done improperly simply because the user is clueless as to what the TIM can and cannot do regarding how it is applied.

Too many are just ignorant as to how to apply TIM in the first place as is proved by whats under some graphics card heat sinks applied to the GPU die, some look like the TIM was applied with a caulking gun.

And these are the ones that are supposed to know what they're doing, applying thermal compound from the graphics card manufacturer!

All along TIM is only to fill the microscopic imperfections between the 2 contacting surfaces, it was never designed to be applied as a full layer, and the best results have everything to do with the TIMs application.

Even when we're talking the same TIM tested by different testers with varying results, pertaining to using too much in the application, uncontrolled ambient for air cooling tests, and uncontrolled water temperatures for the water cooling tests.

You can trust the tests I ran to give you the same results as long as the sentence above is the same, and I know they were not laboratory conducted, but usually that's the same excuse the brand holders give when their products don't rock the world in reality, when all their tests were strictly controlled to their marketing advantage.

Which does happen!

Since we're on this subject you might find this interesting.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/1738434/last-read

So cbrunnem, How have you been doing?

It's been a while since you've posted in this thread, my Peltier cooling has been in operation now for over 8 months and is working very well.

Hope you and your family are all well! Ryan

oh just muddling around in the wc world. need to get a better pump for my loop that is currently cooling a 2600k @4.5 and a 7970. putting a block on a sapphire 7970 proved to be a pain. you need a copper spacer to fit between the die and block but they dont tell you that. great! but anyway i dont think the pump that comes with the 750 rasa is strong enought to push a rasa block, swiftech gpu block, rx240, and ex 240 radiator lol. want to get a bay res/pump combo but just havent jumped yet.

ive been lurking for awhile but its great to here your peltier is working well! now you just need to work on making it a smaller solution! an all in one SMALL container. lol sounds good in theory i guess.

 

[4Ryan6]

oh just muddling around in the wc world. need to get a better pump for my loop that is currently cooling a 2600k @4.5 and a 7970. putting a block on a sapphire 7970 proved to be a pain. you need a copper spacer to fit between the die and block but they dont tell you that. great! but anyway i dont think the pump that comes with the 750 rasa is strong enought to push a rasa block, swiftech gpu block, rx240, and ex 240 radiator lol. want to get a bay res/pump combo but just havent jumped yet.

ive been lurking for awhile but its great to here your peltier is working well! now you just need to work on making it a smaller solution! an all in one SMALL container. lol sounds good in theory i guess.

XSPC has a good Bay/Res/Pump using a D5 rear mounted, I haven't heard of any complaints from those.

http://www.performance-pcs.com/cata...e=product_info&cPath=59_367&products_id=34679

Did try one shrink down with the peltier setup but it was a failure, tried using a smaller heat sink cooler, solid copper construction with copper bonded fins, actually an Intel server heat sink.

Didn't work!

Investing money in these experiments is great when it works, but when it doesn't it's a great conversation piece, with zero cooling performance!

To a certain extent, it's a shelved work of art!

Another lesson learned the hard way!

Kinda resembles a fuel pump for a jet engine! sarcasm :lol:

 

[cbrunnem]

so let me get this straight.

there are 3 main parts to a peltier system:
peltier
heatsink
waterblock


just brain storming here but my idea with 1 minute of thought would be:
make a container made from copper. make the top like 3x6 inches. the top would have a cavity that water can flow through from left to right and the peltier would mount apove the cavity and the water lines cooling the peltier would run on both sides of the peltier. you could then run the waterblock for the cold side on top and to the pc. all the heat from the peltier would go basically directly through the copper cavity into the water. total space would be the height of the peltier, water block and about an inch. you could control the temps by the two pumps you would have to use.

again this would be an idea i would put on the drawing board but it would involve machine shops...

 

[thequn]

No you forgot a insulated reservoir, Lots of experimenting, and some extra cash money! LOL

 

[4Ryan6]

No you forgot a insulated reservoir, Lots of experimenting, and some extra cash money! LOL

Affirmative!

 

[arthurh]

Used a Bitspower swivel 90 to make some tight connections.

First mounting.

Mounting with Rad Box Setup.

test

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

Hi guys,

I have another interesting way to get some pretty low and stable temps without overheating the office. I call it the commode cooler. Basically I built a heat exchanger for the toilet tank, run a couple hoses from a 10 gallon thermal bank I use to capture the waste heat from my rig (I don't like blowing all that stuff into the office, better to store it and use it for good purpose later) and, when I don't have good use for the wast heat I'm storing, I give the heat a 'flush'.

