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Just using mains water

R

Robolf

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 14, 2004
Messages
87
Dont know about where you are, but here we dont have water metres.

What im thinking of doing is putting a waterblock on my CPU, connecting a pipe into the mains and letting mains pressure feed the block, have the other pipe going down a drain.

Our mains water is always icy cold so this should be really cool, noiseless and not too pricey.

Now i cant imagine im using more water than those garden thingys people have going all day so the water board shouldnt think theres a leak or anything so all should be ok.

Anyone else tried this?

Rob
 
If the water is indeed colder than room temperature then your going to have some condensation problems to deal with.
 
It would work, aside from the fact that it's extremely wasteful. You might find some mineral deposits in your stuff after a while too.
 
this has been discussed before (no im not being a bastard, im just saying its been thought of ;) and its been determined itll cost waaay too much to be practical
 
Has it ???? where i just had the idea but couldnt find any threads on it.

Dunno why it would be expensive, 40ft of silicone tubing and a waterblock.

As for wastefull yeah i guess so, probably would really do it cos im lazy, but i think it would be really "cool" :p

Rob
 
Robolf said:
Has it ???? where i just had the idea but couldnt find any threads on it.

Dunno why it would be expensive, 40ft of silicone tubing and a waterblock.

As for wastefull yeah i guess so, probably would really do it cos im lazy, but i think it would be really "cool" :p

Rob
Click to expand...

water out of a faucet isnt free, you know
 
Ah well here we pay a quaterly charge whether we use a million gallons or just one.

I did say in first post we dont have a metre.

Rob
 
Robolf said:
Ah well here we pay a quaterly charge whether we use a million gallons or just one.

I did say in first post we dont have a metre.

Rob
Click to expand...

still, think of the enviroment man :p
 
I know !

I also said i probably wouldnt bother doing this.

But i think it would work really well.

Anyway basically wanted to know if anyone else done it.

CHILL TREE HUGGER :p

Rob
 
Sounds like a cool idea, but seeing that it would probably pump a LOT of water through there it's probably not a good idea. And if you did do it you'd probably want to have a water filter or something on there if your water has a lot of minerals and stuff.
 
As far as condensation problems, you can pretty much eliminate them by having a window AC in the room where your computer is. It would also help to have central air. I have my radiator inside a window AC unit as a water chiller. The AC also cools my computer room as without it, it gets hot as hell in here. Even with central air. For your water outlet, you could have the other end running to a small sprinkler. Just make sure you step down the PSI somehow going into your system. A water main usually carries enough pressure to blow open a watercooling loop.

Actually, this thread just popped an idea into my melon. If you have your loop running a pump and also have it tied into a utility faucet. I'm probably going to have to draw a diagram to illustrate this, and I don't even know if there would be any point to doing it, but it is an idea none the less.

Here's how it would work:

You have a line branching off the water main. It is stepped down to keep too much PSI from hurting your system. The area where your computer is will have 2 lines coming out of the wall. One would be your pressure reduced water main, the other would be a return. The loop in your computer would be just like any other loop, but it would tap into your loop after the pump and the return would tap into your system after all your waterblocks. The return would in turn be connected to a utility outlet. (probably an outside outlet and maybe hooked up to a sprinkler or something for all the tree huggers) You could have the valve control be on the inside where your return line comes out of the wall by your computer so you don't have to go outside to turn on your external feed system. The main would be open to the loop (after your reducer) so it would always have some amount of positive pressure. (no low water levels)
The only way I could really see this working would be to have a pressure regulator where this system splits off the main. (even a pin hole opening from the main to your WC system will eventually pressurize the loop to equal your main) the other thing that would be necessary would be having a 1-way check valve on the output side of the pump. This would insure the pressure from the main is properly diverted through your waterblocks and not going against your pump. (which would probably burn it out) Like I said, this is probably pointless, but who knows.
 
Well if water is free do it for a month:D:D just to see what its gonna be like. To prevent minerals buy a water purifier like those on TV ads and thats pretty much it.
 
If it's not that hard to hook up you need to at least do it for a little while just to see what kind of performance you get... and let us know.
 
