Submerged mineral oil PC - but EE what would say on it? Finally...

[avrishuvorlaz]

What a complete and utter waste of time and resources. By the time ANYTHING has even come CLOSE to burning or wearing out, you will have retired your old PC and bought a new one.

There's a reason SUCH a tiny percentage of people would even bother to engage in this nonsense - because it's just DAFT and redundant. If you want a more capable or better designed PC, BUY A MORE CAPABLE OR BETTER DESIGNED PC!

[james_s]

I suppose the extreme overclocking is a bit like drag racing. Drag cars are completely useless for anything other than blasting down a straight bit of track as fast as possible, it costs a fortune, it's pointless from any practical aspect but some people find it entertaining. I have no interest in dunking my PC in liquid nitrogen to try to push it briefly to crazy speeds but to each their own.

[Zucca]

What a complete and utter waste of time and resources.

BOOOM.

Sometime someone just need a silent PC. Have a nice day brother... take it easy it is just a forum. 

[Halcyon]

I suppose the extreme overclocking is a bit like drag racing. Drag cars are completely useless for anything other than blasting down a straight bit of track as fast as possible, it costs a fortune, it's pointless from any practical aspect but some people find it entertaining. I have no interest in dunking my PC in liquid nitrogen to try to push it briefly to crazy speeds but to each their own.

I could not have put it any better! Well done sir. 

[Assafl]

The comparisons seem to ignore the real breakthrough in CPU cooling which is heat pipes.

Since those use the latent energy of water their ability to move heat is only bettered by a powered heat pump (A/C). And even the unpowered heat pipes can be bettered by using a lower flash point liquid like ammonia (like absorption refrigerators) - which fortunately is not even necessary.

When applied properly a decent heat pipe can take a 70C CPU and drop it to Under 40C. That is some massive Wattage...

Even water systems don't come close. 4.184 Joules/degree C/gram. Yuck.
Compare that with the latent heat of vaporization of water - 2257 Joules / Gram.....

[TerraHertz]

The comparisons seem to ignore the real breakthrough in CPU cooling which is heat pipes.

Since those use the latent energy of water their ability to move heat is only bettered by a powered heat pump (A/C). And even the unpowered heat pipes can be bettered by using a lower flash point liquid like ammonia (like absorption refrigerators) - which fortunately is not even necessary.

When applied properly a decent heat pipe can take a 70C CPU and drop it to Under 40C. That is some massive Wattage...

Even water systems don't come close. 4.184 Joules/degree C/gram. Yuck.
Compare that with the latent heat of vaporization of water - 2257 Joules / Gram.....

Heat pipes don't use water for the evaporative fluid. If they did, they wouldn't work below 100 deg C.
But yes, heat pipes are cool. Btw, easy to buy too:
  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DIY-laptop-notebook-brass-cooler-heat-exchanger-tube-fins-efficient-copper-pipe-80mm-300mm-Thermal-conductivity/32291675053.html
Some interesting heat-pipe-hack photos there.

Anyway...

Everyone is forgetting the very great advantage of mineral oil cooled PCs.
When there's a power failure, you can stick a wick in it and use it as a lamp.

[CatalinaWOW]

Everyone is forgetting the very great advantage of mineral oil cooled PCs.
When there's a power failure, you can stick a wick in it and use it as a lamp.

Now THERE you have hit on a real advantage.  Days of emergency lighting and a bit of heat for those in cold climates.

[Bud]

I have no interest in dunking my PC in liquid nitrogen to try to push it briefly to crazy speeds but to each their own.

That may be so until you get interested in quantum computers
 

[james_s]

Heat pipes don't use water for the evaporative fluid. If they did, they wouldn't work below 100 deg C.
But yes, heat pipes are cool. Btw, easy to buy too:
  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DIY-laptop-notebook-brass-cooler-heat-exchanger-tube-fins-efficient-copper-pipe-80mm-300mm-Thermal-conductivity/32291675053.html
Some interesting heat-pipe-hack photos there.

It's possible to build a heat pipe using water that works well below 100C, they have the air evacuated and run at a lower pressure. Water will boil at room temperature in a vacuum.

[Berni]

Heat pipes don't use water for the evaporative fluid. If they did, they wouldn't work below 100 deg C.
But yes, heat pipes are cool. Btw, easy to buy too:
  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/DIY-laptop-notebook-brass-cooler-heat-exchanger-tube-fins-efficient-copper-pipe-80mm-300mm-Thermal-conductivity/32291675053.html
Some interesting heat-pipe-hack photos there.

You can use water for heatpipes if you reduce the pressure inside to make water boil at room temperature.

