Copper Sponge Silent PC Prototype

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Remember that copper sponge heatsink project we told you about a while back? Well, it looks like someone is trying to use it on a silent PC prototype. The problem with this type of material? Try getting dust out of it. :(
 
I think you'd want to enclose it and filter the intake, with that much surface area you wouldn't need much air movement.
 
The manufacturer specifically mentions on that site that they have no plans to enclose it as it's thermal properties rely on it being not enclosed and the manufacturer doesn't want to spend the time and money to lab test what enclosures would do to the thermal efficiency.

As soon as some dust inevitably settles into the copper foam (as they call it) the thermal dissipation will go way down. Doesn't look like a practical product to me.
 
inyourface1650 said:
I think you'd want to enclose it and filter the intake, with that much surface area you wouldn't need much air movement.
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No way, without active airflow a filter would kill it.

All you need to do is put a shelf over it. Dust tends to fall at a 20o angle at most, so with a small overhang it'll stay quite clean, and a bit of a gap will still allow air to rise around the flat roof.
 
they could cover it in super hydrophobic coat coupled with some kind of electric dust repeller solutions to improve simple compressed air cleaning.
 
it looks like it would work just like an air filter.. and be clogged or severely blocked within a month or 2.

Not such a good idea..
 
geok1ng said:
they could cover it in super hydrophobic coat coupled with some kind of electric dust repeller solutions to improve simple compressed air cleaning.
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Any coating will inherently reduce the thermal conductivity of the material, the same as wearing a shirt.

3148.jpg

Plenty of airflow around it, cheap! ;)

Or just put it under any type of natural overhang really.
 
I love the look of it, but yea I live in a house with kids and cats..Even with an overhang there is no way that is staying clean.
 
Thermal conductivity of copper is great, but the ability to dissipate the heat is much worse than aluminum. They should coat it in aluminum. The interior copper can transfer the heat from the core out the copper threads of the "sponge" to the aluminum coating, then the aluminum coating can handle the thermal transfer to the surrounding air.

Go look at CPU coolers. Aluminum fins work better than copper fins.
 
I almost thought it was April Fools day. Pretty cool idea, I just don't know how practical it is with dust.
 
Some of you guys are way too paranoid about dust. Unless you have an environment where the dust is sticky (machine shop, smoker, etc...) you can still easily blow dust out of that thing.

And I'll take the contrary view that it'll take a LOT of dust to cause major degradation of the thermal efficiency.

Don't know if I like it or not, but it's awesome looking as a conversation piece... and functional also which is a bonus.
 
SRT8 said:
Thermal conductivity of copper is great, but the ability to dissipate the heat is much worse than aluminum. They should coat it in aluminum. The interior copper can transfer the heat from the core out the copper threads of the "sponge" to the aluminum coating, then the aluminum coating can handle the thermal transfer to the surrounding air.

Go look at CPU coolers. Aluminum fins work better than copper fins.
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I suspect that the use of aluminum for the fins is more related to cost and weight that anything else. The fins being further from the motherboard, the impact of extra weight is increased. This adds extra stress on the motherboard. Using aluminum simply helps to keep the weight lower and keep costs down.

Thermal conductivity of copper is double compared to aluminum.
 
Advil said:
Some of you guys are way too paranoid about dust. Unless you have an environment where the dust is sticky (machine shop, smoker, etc...) you can still easily blow dust out of that thing.

And I'll take the contrary view that it'll take a LOT of dust to cause major degradation of the thermal efficiency.

Don't know if I like it or not, but it's awesome looking as a conversation piece... and functional also which is a bonus.
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I agree. A combination of compressed air and a vacuum cleaner should be enough. Maybe not get it fully clean from deep inside of the sponge but clean enough that it keeps cooling.
 
I wonder how effective a large, thick sheet of this would be, put into contact with the side of a low height htpc case.
 
I wonder how much it would impede thermals if they covered it with speaker grill fabric?
 
Advil said:
Unless you have an environment where the dust is sticky
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You DO understand that any environment that isn't RIGIDLY dehumidified (like, oh, your home/apartment) is going to have a dust adhesion issue right?

Sure, you can blow off the gross coating. But there's still going to be a finer coat of dust that's adhered to the surface by ambient humidity that you can't really BLOW off, you have to WASH it off.

And if you already have a surface-coat of dust, buildup happens faster...
 
Hmmm, looks like a nappy mess of copper colored pubes. That would be a real bitch-kitty to clean too. Nice idea on paper though, but I think the real-world implementation is going to have some "issues".
 
SRT8 said:
Thermal conductivity of copper is great, but the ability to dissipate the heat is much worse than aluminum. They should coat it in aluminum. The interior copper can transfer the heat from the core out the copper threads of the "sponge" to the aluminum coating, then the aluminum coating can handle the thermal transfer to the surrounding air.

Go look at CPU coolers. Aluminum fins work better than copper fins.
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WRONG. Copper outperforms aluminum in both absorbing heat and dissipating it. Aluminum just happens to be cheaper, while having almost as good thermal performance as copper.
 
I wonder if we change the density slightly, we could put it into a water block. Also wondering if this could replace a radiator.
 