Its surprisingly effective. I've dropped 40F off the loop in 10-15 min with 2 or 3 'flushes' (keep in mind the toilet is plumbed with cold water) and typically use it to unload the thermal bank in the evenings just before I shut down for the night so it is cool and ready to store heat in the morning when I fire up the computer. The thermal bank is about 10 gallons of water, just about the best thing out there for storing thermal energy, plumbed to my loop with quick disconnects. I have an after cooler (a couple old thermaltake rads sandwiched between 3 Noctua fans) at the end of the loop that are set on a curve that keeps them off or idle until the loop reaches about 140F and then they ramp hard to full speed at 145F. This is more of a safety measure, I've never exceeded the capacity of the thermal bank in a day unless I was stress testing or folding. (I did leave the system folding for 10 hours and came back to an office that was 95 ambient with the bank and loop sitting at 150F and the after cooler lazily cycling that fan curve between 140 and 145F)

So, the great thing about having the thermal bank and commode cooler is, no fans, no heat and I have a rig that can loaf at 80F in the loop all day or go all out (3EVGA 670 FTW/FX 8350/NB/memory pulling about 750w at full load - all under water) clocked to the extreme for about 3 hours folding, (the GPUs easily hit 180F overvolted and OCd) hit the flush at about 140F loop temp 2 or 3 times in 15 min and be back to 80-90F in the loop and bank. If I time it right, theres usually a reason to flush... if you know what I mean.

;-)

Food for thought - I don't know what a peltier cooler costs but its probably more than a flush or two of the john... and sounds like less effort than lugging frozen jugs back and forth yo your cooler.

Laz

 

[4Ryan6]

I saw that concept at another website a long time ago using the toilet tank as a fresh water slush box so do you have any pictures of your setup?

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

I saw that concept at another website a long time ago using the toilet tank as a fresh water slush box so do you have any pictures of your setup?

I'm sure its been done somewhere by someone, there is nothing new under the sun. I should have posted some pictures last night but I'm new to the forum and couldn't figure it out right off the bat.

Here's the low tech thermal bank

And here are the shots of the commode cooler:

Finally, here it is in action:

 

[4Ryan6]

The copper coil in the tank is a good idea.

So from the graph the CPU temperature went from looks like 150f down to 109.4f, what happened there, flush the toilet?

109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

The copper coil in the tank is a good idea.

So from the graph the CPU temperature went from looks like 150f down to 109.4f, what happened there, flush the toilet?

109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?

That first drop is plugging in the commode loop - I use quick connects and can swap it in hot. You will see a series of flushes after that, each one drops somewhere between 5-10F off the loop depending on how hot the loop temp and whether its idle or loaded. The hotter it is the more efficient it is at dropping temp. My CPU runs an idle delta to the loop of about 6deg F, when it is running max OC (4.8) it will bump that delta up to ~15-18F. The GPUs run a similar delta, they'll hit ~10-15deg F above loop on both the hotter the loop the bigger the dalta. Its pretty impressive when you consider the amount of energy it drops with 10 gal of water storage. in 15 min and 4 flushes I can take it from 150 loop to 80-100F.

 

[4Ryan6]

Why don't you insulate the tubing coming from the toilet tank that will stop the ambient loss from there to where its going.

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

Why don't you insulate the tubing coming from the toilet tank that will stop the ambient loss from there to where its going.

I actually use the heat in the thermal bank as a portable space heater, that's why it's on wheels. The commode cooler is only to dump the heat I don't need so it's not important or desirable to insulate them.

For the portable heater, I have a dual rad setup with sandwiched fans that run off of a fan controller with thermistors so I can ramp the fans based on ambient air temp. Too cold and the fans speed up, too hot and they slow down. Just melted one of the ICs on the board so I'm looking for another as well as a better (quieter) circulation pump to run the heater loop for the bank. Ideally I'd like to vary the fan and pump speed to get finer temperature control.

It's nice to be able to reuse the heat where and when I need it instead of throwing it away

 

[4Ryan6]

109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?

That first drop is plugging in the commode loop - I use quick connects and can swap it in hot. You will see a series of flushes after that, each one drops somewhere between 5-10F off the loop depending on how hot the loop temp and whether its idle or loaded. The hotter it is the more efficient it is at dropping temp. My CPU runs an idle delta to the loop of about 6deg F, when it is running max OC (4.8) it will bump that delta up to ~15-18F. The GPUs run a similar delta, they'll hit ~10-15deg F above loop on both the hotter the loop the bigger the dalta. Its pretty impressive when you consider the amount of energy it drops with 10 gal of water storage. in 15 min and 4 flushes I can take it from 150 loop to 80-100F.

