136lbs of copper combine radiator :)

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codename47

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Mar 7, 2003
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Hey I've got a 136lb copper radiator from my dad's combine that he was going to throw away b/c the fan cut loose and went into a section of it but it isn't too bad... I was wondering if you can set up a main water cooling system for all the house PCs based on this one radiator or if it would be too much to do and not worth it... this would also be in a new house build so running lines wouldn't be hard while it was still in studs... if this is plausable what all do yo think I would need... would each PC still need its own pumps to draw or just have close valves by the main source to close off any unused rooms and then have a main pump recirc the water through the lines... or if you have any other ideas as to what to do with this radiator let me know... my dad wants to recycle it for the money but I didn't want to give up on it yet... :)
 
it could work but im guessing your gonna need 2 big water pumps one going into the rad and one pulling the water out of tha rad and i would use big pumps as far as being worth it hey its something no one else has done so yea its worth it
 
you'd need a really big fan and a really big pump. It would be possible to run lines to all of your computers throughout the house, as long as you have shutoff valves at the source, which you should also use to adjust flow rates to different places. And there's the issue of the tubing going bad or developing a leak, and the issue of bleeding all the air out of a system that big. Like I said, it is possible, but it might turn into a huge hassle, you'd be better off of all of the computers you were cooling were in the same general area as the radiator.
 
JPGR87 said:
you'd need a really big fan and a really big pump. It would be possible to run lines to all of your computers throughout the house, as long as you have shutoff valves at the source, which you should also use to adjust flow rates to different places. And there's the issue of the tubing going bad or developing a leak, and the issue of bleeding all the air out of a system that big. Like I said, it is possible, but it might turn into a huge hassle, you'd be better off of all of the computers you were cooling were in the same general area as the radiator.
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just cuz its a big system doesnt mean it has to be a closed system...you could build a resevoir out of like a keg or sumthin
 
honestly, you'd be better off with a huge underground resevoir, that would yield sub ambient temps, all without a radiator...
 
Hmm, there’s an Idea! You could go under the house (if you have a crawlspace), burry your reservoir, run tubes back up through the floor and into your PC :eek:

You would need a pretty big reservoir for it to be effective, but what temps could you get out of that? :D :eek:
 
I've seen it done a few times before. A google search might yield some results, and I'm not sure what the ground temp is (or how low you have to go), but it should be pretty cold compared to ambient most times.
 
Yeah I wouldn't be doing it b/c it would be the easiest or the best way to do something but thought it would be a cool thing to have like 4 rooms or so that could have easy connections into an existing water system system with supply and return ports.... What kind of tubing would you all use for inside the walls? PVC piping or actually use silicon tubing? Pumps.. how about some idea as to who much LPM I'd need to move against gravity and like a 100ft or so of tubing.

The ground tapping would be cool but I'm actually planning on doing that for my heating and cooling... a little geothermal system but I could always see if there was a way to tap into that instead.... however that still leaves a large copper radiator... oh well if it is sold off for the money that is fine but I'd still feel like I'd be missing the opportunity to do something cool... I guess I could keep it around to cool my rackmounts and file server which are all in one location but that might be overkill... my dual mp system does run really hot so maybe that would be good... however either way I'd have to buy a bunch of water heatsinks...
 
umm.. if you are wiring up the whole damn hosue.. taht got me thinking.. why not just get an ac unit for computers only.. just a small one with 6 inch tubing.. run it into different rooms of the house.. and then retrofit your comptuers to just have you plug the vent into the back..

hmmm.. interesting..
 
i think the idea of routing PVC throughout the house to cool the PCs is very cool IMO. The problem with the combine rad is that it just might completely kill flow, meaning it would take a pretty beefy pump to power everything, maybe even a gas powered one, in which case a failure could be VERY bad news. Having some sort of kill switch would be necessary regardless, as pumps/fans do die, and losing all your PCs at once could really blow. Now, geothermal would be the way to go, as it is passive, and cools lower than the rad could ever do (ambient). Another idea, if you are kind of stuck on the notion of the radiator, would be to have the geothermal res at one end, and then right before the water comes back to the res (temperature of water depending, above ambient by a lot, use it with fans otherwise...) it could hit the radiator, which would also be buried right next to the res. Of course, I might even suggest insulating the PVC, as this would keep temps even lower.
 
why not just rig up a system that runs off your homes existing water system. It would be super expensive to waste that much water but it would keep everything nice and cool.
 
that's really all a geothermal system is... except no bills from the water company, and a recycled loop.
 
