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Water Cooling Computers With A Swimming Pool
guzugi writes "This is a project I have been working for several months and been hypothesizing for much longer. The basic idea is to shortcut the need for an air conditioner when cooling multiple computers. Swimming pool water is pumped into the house and through several waterblocks to effectively cool these hot machines. This greatly reduces noise cooling requirements."
It would also be a cheaper way to heat your pool in the winter and make your neighbors jealous!
Yeah, someone is gonna have to fill me in. How does one cool noise?
Because I always choose clorinated water to ensure the maximum corrosion in my computer's cooling system.
This is a very simple test with a bucket of water and a single water block. The water in the bucket reaches equilibrium at about 96 F and thus evaporates quite quickly.
If it works fine with a bucket, why do you have to use an entire swimming pool?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Did your build calculations and choice of materials reflect a liberal estimate of the amount of...erm...bodily fluids from nasty/lazy swimmers? I don't know what the effect of those fluids would be on lines meant to carry strictly water (or even strictly chlorinated pool water), but it's probably worth pondering. :)
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
This greatly reduces noise cooling requirements.
So, if it reduces "noise cooling requirements", this means that users are OK with having their computers run hotter and be noisier if they are cooled with swimming pool water? I don't see why.
(If you mean "cooling with swimming pool water is less noisy than cooling with fans", say so.)
Special care was taken to ensure the pump was located below water level. This will gurantee the pump can never run dry.
That is true, until all the water from the pool has made a one-way trip into your house thanks to a failure in the line. Of course, replacing a bad pump is the least of your worries at that point.
Once I had the idea to cool my computer with water from my tropical aquarium. Or, to put it the other way, heat my tropical aquarium with the heat generated by the computer. I didn't implement the project because the aquarium was nowhere near the computer, moving them closer together wasn't feasible, and I didn't feel like putting a hose through the living room just for this project. So this project is filed with the dozen of other cool projects to do later in life.
Turn it off. Right now.
Chlorine. Bird droppings. Leaves in the pool. Human sweat, with its high salt content. Algae heaven. That setup is going to provide very effective cooling for a couple of months before something corrodes through - and when it does, you will have a leak. Possibly a big leak - and a leak that will not stop flowing until the pool is empty, potentially enough water to flood your house.
I'd be inclined to talk to a chemist and/or a metallurgist about compatibility between the pool chemicals (chlorine, various hypochlorites, carbonates, bisulfates, etc.) and your waterblocks.
rj
Watch out for condensation if your coolant (swimming pool water) is colder than room temperature! You don't need crazy temp differentials to cool a CPU. If you pull water from outside, odds are it will be colder than the air around your water block. This can cause all sorts of problems. Room temperature water is even easier to deal with than cold water. If you are just looking for quiet operation rather than crazy overclocks, you won't need the pool.
Plan for a bit of condensation. Flip your motherboards around so if drops of water (*god forbid*) were to form, they drop away from the mainboard. Water from condensation tends to be pure enough that it won't short out your system as easy as one might think. Still... bad things can happen.
Also, you will want some sort of anti-crap mixed into your water, or you can get all sorts of funky growth. More of an issue for closed systems than water from a swimming pool (with all the CL, etc). Be sure your piping can handle that. I've seen folks use hose that did deteriorate over time. Not pretty. A clogged 'artery' on a heat sink will kill your system dead. Non-conductive anti-crap additive is a really good idea.
Lastly, if the water pump dies, everything else will die. Make sure you have some sort of kill switch so all your hardware shuts down if you lose water flow.
Check out the overclockers forums out there. While you don't need the extreme lower temperatures, a big radiator and large low RPM fan in another room make for a very quite office environment.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
With an air conditioner, you would cool the whole server room and maybe pump cold air directly through the raised floor to the computers. With swimming pool cooling, you would pipe water to the computers. Thermally, this is attractive but the plumbing could get ugly and expensive really fast. Running pipes is more expensive than running wires. Also, the pipes would have to be insulated or the heat from the computers would just re-radiate from the pipes indoors. You wouldn't hook the pool water directly through each computer. You would use heat exchangers. What a pain.
What I would do though is use a heat pump. It is like an air conditioner except that the heat goes into ground water (or pool water in your case) rather than the outside air. It is much more efficient than regular air conditioning and will save you money.
The pump is a Grundfos hot water recirculating pump. This type of pump is ideal because it is designed for continuous operation and has very small power requirements (~85 watts). This pump is not approved for outdoor use, so a waterproof box had to be constructed from sheet ABS plastic.
