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Oil-Cooling 802.11 Infrastructure

Posted by timothy on from the unusual-means-admirable-end dept.

gomoX writes "A group of 802.11b fans in Tordera, Spain, are running a wireless node on the roof of a building, with the idea of a free wireless network for everyone on the neighbourhood. Its a system running linux with a home made can antenna, mounted on a plastic tool box in the roof. To keep it cool under the sun and protect it from rain, wind, they have immersed it into vegetable oil (yes, the whole thing). As oil is non-conductive, everything should run fine. The site is in Spanish, here is the google translation and the google cache."

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:One Problem... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not that it retains heat, it conducts heat very well. Diesel would be better, as it's less likely to go "off" and smell, and it has a higher flashpoint.

  2. Actually oil makes it water proof by aduchate · · Score: 5, Informative

    The reason why they used oil is first to avoid the whole thing to get drowned. They reckon that it will avoid condensation water to fry the motherboard... How paradoxal.

  3. Wrong wrong wrong... by TheHawke · · Score: 5, Informative

    They are using the wrong type of oil for their project! For starts the oil is organic and will spoil, making things messy. Veggie oil is, in the family of fluidic heat conductors, a poor performer.

    What they can use and is readily available at any store that sells Amateur radio gear or wholesale electrical supplies is transformer oil..
    It's actually designed to be used in what the RF techs call dummy loads to conduct the heat away from the resistor banks that absorb the RF energy when they test transmitters. The stuff's most commonly used to wick away heat from electrial transformers, both at substations and the transformers hanging on the poles that supply 240 Volt AC to your home.

    One COULD try to build a oil-cooling system on a custom PC, but the heat removal would not be as good as glycol/alchohol/water cooled system.

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
  4. Re:Watch that transformer oil! by TheHawke · · Score: 3, Informative

    FYI, for those that are wondering where to get this wonderfluid at..
    Try here

    http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodi d= MFJ-21

    They sell it by the gallon and its pricey, but its the real mccoy.

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.