SPCR

Ok, to everyone who though id done this, sorry, im just thinking outloud.

But, if i could find a supply of heatpipes at sensable prices, and get hold of serveral large heat sinks at industial prices, prefrable 2ndhand.
- Its a deffonate maybe for a project.

Im just starting at uni doing Mechanical Engineering, so i well have access to large CNC Mills, and the like, which would be ideal for a project like this.

As i said, im jsut thinking aloud, thoughs being triggered my this, which i came across on fleabay LINKY


Daniel

Go for it!. I really would love to find some somewhat versatile heatpipes. I anticipate that SOMEONE will figure a way to have a section of flex in a heatpipe,or a coupling to join segments of heatpipe,some way to mod them to various layouts. Pipie can be bent if a radiused bender is used-it's how elec conduit or plumbing pipe is done- but it's a different scale. At least you need less leverage,so a jig,some padded vise-grips?

I have a couple of heatsinks-originally the cases of car stereo power amps-big finned cast aluminum-but until there's a variety of heatpipes to be had,That's on hold. I toyed with using a peltier to chill a big inernal heatsink,to lower the internal temps in general. There are ,however,some issues to peltiers. On a thread about Peltiers and heatpipes someone mentioner "Thermosiphon" which,as I understand it is a sort of no-pump water cool. Pretty interesting but not a lot of info yet.

Thermaltake's Tai Chi case recently caught my eye. Posh and pricey-it has sides of Finned ,extruded Aluminum...heatsinks. What is not there is the heatpipes to move component heat to those walls. The Tai Chi-while much less $ than the Zalman is still over $300

Yeah, it would be great, but i have no idea where to get any heatpipes from.
- Bending them would be no problem, i have a mini pipe bender that would cope with the gauges of pipe involved. (i got i for gauge-pipes on our steam engine)
- I have also though of using a pelter between the heatpipe and the heat sink, but if used it would have to be regulated to prevent the cpu/gpu blocks reaching sub-ambient, which would cause condensation



Danel

If you could live with the sound from a pump, you could use water to transfer the heat instead of heat pipes since silicon is easier to work with.

The giant heatsinks are not that hard to find.
The heat pipes would be the adventure here. If you can get the sink blocks machined, then why not try to make the pipes yourself? All they are is copper tubing with a two-layer wick, and some water+alcohol inside: http://www.npowertek.com/what.html
....
What I'm thinking right off is to get some synthetic rope that is just fat enough to fit inside the copper tubing and try that for the core--often small rope has a weaved outer layer, and a longitudinal inner core. You'd just have to get something that could withstand long exposures to alcohol at the working temperatures of the heatsink.
~

I don't recall details but a thread here did lead to a seller of heatpipes.,but they were limited in tterms of length and diameter. hunt about and you also may find a source for heatlanes-a flatened.wider variation. If I can locate any source I'll post something. I think there is an untapped market and someone will before long provide some parts of use. I also think heatpipes are a rather new concept- and here will be some new variants appearing in the next year that will give do-it-youerself folk some better options.

Conventional watercool techniques tend to include a pump and a radiator with a fan-which would mean some noise. I never did a WC puter but had experiance with fishtanks and pumps were typically not at all silent.

Lubb wrote:The giant heatsinks are not that hard to find.
The heat pipes would be the adventure here.

Yeah, thats how i saw it.

I found these pictures of the mCubed pc


Second image

Thats the sort of this im aiming for.
- Or possable try and get a 'heatlane' flat type heatpipe


Daniel

What I would do is try one tube inside another, with the inner-tube wrapped with some cotton fabric. And the inside tube would have small holes drilled along its length. So the alcohol/water mix would be able to wick to the hot end through the cotton fabric, and then vaporize off through the open center tube. Ideally you'd want copper tubing inside & out but you only need something that wouldn't corrode.
--
The only other thing I'd think might be a problem is getting metal tubing small enough. If you notice, most-all heat pipes are rather small-diameter. I would bet that there's a pressure that comes from being heated up, so they are using smaller-diameter tubing to prevent it from trying to straighten out when under pressure (from being hot/in use).

If you're really concerned, then get a cheapo heatpipe and cut it open, and see how thick of tubing they are using, and try to match that for the external tubing. The inner tubing could be as thin as you need--or as thick, as long as there's a hole down the center.
~

Well there is someone at our german forum www.silenthardware.de/forum who sells heatpipes. Not only straight heatpipes also bended the way you want it.
But I don't know if he ships to the US. Here is a list of heatpipes he offers:
http://home.arcor.de/webfire84/PreislisteHP.pdf
Here is his emailaddress: [email protected] Ask him about shipping to the US.
But I don't know if he speaks english. When not I can contact him for you.