Water Cooled Power Supply

lmd writes "Digital-Explosion has an article with step-by-step instructions on how to cool a power supply with water (yes, water) instead of fans/heatsinks to make it quieter. Please read the warning and disclaimer (and buy insurance if you don't have any) if you decide to try this at home."

Comments

Toilet-Water CPU (and PSU) Cooler

[BigBlockMopar]

Here's a thought I had, but probably will never get around to building.

Lots of people go to the expense and effort of building/buying radiators or using large tanks of water as the heatsink for their water-based CPU cooler systems.

Last year, I started measuring the temperature of the water in my toilet tank. After a flush, it drops to 5-6 degrees Celsius. Between flushes, it gradually reaches room temperature, of course, but this is still no worse than a radiator or bucket. In practice, however, it never actually gets above about 10C (while room temperature is about 20C).

In other words, it's a supply of cold water which you were going to simply flush away.

Place a small bucket inside the toilet tank. Put a submersible pump in there, run the water to the CPU coolers, bring the water back and drain it over the bucket in the tank.

Everytime you flush the 6 beers you went through while flaming me for my Linux isn't ready for the desktop article, you can rest assured that the water which cools your CPU is being replaced with fresh, cold water. No mold, no mildew.

The purpose of putting the pump in the bucket is so that there's always a supply of water for the pump, even during the flush. And the purpose of draining the return line over the bucket is so that if your toilet tank doesn't refill for some reason, you'll still keep your bucket full of water and buy some time for hardware monitors to shut the system down if it's getting too warm.

I don't know how hot the water in the toilet will get, but think about this:

• The bucket full of water in the toilet tank is replaced during each flush but isn't actually available for a flush. You'll save water.
• You'll be removing the CPU-heated water from the house and will therefore reduce the load on your air conditioning system.
• You get to piss on the scourge of the overclocker, that excess CPU heat.
• Warming liquids enhances their ability to dissolve things, including ...dark matter. You might have to clean the toilet less often.

Of course, the only thing I'd worry about is the quality of the submersible pump. After all, if water leaked into the pump, then the water in the toilet could come into contact with one side of the AC line... the other side of which is grounded to your fusebox. If you happened to touch another grounded object while urinating (concrete floor, sink faucet, etc), then enough current could find that your stream of urine and urethral tissues are a more attractive ground path than the plastic sewer pipe. I think I'd invest in an isolation transformer (search ebay) to reduce the risk of highly ...unpleasant... damage.

I think if one were pumping water through tubes soldered to the heatsinks of their power supply, the risks would be compounded, conceivably by a failure on the primary side of the power supply: I think I'd make a point of running the computer on an isolation transformer as well.

Ahh... the joys of being an eccentric genius.

Cool & quiet power supplies?

[TeknoHog]

Laptops usually have small and cool (no fans) power supplies. Why should desktops be much different? I understand desktop drives take a little more oomph, but then again you have more space for the PSU than a tiny laptop adapter, i.e. space for heat sinks.

Makes me wonder if desktops still have huge transformers at 50Hz instead of the modern switching type. We do live in the 2000s, the space age once dreamed of, you know. I fancy getting a mini-itx system some day, but only if I could use a laptop style, totally quiet PSU. I mean, PSUs are supposed to convert energy, not dissipate it, or what?

Then again, fans are not that bad compared to the sound from IBM hard drives...

Liquid Mercury Cooling Systems

[BigBlockMopar]

I'm not too sure liquid sodium is the best choice to cool your computer, since sodium melts at 208 degrees F (98 C). Besides, when you first boot up the computer, you'd have to have special heaters installed just to melt the sodium and get it moving! But, you know, in the end, I know you were being facetious. Nice job.

I want to run mercury through my cooling system. I've got a couple of pounds of it, and it would certainly absorb heat more readily than water.

But just one drop of mercury inside your computer and it's finished.

Maybe could use gallium with small heaters?

Re:Liquid Mercury Cooling Systems

[BigBlockMopar]

I'm glad you indicate your own realization that mercury is a dangerous choice for cooling system, or I'd say you've been drinking all that mercury you say you own.

Drinking it? No. I've probably breathed a little more vapor over the years than would be considered healthy.

Note the origins of the term "mad as a hatter" are from the days when hat-makers would use mercury to help shape the felt; the long-term exposure had interesting effects on rational thought and normal behavior.