And here we have the first potential failure in the chain.
Putting it in 'a waterproof box' is not the same as using a pump designed for outdoor use. Condensation inside the box WILL kill it.
On a submarine we use water to cool 90% of our electronic equipment. Main difference we use fresh water and not chlorinated. Since it seems that your main supply and return lines are constructed of PVC which thats what the pools plumbing is made of you should have no problem. Im not sure about the copper piping and the effects of chlorine. I wouldn't think it would be a problem since alot of well water systems have copper lines and the water is slightly chlorinated. Guess thats just my two cents!
Wow, this is a really cool idea. Pun intended. I wonder how much it cost the guy to set up.
From TFA, it would seem that the authour wants to have a cheap way of cooling his system. 85W is a considerable cost. A lot of fans could be run with that amount, and "silent" fans thesedays are getting to be VERY quiet.
The use of two separate water systems to avoid corrosion and condensation in your computer. Use a real water-cooling system and let its water be cooled down by pool water without blending the liquids. A long metal pipe sinked in incoming pool water will do. This , of course , only makes sense if you have lots of computers in a room so that the air circulation in the room isn't sufficient to cool the radiators belonging to the water cooling systems.
I am far from an expert on this, but if I was to build a system like this I would keep the pool water out of the cooling system and just put some kind of radiator in the pool, that way you keep the water going into the piping and cooling systems clean and you still get the heat transferred into the pool like you want.
if by treating the pool as an infinite heat resevior... and with a fast enough flow, the computers would take on the temperature of the pool...assuming that you aren't running too much noninsulated tubing through the heated house, it should significantly cool better than any radiator you could install. the reaction of the chlorinated water on the water blocks shouldn't be significant...the pump used to overcome the hydraulic head must be powerful...and loud...so hopefully it is outside...and not the pool pump! the pressure head from the pool pump would unduely wear out any internal connections...and any small leak would reak havoc.
This is a neat idea, but as pointed out in other posts, there are some serious drawbacks as far as corrosion and other contaminants in the water. Have you considered using a heat exchanger? This would isolate you from pool water and you could fill the lines with clean water to avoid all of these issues.
When I was in the Navy, most of our critical systems, especially combat system computers, consoles, and the like, were water cooled. What the heck, we were generally surrounded by the stuff. Then again on a warship we had the plumbing, back-up systems, and the personnel to handle everything from routine maintenance to casualty repair. I'd hate to see the effects of an earthquake, pipe freeze/burst, or an electrical outage. Did this guy say he lives in California?
for you non-plumbing types:
graywater
blackwater
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Heat Exchanger
Just because you're using the pool as a heat sink doesn't mean you have to run the actual pool water through your computer.
Now, this guy doesn't seem to have caught on to that, but it's not a totally implausible solution. Keeping the heat in water, even through an exchanger, is still more efficient than trying to dump the heat directly to the air, at least until you build a radiator the size of your pool.
What if he gets a leak on one of his computers? It looks like from his set up that the whole pool could then be pumped into his computer room. Condensation will also be a problem if his pool is colder than his house.
..........FULL STOP.
very cool, similar to a groundwater heat pump for heating your home. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/heatpumps.h tml
To avoid the problems with chlorinated pool water corroding the waterblocks and other hardware, he really needs to install a water-to-water heat exchanger in the system. Pool water would run in the primary side of the exchanger, with distilled water or glycol on the computer side. A second circulating pump would also be needed.
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I did something similar with a large tank of tropical fish, the heat from the computer supplements that provided by the tank water heater. Note that this is a LARGE tank, about 3 foot x 2 foot x six foot in US measurements, don't try this with a smaller tank or you will have boiled fish for tea.
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
1. Two of the photos shows water piping (including hose connections) right above a set of power outlets. Any leakage here will guarantee a short.
2. I don't see any sensors that will shut off the pump and computers, should the circuit run dry. Water leaks in the house are messy.
That reminds me of a friend who was quite proud of his fanless water cooling solution which worked with several litres of water as heat dump in a container sitting under his desk.
When one of the main pipes got loose somehow, it not only fried some hardware, but majorely pissed of his landlord...
