Submersion : Project thinktank

BrainEater

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
Messages
1,189
Hi ! :D

I wanted to share my first true mod with yaz.

This is a fully submersed P3 rig(p3 800/786 Mb ram/Elsa Gladiac/ProMT1000)......cooled by 450 Watts of Peltier coolers...Now , it's totally experimental , so there are no amazing temps or OC's yet.....

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Basically , the machine started life as a Lian-li pc-65 case....I completely dissassembled the case down to the raw frame , and rebuilt it from scratch , so it would accept the tank.The tank is handmade using 3/8" glass and 1/4" aluminum....There is a removeable plate on the back of the tank that forms the 'coldplate' of the TEC module.The TEC consists of 2x226Watt peltiers....
The Peltiers are cooled by a handmade ~17 lb pure copper heatsink.
The full motherboard/cpu/ram/cards and the PSU are completely submerged in a dielectric fluid called Midel 7131...The fluid is circutated/jetted at cpu/gpu with a small submersable pump.Cooling is controlled by a Matrix Orbital mx2 series lcd.

The machine weighs 95 lbs , and draws just over 1 Kw when running.

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I have currently taken the whole thing apart.....I am rebuilding the TEC module with waterblocks on the Pelts...Dissapating 1Kw is not an easy task......

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Hope ya like it !
-Brain
:D

edit : Here's a couple more pics.


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:eek: :eek: let me get this straight, you mean the mobo and all the components are actually in the liquid??? and nothing gets shotend out??? amazing......it looks nice dude, first time seeing a mod like that...great work :eek:
 
I dunno what's more stunning, the fact that it's fully submersed, or that it draws just over 1kw when on.
 
You could've found a cheaper case to do that to :eek:

Still, I love submersion cooling and that's probably the best looking one I've seen yet :D
 
I sat right by him at Fragapalooza where he first showed it off and it's really awesome! I can vouch that it runs!
 
Oh my sweet sweet Jesus that is amazing.

What is your background... like, was this just the pinnacle of some crazy-ass hobby, or are you like a chemical engineer or something...
 
HRslammR said:
haha for a moment i thought you had ripped off a friend of mine's system: as seen here

but yeah. looks awesome!
you didnt have to thread crap like that... give him some time to show his rig off and let him get the attention, he totally deserves it :D

back on topic, i LOVE IT... ive read about submerged computers and how its done but your comp was the first one i saw... its amazing, really hot

good job ;)
 
Very nice, Ive seen it done before, although the other times were in fish tanks and such, nothing nice.
 
Thanks !

:D

Yep.....It's nothing new or anything....I just wanted to do an actual 'case' that was submerged.....I've seen several that were in styrofoam or fishtanks.......pfffft :p

-As far as using a cheaper case : could'nt do it.....this one matches my gaming rig.

We'll see what happens once I build the waterblocks for the peltiers.....as well as the heatpipes for the cpu/gpu , The cooling should be fairly decent..Once I have determined the thermal properties of the cooling setup , I'll consider putting a better rig into it.
 
ness1469 said:
Oh my sweet sweet Jesus that is amazing.

What is your background... like, was this just the pinnacle of some crazy-ass hobby, or are you like a chemical engineer or something...

heh.both.

I've done electronics since I was young , and I lift buildings for a living.

:D
 
Quoted from the original post :D
The full motherboard/cpu/ram/cards and the PSU are completely submerged in a dielectric fluid called Midel 7131...
 
Amazing project! Couple of question:

Is the liquid evaporative?

Are heatsinks necessary in this setup?

And come on, tell us the running CPU temp :D
 
No the liquid does not really evaporate....The case is basically sealed (There is a small port to prevent overpressures).

Yes there are heastsinks.No fans.I intend to handbuild heatpipes for the cpu and gpu that will thermally attach them to the 'coldplate' , so I will eventually be removing those heatsinks.

The best temps I've had so far ,full cpu load, are ~36 C cpu and ~30 C liquid temp.Not great , but there is a lot of work to do yet.

:D

I've added 2 pics to the original post.
 
Thats pretty impressive to say the least, but im about to ask a real n00b question (and one probly on a few peoples minds) with the properties of this liquid could it be used in a traditional water cooling setup. i.e. a pump rad and block ? becuase id realy like to try that given that the chemical wont damage the components.
 
i'll repeat what a few others said by saying that i've seen a few other submersion projects, but yours is the cleanest... so big thumbs up.

CyberPunk_1000 - I don't know what the thermal properties of the liquid are, because those are obviously very important when determining the usefulness of a material for cooling, or the viscosity(important for pumping)... or much else for that matter... but just to clarify, are you asking because a liquid like this would be ideal to prevent damage in the case of a leak? I wasn't sure, based on your wording, and the fact that i'm very tired...
 