FalconSS said:
I wonder if we change the density slightly, we could put it into a water block. Also wondering if this could replace a radiator.
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It wouldn't be as efficient when compared to a radiator of the same mass but with thin uniform fins in both cases. Surface area is also a major factor along with thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity when designing efficient heat dissipation solutions.
 
FalconSS said:
It looks like they may be using the foam from this site. (Or similar).

http://www.ergaerospace.com/Copper-properties.htm

It does talk about excellent transfer to liquids.
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I don't doubt that, copper's thermal conductivity is excellent. But the radiated thermal energy has to go somewhere. Yes, it can be dumped into a fluid...but that fluid will eventually reach thermal equilibrium with the copper unless it is moved elsewhere. This "sponge" would introduce a lot of resistance (relatively speaking) to an active cooling solution and would cause unnecessary wasted energy by causing a pump/fan to work harder than it should need to. Though in reality this is exactly what this foam is suppose to do, absorb energy (kinetic and thermal).

In some applications, volume is a concern...which is the application this type of foam is geared towards. It does have a good surface area to volume ratio...making it good for compact applications where extremely high heat is a concern for limited amounts of time. Space X uses a similar material in a few of it's components.
 
Revolutionary! lol From 2005: http://www.overclockers.com/copper-foam-heatsink/

The particular one linked in OP seems to be a very dumb design. It's big, ugly, likely heavy, doesn't take advantage of ways to quickly move heat *away* from the copper and there are ways to move air which require no moving parts to allow extruded (fins) cooling to work efficiently in a much smaller space.
 
Advil said:
Some of you guys are way too paranoid about dust. Unless you have an environment where the dust is sticky (machine shop, smoker, etc...) you can still easily blow dust out of that thing.

And I'll take the contrary view that it'll take a LOT of dust to cause major degradation of the thermal efficiency.

Don't know if I like it or not, but it's awesome looking as a conversation piece... and functional also which is a bonus.
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It is more to the tune of it starting to look bad taking away from its value as a conversation piece. I do agree with you on the average environment but you forgot one, Pets. Pet hair while not sticky is notoriously difficult to blow out of things.
 
Grahamkracka said:
WRONG. Copper outperforms aluminum in both absorbing heat and dissipating it. Aluminum just happens to be cheaper, while having almost as good thermal performance as copper.
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He's not wrong, and that is one interesting question... we have long since been able to produce very tight clusters of fins, but we found that heatpipes were the best means of transferring heat from one area to another, otherwise the heat would pool near the source and not reach the top "branches", limiting the efficiency of heatsinks as they are scaled up.
 
jimmyb said:
This doesn't sound right. Do you have a source for this?
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There are multiple variables that need to be taken into account. Generally in passive cooling with solid metal fin-type heatsinks, copper would dissipate heat better than aluminum.
 
Ducman69 said:
He's not wrong, and that is one interesting question... we have long since been able to produce very tight clusters of fins, but we found that heatpipes were the best means of transferring heat from one area to another, otherwise the heat would pool near the source and not reach the top "branches", limiting the efficiency of heatsinks as they are scaled up.
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He is wrong, he said nothing about heat pipes or getting the heat to the outer fins in large HS, just the fact that all else being equal, a copper finned HS will dissipate heat into the air better than aluminum fins. This can be seen by the TRUE and TRUE copper, it cooled better, but cost a great deal more as copper cost a good bit more than aluminum and it was also much MUCH heavier. This is also why many small HS's you find in servers (U1) are made from copper, because you need as good thermal performance as you can get with very little surface area.
 
pxc said:
There are multiple variables that need to be taken into account. Generally in passive cooling with solid metal fin-type heatsinks, copper would dissipate heat better than aluminum.
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That is my assumption as well. I am curious what these other variables are that might cause aluminum to be a better material for building a cooling device.
 
Copper has higher thermal conductivity than aluminum. It's better at stealing heat from the CPU, AND conducting that heat to the fins, AND donating that heat to the air.

HSF is almost completely convective cooling, so the number 1 factor for efficiency is a large temperature gradient between fin and air. In other words, you want the fins' temperature to be as close as possible to the base's and you want the base to remain much cooler than the core. For both goals (conducting heat from base to fin and from fin to air), copper is superior to aluminum.
 
BlueFireIce said:
He is wrong, he said nothing about heat pipes or getting the heat to the outer fins in large HS, just the fact that all else being equal, a copper finned HS will dissipate heat into the air better than aluminum fins.
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I wasn't arguing he said that, but agreeing with him that copper conducts heat better but aluminum dissipates heat faster than copper. The reason I was thinking that, is if you took a copper and aluminum pot out of the oven that were both heated for three hours to 300oF and set them on the countertop, the aluminum would cool off faster because its lower density. However, now that I think about it, you are right because the heatsink is only acting as a conductor, and the better conductor will transfer heat, and thus cool faster no matter what. I think I confused myself because the denser metal would actually just have more energy to dissipate. My bad. Yeah copper is better.
 
Ducman69 said:
if you took a copper and aluminum pot out of the oven that were both heated for three hours to 300oF and set them on the countertop, the aluminum would cool off faster because its lower density.
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That's not obviously true: aluminum has a specific heat capacity 2.5x copper.
 
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