====== So far ====== The plan is to take a single board computer (SBC), power supply, and some method of storage and dump them all into a tiny plexiglass case filled with liquid coolant. Obviously a hard drive will not work in any liquid, so the storage will need to contain no moving parts. The SBC to be used is a Boser HS6037 v1.1 - A socket 370 board with dual NIC's, a diskonchip socket, watchdog, usb, video, pc/104, etc, etc, everything a complete server would have (would even have scsi but the early low end versions of the 6037 didn't ship with it). This board is capable of running without a backplane and is completely functional with no additional hardware. Here is a rough estimate of how I plan on doing this: The system will be 100% sealed, and all heat ventilation will be through the heatsinks on the sides. The liquid will act like a giant heatpipe in a way, so the cooling should be sufficient. This method has been done before on a larger scale with significant success. There will be some air (around 20%) left in the box so that thermal expansion does not cause problems. The only real hard part will be routing all of the wires out of the box to mount them on the top panel, but my plan is to get a chunk of thin (maybe 1/2") PVC pipe and route everything through that before pumping it full of sealant from end to end. The pipe will be placed in a tight fitting hole on the top of the box, which will be sealed around the outer edge on the outside and inside as well. The coolant is going to be store bought mineral oil (known as MO from here on) - here's why: 1. It works well. It needs to be changed regularly (unsure of time frame, would guess every 6 months or so, no solid reports exist on this) to ensure that any contaminents don't give it a conductivity, but other than that it is reliable and totally non-conductive. 2. It's cheap! Even the lowest cost flourinert runs $275+shipping per liter. I'm going to use an estimated ~2 liters in my tiny tank, which would mean $550 or so. 2 liters of mineral oil will run about $10 at the local grocery store. 3. It is capable of good thermal transfer, it's clear (looks good with or without dye), and it has suitable properties (flash point of ~420f so no fire risk, boiling point above 400f, etc). ====== As of today ====== I got three SBC's in the mail today, here is a pic of the SBC after todays setup and basic testing - it runs perfectly like this (but with the power connected); absolutely no need for a backplane so the size is good. I took the best heatsink and cpu (466mhz celey) of the three boards, along with an extra chipset heatsink and got it all attached. The ram is an old 128mb stick from a dell that was sitting dead at my parents house. My big dilemma now is integration and functionality - I'm at a standstill for a couple days waiting for the tiny netvista power supply to get here. what should the system be used for? What should I do for storage? Options are: 1. Smoothwall (or other linux) firewall --dual nics onboard make it a good candidate, input and ouput are right there --little space needed for it, could use a CF->IDE adapter and my 16mb CF card, or a cheap diskonchip module. I've heard of installs that run off of a floppy so i'm sure I can find one that will fit. --extremely low power operation makes it logical for runnning long term 2. server --needs storage added --would get to run xp so it would be another useful box on the network --higher power requirements, higher cost --increased size, parts (hard drives) would not be submerged Thoughts? BTW sorry for the lack of more pics, i'm waiting on more parts for the real build to begin. Should pickup a ton in a couple days
Mineral oil will not become contaminated in a closed system. Also, it seeps into rubber compunds so you will need to seal the base of all the capacitors or they will free themselves from their wiring over time.
old? how so? its more than 2 years? other than that ... awesome idea. mineral oil is definately the way to go if you have a sure seal on all teh components. if this going to be a smoothwall box, you could undervolt the cpu (im using a 433 celery for my own smoothebox) and stay well within the cpu requirements. its been a while since i checked, but IIRC a pII 233 is good for ~250 users or some such. if you underclock to, say, 100 mhz, you would still be good for what... 50 users?
Beleive it or not the hardware isn't really that old, socket 370 is still very much alive for the type of systems that use these That board is capable of using an 850mhz p3. The PCI connector you see isn't really a PCI connector. The two edge connectors attach to one single backplane which can have PCI slots and other connections on them. The idea is that you can plug it into a backplane alone or with other SBC's and run a multi pc setup in one box, which is at least partially controlled by one main proccess. I've got some 1U backplanes (made to run just one SBC) that came with this board and another identical one, but since they don't need them to operate, i'm saving them for the other SBC's on the way (3 are here, 2 more are in transit). Can't wait for my PSU to get here so I can start building Filling the tank with MO will be the VERY last step, but i'm excited about getting closer to it. I'll take the casing off of the PSU and start building the box sunday if it shows up in this weekend - i'll probably just route an IDE cable to the outside of the box and deal with storage when I get to that point. The idea is to run all connections (com, lpt, vga, dual nic, etc, etc) outside of the box and decide what I will and won't need after the fact. Since I don't ever plan on opening the box again (I might add a drain plug for emergencies, but thats all) I want to be able to make changes to the setup as needed without any problems. A drain plug would also allow me to add colored non conductive dye later on
Let me get this right, your ordering 5 of them. And how much did they cost, and where from. I am in the process of building a smoothwall box, and these seem suitable. Very good idea with the mineral oil. Im sure ive seen something similar on the net before. But it used flourine of memory, so would have been expensive. If your going for cooling like that, do you still need the heatsink on the cpu.
