Modding First Mod: Bubble tower water cooling (lots of pics)

Hey, just finnished my first mod (with help from my old man ). Basically my old coolriver water cooling was very poor so i ripped it apart and added one of those bubble towers that were all the rage at one time!

Here it is!









Uses a Koi fish pond pump i got off ebay 240v 1000L/h with a head of 1.6 meters









Theres a drain at the lowest point so it can be emptied


Also the rad is cooled by a 120mm fan


A quick video thats to bright in places, to dark in places but you get the idea

Video!!

My temps have droped from 60 idle 66 load to 40 idle 45 load!

at the minute im overclocking to near my procs max ( 2552Mhz with 11x232 ) atm running 2530 with 11x230 @ 50~55C.

Im a bit dissapointed with the overclocking on this chip only 350Mhz+ in it with 10%+ volts



let us know what you think!

 

Bong cooling.

Actually, that type of cooling is used comercially from what I have heard.

Also, the ball on the top, what is it (material)?

 

Hey the ball on top is plastic and hollow. Forgot to say the liquid is water + antifreeze (none methanol)

 

cool. you should get some of those plastic fish out of a bubble tower and put some in.
oh and thats an amazing idea. i wounder if i could put my old bubble tower to some new use

 

Few points-
-How bout dusting in your case!

-House the pump in your case somwhere, and rout the wires through a spare pci slot.

-Seal the top of that tube and fill it so its air tight....air bubbles in your system will significantly shorten the life span of your parts and allow nasties like algi in.

-Dont use anti freeze and normal water! Goto your local garge get a big bottle of ionised/distilled water for about 50p/litre and mix it with a little real watercooling addative, and a drop of bleech..this will improve your temprature by as much as 5c and antifreeze actually raised them a little.



otherwise, very nice job. Love the tube spirallign around the tower.

 

Ha yeah i tried the fish but they either got stuck at the top and bottom didnt stay in the middle I was so upset!

Im really happy with it ans was majorly impressed with the ~20c temp drop!

Still peed off with my overclock tho

 

Yeah i should i know

The pump vibrated like a Bi**h and there is very little room TBH so i dont think its gonna end up inside (will plumb it through the side pannel at some point)

TBH the air dosnt flow round the system as the pump in is connected under the tube making it only suck in water, and as far as i know algi doesnt like antifreeze!

Will look into this cheers! (although isnt bleach corrosive to copper and stainless?)

 

Hey only 3 comments with 160 views a bit harsh? No one else like it?

 

nope you lack .........

You need some neons and cable braide look better.

 

ha ha pimp my computer not into making my comp look like blackpool illuminations plus im not after and comp beauty prizes it was only really the tower water cooling mod i was showing

 

i like it it think the tower "needs" somthing though, like some fake fish in it or somthing, part from that, it looks good

 

Its a buble tower right? add an air pump for bubles then!

And I think you should replace that PSU with something better... Qtec isn't really an A-grade brand.
Very high chance of failing, unreliable (fluctuating) power rails and it'll never output the power it's rated to do (if you get to about 60% of max rated capacity it will start smoking!)

 

Hey cheers, i might try weighing the fish down and putting them on invisible nylon to get them floating (as mentioned above they sink or float)

McKaamos - I would have loved having the bubbles but i had to re-drill the air inlet in the bottem to take the 10mm tubing back to the pump so cannot get another hole in the bottem eaily for the air pump to bubble through it unless you can think of a way?

 

Maybe if you don't want another hole in the bottom, use a small 3 mm inner diameter silicone tube going down the inside and coiled around in the bottom with holes drilled in it to release bubbles all over, and house the little air pump inside the plastic ball

 

A note--yeah, bleach reacts quite nastily with some metals. Nastier yet, when it does react, it produces Chlorine gas, which has all sorts of bad side effects when you breath it. Luckily, a drop or two, as suggested, will not react significantly with any metal (though it might be better to go without anyway), and the chlorine gas it puts off will be so minimal that it will have absolutely no effects on you.

 

I like it!!! very unique

 

Hey, Its still working great. I havent bothered with the bubbles as i think that wll just add extra noise. At the min it seems happy on water + antifreeze so untill i get a prob i think im gonna stay with that

Cheers guys

 

Replace your Evil Qtec PSU... they have a nasty habit of going Bang, and taking components (And in a few cases, entire houses) down with them...

 

nice mod were did u get the clear acyrilic pipe from?? i wanna try this mod out

 

Hey cheers will sort my self out a powersupply cheers

The tube was a bubble column that i had lying about (similar to http://www.salinesolutions.net/BubbleWalls/BubbleColumnsPicturesONE.html ) I have also seen them at boot sales too. You can pick them up pretty cheap ive seen the bigger ones (5ft) for £7-£8 at boot sales!