TEC build log start

Page 10 - Seeking answers? Join the Tom's Hardware community: where nearly two million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
toolmaker_03

toolmaker_03

Honorable
Mar 26, 2012
2,650
0
12,960
http://imgur.com/cd15M1a
ok so I have finished all my testing and decided on a general build for this unit.
this build will be sealed inside of a chest so I will not have physical access to the computer case, I would like some input on the general idea that I am presenting, I use antifreeze so freezing the coolant is not a issue, and seeing as I am increasing the cooling capacity of my water cooling system, I have also chosen new clocks for my hardware, the CPU clock will run at 5Ghz, and the GPU's will be running at 930Mhz, I have already tested theses clocks and found them to be stable for my hardware.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
ok so a few others have mentioned using A/C tubing foam insulation for my tubing the stuff is cheap so I will give it a try and cover all my tubing on the cold side with it, if it does not work I can always replace it with clay.

I will still be using the clay on the TEC assembly and the chest.

ok so this is a large build, and I have built a lot of frames for the hardware so far. the reason that I have built all these frames is because, I plant to use this cooling solution for a long time. My current PC setup, I am guessing, I could get another 3 years out of it, before I will need to upgrade it. When I do upgrade to a new PC setup, I will use this same cooling solution for the new system. So I am building it to last.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
http://imgur.com/ufiOLPE
ufiOLPE.jpg

mounted rads
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I was thinking about getting the frame done for the fan controllers next, instead of the TEC power supplies, that way I can clean up some of the fan wires I have hanging about right now.

it will be 4 X fan controllers stacked on top of each other, I have 2 X 6 channel fan controllers, one 5 channel, and one 3 channel fan controller.
one of the 6 channel fan controllers, and the 3 channel fan controller are 30+ watt fan controllers.

out side the ice chest I have 21 fans in total that will be plugged into these controllers.
inside the ice chest I have 4 fans that will plug into the motherboard.
other things that will be plugged into the other 6 channel fan controller will be one flow meter one for the hot side water loop, and one water temp sensor for the hot side water loop.
I have a water temp sensor with display, and a flow meter with display, for the cold side water loop
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
this build is a wiring nightmare, as a result, I will be doing my best, but there will still be a wire here, and a wire there, going in every direction possible.
I will try to clean this up in later remodels of the build.
the fan wiring came out looking really good for the most part you can't see any of it. unless you are looking directly behind the fan controllers, otherwise the radiator shrouds hide most of it.
but the flow sensor and temp sensor wires are just kind of laying out there in the middle, not much I can do about it.(to be fixed later)
because I cant hide the power wires for all of the fan controllers, I decided to use the LED molex extensions cables, now the bottoms around the outside of all the radiators are lit up.
I may put some lighting on the bottom of the radiators on the inside as well to light up the area where the pumps and reservoir are.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ok so there are 4 fan controllers
I will start with the bottom controller.
channel one will have the hot water loop flow meter and the hot water loop temp sensor.
channel three will have a single fan and the ambient temp sensor, that is all that will be on the controller.
the next one up only has three fan control channels but they are 30 watts each so I have three fans on each channel.
the next one up has six channels and will have one fan on each.
the top fan controller has five channels and will have one fan on each.
for a total of 21 fans, it works.
BD1wYvg.jpg


http://imgur.com/BD1wYvg
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ok so the frames for the fan controllers have proven to be the hardest frames to build so far.
getting all the holes to line up right took a bit of engineering and thinking out of the box.
I took one of my 5 1/4" displays apart the make a jig for getting the holes in the right spot, just measuring the holes and centering it was not good enough, my margin for error on this build is to small for that to work.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yea it is a little rustic looking. I was actually worried about my 600W power supply being enough for the fans and pumps, so far it handles the 21 fans and two pumps fine. I still have two pumps to add to that power supply, so the total power draw with everything on, I am thinking will be about 500 watts, I will test the setup when it is finished, but if the draw is that high, I have a 850W power supply that I will change it out for.

because this build is so different from what I am used to building, there are a lot of things that just kind of occur, as the build is being built. I am not used to having to worry about not having enough power.

for example, when I first built the test system, the wall outlet was not sufficient to support two PC power supplies and a 75A 12V travel trailer power supply. this is what I did to my office to solve the power issue I was having.
In my case the breaker box is in the office, so it made the process a little easier, first thing I did was replace 3 of the single circuit 15A breakers, for 3 20A double circuit breakers, then I ran 3 separate runs of 12 gage wire from the breaker box to the adjacent wall where I had already installed a triple plug electrical box, then I wired each industrial 20A plug, to its own wire, which has its own breaker in the box. a little extreme, maybe, but with all 3 of my ups units plugged in and all of my hardware PS's plugged in to them, it does not flip any of the circuit breakers. so this method does work.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yea, that was kind of what I was scared of, the idea of having extension cords running through the house to separate the load, just sounded wrong to me. :lol:
so I dug deep into my pocket to get it done right.
I got the radiators today, and I will unpack and install today and tomorrow. they are the same radiators as the ones I have, as they work well for the price, total for the radiators and setup for each one, fans, shrouds, and fittings totaled $210 not bad, it has cost me up to $300 for a single radiator setup before.
next is to finish the TEC assembly and the TEC power supply frames, than I will be ready to start on the copper piping for the vacuum pump and than finally the chest.
still months worth of work, but it does sound easy.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ok so I noticed a interesting point in another thread, how to deal with the weakness of the ice chest without spending a lot for a new cooler, what I am doing is building a support frame for the inside of the ice chest, I call it the frame for the reservoirs, and it does support the reservoirs, but more importantly the frame keeps everything inside the ice chest tight to the walls, solid to the floor, and snug to the lid. with this in place the inside of the ice chest should be stronger because of this frame work. of course I don't know for sure if it will work, but all I can do is my best, and hope for the best result.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Sounds good. So basically, it's the equivalent to a roll cage in a car?