Looking forward to seeing this Want to try a oil cooled server at some point so will be watching with interest. Are you leaving the CPU fan on there?
The connector is PICMG. I have a similar board in my junk pile, but it requires a backplane and I have no use for it at present. If you want to see a nice demonstration of the available sizes of SBC check out http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/SBC.htm I have the LV-670LVDS Pentium IV motherboard running a 2.4c inside an 8 x 8.5 x 4 inch case.
Wanna tell me where you got that and how much it costs? I might have use for something at least along those lines. I guess Who_me_33 already asked but I wanna know too I really like the idea, I hope it works out well for you. Not a typical liquid cooling setup Perhaps one of those dangerden fillports to act as a drain plug. They seem well suited to something like this. For storage... maybe one of these adaptors and a 1GB card (if you're not in US, find somewhere else ) A gig will be way too much for a SW box but could be useful for a very smallscale home fileserver. In which case I'd say just get a normal hard drive and figure that out. Maybe just screwed on top of that middle layer of plexi using those threads on the bottom of the drive. Oh yeah, how loud is the stock fan on that board? Looks like some little tiny thing that'll make that chipset-sink whine
This is a super low budget project (like all of my projects), so a 1GB CF card is out of the question. I'll probably either use a diskonchip module (like a CF card except it plugs into a socket on the SBC) and i'm hoping one of the two boards that were deleivered today has one, haven't got a chance to look at them yet. I got three of the boards on ebay, damn good price too considering that standalone SBC boards go for a lot, I think each board was roughly $15 if you divide it up and factor in shipping costs. The other two the owner didn't know what they were, so I got them for the cost of shipping (about $6.50) so if they even have some salvagable part i'll be happy. Not going to leave a fan on there, no point really. It would likely break down fast under the stress of the oil, and I doubt the flow provided by it would be of much use. Oh and I got an update on my PSU, won't be here until early next week and I will likely be going out of town for a funeral, so there will probably be no major updates for another ~10 days
Yup, mineral oil works great. How do I know? I've built a 'proof of concept' some years back! http://users.adelphia.net/~javamoose/Oilcase5.jpg http://users.adelphia.net/~javamoose/Oilcase7.jpg (I won't clutter your log with in-line pictures)
There are adapters to convert CF to IDE. And you can use a normal ATX PSU for testing and get to work with the mechanical design.
Yeah it looks like I can grab an adapter on ebay for around $10 shipped, but they all come from hong kong so the wait will suck I did get m0n0wall installed on a 16mb (shows as 25mb actually, no idea why its labeled 16) CF card - looks like its going to be a good choice.
So the fate of this project is hanging by a thread... I ordered the CF to IDE adapter but i'm having reservations about submerging it. I'm thinking that maybe with a Via C3 processor and a nice custom tiny aluminum case (complete with window, flames, and mild lighting - a "firewall" theme) would be a nice showpeice, although i'm still not sure... I'll think about it more, maybe in the end i'll do both ideas - submerge it AND do a custom aluminum case. I'll make the decision when the CF adapter and power supply arrive.
Power supply arrived today, just waiting on the CF adapter which has shipped from china (im guessing later next week). I can start building the box now, but i'm going to be at work the next couple nights I'll pick up an old floppy and cd-rom from the junk pile at my parents place so I can start testing m0n0wall without the CF card (combo of those two or CF or HD required) and make sure the hardware is ready to rock. No pictures of the current work because my digicam is a couple days drive from here with my parents (they went out of town for a funeral so I suggested they take pics of relatives) I've decided a few things about this project: 1. Submersion is back in! I have no use for a firewall and it's just not fun dry. I have three SBC's here and i'm willing to risk one for the hell of it. 2. I'm not going to use cable extensions onto a top panel. Everything will be in one box. This means that I have to seal up things insanely tight, i've got a plan but it will take a LOT of professional sealing. I plan on leaving the original back panel in place, which will be difficult, but i've got sort of a three layer method... It's hard to explain without pics right now 3. The entire box will be plexi, but a large chunk of the bottom will be cut out and replaced with a gigantic 3lb black heatsink. It will just look like a big cool stand for it and should keep the liquid cool enough. The contact area will be massive (around 48 square inches) so even though there is little or no circulation, the volume of liquid compared to the contact area leaves little or no room for doubt. 4. Two plexi top panels will be made if possible, and i'll paint the top one and hopefully give a cool fire effect. So to summarize: 1. design plan is truly laid out 2. enough parts are here to start the build 3. artistic plans are coming forward, but will be done at the end
