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I was actually planning on doing just that. I'll have the 1 inch supply tube attach to a thick pipe inside my case with many 1/2 inch tubes attached to the side of the pipe. I'd have the same setup for the return as well, just in reverse.

So I have been practicing my aluminum brazing a fair amount and I just can't avoid the warping of the aluminum flashing. Needless to say, having a big air gap between the drum and aluminum fins would not be ideal. I've decided to scrap the fins idea entirely and just have the drum buried...

I have to say those pumps look very impressive. With those performance numbers I could probably extend my system to my neighbors! Price on the American made models is quite reasonable too. I'm tempted to go with Iwaki WMD40RLXT but that may be some extreme overkill. I'll have to do more research...

Sorry I haven't updated my project log in a while. I own and operate a one man computer repair business and I had a streak of customers. I've just about finished up with with my last two repair jobs so I should have a good block of time to concentrate on my project. I'd like to thank you...

I will have to look up how steel and copper react to each other but the aluminum is not going to touch and water. It's only an external heat spreader. I'll make sure that there is a nice coat of paint between the aluminum jacket and the steel drum. The hts-2000 brazing rod hasn't arrived yet so...

So it looks like I really do need some special brazing rod to connect such thin material. I had already ordered some HTS-2000 to do this project. But since I was already at the welding store I couldn't help but buy some standard aluminum brazing rod too. As I thought, the standard stuff melts at...

Thanks to some brainstorming with my brother-in-law I have a much simpler method of adding fins to this drum. I'll use aluminum flashing and make three collars to clamp between the reinforcing ribs on the drum. After that I'll braze them in place to make them permanently attached. I'll use...

The main reason I'm using a steel drum instead of copper coil or pipe is because I don't have the tools or equipment to solder or braze while I'm under my house. That plus I'm already aware of other systems that use copper pipe and coil for geothermal cooling and I wanted to see just how much of...

So I'm still keen on adding fins to this drum. I know they probably won't do much to help with cooling but I always wanted a project to kick start my brazing learning experience. Problem is, it seems most mainstream hardware stores don't carry much, if any, brazing gear. I'm going to have to...

I have central forced air heating and cooling in my house so the relative humidity stays quite low inside. The low humidity decreases the dew point quite a bit so condensation should not be a problem. My house indoor temperature reader says that for the last two years the max temp and humidity...

I won't need to monitor the water level at the drum since I can monitor the water level from the PVC fill pipe. The steel drum won't need to be manually air bled since I'm installing an auto air vent that purges any extra air in the tank. I have added the auto vent in version 2 of the schematic.

Updated schematic to include auto air vent.

Thanks for the tip about the flow rate. I was actually referring to the fact that air would get trapped in the tank. This would happen if it is flowing from the pump to the tank then being drawn from the bottom of the tank. I found a gadget that would fix that for me though. It's called an auto...

Dok Ju5tice, it's nice to see you again my old nemesis. I'll give you bonus points if you can point out the major flaw in my schematic before anyone else does.

I just posted a schematic for my cooling loop. That was a fun exercise I must say. I haven't used AutoCad since I was in high school.

I'll be digging a hole then filling it level with the surrounding ground. I'll have a top off reservoir in my computer room where I'll air bleed it and top it off when necessary. I have most of the loop planned out but I'm holding back on details until I can make up a nice CAD schematic.

Thank you bman212121 for your thoughtful comments and useful calculations. I never was one to crunch the numbers. Though I should reiterate. I am completely burying this steel drum in my loose soil crawl space. There will be no part of the drum exposed to air. So yes, this is geothermal cooling...

30+ gallons of water may seem like a lot of cooling potential but the water will eventually heat up to a high equilibrium temp if it can't dump it's heat to ground quickly enough. I realize the fins will have little effect considering the temperature delta my computer will produce in the water...

Your project feels very similar to what I'm planning to do with my cooling loop. Just instead of passively cooling everything with star finned pipes, I'll be sinking my loops heat into a steel drum buried in my crawl space. I think I'll even weld some fins onto it for some added surface area...

So I had a bit of a eureka moment thinking about my project. I was driving to work at night and stopped at a red light. I was letting my mind wander while lazily looking up at a street lamp. After awhile my eyes hurt a bit so I squinted and I noticed the usual star pattern appear around the...

Edit: updated Schematic to v2 So I finally got fed up with all the noise and dust build-up of my air heatpipe coolers and decided to make my water cooling debut. But if I'm going to go water I might as well go extreme, right? I've always wanted to try geothermal cooling for low noise and...