Water cooling and dirty envorments

The alternative to direct air cooling

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auto-geek
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Water cooling and dirty envorments

Post by auto-geek » Wed Dec 17, 2003 9:10 pm

I have a need to put up to 6 CPUs in one case that has to live in a very dirty enviorment. My qusetion is will h2o cooling allow me to operate these systems in a closed envirorment (no outside air)?

Thank You
:?:

Semm
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Post by Semm » Wed Dec 17, 2003 10:07 pm

Short version: probably not, as there are a number of other components that need cooling (MOSFETs, etc.). Cooling is adequate for them with very little airflow, but none at all tends to give unpleasant results.

What do you need 6 CPUs and no airflow for, anyway?

Semm

Bat
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Post by Bat » Thu Dec 18, 2003 2:19 pm

My guess is that it's for some sort of computer in a vehicle.

I imagine you could get it to work if you had a slow fan to stir the air inside the case, so long as the case walls are reasonably conductive (or watercooled).

lenny
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Post by lenny » Thu Dec 18, 2003 3:31 pm

Bat wrote:My guess is that it's for some sort of computer in a vehicle.
Six CPUs inside a vehicle? :shock: Probably not. Sure would be one heck of a mobile folding farm though...

Without having more details I would also say probably not. Can you use a furnace filter to clean the air?

auto-geek
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Post by auto-geek » Fri Dec 19, 2003 8:20 pm

Thank you all for the reponces!

Here the deal not a car but that sounds cool. It's for proccess control, with a Unix Os. The envorment has bad air and noise, how little air would I have to stir? The temp is about 70 deg. F. There are very few space, or power limitations. I can cool the case but that seems extream.

Look forword to your replies

Thanks

Semm
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Post by Semm » Sun Dec 21, 2003 1:36 pm

Hmmm...I'm thinking you might be best off going air cooled with a filter setup like Bluefront did. He stuck an auto air filter in a box below the case, cut a hole in the bottom of the case and sealed the rest of it, if memory serves. I don't have the thread offhand, but there's a couple articles about it. If you really want to water cool the rest of it, just having a PSU exhaust fan will be fine for cooling the other components, but you'll probably still want a filter on any air intakes if it's really that dirty.

Someone who knows more will be able to help you more :)

Semm

Bluefront
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Post by Bluefront » Sun Dec 21, 2003 5:09 pm

I've posted several different setups that used filters (good filters). Here's the latest one I'm working on. It does take some mods to come up with a good filtered case....you just cannot buy one.

Filtered case using auto air filter

pingu666
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Post by pingu666 » Mon Dec 22, 2003 5:23 pm

ull need filters that are easily changeable, for most radiator setups too

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Post by Gooserider » Tue Dec 23, 2003 5:29 pm

Watercooling is possible, see Bladerunner's zero fan system, if you cool lots of stuff in addition to the CPU. Just think of having a large external rad instead of Bladerunner's buried tank approach. However, as Pingu mentioned, it would probably be necessary to put filters of some sort on the rad.

I would probably be inclined to go for watercooling on the CPU's, with a large rad blowing into the case, and a big filter (possibly something off a truck???) filtering the air going into the case. It would probably be good to design the setup to have positive pressure in the case as well to reduce dirt infiltration in the event of any leaks.

I would also look at making the plumbing for any WC setup such as to make it possible to remove individual CPU's without having to do to much to the rest of the system. For a sample of this look at AirSpirit's multi PC cooling system over on Pro-Cooling....

BTW, how critical is silence on this unit? It may violate the standards for SPCR, but a noisy clean design would probably be easier to build than a quiet one... If I didn't have to worry about noise, I would probably do something like getting an airfilter from a big truck, suck air through it with a squirrel cage blower, and blow that air through a large radiator set up to cool the CPU's and HDD's (at a minimum) and through a case with enough restriction on the exhaust side to make sure the case had positive pressure. Since you say the app is process control, I'm assuming it's 'mission critical', so I would even consider doing redundant blowers and pumps....

Gooserider

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