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Swimming pool for water cooling

R

Roach III

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 16, 2002
Messages
85
Has anyone tried using a swimming pool for cooling multiple computers yet? I got this idea after joining the ranks of the bitcoin miners. Temps in a dual CPU/GPU are just insanely hot. Even after 2 high flow 120mm and 4 80mm fans in a push/pull config.

I've been browsing the Lowes website and found this:

http://www.lowes.com/pd_15869-61002...=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?Ntt=apollo&facetInfo=

They also have 36 and 48 port manifolds.

I figure with this manifold, I can cool six systems. Just put quick disconnects on the back of each system and hook them up. I found a nice swimming pool pump in the backyard to pump the cold pool water to the manifold through 1 inch PVC pipe. Then to the systems through 1/2 inch pex tubing. I may have to put a regulator on to control the water pressure. I definetely don't want to blow a hose in one of the systems. A possible added benefit would be a heated swimming pool in the winter.

What do you guys think? Will there be issues with scaling and fungus? I do use algaecide, chlorine, and clarifier in the pool and it is filtered.
 
if it works you will have a nice heated pool during the fall/winter. i don't see why it wouldn't work using the water from the pool.. fungus won't be an issue since you already use the chemicals to clean the pool water. i guess it really comes down to what the actual temp of the pool water is and if you plan to use rad's to cool the water even more before the water goes through the component loop.

if you do this post pictures, would love to see what it looks like when its finished.
 
Right now, I'm just waiting on a big check to arrive. I will definetely log the build with pics as I go. Temperature in the pool on a hot day might reach 90F. Winter time, Hmmm......probably just above freezing or lower. I'm sure one system could keep it from freezing up. Maybe have a bypass loop to a semi-truck radiator indoors. Six systems will put out a tremendous amount of heat.
 
The chlorine and other associated minerals will likely corrode your parts.

If you get a minor leak, you'll flood your house.
 
Yeah.....didn't realize about chlorine reacting with the metals. A heat exchanger is definetely in order! Maybe a 2 wall heat exchanger using coolant on the computer side. That would prevent reaction with metals and a 2 wall HE is safer in case of a wall breach. As for the leak, Someone is almost always home so I shouldn't have to worry so much about emptying an entire pool into the house.

Thanks for the link IeSLIe!
 
chlorine in small concentrations would easily corrode stainless steel AISI 304 in less than a month!!
 
Interesting. I don't think you will see a lot of cooling, but I am not an expert. Has anyone ever put their heat exchanger/radiator in a small refrigerator? I wonder if that would provide much additional cooling over normal water cooling unit.
 
artimusbill said:
Interesting. I don't think you will see a lot of cooling, but I am not an expert. Has anyone ever put their heat exchanger/radiator in a small refrigerator? I wonder if that would provide much additional cooling over normal water cooling unit.
Click to expand...

The compressor in your fridge will die from exhaustion. It is not made for the constant workload a system provides.
 
It will be a good sized job. But like I said, I'm going to need to cool at least 6 systems that are practically a fireball by themselves. Probably 3 GPUs per machine running full throttle 24/7.
 
Shell and tube heat exchanger is what you need so your pool chem stays in the pool and your cooling water stays in the comps.
 
I was thinking about this earlier last week. In my mind I only had a large container of water in the room but the pool water was a far cooler idea. I like that someone has actually done it.

There is the oil sheikh version of this where you don't use a pump or a radiator of any sort; you just use cold tap water on full blast. It's outputted to your garden or whatever.
 
You'd be better off just burying some copper piping into the ground, then using that as a radiator. The earth stays pretty cool year round.

Your components will not hold up well to using swimming pool water.
 
I like the idea of using a pool for water cooling. Of course, I don't have a pool--maybe it's a good time for a large koi pond?
 
I thought about this too...and still want to do it, but I cant imagine any number of basic desktop systems (well, that you would find in a home...) actually heating a full size swimming pool, especially considering that just the length of tubing the water has to travel would cool the water.

In our display at work the computer that does our accounting is a water cooled core 2 duo. It has a fish pump/reservoir under the desk, a single radiator, and about ~6 feet of tubing that run up into the cabinet. There are no fans anywhere, and it runs just fine. The system used to also have a water block 6800gt for looks until the block started leaking, and that was also fine with no active fans.

