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Planning Homemade Boreas experiment

Discussion in 'Modding' started by Tattysnuc, 22 Feb 2011.

  1. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    Hi everyone,

    First modd-ing project of sorts, and I've come unstuck at the first hurdle.

    I'm building my own BOREAS unit to take some of the heat out of my loop.

    The plan was to have 8 waterblocks with a 125W peltier sandwiched between each.

    One side of the water blocks would go to a large radiator to extract the heat generated by the hot side of the loop, the other side would go into the component water loop.

    Heat would be controlled by turning on and off any of the 4 peltiers.

    I managed to buy 8 copper water blocks, but have decided that I am only now going to use 4 of these. The plan has changed to have a cube of copper with small holes drilled through it from one face to the other. On the remaining 4 un-drilled surfaces I would mount the 4 peltiers, cold side facing down, hot side facing the water blocks. On the hot side I would then mount the 4 water blocks.

    Now, the problem I have is I cannot locate square section lumps of copper - would anyone know where I might be able to locate some?

    Anyone had any experience making stuff out of copper that they can pass any advice on?

    Cubes of Copper need to be 60-70mm^3. I need 2 to build the concept model.

    Many thanks

    Tatty
     
  2. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    I'll post up my sketch-up draft when I've finished it. I'm still learning how to use that bad boy, and it's taking me a while to get my somewhat exact model drawn up...
     
  3. asura

    asura jack of all trades

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    First thing's first... are you sure you mean 60-70mm3 as that's absolutely tiny, remembering that 1cm3=1000mm3 best to give us dimensions H*W*D I think you're planning a cube of 60-70mm per side which is 216,000-343,000mm3. But that's just me picking nits...

    These guys produce up to 70mm square rod... however I have a hunch they might not deal with you ;) You'll probably have to solder it together out of 3mm sheet... that's 19-24 solder joints depending on wether you go for a 60mm or 70mm cube, of-course you'd do them all at once in a kiln using silver solder. Or you could have it cast up for you by a professional company (don't try casting copper yourself, it doesn't play nice) none to recommend for that, though there are bound to be plenty of companies one goole away
     
  4. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    You're absolutely right - I was using shorthand notion to represent 60-70 mm in all 3 directions. I have been considering casting copper myself, but having watched a couple of vids on youtube, it looks like it may be cheaper and quicker to do it myself. That or do my prototyping in Aluminium, which is also good thermally, but only half as good as copper (approximately before you pull me up on that :) )

    I suppose the idea of the prototype is to confirm the functionality/principle. The machined copper cube could come later I guess once I have a proven concept, which I don't yet.

    Thanks for the prompt feedback - I'll have a look at another thought that I had on the matter involving some cheap old copper waterblocks I found on ebay...
     
  5. asura

    asura jack of all trades

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    Where you thinking of a manifold style of spreader, bit like this...

    [​IMG]

    ...but with internal veining (note I've inverted solid and void, so the hollow path for the water is the solid tube, and the cube that almost isn't there is the solid copper)?

    Or more along the lines of one long sinuous path...

    [​IMG]

    like so?

    Or having a manifold on the outside, and a load of holes drilled through the copper bar? Which could look really cool if you had your manifolds cast in acrylic and bolted onto the copper core..
     
  6. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    I was going with the "lots of small holes" principle where you have a cube with a circle of small holes drilled straight through the block, in a circular pattern.

    I'll post up pictures when I get chance to finish the concept. It's got to be simple to make otherwise it'll just offer too much resistance and limit/cause turbulent flow instead of laminar, and secondly, it'll be too difficult to manufacture.

    The key think is to cool the fluid so to offer as much material to draw away heat from the fluid. The length of the hole you've drawn in the second example looks really neat, but would be a nightmare to make, and could be replaced by a set of straight small holes in a compact formation which would give the same thermal characteristics, and be simpler to manufacture a prototype.

    Firstly, I'm going to see if 4 TECS is enough to have any effect of the cooling. This is pointless if they are not IN PRACTICE.

