Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Aquarium Full of Oil For PC Cooling

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the because-you-can dept.

JaredOfEuropa writes "Forget fancy watercooled CPUs or complicated heat pipes. Annoyed with the noise of the forced-air cooling in his computer, this guy simply dumped his entire motherboard in an aquarium filled with mineral oil. (coral cache). No modifications were necessary; he even left the fans running to keep the oil moving about. The only thing not submersed in oil is the hard disk."

4 of 597 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wow by kennyj449 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The reason that you can't submerge electrical parts in water is the simple fact that water is electronically conductive given the presence of electrolytes (which is so hard to guarantee against in practice, that you can rest assured that water is bad.) Many oils, however, are not electrically conductive. Therefore, as long as the medium used is electrically inert and does not chemically react with anything you're submerging in it, you can consider it a viable medium for immersion cooling assuming that heat transfer properties are favorable.

    This has been done before. Interestingly, some projects have looked to it for outdoor computer use (stationary) due to the water-repellant properties of many oils.

  2. Whatever floats your.... by the_rajah · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm an elevator Engineer. This reminds me of a very old residential elevator controller I saw recently that was installed in 1917 and still had all the original equipment in good working order. The controller was in a cast iron tub with all the relays mounted to the lid and suspended in transformer oil. There was a hoist in the ceiling to enable lifting the lid for access to the relays. It would cost a fortune to build something like that today, but it certainly was durable.

    --


    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
  3. Dielectric constant & high speed circuits by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm surprised that the PSU and all the cables (like speaker/CAT5) work at all, I feel so uneducated.

    Actually, I'd be more worried about the high-speed circuits in the machine. Oil does not conduct electricity, but that doesn't mean its electronically equivalent to air.

    Oil has a dielectric constant of between 2 and 3 (depends on the oil) and that will affect the capacitance on and between the traces of the circuit-board. The signals will run a little slower on the board and have a bit more cross-talk. Its probably not a big deal -- the materials in the circuit board have a bigger effect -- but it could slow the signals enough to reduce reliability in a marginal design.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  4. Re:In case of slashdotting by Yaztromo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    'd say the biggets problem with this is making sure the plastic in all the components is oil-compatible, i.e. doesn't degrade or dissolve. The bottoms of most shoes do, as anyone knows who stepped in a puddle of oil in a garage. So why not plastic used as structural material and insulation?

    Oil isn't even necessarily the best material to do this -- it's probably just the cheapest and easiest for a hobbiest to get hold of.

    Liquid Fluorocarbon does an excellent job. The Ontario Science Centre used to have a great display of an operating television completely submurged in a small vat of the stuff. And fluorocarbon is effectively a plastic itself, and thus is harmless to plastics (unlike many oils).

    Yaz.