You dodged my question which was, the 109.4f CPU temperature in the Sensor Recorder picture is it "109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?"

Why don't you insulate the tubing coming from the toilet tank that will stop the ambient loss from there to where its going.

I actually use the heat in the thermal bank as a portable space heater, that's why it's on wheels. The commode cooler is only to dump the heat I don't need so it's not important or desirable to insulate them.

For the portable heater, I have a dual rad setup with sandwiched fans that run off of a fan controller with thermistors so I can ramp the fans based on ambient air temp. Too cold and the fans speed up, too hot and they slow down. Just melted one of the ICs on the board so I'm looking for another as well as a better (quieter) circulation pump to run the heater loop for the bank. Ideally I'd like to vary the fan and pump speed to get finer temperature control.

It's nice to be able to reuse the heat where and when I need it instead of throwing it away

So are you cooling your CPU or heating your room?

The commode cooler is only to dump the heat I don't need so it's not important or desirable to insulate them.

Your concept was making sense until that statement?

I've seen others use the toilet tank to lower their water temperatures below ambient because in most cases the water in the tank is cooler than the ambient air is, but your use of the toilet tank to dump heat does not make sense to me?

It seems to me your design is more for capturing the heat from the CPU to use as heating?

 

[4Ryan6]

Hi guys,

I have another interesting way to get some pretty low and stable temps without overheating the office. I call it the commode cooler. Basically I built a heat exchanger for the toilet tank, run a couple hoses from a 10 gallon thermal bank I use to capture the waste heat from my rig (I don't like blowing all that stuff into the office, better to store it and use it for good purpose later) and, when I don't have good use for the wast heat I'm storing, I give the heat a 'flush'.

Its surprisingly effective. I've dropped 40F off the loop in 10-15 min with 2 or 3 'flushes' (keep in mind the toilet is plumbed with cold water) and typically use it to unload the thermal bank in the evenings just before I shut down for the night so it is cool and ready to store heat in the morning when I fire up the computer. The thermal bank is about 10 gallons of water, just about the best thing out there for storing thermal energy, plumbed to my loop with quick disconnects. I have an after cooler (a couple old thermaltake rads sandwiched between 3 Noctua fans) at the end of the loop that are set on a curve that keeps them off or idle until the loop reaches about 140F and then they ramp hard to full speed at 145F. This is more of a safety measure, I've never exceeded the capacity of the thermal bank in a day unless I was stress testing or folding. (I did leave the system folding for 10 hours and came back to an office that was 95 ambient with the bank and loop sitting at 150F and the after cooler lazily cycling that fan curve between 140 and 145F)

So, the great thing about having the thermal bank and commode cooler is, no fans, no heat and I have a rig that can loaf at 80F in the loop all day or go all out (3EVGA 670 FTW/FX 8350/NB/memory pulling about 750w at full load - all under water) clocked to the extreme for about 3 hours folding, (the GPUs easily hit 180F overvolted and OCd) hit the flush at about 140F loop temp 2 or 3 times in 15 min and be back to 80-90F in the loop and bank. If I time it right, theres usually a reason to flush... if you know what I mean.

;-)

Food for thought - I don't know what a peltier cooler costs but its probably more than a flush or two of the john... and sounds like less effort than lugging frozen jugs back and forth yo your cooler.

Laz

I'm going to address your food for thought, looking at all your brass fittings, copper tubing, and the rest of your setup investment you could have gone the TEC cooling route?

The purpose of below ambient is to have a higher stable overclock and run your CPU cooler for longevity, having your GPUs reach 180f, ever!, with custom cooling, is not good it's bad, 180f is higher than the stock air cooler would have allowed.

My 2 580GTX on their stock coolers ran an 80c load temperature or 176f, on the radiator cooling the load temperature dropped to 40c or 104f and never went above that, and you have your CPU tied into that same loop?

When I first saw your concept I assumed you were using the toilet tank as a below ambient room temperature cooling source, that's my bad I should have thoroughly read your first post!

My peltier cooling does cost more than the flush of a john, but so does your setup, brass fittings and copper tubing is not given away it's expensive, so duplicating your setup cost way more than a flush of a toilet.