Wow, is this deja vu or what???? I just got done reading an article on Overclockers in which a guy buried a huge rad in his backyard and was setting up for H20 cooling multiple computers in his home.

LINKAGE

Enjoy and best of luck!
 
Yeah the whole loosing all your systems in one day might blow a lot... but as far as restrictions go I don' t think that that the radiator itself will prove to be to much of an impedence... it has like two or three inch diameter inlet and outlet pipes coming out of it so the flow is good b/c it has to be efficient due to the nature of a combine's work BUT I see your point with the pumps having to push and pull and that could be the real issue. It may prove to be a problem and if my basement has to sound like I'm running the niagra falls then I don't think my wife would appreciate that.... However submerged water pumps in the reservoir might slow the sound down considerably... lots to think about.... more suggestions are always appreciated.... I like tapping the house but I don't want to lose the radiator... however maybe I should melt it down and make a chair or something??? who knows...


P.S. I made the front page news :)
 
Got any pics of the rad? I want to see what you are dealing with.
 
If anyone's really serious about doing this....DON'T use PVC.

Use PEX tubing. PEX is just like PVC only its flexible. I'm in the process of designing my own house which will use PEX exclusively for fresh water (both hot and cold) delivery.

Here's the mandatory linky.....

PEX Tubing
 
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spankus said:
If anyone's really serious about doing this....DON'T use PVC.

Use PEX tubing. PEX is just like PVC only its flexible. I'm in the process of designing my own house which will use PEX exclusively for fresh water (both hot and cold) delivery.

Here's the mandatory linky.....

PEX Tubing
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for in-wall plumbing, how is flexibility an advantage?
 
spankus said:
If anyone's really serious about doing this....DON'T use PVC.

Use PEX tubing. PEX is just like PVC only its flexible. I'm in the process of designing my own house which will use PEX exclusively for fresh water (both hot and cold) delivery.

Here's the mandatory linky.....

PEX Tubing
Click to expand...
manablock system eh?
 
drizzt81 said:
for in-wall plumbing, how is flexibility an advantage?
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You don't have to attach any fittings, just run the pipe through holes in studs etc...

Rough in is wicked easy, it's pretty much straight runs and it reduces points of failure, this stuff is very easy to install.

Run from point A to point B, point A is your manablock manifold, point B is where you want the water to come out.

The only thing that is kind of tricky is hammer arrestors, the dolt that installed my system forgot to add a hammer arrestor to the system so everytime the toilet is flushed or the water is quickly turned off = BAM...water hammer.

PS did I mention I was an apprentice plumber/pipefitter in BC...lol
 
Maybe if you ran everything in the basement/crawl space....maybe use a sump pump to supply each computer......
 
I say bury the radiator instead of a resevior. I'm sure that thing holds a good amount of water.
 
|oR|Spetsnaz said:
I say bury the radiator instead of a resevior. I'm sure that thing holds a good amount of water.
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then what would be the point of having a radiator
 
cell_491 said:
then what would be the point of having a radiator
Click to expand...

A reservoir is actually not needed. It basically makes it easier to bleed the air from your system, but does not lower the overall water/coolant solution.
 
Well if I can get my mom to take some pics of the radiator for me I'll have her do it.... but if you wanna get a look at it in black in white here it is... Radiator

the model above is the identical specs of my dads if you want color imagine the outside edge being red.... It is pretty large....
 