Anyway, I read this line in a Lee Child book and have lived by it since then: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst". And in a situation involving imploding boxes and high end hardware (I know you aren't planning to put your HW in there straight away, but still) then I reckon a few backup plans couldn't hurt.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
making the setup designed so that the computer components can be upgraded without having to destroy the current setup, this has been a pondering thought since I started this project. there is no easy way to do it, so I have decided to use couplers on the water in line and the water out line inside the ice chest. I will have to bend both of the lines in such a way that the couplers can be gotten to and undone. I will most likely have to remake the copper lines, for inside the ice chest each time I upgrade the system. its not the best way, but I cant really see any other way around it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If you use SharkBite fittings on copper tubing, you can use pliers (or their special tool) to pull the sleeve back to disconnect without destroying the copper or the fitting. This should also work for PEX tubing, as well as I think they use similar fittings.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
yes, I am hoping that I can save the sections of tubing that go in and out of the ice chest by using the couplers. the reason that I think I will have to remake the connecting lines to the water blocks is because, every water block manufacture seems to think that there in and out holes for there water blocks, should be in a different place than the other guys, and it seems that every different motherboard wants there video cards placed into different slots, when going SLI. so I will most likely need to remake the connecting lines to the hardware water blocks because of this. unless I get really lucky, I will hope for that but I wont count on it.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ok, so I think I make this look easier than it is, but still it will take me a few days to finish the frame for the fan controllers.
I have made it large enough for one more fan controller, just incase I need one more, if I do, I will get a 6 channel 30W per channel fan controller.
one might have noticed, that I have made the frame for the TEC assemble larger than necessary as well, this to was done, just in case I need it later for adding more TEC's to the build. Its not that I want to have to add anything to the build, but I don't want to remake all of my frames either, incase I have to.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
ok so the power supplies frames are going to be a three high stack of the travel trailer power supplies, or the TEC power supplies, they will be all right next to the 10AWG wire trunk line. I will cut and fit all the power lines for these power supplies and all the power wires for the PC power supply, for the fans and pumps.
after I finish these frames I am hoping that I will have all the CPU blocks polished by then, and I can finish the TEC assembly.
I still have some little things that I am working on like a support for the fill and drain assembly on the hot side water loop the temp sensor and flow meter are part of this assembly. I am also working on the support for the cold side displays of the flow rate and water temp. there are a lot of little thing that go into a build like this that I really did not for see until I really got into the build.


 
Upvote 0 Downvote
well I do really like the convenience that using a table top has been, now any thing could work, like thick ply wood, a bench top, counter top, even a good shelf. it is nice to be able to attach every thing to a solid bottom, I got one thick enough that I could use screws as the means of doing so. with thinner material bolts and nuts might have been necessary to secure all the hardware to the base.
so the table top will be on top of a plastic table, and I have a little desk for the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and what not, that will sit right next to it. as a friend stated, the build is starting to look like a small city.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
so as for the ability to control this rig I have the fan controllers, three switches one for each TEC, and two 1/4 turn valves, with these I hope that I can find a good balanced setting for the rig, so that the system wont get to cold at idol, and will still stay cool at load.
with the 1/4 turn valves I can slow the hot side water loop or even drop the system to 3 X 360mm radiators, the fan controllers allow me to change my fan speeds or even turn all of them off.
with the switches and the way that I have the water blocks designed as a parallel connection, the system with one TEC on, only 1/3 of the water is getting cooled, with two TEC's on, 2/3's of the water is getting cooled, and with all three TEC's on, all of the water is getting cooled.
with all of this ability to alter the hot side effectiveness, and the ability to lower the TEC output to the cold side, I will have lots of tinker time playing with this rig trying to figure what settings will work best for the system.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
well I have 4 of the CPU water blocks done, I only have two left to do now, still working on the PS frames so its all good.
I will take a pic of the TEC assembly before I cover it in clay, still working on the stand for the hot side fill and drain assembly, as well I am still working on the frames for the cold side displays. so yea, still a lot of work to do, but its getting there slow and steady.
I am still sealing all of the cold side connections with RTV sealant. as I finish each CPU block, I take it apart, and add the RTV sealant to the rubber gasket that is inside the CPU block. I have all new O-rings for the cold side, and I will use RTV sealant on all of the connections and O-rings for them, to keep the cold side of the system from leaking at low temps. I am not so worried about the hot side leaking, because the temps on the hot side should be within the normal range of temps, for a normal water cooling loop. so when I finish the TEC assembly the rest of the build should be complete as far as the frames, and I should be ready to start on the ice chest to get it completed, and with that, I will start to vacuum the ice chest down, and plug any leaks that may be in the ice chest, once it can hold a vacuum, I can began the drying process for the vacuum chamber. if all goes well, this system will start up, and I can start the process of learning how this system runs, and finding a good balanced setting for the rig.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom