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Hi,

I'm pretty psyched about using water cooling for my next rig. To make things quieter, I am thinking of putting my radiator inside a bucket of water.

I see several advantages:
-separate water running inside system and water evaporating outside (can use different additives in each subsystem -> one to reduce water tension, one to reduce bacteria without evaporating)
-if the outside water evaporates completely, you still get some pretty effective cooling (essentially what you would have from the radiator without a fan - as long as it stayed clean and the radiator was held above the bottom of the bucket)
-quiet (no 120" fans)
-better cooling (?)

disadvantages:
-the bucket + filling the bucket
-knocking the bucket over...

Variants
-Feng Shui bucket? It would be pretty cool if I could hide the radiator in some kind of Feng Shui rig. I imagine the cooling would be better (and the evaporation faster, unfortunately) when the Feng Shui pump was on.

Has anyone tried any of this?

Thanks,

alpha

Even better would be to put the radiator into the resivoir of a bong cooler. The radiator could then be nothing more than plain aluminum coils and you get the advantage of good themal exchange (water-aluminum-water) and quiet, efficent cooling from the bong.

Even better would be to water cool two different systems and then stick a big tank 6 feet underground for them

Damn, forgot the link though

Anyways, I don't really see the point of putting the radiator into a bucket. You're increasing the number of surfaces the heat has to transfer through and so decreasing heat conductivity. Why not just get a REALLY big radiator?

Besides, kicking the bucket over would be too easy ,
IntelMole

IntelMole wrote:

Anyways, I don't really see the point of putting the radiator into a bucket. You're increasing the number of surfaces the heat has to transfer through and so decreasing heat conductivity. Why not just get a REALLY big radiator?

Besides, kicking the bucket over would be too easy :-),
IntelMole

The advantage is that water evaporation will cool the radiator better than free flowing air could (I think). Since the objective is for silence, I can see that a bigger radiator might be equivalent, but I really think that water evaporation would be better. You can ~refrigerate food outdoors by putting it in water (as long as it is in the shade and the container is completely open).

I see myself kicking the bucket, though.

alpha

Another bad point is that you would have to change/add ice to the water after a while, because eventually the water temp in the bucket would get to be the same as the water temp in your system.

Anyway once the water temp in the bucket has become warmer then the air temp I think you'll lose any cooling benefit you might gain from this.

Vrock wrote:

Another bad point is that you would have to change/add ice to the water after a while, because eventually the water temp in the bucket would get to be the same as the water temp in your system.

Anyway once the water temp in the bucket has become warmer then the air temp I think you'll lose any cooling benefit you might gain from this.

no no no! You guys (grlz) aren't getting it. If the water in the bucket can evaporate, it will (potentially) cool the water below room temperature, and certainly work better than a radiator could. Evaporation removes an enormous amount of heat from the water.

I say 'potentially' because there are factors at play:
-the humidity in the air (very high humidity and there won't be any evaporation) --> the cooling might be worse than a radiator at this point because air is hydrophobic
(I live in California, which has a dry climate)

-the rate of heating (heating the water a lot will keep it above room temperature). HOWEVER: at higher temps the rate of evaporation will be much higher. (You are guaranteed never to go above 100C :P)

This solution is no different than the bong approach. The variations on the bong all had to do with the rate of evaporation: the experimenters could cool their system better if the water was made to evaporate faster, but they had to balance it against losing too much water.

The bucket approach is the bong without active evaporation. Although the cooling is not quite as powerful, the water lasts longer, and the computer's components are unlikely to overheat if all the water evaporates.

alpha

Vrock, I can't really see that happening. Sure the water would heat up a bit, but I'm don't think it would ever become so warm that it hinders the heat loss... else you would see this problem in water cooling tech today...

I also doubt there would be that much evapouration, in order to increase the temp of a kilo of water (which I'm sure is less than what is in a standard sized bucket) by one degree, you have to add 4182J of energy... Now, guestimating the power output of the CPU, GPU and Mainboard Northbridge to be about 100W total, that's still only going to raise the temperature of the kilo of water by about 1/40th of a degree per second, which I'm sure will be lost to the air...

However, due to natural fluctuations in temperature, the probability is that some water will still evapourate. Even if 6,000,000,000,000 particles were to evapourate per second, it's still going to take 1 x 10^10 seconds for ONE GRAMME to evapourate! That's 316 years, 321 days, 17 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds, are you seriously worried about that much evapouration?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I'd say evapouration is not a problem, or an advantage, just the natural heat capacity of water carried to a larger scale...