    Thanks for the feedback, even if you are showing off your skills on sketchup :)

    Cheers!

    Tatty
     
  7. asura

    asura jack of all trades

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    That's not skill, it's just the "follow me" tool used in a hurry... and crudely at that...

    If you're going for a plethora of small feeds, then you don't really need a solid cube, in fact it would be wasteful to do so, four thick plates would be more efficent and also if designed correctly could give double sided TEC cooling (the inside as well as the outside) which would allow you to double up... MY GOD'S THE BILLS!!!
     
  8. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    Hmm.

    The surface area of multiple small holes would be greater than just a big thick hollow box.

    You've inadvertently suggested that I turn this into a hollow copper cube, with a hold tapped on 2 opposing faces in the centre.

    That not only makes it lighter, it makes it simpler to fabricate!

    Basically that makes it a reservoir made of thick copper with 4 waterblocks/peltiers mounted to the faces. I like that... Simple.

    Not sure how to join copper to copper - I guess that would be a silver solder job....
     
  9. asura

    asura jack of all trades

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    Ah HA!!! Now the ball's in the jeweller's court! :p

    The most difficult bit in that would be getting the mounting points for the blocks positioned to a sufficient degree of accuracy. But even that shouldn't be too bad. Then find someone to nickel plate it or oxidise it black, and the job's a good'un.
     
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  10. Cheapskate

    Cheapskate Insane? or just stupid?

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    It would be simpler to make this out of two flat bars with a channel cut into each. Add an o-ring and screws and clamp them together. Port the coolant lines out one of the flat sides.
     
  11. Icedrakeuk

    Icedrakeuk What's a Dremel?

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    one other technique to join multiple sheets of metal together is a sweat soldering that should neatly connect together the sheets
     
  12. disturbed13

    disturbed13 What's a Dremel?

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    i had the same idea
    have all of those small cubes milled and channeled out of one block of copper
    have them go half way on the top
    then flip it over and do the bottom to finish the other channel half to make a tube inside the block
    when you only go half way though the material it keeps the material from moving while the other side is being milled
    then just put em together and
    voila!
     
  13. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    I've been having difficulty in obtaining copper cubes. It would seem that copper, not only is heavy, but is also VERY expensive. One supplier who has quoted for the cubes had a minimum order of 9x70mm cubed @ £55 each.

    Should cost drive design, or should design drive the cost.... I wanted this to be compact and flat sheets moves me away from that model. It's to go in the drive bay mountings of a Corsair 700D - I'm moving the Drives into the main chamber, mounted on the vertical wall of the drive bay. Only got 3 drives - 2 SSD's and a Raptor so they visually go.

    Anyone know how thick the copper plate would have to be in order to be an effective heat exchange surface?

    I have managed to procure 8 waterblocks from ebay for a minimum outlay. Think that they are vintage aquagate components or something - I'll post up pics later.

    They are nickel plated copper blocks and they come with fittings, so I am going to sandwich two of these together with the peltier between them. Hot side to the closed loop, cold site to my benching computer. This will allow me to test the principle and see if 4 peltiers can cool the water and if I can get the components and hosing to fit.

    Got:
    Peltiers x4
    Waterblocks + fittings x8
    Pump (MCP655)
    Radiator (Phobya double width 1.120) + 2 fans mounted in push/Pull
    Working Core i7 950 ES Test Rig
    Peltier PSU

    Need:
    Suitable hose (6mm internal?)
    Multiple Narrow hose to single fat hose adapter

    Will measure up and post up a proper log. This'll go nowhere without me being more structured. :)

    Anyone know how I can measure the cooling power of the Peltiers?

    I would assume that the hot side directly proportional to the cold side, therefore if I were to time heating up a litre of water say 10 degrees on the hot side, I could measure how cool the cold side is to confirm this - has it reduced by 10 degrees also?

    I guess the other thing to test is the order which the waterblocks are placed.