Just had a good idea... maybe. What about development of a water cooling system that uses a standard cooling loop with radiator and everything, but have a temperature activated valve that flushes the system with mains every time it goes above a certain temp. Wouldn't be hard with a little electronics know how. A temp sensor, a comparitor and a little logic would do it fine. I have 2 broken washing machines in my garage that have electronically operated valves that would be perfect. Anybody wanting a pair for somthing like this give me a shout: rebornphoenix@gmx.net Bear in mind I'm in the UK and they would cost a bit to post to the USA.
 
Yeah just flushing when needed by temperature control would be "cool" (never get bored of that pun !)

Would keep the tree huggers happy too.

Sounds great, so you think you can rig something sensible together small and cheap?

Rob

PS do you have water metre where u are?
 
No I don't have a meter and I think it would be quite small. Probably best to build it in an external box. As secure I feel with water around PC's I don't think I could stretch to plumbing in the actual computer. Much better an external box with the electronics and water. But its definately a possibility. If anyone is interested I'll draw up some schematics. Those water valves are available for damn near free from a scrapyard. A whole broken washing machine costs around £10/$18 near me.
 
what we need is some testing equipment, if we can work out what rating a cooling block would get just using this method ( which for the means of testing could be in the bathroom using a pipe from the tap and then down the plug hole) then we could see how feasable it is.

Using a waterblock with a known thermal rating, then re-rate it using the tap water, see how much better or worse it is (sure to be better thow) and then see about steping down the flow building in electronics so you dont have gangs of hippys protesting outside the house (cos face it they got nothing better to do).

Now if i had the cash......

Rob
 
Robolf said:
Yeah just flushing when needed by temperature control would be "cool" (never get bored of that pun !)

Would keep the tree huggers happy too.

Sounds great, so you think you can rig something sensible together small and cheap?

Rob

PS do you have water metre where u are?
Click to expand...


LOL, perhaps hooking it up to a toilet water tank? Although I do remember someone modding a toilet for water cooling resevoir. :eek:

-Ed
 
The tank reservoir - been done.

Place Radiator in tank to keep loop seperate. TheoneI saw computer was in basement and bathroom wason other side of the wall. General usage in the house averaged at least one flush every few hours. If a heavy gaming session went on for hours, a short break to process some caffeine kept the system nice and cool.
 
This works really well if you cool a lot of machines with water. All you need to do, is put a box before your water heater and allow the cold water to go thru it, you place your radiators in this box, thus cooling your rads, this should not be so cold as to cause a condensation problem, and you also pre heat water before the water heater, thus you are putting those wasted watts to good use.
 
If your water is [h]ard like mine, you'll get some nasty lime build-up. My refrigerator's water dispensor doesn't work anymore because of it...
 
our water is super soft, dont remember ever seeing a build up in any of the pipes, and some are 20 years old, mind you some are also lead ;)

Rob
 
you would get a massive lime buildup in it. and there is lime in all water. you would need some type of filtration from the main to your cooling an idea would be to get a fish tank filter and run the lines from the main to that then to your cooler
 
Xeese said:
The tank reservoir - been done.

Place Radiator in tank to keep loop seperate. TheoneI saw computer was in basement and bathroom wason other side of the wall. General usage in the house averaged at least one flush every few hours. If a heavy gaming session went on for hours, a short break to process some caffeine kept the system nice and cool.
Click to expand...

LOL.
 
We dont suffer from lime build up here, the amount in the water is minimal.

Rob
 
Xeese said:
The tank reservoir - been done.

Place Radiator in tank to keep loop seperate. TheoneI saw computer was in basement and bathroom wason other side of the wall. General usage in the house averaged at least one flush every few hours. If a heavy gaming session went on for hours, a short break to process some caffeine kept the system nice and cool.
Click to expand...

hmmm

makes me want to do the old pipes-in-the-ground thing with the heatercore in the tank.
 
If your water ever needed to be shut off for work or whatever, you stuff would fry. You would need some sort of flowmeter/shutoff to be safe.
 
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