Problems:
The right way to do this is with a heat exchanger that is robust on the swimming-pool side and has conditioned water in a closed circuit on the other side. Requires two pumps, but has a change of working longer than a few (if that) months.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
About ten years ago or thereabouts, I watercooled a system by welding two pieces of copper tubing to a thin CPU-sized copper plate. I then used rubber tubing to run water from two buckets through the copper tubes. I used the siphon effect (one bucket high, one bucket low) and it worked fantastically well for a couple of hours (the CPU was at room temperature) until the water in the upper bucket ran out and I smelled something getting hot. Then I frantically moved the buckets around and got another couple of hours. I was impressed with how little water flow was required (I never bothered with a recirculating pump since it was just a way to kill an afternoon. I tried overclocking (a pain in the neck back then ... motherboard jumpers out the yin-yang) and did get an extra 20% or so, if I remember correctly. I think it only a P133 or something like that.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
One tiny flaw. Gate valves are shutoff valves. They offer pretty much no flow control whatsoever. If he wanted control, he should have used a globe valve.
I give the whole effort lots of geek points. However, I doubt very much the cost of the project is worth it.
Self awareness - try it!
I can't swim but now I have a reason to own a swimming pool.
Proof that Slashdot is only for cranks of the highest caliber.
As so many others pointed out, you absolutely don't want to pump that open (and unclean) water through the system.
Keep a closed system, with an simple reservoir / filling system. Pure water, with watter-wetter, or maybe even some safe antifreeze.
But the important thing here is, you don't need the pool! Liquid heat transfer is awesome, due to the efficeincy of heat transfer, but overkill.
You can easily get along with a long buried copper pipe around the yard(it doesn't even have to be below the frost line if you use some type of antifreeze - no need for automotive stuff either).
For that mattter, a decent length of copper coil on a transfer plate (aluminum for instance) exposed on a wall would be fine for even several gaming computers.
And a radiator just outside the domicile (or in the basement, etc) with or whithout a cooling fan is usually overkill.
We're talking about 500W/system, not 100HP!
I understand the desire to plumb in the pool water, since it's there, but this is clearly a case when doing it "better" would be easier.
- in my opinion.
As pointed out in TFA, the pool plumbing is connected at the skimmer level which only has the potential to drain the first 8 inches of pool water before the pick-up surfaces. Still, it would be more than a small damp patch if it leaked in the house.
I completely agree that running pool water through water blocks to cool computers is a Daft Idea(tm). A heat-exchanger linked in somewhere near the pool or one actually in the pool would be a better idea, preferrably with some ethylene glycol mixed in on the water-blocks side to avoid potential frozen and cracked pipes in the winters of colder climates.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
As everyone with a clue points out, he needs a heat exchanger in there somewhere.
Control Data, in Chippewa Falls, MN, used to use an outside water cooling loop which pumped warm water into the ground via one well, and pulled in cold water via another well. Ground temperature a few hundred feet down was relatively constant year round.
I once worked at a large industrial R&D center which had a sizable decorative pond with water spraying into the air in front of the building. This was actually a heat sink for the dummy loads on hydraulic transmissions. (The plant ran life cycle tests on units up to locomotive transmissions.)
But these were facilities that needed to dump tens of megawatts of heat. For a few hundred watts, it's silly.
Elemental chlorine is an acidic gas. If you use a solid to treat a pool, then the material is a chloride compound, and is basic. Isn't chemistry fun?
Locating the water pipes above the the computers is bad. He should have the computers and electricity elevated above the floor and cooling pipes. Looks like he's designed an empty swimming pool with the computers on the bottom.
recently did some renonvations including adding air exhaust and intake so i asked everyone from the coring guy, the ducting installers to numerous local established HVAC stores
the result - blank stares
in truth, modern homes all waste most heat simply due to lack of any effort on the part of anyone doing anything at all
personally, i'm ashamed of how poorly, as a society, that we're doing
Because I always choose clorinated water to ensure the maximum corrosion in my computer's cooling system
Believe it or not, there are pool chemical suites that do not use chlorine. For example, the one I use includes a very strong (90+%) hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizer.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
I had an idea a few summers ago. People tend to run their air conditioner in the summer, and often will run the pool heater while the a/c is running also. If you put a heat exchanger between the a/c and the pool heater, you could greatly reduce your power requirements just by using heat you're removing from your household air. Putting a heat exchanger between the a/c and water heater would probably reduce power requirements there, also.
Not only do you want to run non-distilled water through your computers, but you want to use heavily chlorinated pool water? You're using a continuous rated water pump, but one that's not rated for outdoor use? Below water level (of the pool)?
