Submerged mineral oil cooling

_k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian

Who has done it? Feeling like I need to expand my electronics resume by cooling some electronics in mineral oil. Also this is an attempt to see if I can deal with the eat from parts in Texas better since summer is incoming and pretty soon days will only be 90+ for the high.

I have a swiftech pump sitting around with a 120x2 rad and tubing. Figured I would just find a cheap fish tank or buy a heavy duty plastic tub and cut a few holes in the top to pull the rad out. My issue is I can't find a reference for heat dissipation. Looking at between 400 and 800 watts per container but I don't know if that will be to much heat.

Comments

  • SonorousSonorous F@H Fanatic US Icrontian

    I recall @Thrax did a project like this in school once.

  • PirateNinjaPirateNinja Icrontian

    If you have that much time and money to throw around you should invest a thousand dollars in a low expense ratio index fund instead, and with the free time think of something better to do.

    I'll show myself out. :banned:

    TushonmidgaErrorNullTurnipAnnes
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian

    Just build a bong cooler or swamp chiller. It'll still be challenging but it will actually work in TX summers.

    Garg
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian

    I submerged a system in fluorinert.

  • midgamidga "There's so much hot dog in Rome" ~digi (> ^.(> O_o)> Icrontian

    @drasnor said:
    Just build a bong cooler

    I approve.

  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian

    Did a couple of them. First had to trim the fans (NB, video card, CPU), cut the blades back so that they would run and circulate the oil without overloading.
    Used very thin oil. Water has a viscosity of 1, this oil was only 2. Motor oil is like 10-20.
    Don't use more oil than it takes to cover stuff.
    Then used a submersible pump (pond pump) to circulate the oil through an auto heater core that was mounted in front of an AC unit.
    Also did one with a chiller where the evap from the chiller was in the oil. It was running about -40.

    Garg
  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian

    Even regular water cooling outside of the most basic pre-built kids are impractical (and generally unnecessary) for the regular home user/typical gamer. Air is more than sufficient for most.

    This is high-level geek stuff, which is fun and interesting, but not intended for practicality.

  • _k_k P-Town, Texas Icrontian

    Reading a bunch more shows that this will be a bust. Instead of using the air in a 10x9x9 room to cool the electronics you can make a 10x9x9 liquid mini-room inside of your 10x9x9 room but there is a massive downside. The oil will slowly destroy all of the tubes, seals, wire coating, and container.

    Everyone was talking about cables becoming brittle and breaking USB cords used for IO if you run them into the oil. A [H] member built a custom submerged PC but the seals slowly leaked in a few places and all of the rubber seals died and had to be replaced with custom seals due to the rubber absorbing oil and staying expanded and too squishy.

  • AlexDeGruvenAlexDeGruven Wut? Meechigan Icrontian

    Similar issues when people have tried (or at least theorized) distilled water setups. It works fine until things start leeching into the water and creating shorts.

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