Indeed heat pipes are used a lot for cooling PCs but it still does not work as well as watercooling. While yes changing the phase of water requires a lot of energy but the heatpipes move around very little liquid inside them because they have to use the wicking action of the internal structures to move fluid around. As opposed to watercooling where you have a pump pushing a large volume of fluid trough so quickly it heats up by only a few degrees by the time it comes back out the other side.

Heatpipes do have a big upside tho. They are very reliable and maintenance free since there are basically zero moving parts.

[Nerull]

What a complete and utter waste of time and resources.

BOOOM.

Sometime someone just need a silent PC. Have a nice day brother... take it easy it is just a forum. 

You still have to cool your coolant, it won't be silent. You need pumps and fans.

One of the dangerous of mineral oil submersion is the high heat capacity means an undercooled system can take hours to heat up. You might think you have enough cooling, leave your PC on for a while, and come back to an overheated system. This means if all you want is a neat youtube video, you don't really need any cooling at all - but if you want to have a working PC for longer than a youtube video you're going to need active cooling. And if you follow one of those cool youtube videos, you may not find out until you've damaged something.

[RGB255_0_0]

With thermal protection systems on every piece of hardware you'd be hard pressed to damage hardware even deliberately.

With enough radiator space you can have as near silence as background hum without putting 3KG of copper and aluminium hung from the motherboard.

[R005T3r]

Man There is no point in making a mineral oil submerged pc.

First of all, you have to get rid of the heat, not rely on thermal mass to cool it, otherwise you won't cool anything, it just heats up. 
Second, if you use mineral oil in an aquarium or something else, what will happen if your tank breaks? Cleaning it is impossible.
Third, Have you ever considered what happens if something malfunction and a fire starts? Tell you this because you are playing with electricity and a flammable fluid.
1 square meter of water is about 1 ton. 1 square meter of oil would also be more or less 1 Ton. So, weight is something to consider.


Also, another issue, are the fans: fans are made to work on air not oil so your fans are likely to beak up.

[calexanian]

+1 for total waste of time. If this is such an issue just buy one of the water cooling systems.

[james_s]

Agreed completely that it's a waste of time, but an aquarium that size is not going to be tremendously heavy, not light but it's nowhere near a cubic meter, which I assume is what you meant because a square meter of oil could be a tiny quantity as the thickness is not defined. The flammability is possibly a valid concern, although I think the chances of a malfunction starting a fire are minimal at the power levels involved. You can throw a match into a bucket of oil and it will just go out.

[Bud]

Nothing can beat an old good air cooler.

[rrinker]

 Funny thing about that one is it looks like there will be a big hole in the air flow right about where the CPU is. Fromt he huge hub of the fan.

[felixd]

Old topic, but since I am with EEVBlog for years I will refresh the subject.

We have tested silicone oils/mineral oils 5 years ago. They do work but they are not good products for long time.

We can provide You best, fully synthetic liquid on the market: https://flameit.io/immersion-cooling/liquid

6 cSt @ 40oC with 0,14 W/mK thermal conductivity and best material compatibility list available.

Not only we have liquid for immersion cooling but also line of own immersion cooling ready pumps. With parts that were not compatible with our liquid replaced at factory

https://flameit.io/immersion-cooling/pumps

We are also designing and manufacturing own tanks for every project that needs tailor-made solutions.

If you have any question do not hesitate asking. I am also on EEVBlog Discord server [felixd#3276]
if You want You can also join our https://discord.flameit.io



Regards, Paweł.

[jonpaul]

Many oil cooled power distribution and transmission transformers 10 kW..1 MW since  over a century have shown a few tips....

1/ Oil used in cooling needs moisture and resistance monitoring.

2/ The post PCB oils are rather costly. Some are hygroscopic and need drying or other treatment.

3/ The transformer is baked out prior to filling with oil to remove all moisture trapped.

4/ Oil is circulated thru coolers by a pump or natural thermal circulation (convection)

5/ The airgap above the oil may have flammable vapors.


My take is that the risk/cost benefits of this scheme should be reevaluated.

The great reduction in die area and power dissipation  on modern GPU and CPU have generally  reduced the need for overclock/water cooling

Finally, beware of fire hazard, leaks and void of warranty of critical parts eg CPU/MoBo, GPU.

Jon

[SiliconWizard]

Nice necro.

It's rather obvious to anyone sane that doing this is just fine for entertaining purposes and making views on Youtube, but makes absolutely no sense for anyone else.

[felixd]

Bonsoir Jean. Thank You for you great input on the subject.