I was unaware that gold could corrode or cause corrosion; that's why it's used so heavily in jewelry to begin with? Could that in fact be the chlorine comming in contact with the aluminum, creating aluminum salts? Hopefully the first computer's water block doesn't completely fill with salt before the second one does. I pray you aren't running any sort of commercial hosting off those computers. Hopefully you have some serious filtration system for your intake.
If you're going to adjust the flow of the water to your computers, it's best if you have a Y valve before each computer so you can divert water around the computer rather than through it, giving you more control over each computer, and secondly, so you don't create extraneous pressure build up and causing your pump to overheat/die an early death.
moox. for a new generation.
My old university once cooled the main server room with water from the fountain outside the building....
Worked fine until a particular group of students decided that it would be great fun to make a big bubble bath out of the fountian... several gallons of 'joy' soap later, and the server room was overheating a bit, and the pumps were burning out.
Oh well...
Some people are only alive because it's illegal to kill them.
Give this guy a hand. He invented the swamp cooler...
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Running direct pool water of course isn't a great idea, i think it's been mentioned that one closed loop for the machines (ideally with pure water an anti-algae treatment, radiator fluid is actually has a lower heat transfer coefficient than pure water) running alongside another loop with pool water. Most pools already have pumps and filters, so the materials are already there. The main advantage to a pool setup would be the massive surface area of the pool compared to conventional radiators in watercooled PC's, which often require noisy fans. I'm curious about the math on just how many computeres it would take running (???) hot to heat up a 1600 cu.ft. pool just 1 degree. The biggest problem i foresee someone running into trying to implement a system like this is the distance from the pool to the PC. The usual pumps for watercooling are aquarium sized, and rarely intended to move water more than about 4 feet. Pool pumps are a bit more robust, and i'm not sure on the specs, so i will refrain from claiming anything there. All in all i think its a clever solution, you don't need a water-air heat exchanger for the PC (which are grossly inefficient, but are convenient) and you might save some money on heating the pool.
Like we use to say in Brazil:
"Just beat him with a dead cat until it meows."
Really, where is this guy located in the country? His page is at CMU.edu, which is in pennsylvania. If thats the case, then I suspect he probably won't run his pool year-round. And if you're not running the pool year-round, then what do you do with your now-overheating computers in December?
Only a fool would tool up to cool his rig with his pool, I mean what happens when the poor piping gets clogged up with bird poop, you can't peel it off like you can on windscreens you know! I pooh-pooh this stupid idea.
Maybe the Chlorine will help clean any virii on his computer...
Finally an effective strategy to load off all those worthless netburst processors! Intel heated swimming pools! Bet AMD didn't count on that one happening!
Why is copper in the pool not good? I have been using copper algaecide in my pool for years. Works great on algae, only drawback is the price.
I thought of going further for people who live next to a lake or the ocean, like Bill Gates. Then you could go sub-ambient. And yes, you would need insulation to prevent condensation. Server farms should locate next to large bodies of water to do this to save money and energy.
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put your CPU into a separate room.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
On the flipside, to get the Kb of Cl-, you simply take Kw divided by the Ka of HCl. Kw is 1e-14, so a really small number divided by a really big number is an even smaller number - showing that Cl- is effectively neutral.
What I think you guys are confused about is what they put into pools. The chlorine of choice nowadays is calcium hypochlorite - similar to sodium hypochlorite, found in stores as "bleach." (I use quotes because some bleaches aren't chlorine-based.) Hypochloric acid is a weak acid, which makes the hypochlorite ion a strong base. And a strong oxidizer. That's what will get your waterblocks eaten away.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
i had a room mate like this guy once. you'd have to go check on him every now and then to see what insane idea he was working on now. he would be in the back yard cutting trees down with a sawzall, or there was the high speed motorcycle driveway that had to be taken at at least 40mph, or the rocket skateboard, or...well, you get the point. he would be great friends with this guy. they are both some sort of mutant love child made by indiana jones and tim allen. i meant that in the nicest way possible.
I'm about 200 yards from the lake in Zurich (Switzerland) which is glacier fed. Even in full summer, solar heat makes it just about nice, not really warm). I must see if I can run some hoses :-)
Insert
I just have this "gut feel" that you could get away with something more reasonably sized.
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"This greatly reduces noise cooling requirements."
I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean? Is there such a thing as "noise cooling"?
to use the swimming pool water to cool the entire house than to use it to cool individual computers, set up the air conditioning so it dumps its heat into a heat exchanger with pool water pumped through it.
