Water to Water cooling

[alnmike]

Hey all, did a little searching and couldn't find an exact match to my situation. I am going to be building my next computer soon and I'm of the DIY section of humanity (for better or worse). I've got my huge custom desk made out of 1 sheet of MDF and 2x4's. I'm soon building a large x1ft deep bookshelf.

I'm thinking of attaching my computer to the outside side of my bookshelf without a case (I have to blow out my current case once a week for dust). I figure my mobo will get less dusty elevated and sideways, as well as better cooling. I will be water-cooling my CPU, and SLI GPU's. I can devote one (or half) shelf to power supply,drives, water-cooling. I'm not a huge fan of water-air cooling, for the same reason I'm not a fan of air cooling.

What I'm proposing is running my cooling loop through a car heater core submerged in a small fishtank or other container. Water is basically free in Alaska, so I can add all the 50 degree water I need to the fishtank to regulate my comp temp.
What I would use is a fridge or similar water solenoid to turn on the flow, hooked to a temp sensor to prevent condensation.

The water to water interface would let me get more cooling than a 4 fan radiator and probably much more. Am I crazy or the 50th person to do this? I know enough to get an all copper/brass heater core along with water blocks. The max head in my system would probably be about a foot. But would I need 2 pumps to do what I'm doing or would the standard pumps be up to the task solo.
Ive been talking to my roommates (were all engineering college students) and I know what I need to build and regulate the temps, theres just a couple different approaches and I dont know enough yet about sourcing parts.

65 degree water with a smaller area and flowrate should definitely outperform a high flowrate larger radiator 70 degree air system, I just dont know enough about the efficienties of the transfer of heat to do the required calculations, it would just have to be trial and error to see how much heat my system would dissipate. Im thinking of getting a Peltier assisted waterblock also, but dislike the extra energy it uses.
If I do a crazy cpu/gpu overclock, would my North/Southbridges/RAM/anything else get too hot? Especially without a case providing airflow? Or would being in the middle of a room's convection currents be enough? Theres always those small ram clip on fans too...

Im thinking of getting the universal waterblocks, so couldnt cool the rest of the GPU's, ect.

Anyone know of a waterline solenoid capable of switching the flow of water on and off like 500,000 cycles? (1 cycle every 5 minutes for 1 year is 100k for instance) I know washing machines and ice makers have inexpensive solenoids, but I dont know of the reliability.

Or, a reliable non leaking ball valve that I could control with a servo? This would only need to be cycled like a quarter as often. In both cases, I just made up completely random numbers of cycles required.

In both cases I would be using regular refrigerator icemaker line running from the cold side of my bathroom sink. (1/4 inch OD)
Also, what's the best way of securing graphics cards without having a case to screw into? Zip ties?
Thanks.

 

[rubix_1011]

I think you have a lot more going on here than you are aware. Let's start by addressing what you feel is the most pressing...which would be the water loop. Can you start by giving some specifics on how you want this to work, etc? I know in general you described the plan, but what about details...this can help give us some ideas of how you want this to work. Depending on this build, the rest may change somewhat. You seem to have a lot of ideas...some very good in theory, but may not be very practical. Good start...let's break this down...

 

[alnmike]

Well, Im planning on the standard water loop, pump, cpu, gpu, (maybe second gpu), and radiator. Might add in a ram or Mobo sink also.

The radiator will be a heater core from a car, less restriction, same if not better performance. I will submerge the core in a tank of water. Ill have a fridge water tube coming from my house water supply and returning through an overflow to a drain, this attaches to the tank.

I need to regulate the fridge tube somehow, either an electric solenoid (ice makers/washing machines have these for cheap), or a copper ball valve attached to a servo. I can easily control the actuation of either with an arduino or similar and a temp sensor.

My goal is to cool my heater core with 60 degree water instead of 70 degree air.

Fridge tubing (11/64 ID) has a flow rate of about 6gpm with normal house pressure. Cold water up at my house is 50 degrees, moving to a new place, so dont know the actual temp of new place yet.

6gpm at a 1 degree water change takes about 880 watts to heat up. I will be taking 50 degree water and turning it into 60 degree water (Tank will be insulated from the 70 deg air). So, I think ill need 1/10th the max flow of the fridge tubing.

Assuming the $4.40 cost of water per 1000gal at my new place (Its unlimited here, my idea comes from my ghetto air conditioner, a heater core with fridge tubing and a fan behind it) will cost me about $1.4 per month to operate my comp 24 hours a day, with rough idle/max load times.

Ill be getting copper based (some bronze) water blocks and there's a few copper heater cores out there.

 

[alnmike]

Also, I want the temp to be 60 deg instead of 50 deg so I dont get condensation. Once I get the proper setup, I can add RH sensors and cross reference a humidity dew point chart to find the optimal temp for no condensation.

Additionally, I will be doing this caseless, with my mobo on the side of a bookshelf and the rest of the internals on one of the shelves. My main concern with this is keeping the Motherboard cool without casefan airflow, I can easily get a big 240 mm fan and place it to silently circulate air around the Mobo.

My current case has so much airflow that dust pretty much requires a weekly blow out, I figure getting the case off the floor into a cleaner airspace will help, plus itll look cool

 

[rubix_1011]

Oh, ok...sounds like you are going to do a compressor-chilled water loop. This is pretty common...let me get you some guides to help out...

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?155-Chilled-Liquid-Cooling

Updated: adding this as well: http://www.overclock.net/phase-change/747244-list-phase-builds-guides.html

These guys have a lot of info to help you get started. I can find a few more, but it's a little busy at work. This should get you started.

BTW...don't need RAM or MB blocks...maybe a NB block if you plan on doing some high overclocking. Also, you can do some insulating of your board and components to combat condensation...they also have info on there about it.

 

[alnmike]

Wow, those guys are nuts
One day ill crack open an a/c and get those temps, my first project is a little more tame though. Cooling my comp with tap water essentially. Using a tank and heater core so as to not get calcium or whatever deposits in my components.

 

[rubix_1011]

What you are wanting to do is more along the lines of a slush box...using cold/cooled water to in-turn cool the heat exchanger as the interface, rather than straight air. The reason its called a 'slush box' is because initially, those doing it simply took a cooler, filled it full of ice water and submerged radiators in it. Adding salt to the ice/water creates even lower temps, if interested.

 

[alnmike]

Cool, good to know the idea works, now to finding the components to control the flow. Cant find a solenoid or valve solution that wow's me yet...