I asked you earlier if 109.4f or 43c was your CPU idle or load temperature, my present CPU Idle temperature (Cores Averaged) is 18.4c or 64.4f at a 4500mhz overclock, my CPU load temperature is 33c or 91.4f and that's with a 23c ambient room temperature or 73.4f and water temperature of 14.9c or 58f.

So if 109.4f or 43c is your CPU load temperature in that picture, that's not to shabby, but if it's your CPU idle temperature?

Well you do the math.

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

Why don't you insulate the tubing coming from the toilet tank that will stop the ambient loss from there to where its going.

109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?

That first drop is plugging in the commode loop - I use quick connects and can swap it in hot. You will see a series of flushes after that, each one drops somewhere between 5-10F off the loop depending on how hot the loop temp and whether its idle or loaded. The hotter it is the more efficient it is at dropping temp. My CPU runs an idle delta to the loop of about 6deg F, when it is running max OC (4.8) it will bump that delta up to ~15-18F. The GPUs run a similar delta, they'll hit ~10-15deg F above loop on both the hotter the loop the bigger the dalta. Its pretty impressive when you consider the amount of energy it drops with 10 gal of water storage. in 15 min and 4 flushes I can take it from 150 loop to 80-100F.

You dodged my question which was, the 109.4f CPU temperature in the Sensor Recorder picture is it "109.4f = 43c so is that idle or load temperature?"

**Didn't mean (or know) to dodge your question, that is idle temp. Of course that really doesn't matter, what matters is the delta or difference in temperature that I mentioned between your loop and the CPU, every CPU and cooler configuration is going to have a different delta so comparing yours to mine is a bit of wasted effort.

Why don't you insulate the tubing coming from the toilet tank that will stop the ambient loss from there to where its going.

I actually use the heat in the thermal bank as a portable space heater, that's why it's on wheels. The commode cooler is only to dump the heat I don't need so it's not important or desirable to insulate them.

For the portable heater, I have a dual rad setup with sandwiched fans that run off of a fan controller with thermistors so I can ramp the fans based on ambient air temp. Too cold and the fans speed up, too hot and they slow down. Just melted one of the ICs on the board so I'm looking for another as well as a better (quieter) circulation pump to run the heater loop for the bank. Ideally I'd like to vary the fan and pump speed to get finer temperature control.

It's nice to be able to reuse the heat where and when I need it instead of throwing it away

So are you cooling your CPU or heating your room?

**I am doing both, but not at the same time. I use the thermal bank to capture the heat generated by the CPU so that I can use it later, in a different location and without the computer. If I want to run my kit hard, the thermal bank will charge from ambient to 150f in about 3 hours overclocked. ... (please don't tell me its bad to run the thing at 150F, I've been doing it far too long to know that it is not!)

**The commode cooler will surely drive the temps lower, and under load, than the graphs I sent, but again thats not why I'm using it.

The commode cooler is only to dump the heat I don't need so it's not important or desirable to insulate them.

Your concept was making sense until that statement?

I've seen others use the toilet tank to lower their water temperatures below ambient because in most cases the water in the tank is cooler than the ambient air is, but your use of the toilet tank to dump heat does not make sense to me?

**If I wanted to run below ambient, the commode cooler would do a bang up job, if you'd like some graphs of that I'll do a run or two. Thats not my driver, my driver is to make heat, if you are interested in that conversation it's likely better in a different thread.

It seems to me your design is more for capturing the heat from the CPU to use as heating?

**Bingo! ;-)

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

Hi guys,

I have another interesting way to get some pretty low and stable temps without overheating the office. I call it the commode cooler. Basically I built a heat exchanger for the toilet tank, run a couple hoses from a 10 gallon thermal bank I use to capture the waste heat from my rig (I don't like blowing all that stuff into the office, better to store it and use it for good purpose later) and, when I don't have good use for the wast heat I'm storing, I give the heat a 'flush'.