Or even (assuming moderate climate) to use the pool as a heat sink/source for heating / cooling the house.
Tech Public Policy stuff
All he really needs is an Athlon 64 or a Pentium 4. Those things can easily warm up a pool.
Right now I'm in a room with a single Athlon 64 (3200+). When it's on, the room temperature increases by about 8 degrees. I use a window ac-unit to offset the heat. Soon I'm going to get something that doesn't so damn hot.
You bought Exxon-Mobil's propaganda!
No, they're not giving prizes, sorry.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
They need to use their nuclear reactor in their swimming pool to both power and cool their computer.
Sounds like a great idea, but good luck getting the environmentalists onboard with it.
Also, trying to balance the flows to hundreds (if not thousands) of servers would be a pain in the butt - ask the average aqaurium store owner how much fun they have balancing the flows from their shop-wide filtration systems to about 30-40 tanks.
There was a company which had extreme requirements for having non-stop computing and as such, had dual mainframes, each with redundant separate power with dual generators, and everything duplicated. Now, these were real Big Iron, the kind that generated so much heat they had to be water cooled. Well, the company wanted to even be secure in the event municipal water supplies failed. But the city would not grant them a permit to install a water tank on top of their building to store the approximately 40,000 gallons of water they would have to ensure operations. However, there was no problem with the company installing a swimming pool on the roof...
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
The article suggests doing an air conditioning unit. What about things like the refrigerator and/or freezer? I know my freezer, in the garage, puts out a lot of heat. I'd imagine cooling the outside coils with the pool water would make them more efficient... and more heat for the pool!
Kind of like deep lake water cooling?
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Whassamatta you? You don' drink coffee??!?
It's a weak base, since it exists in solution with its conjugate acid. Sort of like how sodium acetate is added as a buffer for acetic acid in salt&vinegar chips. *crunch*
Like this?
You say you're cooling your computer with a swimming pool. I laugh at you. My heat sink is the PACIFIC OCEAN
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
"i stand on the edge of destruction" -shai hulud
It's just too useful a measure to abandon.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Very interesting idea, and many thanks for sharing your efforts and results with us here!
A Question: Have you checked with your Homeowner's Insurance Company about coverage in case of a leak? What extra rider(s) are required on your insurance policy? Better to find out now, beforehand, if there are holes in your coverage and what you can do to fill them.
An Anecdote: A relative removed a solar hot water heater from his home because of some continuing plumbing issues... and discovered he SAVED MONEY WITHOUT THE SOLAR HEATER. Apparently, the energy required to pump the water around was greater than the energy obtained from the heat exchanger on his roof.
An Observation: According to the article, water is pumped from the in-ground pool (From the looks of the pictures) up into the house's attic where the PCs are located.
A Suggestion: Move the PCs into a special area adjacent to the pool(*), and run cables up to the attic (or wherever) you want the display, keyboard, mice, etc. There are a wide variety of KVM (Keyboard, Video, and Mouse) switches. Some send information back and forth over ethernet cables -- "KVM over IP". Depending on the model, one can find support for speakers and/or other peripherals, too. (Or, just have a small, quiet machine in your attic and share it's devices over the network.)
For cooling, a simple heat exchanger between the (nearby) pool and the enclosure for the PCs should suffice. I *suspect* it could even work out to be a mostly PASSIVE arrangement by taking advantage of the fact that heat rises.
I saw no mention of the cost to purchase and install all the plumbing, but I can't help but suspect it was a significant amount. Then again, the KVMs and cables are not free, either. Given a choice, however, I'd *personally* feel A LOT SAFER knowing that I don't have a pool's worth of corrosive water being pumped THROUGH my PCs and poised to be pumped into my home's attic.
I'm looking forward to learning what changes you make to your system and would appreciate your posting them here.
(*) There seemed to be a goodly amount of space in the picture showing the installation of the new pump; the PCs could be located there. Or, construct a special Gazebo for your pool that happens to also have space for your PCs.
Electronics and water don't go well together. Anybody who water cools PCs knows that. But the difference here is that if anything goes wrong there's a risk of frazzling whoever's in the swimming pool. The world record for the lowest voltage to kill someone is less than 50 volts - far less than is usually necessary. If memory serves it is just over 30V, which you could easily find in a computer. OK - the rest of the piping should be earthed. But the guy doesn't seem to have considered the possibility of an electrocution hazard, let alone dealt with it. I would have thought it wise to check that the swimming pool was earthed properly, and run the computers through an RCD at the very least.