Yes, your assumptions on the event of a leak are 100% correct, i did have a brief look at the data sheet for the liquid but in comparison to water im not sure how the properties weigh up. The only think i could determin is that the liquid is far less viscous at higer temperatures but as for how this would effect a pump i do not know, i have herd of people pumping oil and quickly damaging there pumps though.
 
Why didn't you position the motherboard with the back panel facing the top?

Also, do you think fans would actually function in the fluid? And if so, do you think they would help cooling?

Looks awesome by the way... :p
 
corran_horn314 said:
I don't know what the thermal properties of the liquid are, because those are obviously very important when determining the usefulness of a material for cooling, or the viscosity(important for pumping)... or much else for that matter... but just to clarify, are you asking because a liquid like this would be ideal to prevent damage in the case of a leak? I wasn't sure, based on your wording, and the fact that i'm very tired...

The properties of midel 7131 at room temperature are similiar to that of corn syrup, it is quite viscous. However it becomes much less viscous as temperatures rise. eg. When Brain first set his case up at fragapalooza you could hardly see circulation of the fluid or any dimples on the surface but within 30 minutes or so you could see a large dimple in the surface right above one of the tubes leading from the pump (the one by the dimm slots). Personally I don't see it as a replacement for water your average liquid cooling setup. It should however be interesting to see how the submerged cooling performs once Brain gets the new waterblock system setup.
 
BrainEater said:
Once I have determined the thermal properties of the cooling setup , I'll consider putting a better rig into it.
Hey BrainEater, very nice job and it looks good too. It was only a matter of time before SOMEBODY finally did a submersion project thats also good to look at! All the other ones are ugly as phuk!
Sweet. ;)
 
what hardware are you using and what speeds are you running them?

nice work.
 
The proc is a p3 800 e on an asus p3v4x mobo.w 768 Mb cas 2 pc-133.It's all running at stock speeds (or was.....I've taken it all apart)...I'm waiting for some better cooling performance before I begin OC'ing.

I am in the process of building some fairly heavy duty waterblocks for the peltiers....each one needs to dissapate 500W. :p

When I rebuild it , I am going to be taking the PSU out of submersion....That's 300 watts of heat It does'nt need to dissapate.

We'll see what happens.
 
Benny Blanco said:
Why didn't you position the motherboard with the back panel facing the top?

Also, do you think fans would actually function in the fluid? And if so, do you think they would help cooling?

Looks awesome by the way... :p

i dont think it would really help cooling until as they said when it got hotter and then had a lower viscosity(sp?)

it woudl look pretty cool though spinning suspended in the water

although the fans might die quickly since that would be much harder to push than air...
 
gonna be a pain in the butt to upgrade that thing if you ever do...you'll have to end up buying a whole new PC, since I doubt cleaning that fluid off would be in any way easy...
 
Benny Blanco said:
Why didn't you position the motherboard with the back panel facing the top?

Also, do you think fans would actually function in the fluid? And if so, do you think they would help cooling?

Looks awesome by the way... :p
i think that would be a LOT of stress on the fans unless its like high torque or something. Like the tornadoes.
 
welll from this mod, i can tell that you have alot of time and money to blow... but heck, that is one sick mod!
 
There is a better cooling liquid available that is almost identical to water's properties, take a look, I forgot the name, but it would improve your performance 2 fold easily.... :) It evaporates though, so you'd have to do some more mods....
 
CyberPunk_1000 said:
Thats pretty impressive to say the least, but im about to ask a real n00b question (and one probly on a few peoples minds) with the properties of this liquid could it be used in a traditional water cooling setup. i.e. a pump rad and block ? becuase id realy like to try that given that the chemical wont damage the components.


BAD idea. for this stuff to work it's gotta be thick. The coefficient of friction would be awful. It's basically green gunk dude, no way, no how could a conventional pump be able to pull that. in short, the whle thing would be just one big clog.

Water, on the other hand is a truly remarkable liquid. It's got a specific heat capacity of 1, which is more than can be said for many a fluid. In fact, it's so good at cooling things down, that nuclear plants use it as coolant, not unlike the way we do in our water-cooling setups. We'd use it in cars but for the fact that in the winter time it freezes...thus anti-freeze. A lot of the coolant solutions you see forhte pc are based on antifreeze as well..it may have a specific heat capacity that's a touch higher than agua, say like 1.1 or so. The coolant stuff tastes awful though.

Stick with water.

back to the topic at hand though:
The iea seems interesting but pulling 1kw is awful.It's just a waste of natural reources...I could see if the submersion made this REALLY cool like on the order of drawing 200W...but save the novelty of fluid surrounded PC...it's kind of a hog.
 
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