Its surprisingly effective. I've dropped 40F off the loop in 10-15 min with 2 or 3 'flushes' (keep in mind the toilet is plumbed with cold water) and typically use it to unload the thermal bank in the evenings just before I shut down for the night so it is cool and ready to store heat in the morning when I fire up the computer. The thermal bank is about 10 gallons of water, just about the best thing out there for storing thermal energy, plumbed to my loop with quick disconnects. I have an after cooler (a couple old thermaltake rads sandwiched between 3 Noctua fans) at the end of the loop that are set on a curve that keeps them off or idle until the loop reaches about 140F and then they ramp hard to full speed at 145F. This is more of a safety measure, I've never exceeded the capacity of the thermal bank in a day unless I was stress testing or folding. (I did leave the system folding for 10 hours and came back to an office that was 95 ambient with the bank and loop sitting at 150F and the after cooler lazily cycling that fan curve between 140 and 145F)

So, the great thing about having the thermal bank and commode cooler is, no fans, no heat and I have a rig that can loaf at 80F in the loop all day or go all out (3EVGA 670 FTW/FX 8350/NB/memory pulling about 750w at full load - all under water) clocked to the extreme for about 3 hours folding, (the GPUs easily hit 180F overvolted and OCd) hit the flush at about 140F loop temp 2 or 3 times in 15 min and be back to 80-90F in the loop and bank. If I time it right, theres usually a reason to flush... if you know what I mean.

;-)

Food for thought - I don't know what a peltier cooler costs but its probably more than a flush or two of the john... and sounds like less effort than lugging frozen jugs back and forth yo your cooler.

Laz

I'm going to address your food for thought, looking at all your brass fittings, copper tubing, and the rest of your setup investment you could have gone the TEC cooling route?

The purpose of below ambient is to have a higher stable overclock and run your CPU cooler for longevity, having your GPUs reach 180f, ever!, with custom cooling, is not good it's bad, 180f is higher than the stock air cooler would have allowed.

**the way my loop is designed, with an aftercooler just ahead of the CPU in the loop, the CPU never reaches 180F - It regularly runs up to and stays at 150 under load. The GPU will run up 180F OCd if the bank is about 150/160F - thats not a bad delta across the EK blocks and this is a good thing for me because I'm trying to build heat quickly on this prototype.

My 2 580GTX on their stock coolers ran an 80c load temperature or 176f, on the radiator cooling the load temperature dropped to 40c or 104f and never went above that, and you have your CPU tied into that same loop?

**The CPU is on the same loop, it has a cooler that keeps it right between 145/150F max. This is on purpose and by design. If I wanted to run below ambient or was interested in keeping the thing cool instead of hot, I'd reconfigure a bit. Heck, you've piqued my interest now... I might do some mods and see how cool it'll run.

When I first saw your concept I assumed you were using the toilet tank as a below ambient room temperature cooling source, that's my bad I should have thoroughly read your first post!

My peltier cooling does cost more than the flush of a john, but so does your setup, brass fittings and copper tubing is not given away it's expensive, so duplicating your setup cost way more than a flush of a toilet.

**Yep, not really worried about the cost, if I were taking the thing to production I'd use a cheap copper/aluminum radiator or a slightly more expensive (25$) flat plate cooler on ebay and dump it in the tank. Not trying to compete in some cost/cooler war here, this was just a fun evening distraction.

I asked you earlier if 109.4f or 43c was your CPU idle or load temperature, my present CPU Idle temperature (Cores Averaged) is 18.4c or 64.4f at a 4500mhz overclock, my CPU load temperature is 33c or 91.4f and that's with a 23c ambient room temperature or 73.4f and water temperature of 14.9c or 58f.

So if 109.4f or 43c is your CPU load temperature in that picture, that's not to shabby, but if it's your CPU idle temperature?

**It was idle, I'll run a loaded temp if you really want to see the graphs, again... I'm really not looking for bragging rights here, I came across your thread looking for some OC software and thought I'd aid the cause.

Well you do the math.

I'm not really interested in the cooling math, I'm interested in the heating math!

;-)

 

[4Ryan6]

I'm not really interested in the cooling math, I'm interested in the heating math!

Then with all due respect you need to start another thread related to heating, as this is a below ambient cooling thread and it's been off topic since you entered it. Thanks Ryan

 

[Lawrence Orsini]

I'm not really interested in the cooling math, I'm interested in the heating math!

Then with all due respect you need to start another thread related to heating, as this is a below ambient cooling thread and it's been off topic since you entered it. Thanks Ryan

Well. Given that response, Ryan, I'll be sure to do a couple low temp runs this weekend and post the results.

 

[4Ryan6]

I'm not really interested in the cooling math, I'm interested in the heating math!

Then with all due respect you need to start another thread related to heating, as this is a below ambient cooling thread and it's been off topic since you entered it. Thanks Ryan

Well. Given that response, Ryan, I'll be sure to do a couple low temp runs this weekend and post the results.