AC
i live in ukraine and so for all the winter months, from about october to april i put my pc on the balcony with entended cables for mouse/screen etc. coming back inside. its so cold there i can overclock and dont need any fans etc. so compleate silence and a faster computer. does mean i miss out on a swimming pool tho..
I don't know about you but I wouldn't try running sea water through thin pipes, especially when those pipes go into my computer. Tap water is bad enough already, salt water is just asking for a desaster.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Can you tell the name of the suite you use? Or give a link? 90+% is hard to believe
I goofed: it's actually 27.5% peroxide. I use the Bioguard products.
No idea where I got the 90% number. It must have been a seat-of-the-pants WAG based on how much that stuff *burns* when it gets on one's finger... Yeeouch.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
A swamp cooler relies on evaporating water to remove heat. What the article describes is a system that simply uses a swimming pool full of water as a massive heat sink.
The "bong coolers" that are used by some overclockers are much closer to a swamp cooler than this rig is
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You're saying the water in the pool isn't evaporating?
If so, it really wouldn't stay any cooler than the surrounding air for any decent period of time.
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I stopped using chlorine in our pool (sort of) and began adding a 50 kg bag of sea salt to the pool every 6 months (hence the 'sort of'). We had a system of electrolyses that cleaned the pool. The pool was less concentrated than sea water, did not sting your eyes when you swam in it, cost much less to maintain and never went green (contrasting the often occurrence of the greenies when we were using the chlorine compounds). Any idea what kind of issues this would cause to the system?
This type of pump is water cooled, which is why it cannot be allowed to run dry and it's typically cooled by water well above 70 deg Celcius.
Having the pump outdoors is exceedingly stupid though.
The entire setup is dangerous and poorly thought out as others have pointed out, so killing a pump or getting electricuted ("a GFI might be good thing") are probably two of the cheaper problems he is going to encounter.
Now, had it been me I would have used a very light oil on the computer side of the heat exchanger (placed in a hole near the pool) as the oil prevents corrosion and it doesn't conduct electricity so a minor spill would not kill any electronics.
It would probably be a good idea to run the oil loop at a slight vacuum and to have a sensor to shut down the oil pump and the machines if the vacuum disappears for some reason, to keep the damage in case of a leak to a minimum.
I just don't get your cowboy electrics, it must be the low mains voltage or something, because around here it would be unthinkable to have a residential power without a GFI.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
It's not cooler than the surrounding air.
Either you don't have a pool, or you just don't pay attention.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In a swamp cooler, the evaporation is an integral part of the operation. A scaled down version of the cooling towers seen at powerplants, etc. Water is sprayed out of something like a showerhead, and the mist created is cooled by a large volume of air being blown across it.
In the system described in the article, evaporation of the pool water has no significant effect on the cooling obtained. The amount of power being dumped into the pool isn't enough to significantly raise the temperature of the entire pool, which is simply acting as an approximation of an "infinite heat sink". The heat loss from the water into the concrete pool walls/earth would be far more significant than any cooling of the water from evaporation at the surface.
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Or, a pool stays at the mean ambient temperature, meaning it's cooler than that in the day and warmer at night, and all heat lost through evaporation is regained through insolation and heat conducted from the ground.
However, as water has a greater thermal mass than air, there needs to be a smaller temperature difference between it and the body for it to be comfortable. This means the pool needs to be at greater than the ambient air temperature, assuming that the air temperature is not uncomfortably high.
And no, I don't have a pool. They're not common in the UK.
If I'd had a pool, I'd really jump on this right away. Got to be one of the coolest uses of a swimming pool I've seen so far. An an eco-project to boot! Fantastic :)
The Zalman block thing interested me too, since I have a couple of those. Wish I knew exactly what the nature of the problem he was referring to is, since I don't have any trouble with mine at all.
Henning Same Shit (TM)
For the ubiquitous theme park fireworks and laser show of course. If you haven't seen lasers used as an entertainment medium, I strongly suggest you find your way to Canada or Germany for an "audience scanning" laser show. it's not quite lsd and not quite 3d holograms, but it is definitely somewhere between the two. US laser shows are okay, but they are pansies when it come to keeping people's retinas intact and won't let you do anything cool. Gotta go abroad to find a government where adults are allowed to take balanced risks in pursuit of happiness, or at least really cool beam effects!