    8 waterblocks makes 4 pairings, ie 4 cooling interfaces.

    Is it better:

    1 bank of 4 in parallel
    2 banks of 2 in parallel
    or 1 bank of 4 in series

    Logically 1 bank of 4 in parallel sounds the most efficient as the flow rate will be divided 4 ways giving an increased amount of surface area and therefore "contact" time.
     
  14. asura

    asura jack of all trades

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    heheheh nope, copper is CHEEP, you should try being a jeweller, I mostly work in silver as it isn't as bad as gold, but a 70x70x70 cube of silver would come in at about £3750 (and that's the cost to me, the jeweller.)

    Do both, make a cube out of flat sheets, four sheets of (lets say 10mm) arranged as the four sides of the cube (i.e. no top or bottom) with an array of holes drilled down their length (again for the sake of ease let's say 5mm holes at 7.5mm centres) this gives you something that looks and behaves like a cube, but only requires 168cm3 (prior to drilling) rather than 343cm3, and depending on the equipment to hand, you may be able to push it to 8mm, or even 6mm sheet!

    [​IMG]
    Again, I've inverted solid and void.

    The thinner the better.

    Um.. think you'd better read this basically each TEC (of yours) puts out 125W+xW at the hot side, where x=the heat-load on the cold side.

    For parallisation your blocks need to be the same and you need to have (as close as possible) the same length of tubing feeding them otherwise you begin to introduce discrepancies for the flow between them. Serial is fine, but if you want parallel, that's fine too just a bit more difficult to ballance.
     
    Last edited: 8 Mar 2011
  15. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    Officially put on hold.

    I've just procured a vapochill unit, which will take precedence. Need to re-build my server and free up kit for building my test rig. Wifey says I can do that on Sunday... H'ray!
     
  16. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    The Vapo PE comes home....

    Well, I've now got the vapochill home.


    Here's what I found in the box....

    [​IMG]

    ...and underneath the manuals...

    [​IMG]

    Another box for a timer????.

    [​IMG]

    Ahhhhh. "Gubbins!" It's the Chiller controller card.

    [​IMG]

    Not sure how I'll interface to that to reprogram it. It's a serial port connection... Wonder if I've got a serial port card lying around, or whether a serial to USB dongle would do the job....

    [​IMG]

    What else is in the main box....

    [​IMG]

    A Sunon fan? Guess the prior owner switched the fans on the heat exchanger then...

    [​IMG]

    More "gubbins". This time they are the clam shells, heaters and that paraphernalia.

    [​IMG]

    Well that just leaves....

    [​IMG]

    ... a close up of the label for those naysayers out there....

    [​IMG]

    The full unit unboxed...

    [​IMG]

    The back bit. What's this called? It looks like it's the electrical controls for the compressor

    [​IMG]

    ... and finally, the business end of things....

    [​IMG]

    Well, that's as far as I've got. My copy of Crysis 2 got despatched by Amazon last night so any free time I get this weekend will be spent on that as I've not played anything since the launch of Just Cause 2, and that's too long ago.

    I'll have a play with this in a couple of weeks time when I've got Crysis 2 out of my system, and rebuilt my server.

    Until then, any advice you good folk can give me on setting this up, what each bit does and so on would be marvellous. I've seen a couple of other vapo builds going on ebay lately but I'm going to stick with this as a project for now. I'll try and see what I can get out of it as it is a fairly inexpensive way (ONLY £80 delivered, which I can't afford to throw away, but for the sake of learning, it'll do me...) of getting back into Phase change cooling

    I'm putting the full log on http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=4784480&posted=1#post4784480 as they have a very active forum about this kind of kit. As I progress I'll see if I have enough material to build a working machine with Single Stage cooling. Knowing me, as soon as I get my bonus (If I do!) I'll blow that on a little Devil unit, but until then I'm going to give this a go to try and develop a better understanding, and maybe even get some mileage out of this puppy.

    Thanks for looking....
     

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