If the water from the pool has to travel 15 or 20 feet in each direction to get to the system, just that distance alone would probably cool the heat from multiple cpus/gpus. I have no data to back that up but air-cooled porsches/vws rely on essentially the same setup on a larger scale. They pump the oil clear up to the front of the car (where it is exposed to forced air at speed but not with fans) and it cools during the travel distance.
 
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QuiteSufficient said:
I thought about this too...and still want to do it, but I cant imagine any number of basic desktop systems (well, that you would find in a home...) actually heating a full size swimming pool, especially considering that just the length of tubing the water has to travel would cool the water.
Click to expand...

Watercool a 48U rack full of 1U Twin from Supermicro!
 
QuiteSufficient said:
I thought about this too...and still want to do it, but I cant imagine any number of basic desktop systems (well, that you would find in a home...) actually heating a full size swimming pool, especially considering that just the length of tubing the water has to travel would cool the water.

In our display at work the computer that does our accounting is a water cooled core 2 duo. It has a fish pump/reservoir under the desk, a single radiator, and about ~6 feet of tubing that run up into the cabinet. There are no fans anywhere, and it runs just fine. The system used to also have a water block 6800gt for looks until the block started leaking, and that was also fine with no active fans.

If the water from the pool has to travel 15 or 20 feet in each direction to get to the system, just that distance alone would probably cool the heat from multiple cpus/gpus. I have no data to back that up but air-cooled porsches/vws rely on essentially the same setup on a larger scale. They pump the oil clear up to the front of the car (where it is exposed to forced air at speed but not with fans) and it cools during the travel distance.
Click to expand...

Well.....I am really wanting to start out with 6x 4U systems sporting 3x Radeon 6990s each. I think that would heat a pool nicely. Summertime might be a problem, though.
 
QuiteSufficient said:
I thought about this too...and still want to do it, but I cant imagine any number of basic desktop systems (well, that you would find in a home...) actually heating a full size swimming pool, especially considering that just the length of tubing the water has to travel would cool the water.

In our display at work the computer that does our accounting is a water cooled core 2 duo. It has a fish pump/reservoir under the desk, a single radiator, and about ~6 feet of tubing that run up into the cabinet. There are no fans anywhere, and it runs just fine. The system used to also have a water block 6800gt for looks until the block started leaking, and that was also fine with no active fans.

If the water from the pool has to travel 15 or 20 feet in each direction to get to the system, just that distance alone would probably cool the heat from multiple cpus/gpus. I have no data to back that up but air-cooled porsches/vws rely on essentially the same setup on a larger scale. They pump the oil clear up to the front of the car (where it is exposed to forced air at speed but not with fans) and it cools during the travel distance.
Click to expand...

It depends on the piping used. If it's plastic, that's pretty insulative, so the water will not change significantly in temperature as it travels.


However, since it is such a large body of water, even with horrible heat dissipation, it would take quite a while (week?) for a computer to heat the pool up running at full load.

I still think geothermal is a better solution. Pool water temperatures can vary quite widely, more so than the ground. You also have to contend with an open body of water subject to contamination and debris flowing through your water blocks with extremely fine micro-channels.
 
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Well.....It wouldn't be a problem to add a filter to the intake in the pool. But I'm thinking of another idea that may be waaay cheaper. Toilet water cooling. Use the resevoir tank on a toilet to cool the hot GPUs. It gets flushed numerous a day so the cool water would always be replenished throughout the day. I have a toilet on the other side of the wall from my computer system, so a couple of holes in the wall and maybe 10ft of PVC would be all I need in addition to the standard water blocks and tubing.
 
Roach III said:
Well.....I am really wanting to start out with 6x 4U systems sporting 3x Radeon 6990s each. I think that would heat a pool nicely. Summertime might be a problem, though.
Click to expand...

There is still no way that would heat a pool. In the example I gave here at my office I could measure it but I would guess there is about a 1/2 gallon of water in the whole system, and a cpu and gpu do not have cooling problems with that configuration. You are talking about 20-30,000 gallons plus significant travel time. 36 gpus and 4 cpus will put out heat, but it won't put out 40,000 times the heat of my configuration.

In the example linked above the owner has 4 machines, albeit they could be low power machines, hooked up to pool cooling and reports there is no perceptible temperature difference between the water leaving and entering the pool.
 
Anyone try using a motorcycle radiator? Probably too much sludge inside the radiator itself to pump through the blocks, but when used with a plate heat exchanger, I imagine it would be pretty effective.
 