Posting off topic in a thread is not my thread rule, it's the forum rules, and one of our Community Managers pet peeves, so my request is really to keep a moderator from getting involved.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257700-29-read-first

I'll be sure to do a couple low temp runs this weekend and post the results.

That I am definitely interested in!

The tank water should be significantly below ambient, but without those lines insulated from the tank you will loose some cold to ambient.

 

[LO3]

I'm not really interested in the cooling math, I'm interested in the heating math!

Then with all due respect you need to start another thread related to heating, as this is a below ambient cooling thread and it's been off topic since you entered it. Thanks Ryan

Well. Given that response, Ryan, I'll be sure to do a couple low temp runs this weekend and post the results.

Posting off topic in a thread is not my thread rule, it's the forum rules, and one of our Community Managers pet peeves, so my request is really to keep a moderator from getting involved.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257700-29-read-first

I'll be sure to do a couple low temp runs this weekend and post the results.

That I am definitely interested in!

The tank water should be significantly below ambient, but without those lines insulated from the tank you will loose some cold to ambient.

Ryan,

I'm not quite sure what happened but I had to create a new account, the old one is inaccessible for some reason. Here is the cooler, without the thermal bank, in action:

The coolant loop temperature starts at 77F with a 10 degree delta between the the CPU temp and loop at idle. Once I enable the folding software the delta climbs to 20 degrees F and stays pretty stable. You can see the first 3 runs of 15 minutes peak at 109F are punctuated by the 'flush', dropping pretty repeatably down to 84F each time.

After the first set of 15 minute runs I let it run for 45 minutes, reaching 117F at the CPU and 89F in the loop. After 2 flushes in succession the temps drop back to 105F at the CPU and 82F in the loop. 2 - 1/2 hour runs after that see the temps peak 114F at the CPU and 96F in the loop each time. Its not dropping below ambient but I'll bet it would after the application of some insulation for the lines and a plate style liquid/liquid heat exchanger.

I'll still use the setup to drop heat from my thermal bank but you might consider it as a pretty low cost way to dump heat from your loop. If you drink a lot of Mountain Dew while you game you might even have a need for those 'flushes'.

 

[4Ryan6]

Those flushes will yield better results in the winter I'm sure!

 

[LO3]

Those flushes will yield better results in the winter I'm sure!

The tank temp in my NYC appartment, after a flush, is in the mid to high 50s so it should be pretty doable to get the loop temp into the low 70s with a decent liquid/liquid heat exchanger. As you can see by the graphs, the rise rate on the water temp is pretty fast because the ~2 gallon tanks thermal mass is relatively small VS the almost 300 watt hours of energy its trying to absorb between flushes.

A better solution is the setup I have in San Francisco which uses a 100' copper heat exchanger encased in about 75lbs of concrete buried under my house house. The exchanger has 4x4' probes that go about 6' under the the house and really improve the performance. When I dont have the need for heat (I've plumbed that computer as the primary heat source for one floor of the house) I run the loop through the heat exchanger and it comes back about 65F all day long. The ground temp under the house is in the mid 50s and the thermal mass is enormous, so the thing will chew up all the heat you give it.

The TES might be a good replacement option for the aftercooler I'm running in NYC so I never have to dump heat into the air when the thermal bank reaches capacity. About how much do you have invested in your TES, Ryan?

 

[4Ryan6]

About how much do you have invested in your TES, Ryan?

If I bought it all from scratch about $1,000.00 possibly, and that would be including the GPU radiator cooling as well?

The reason I say it like that is I had some of the parts left over from previous upgrading that were shelved, like the 1000W P/S, and 2 water blocks, and the heat sinks and water pumps, (I always keep a backup water pump on hand, learned that the hard way, a long time ago!), and those parts were the ones that were initially used in the beginning, as this TEC cooling totally started out as an experiment.

I had no idea in the beginning that the peltier cooling would be as successful as it is.

*****************************************************************************

Your buried copper idea I had also been seriously considering myself, but in South Carolina I would have had to go down 10' to get a constant temperature to rely on, and I had invested too much work getting grass to grow in my back yard to dig a hole to accomplish it.

Plus my wife already thinks I'm nuts anyway!

I could just imagine me telling her I was going to dig down 10' in the back yard to lay copper tubing in the ground to cool my computer? :lol:

If I had thought about it when we first moved out in the country that would have been the perfect time as the yard was already dug up from running the well, water lines, power lines, and the septic system, but now, not so much!