What is it?

[Daniel Johnson]

Can someone please explain to me what is a plate heat exchanger and how/where they are used in a liquid cooling system loop?
Exhibit A: Koolance Plate Heat Exchanger

Thanks so much

 

[Seoulja615]

Are you talking about the heatsink?

 

[Daniel Johnson]

Are you talking about the heatsink?

do you see the link? I don't see a heatsink on it

 

[getochkn]

http://www.overclock.net/t/668278/koolance-hxp-193-plate-heat-exchanger

lots of discussion on it.

 

[lunyone]

So the part you linked is used to cool just about any liquid with another type of liquid. So it is like having cold water plugged into the heat exchanger and your special cooling liquid into your cooling loop of your CPU/GPU/etc. that you want to cool. We use this type of thing at work, but use different kinds of liquids to cool down specific parts.

It is like you run cold water into the heat exchanger AND your specific cooling liquid into to the heat exchanger too. I'm not sure if I explained it better or not, but that is the easiest way for me to.

 

[Eximo]

I didn't know they sold those for PCs.

Very common part in heat pumps (AC/Heater), and is very similar to a car's 'heater core'.

Car: The heater core has the Engine coolant on one side, and the AC radiator on the other side. Using the thermal difference you can control the climate inside the vehicle.
Heat Pump: A set of valves is added to essentially an air conditioner. AC units cool the inside of a house be exchanging heat with the outside air, heating the outside. The valves allow the reverse. Heating the inside of the house by cooling the outside air.

As lunyone said it is a two way exchanger used to chill or heat. In the case of computer liquid cooling you would use it to cool your coolant. So if you pumped a refrigerated liquid through one side and the 'warm' coolant from your PC you could effectively chill your entire loop.

 

[getochkn]

I could see it being useful in a chilled loop. If you are running below ambient chilled coolant, it can create condensation on anything the cold liquid comes into contact with a hot surface and condensation is bad in a PC.

With this, the cold coolant could chill the hot water without direct contact.

 

[Daniel Johnson]

I could see it being useful in a chilled loop. If you are running below ambient chilled coolant, it can create condensation on anything the cold liquid comes into contact with a hot surface and condensation is bad in a PC.

With this, the cold coolant could chill the hot water without direct contact.

Well, I am trying to get near zero temps or at least below ambient, maybe around 10-15C. I plan on having a dual loop as seen below using 1/2" ID x 5/8" OD copper tubing that I am going to nickel-plate myself:

CPU Heat Exhaust--5/8"-->Pump #1--5/8"-->360mm Radiator #1--5/8"-->GPU Heat Exhaust--5/8"-->360mm Radiator #2--5/8"-->TEC Peltier Cooled Reservoir--5/8"-->Pump #2--5/8"-->CPU Heat Exhaust

As you can see, I've planned on using 4, 245W Peltiers creating 980 watts to cool the reservoir's coolant, since the CPU and 4 Titan X GPUs create a total TDP of 1140 Watts.
So the way I figure it, the CPU and GPUs heat will be pretty much negated, because once the dual 480mm(Length) x 63mm(Thickness) copper finned radiators with 4, 120 mm fans on each remove a lot, if not all, of the system's heat, then the somewhat cooled liquid goes into the reservoir for extra cooling.

For those of you wondering, I plan on cutting a hole in the reservoir (it's a dual bay, pretty big), then placing a copper heat sink onto it with the fins facing inward, screwing that onto the res, and then placing the 4 peltiers (cooling side toward res) between that heat sink and another (heated side) which will be air cooled by the radiator fans. And none of this cooling system will be inside the main case, except the tubes and fitting that have to in order to make the connections. This should help prevent thermal mixing from the case into the cooling system as much as possible. Also, the nickel plating will reduce the amount of heat absorbed by the tubes, as nickel has a much lower thermal conductivity than copper.

And I do realize condensation will be a problem, but I will be handling that in a way to protect the components from any water damage

Yes, I know that's a lot to read and understand, but I want to make sure you have all of the information.

Now... I'm wondering if adding this plate heat exchanger into my current loop somewhere would allow for even lower temps or not.
And if it would, where would you all recommend me placing it in the system? Wouldn't I need to add another seperate line of cooled liquid from somewhere in order for me to use it?

Thanks

 

[computertech82]

It allows 2 different liquids to be used. One to cool the device, the other is to cool the other liquid. A overkill for a cpu, really.