However, I'm not sure if you'd reach diminishing returns on this, just get a small bucket of water and put it in there...
IntelMole

Vrock, I can't really see that happening. Sure the water would heat up a bit, but I'm don't think it would ever become so warm that it hinders the heat loss... else you would see this problem in water cooling tech today...

It could happen in some cases, if he left his computer on 24/7 and if the bucket was small enough. Remember there is nothing cooling the water in the bucket-other than normal passive heat dissipation. Early DIY watercooling setups w/o radiators had similar problems where the water became very warm and had to be cooled. All I'm saying is that by immersing the radiator in a water bucket, the water is going to heat up. I don't believe the rate of heat dissipation from the water bucket to the air is fast enough to maintain a constant temp.

If the water in the bucket can evaporate, it will (potentially) cool the water below room temperature, and certainly work better than a radiator could.

And if pigs had wings they could fly Seriously, as for the evaporation theory, I agree....but I really doubt you'll have quite that much evaporation indoors in your computer room. Stick with a fan cooling the radiator.

Remember there is nothing cooling the water in the bucket-other than normal passive heat dissipation.

How do you think your body keeps cool? It's not from heat dissipation due to contact with air: it's thanks to a process called 'evaporation'. You think your puny radiator and fan can beat mother nature?!

Have you ever noticed how quickly a bathtub full of super-hot water cools down? Did you think it was because of contact with air? If you keep the bathroom door closed (and once the air becomes saturated with humidity), you might have noticed that the water stays hot. I wonder how fast the fan on your radiator would have to spin to cool that water down?

Anyhow, rather than beat my head against a wall, how about this:

Put the radiator in an aquarium and use it to heat the water!!!

I'm all shook up!

if you live here I do you can just simple place the radiator outside and it will cool off quickly as it is cold out here

It's been a while since I took a highschool physics course but I'll give it a try.

Evaporation becomes a very significant factor in keeping water at a stable temperature but only at the boiling point. So if I heat water on a stove in a pan, the water will continue to heat up until it reaches the boiling point. As the water is heated the rate of evaporation also increases. Once the water reaches the boiling point, evaporation will cause the water to boil. At that point the rate of heat loss from evaporation will equal the amonut of heat added into the pan by the stove and your water will be at a stable temperature--212F or 100C under nomal conditions.

100C is too hot for a chip. Only lowering the air pressure will lower the boiling point. If you don't do this the chip will continue to heat the water and the rate of evaporation will not be enough to cool it. If you want to keep your chip to a reasonable temperature like 50C, you would have to lower the air pressure in your room to from a normal 760mmHg to 100mmHg. Assuming you could maintain that pressure and still BREATHE that would make for a very efficient theoritical cooing system.

Trust me. It would be much easier just to use a fan.

Evaporation ISN'T strong enough to make a difference at normal temperatures. If you put your radiator in a simple bucket of say about a half a gallon of water, your computer will continue to heat up and eventually your chip will overheat. If you don't believe it, try it and tell us what happens.

If you are dead set against a radiator fan, I would use a HUGE tank of 20-40 gallons of water. Or maybe rig something to pump water too and from an outdoor swimming pool. I'm sure that would work. The convection currents in the water would keep the system cool and stable. I would use that myself if I had the space.

Here's what I plan to do some day when I have time: Use one of those small refrigerators($60) and place the radiator in the freezer compartment(antifreeze in radiator if necessary, but with good circulation I doubt I'll need it). Cool proc, cold beer! Yea!

alphaGulp wrote:

Put the radiator in an aquarium and use it to heat the water!!!

Well yer, but you'd risk killing all the fish.

This regularly happens when factories pump warm water in lakes, they heat the water by as little as five degrees. This causes air to be less soluble in the water, so all of the fish start to asphyxiate (hope I've spelt that one right).

Oh well, poor fishies ,
IntelMole

IntelMole wrote:

Well yer, but you'd risk killing all the fish.

This regularly happens when factories pump warm water in lakes, they heat the water by as little as five degrees. This causes air to be less soluble in the water, so all of the fish start to asphyxiate.

Just the opposite happens around here. A large power plant or factory the uses river water or sea water for cooling tends to create its own habitat that supports warm-water species through the winter. When a local 125+ yr-old paper mill closed down, they had to keep the steam plant running to maintain the warm water winter habitat for a group of non-migrating endangered manatees. Large power plants in Florida also seem to create prime manatee habitat.