QuiteSufficient said:
There is still no way that would heat a pool. In the example I gave here at my office I could measure it but I would guess there is about a 1/2 gallon of water in the whole system, and a cpu and gpu do not have cooling problems with that configuration. You are talking about 20-30,000 gallons plus significant travel time. 36 gpus and 4 cpus will put out heat, but it won't put out 40,000 times the heat of my configuration.

In the example linked above the owner has 4 machines, albeit they could be low power machines, hooked up to pool cooling and reports there is no perceptible temperature difference between the water leaving and entering the pool.
Click to expand...

Well.....for one, my pool is 7500 gallons. Number two, I'm estimating power heat dissapation of each machine to be at least 1200 watts. 1200x6=7200 watts of heat. I don't think I'll have any trouble heating the pool. But alas, the point of the thread was not to heat the pool, but to cool the CPU/GPUs.

As for the toilet resevoir, It probably will only to be able to cool one system only. I would probably have to put a radiator of some kind in-line with it.
 
For the toiledt, you'd have o close loop your coolent line, or every fludsh would airate your system.
 
Roach III said:
Well.....for one, my pool is 7500 gallons. Number two, I'm estimating power heat dissapation of each machine to be at least 1200 watts. 1200x6=7200 watts of heat. I don't think I'll have any trouble heating the pool. But alas, the point of the thread was not to heat the pool, but to cool the CPU/GPUs.

As for the toilet resevoir, It probably will only to be able to cool one system only. I would probably have to put a radiator of some kind in-line with it.
Click to expand...

1200 Watts each?! Are you running 4 GTX580's?
 
spitter said:
Right, that's why they don't make stainless steel filters......o wait they dooo!!!

http://www.google.com/products/cata...a=X&ei=zs1STqekCZHXiAL9_c3HDA&ved=0CHIQ8wIwAg
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HAHAHA, you're such a dummy :p
that post made my day :D

Let me explain this to you, saying "Stainless steel" is like saying a "monitor" or a "pc", it doesn't describe anything, just a tendency of the metal. There are more than a hundred different types of stainless steel, the main difference is in the percentage of the alloy materials like nickel and chromium, the higher the alloy materials the better the corrosion protection, but to certain atmospheres, salty, acidic, etc.

The one I've mention before was a AISI/SAE 304.
This is what just 2% of chlorine can do to an storage tank (made with 304)

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dlkn_p466_028_resize.jpg


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dlkn_p466_032_resize.jpg


that filter that you mention should be at least AISI/SAE 316L (if it's good quality)
 
Gotta call you on that one LeSLIe, that was the welds not the plates... Which opens up a whole different class of corrosion....

But you are fully correct... ANY "Stainless" a chloride solution and a lack of O2... its a gonner.

What is the vessel for?
 
Patonb said:
Gotta call you on that one LeSLIe, that was the welds not the plates... Which opens up a whole different class of corrosion....

But you are fully correct... ANY "Stainless" a chloride solution and a lack of O2... its a gonner.

What is the vessel for?
Click to expand...

The corrosion happened alongside the HAZ, due to the formation of chromium carbides. (no chrome oxide layer, no "rust proof" effect) you need to lower the carbon percentage, hence the need for at least a 316L, the 304 is not an appropriate material for that chlorine environment, it has "too much" carbon :p

Almost forgot, the tank was the water reservoir for my water cooling system :D
 
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Roach III said:
Well.....for one, my pool is 7500 gallons. Number two, I'm estimating power heat dissapation of each machine to be at least 1200 watts. 1200x6=7200 watts of heat. I don't think I'll have any trouble heating the pool. But alas, the point of the thread was not to heat the pool, but to cool the CPU/GPUs.

As for the toilet resevoir, It probably will only to be able to cool one system only. I would probably have to put a radiator of some kind in-line with it.
Click to expand...

Sorry to be an argumentative dick but there are 3413 BTU/hr in 1kw.

If a machine puts out 1200w of heat, that comes out to 4095.6 BTU/hour. My pool heater is rated at 350,000 BTU/hour and couldn't heat my pool 20 degrees in an entire day.

This Hayward unit http://www.hayward-pool.com/prd/In-...ies-Low-NOx_10201_10551_14002_-1_14003__I.htm is 250,000 BTU and they claim it will raise 800 gallons of water 30 degrees in less than an hour. You may have 1/10th the heating performance (not accounting for heat exhausted into the air through the copper water blocks and removed by fans), and 9 times the volume of water. So maybe if you hook up 60 rigs like that, and let it go 24/7, you may heat the pool over the course of a day.
 
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