Note also that I once put a Chevette engine onto a snowblower.

Interestingly enough, back when fast breeder reactors were still being considered as viable nuclear power sources in the US, there were proposed designs involving mercury cooling. Talk about unpolitical.

But I'm sure it would be an effective cooling system.

Re:Liquid Mercury Cooling Systems

[Idarubicin]

Actually... they lined their hats with lead, not mercury. But I'm sure it would have had the same effect.

The felt used in Victorian-era hats was treated with mercury salts to make it easier with which to work. Whether this is the actual origin of the phrase "mad as a hatter" is debated, but it was definitely mercury compounds that caused hatters' neurological problems.

Re:Liquid Mercury Cooling Systems

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

Actualy my thermo book in the part on steam turbines has a bit on a power plant, I belive in NH, (don't feel like looking up) that had a steam power plant that used mercury for the loop. Not sure is it was a mix of mercury and water though. Had to be rough on the turbine, and very bad if you sprung a leak. Also a cold day could suck, if you think freezing water pipes sucks, how bout this one.

Re:Digital Fireworks Display, one way or another.

[JKR]

...why not simply take advantage of them as an easy surface to which to attach cooling tubes. Most power supplies I've opened, I could solder copper tubing to the heatsinks fairly easily.

Hmmm. Soldering copper to aluminium is not immediately trivial - ordinary 60/40 lead/tin solder won't wet aluminium, you need special (silver-loaded?) solder which is much more expensive and uses pretty nasty flux chemicals.

Even then, you'll have increased the thermal resistance of the joint significantly. I'd be tempted to try a solid block of copper with a hole drilled lengthwise and copper tubing soldered (actually I'd braze it - much stronger)to the outside faces. Then use mica washers / thermal paste as usual.

...then run the power supply from a Ground-Fault Interruptor (GFI) receptacle like you'd find in a bathroom.

Be aware that domestic GFI plugs (also known as earth leakage or RCD trips) often don't trip until the current difference is ~ 30mA; typical tap water has a resistivity in the range 1 - 10 kOhm.cm, so at 120V, a few cm of insulated piping might stop the breaker tripping.

Jon.

Any Material Scientists out there?

[jrpascucci]

I'm curious: are there any materials out there with the following properties, which would make them suitable for use in this context?

1) High Thermal Conductivity

2) Very high electrical Resistance (insulators)

3) Fluid at ~0-200 degrees C

If there are no suitable fluids, perhaps merely a powdered solid would be workable

4) Low chemical reactivity - not poisonous or corrosive.

I envision a change in packaging where the

1) silicon wafer is mounted on a stand-off inside a thin composite, mostly electrically insulated 'tube' (see 2), so that a fluid as above could entirely bathe the chip

2) the connections of the chip connect to discrete contact points (possibly in three dimensions) which are conductors through the tube to the outside, which are the 'pins' of the IC.

3) Fluid is constantly pumped through the package, going to a (variously sized) 'vat' of fluid: once the heat is away from the pinpoint source, it is very much easier to cool.

-J

Re:A little feedback for you all...

[herrd0kt0r]

herr g33k here demonstrates the level of g33kness we should all aspire to.

and i'm not insulting him. with a ton of up-and-coming geeks, it's nice to see a modicum of safety exhibited. in this case, he actually used a multimeter (!) to check the capacitors (!) to save himself from being fried while modding his computer (!).

it's the same with cars: ricers deck out their cars with 32987543289 amps of tasty goodness, but fail to demonstrate any level of foundational knowledge. which isn't to say that there are 32987543288 geeks frying themselves out of every 32987543289 geeks.

what i'm saying is that the pinnacle of geekdom lies in the studying everything. not just where you can go, but where you should have been.

and thusly, you can prevent yourself from sizzling the tender slushy organ known as the brain.

i think that this message should be drilled into the heads of all future nerds. i would sincerely hate to see future slashdot stories like:

- GEEK FRIES SELF MODDING POWER SUPPLY or
- DO NOT MOUTH PIPETTE BATTERY FLUID or
- "I TRIED TO OVERCLOCK MY WALL OUTLET WITH MY TONGUE AND _LIVED_!"

safety first. discharge static electricity before doing your work. test your circuits. and always, ALWAYS wear a cup.