First of all and most important our liquid is fully synthetic product which is not mineral oil nor silicone oil that:
* has no smell,
* is non-toxic
* non-carcinogenic,
* non-halogenate,
* food grade
* free from sulphur, nitrogen and aromatics
* with superior oxidation and thermal stability

Our product has 6 cSt @ 40oC of kinematic viscosity with thermal conductivity at 0,14 W/mK. Our liquid is strictly designed for cooling electronics (highest material compatiblity and best physico-checmical properties).

BUT: Material compatiblity is ALWAYS a thing that needs to be considered. We are always edutaction our customer about every aspect of the system and material copmatiblity is always one of first thing we are talking about with customers.

That's why we have our own pumps line with material changed in factory to meet our material compatiblity requirements. It was really hard journey to find partner that will do that keeping pump princes in acceptable range. But we have found great partner.

Critical pumps parts that had to be changed after 5 months in our liquid



Materials that are not compatible after a day:



We have acces to our chemical plant labolatory where we can make better material testing if needed with proper raports after testing:




We have a working installation running for more than 5 years already (still working, still heating my house - I have always start experimenting on myself - never ON customer - always WITH customer if we are testing anything)

You can read more about our proof of concept installation here:
https://flameit.io/assets/pdf/articles/onet-noizz-mines-cryptocurrency-and-heats-house.pdf

1/ Oil used in cooling needs moisture and resistance monitoring.

I do TOTALLY agree. We are capable of doing that.

2/ The post PCB oils are rather costly. Some are hygroscopic and need drying or other treatment.

This is true. Our product is not the cheapest one.

3/ The transformer is baked out prior to filling with oil to remove all moisture trapped.

That is correct as well. Mineral oil and silicone oils with slight ppms of moisture are rapidly loosing breakdown voltage. That's why transformer oils are way much more moisture resistant than mentioned before oils (minerla nd silicone). So is our product.

4/ Oil is circulated thru coolers by a pump or natural thermal circulation (convection)

In our solution we are using pumps for better heat ciruclation. Hot liquid is circulated thourgh heat exchanger where recovered waste heat from computers can be reused to heat swimming pools, houses, buildings or even farms with 40 000 chickens

Those chicks are heated with crypto miners:



5/ The airgap above the oil may have flammable vapors.

Flashpoint of our liquid is above 150 oC (accepted by industry standards)


My take is that the risk/cost benefits of this scheme should be reevaluated.

Of course. We always "force" our customers to calculate everything as we are doing so. That's why we have prepared this calculator that helps them understand things a bit better:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K1HBuF4_VlP3kch8rXuhOGlgDsQhomcg0anKSOYG5XA/edit?usp=sharing

You can edit green fields.

Also, please take into consideration that we are reusing heat for purpouse.

3kW cryptominer (100% load all the time) is capable of FULLY heating 140m2 of newly built house wiht good isolation. 21 oC inside the house with 1-2 oC outside.

3kW miner in action:


We are already heating hotel swimming pools, houses, farms etc. It is not a problem at all.

LEAKS: OH YEAH! We know something about leaks ))) But in 5 years of improving of our products we have developed procedures and tested sealing materials that risk of leaks have been almost totaly eliminated (it's still one of our biggest concern of course when we are installating new setup)

Regarding warrant voids, that's correct. If you immerse "standard" computer Your warranty is voided but together with our partners we are capable of delivering servers (19/21'') with 3 year minimum warranty.

Jean, merci encore pour ton commentaire. Is there any chance we can have a call and talk more about tansformer oils?
I can see You have expierience in that filed and it's always great to expand konwledge.
If you are open for that I will send You private message.

Bonne nuit, Paweł

[felixd]

It totally makes sance to reuse heat from servers, cryptominers, rendering farms etc.

By removing fans, lowering working temperatures your are lowering resitance which converts into lower power usage.
With recovered, sometimes MW of power You have heat source capable of heating towns.

Regards, Pawel

[mendip_discovery]

I still think Slydrol is the best stuff to use. It such a finger licking tasty stuff.

[felixd]

Checking it right now. Looks tasty

Skydrol fluids are extremely irritating to human tissue. Gloves and goggles are recommended safety equipment when servicing Skydrol systems. If the fluid gets on the skin it creates an itchy, red rash with a persistent burning sensation. The effects subside within a few hours; egg white can be applied to the affected area to neutralize the burning.

[SiliconWizard]

It totally makes sance to reuse heat from servers, cryptominers, rendering farms etc.

While it certainly can have some niche applications, and I don't doubt you have a great product here, my point was that it made absolutely no sense to cool down a desktop PC, which was the point of the thread.

Even for servers, that's something that would be used with a lot of thought. Not just submerging the whole hardware in mineral oil. The resulting weight would be enormous (causing specific issues for mounting purposes) and, it would render any maintenance a horrific process.