The link I provided earlier had the guy burying his rad in the ground and ran lines (copper I think) into his basement, and used a vent on the highest point in the tubing for bleeding. He initially wanted to bury it 6 feet down under the "frost" line, but hit a huge rock and could only bury it 3 feet. :eek:
 
First time the "buried" technique was used was by the infamous BladeRunner of ZeroFanZone, with his "Bomb" and Project Stealth. Can find the section describing the Bomb here and you can find the rest of his stuff over on his site here. He has'nt done much in a while online, but that Bomb prject of his was just that, da bomb! Sheer talent to do it the way hes done it, burying a radiator would never work as well, not without some heavy modification to enclose all its fins anyway.

If your going to use a radiator then the best way to do it would be to have it outside on the ground floor, as someone suggested use an in and out pump given the rads size, but sump pumps although they have a lot of muscle they dont have a lot of flow. Your better off getting two EXTREMELY beefy non-mag impeller pumps, there noisy but they go like the clappers, since your running them outside shouldnt be a problem, plus if your going to stick with a mag pump then check what its maximum head is, the higher the better otherwise you may need two to get good flow to the 1st floor. Then a smaller mag impeller on the intake to each system, given that you'll need to use mainfolds anyway having different pumps in the setup shouldnt be a problem so you can pick the right pump for each system. Single cpu 12v small pump, cpu gfx chipset AC largepump for example, this will make sure that the system pumps provide good flow through the machines and the cooling pumps are just there to move water along what going to be quite a large loop, and provide the muscle to get it up 1 or 2 stories of a building. Should cost you less in pumps this way and still provide excellent flow, will take a biut of planning though.

As for modding the rad itself without pics its a little hard to suggest, but for burying the unit encase in a metal sleeve (preferably allu) with a fill cap on top and two ports for the in and outs from the rad connections. Then fill the sleeve with a weak methanol/water mix, say 30/70 ratio, or you could go for a good thermal oil but that will cost. This way your getting maximum contact between the rad fins and the earth and the casing. Theres a few other ways you could do this but this is the most efficient i can think of.

For a ground level mounting thats a little trickier, given the size of it so long as you place it somewhere it will never be exposed to direct sunlight then you could run it passive, or you build a housing for it, shelter it, or you could make a housing and mount some big AC fans on their aswell to be 100% safe. Lots of options i can think of for above ground mountings but again without pics of the unit and some idea of the location your going to put it in and the weather conditions in that spot its a bit hard to suggest more.

Also manifolds, take a look at BladeRunners plexi manifolds over on ZFZ, made a few of those myself and their great. Also have some very good alluminium manifolds from a company here in the UK called Valeader Pneumatics, sure you can find a company in the states but both of those suggestions are a damn site cheaper than the manifold someone suggested and just as good, plus stop valves can be added easily to both to allow sections of your loops to be shutdown for maintenance. This will allow you to keep the whole thing running whilst removing one system from the loop to perform maintenance checks.

Another thought i just had (will i ever stop typing, this was meant to be a 2 minute post hehe), you can also rig the system to the water mains via a resevoir rigged to a float sensor and automatic valve. Every time your res's float sensor drops to "X" level it will just open the valve, fill the res, the float will rise and the valve will shut again, never have to fill it this way. Plus with a large enough res you could hold an excess of coolant for more rigs. By this i mean the average rig takes two litres roughly, with multiple blocks, a large rad and res res that is. This way when you plumb in a new system to the loop you just open the stop valve on thats systems loop, let it trickle in with the coolant pumps, turn on the system pump after its filled up to the pump header and your done. It will have enough for the new system in the resevoir and it will then refille the res automatically after the new system has been added, leaving you to NEVER fill the loops :). Just need to top up with water wetter twice a year :).

Thats my lot i think, few useful ideas i think there though :).
And please m8, PICS PICS PICS PICS PICS :).
 
You should be fine with just one good pump in this system. I would personally recommend one the pumps they use in those large saltwater aquariums with the external sump filters. Those pumps are made to run 24 hours a day and are fairly quiet.

Also, in a closed system, the maximum head your pump can handle shouldn't matter too much. Even if the pump has to push 24 feet, once the water makes it's way through your computer, the water will fall back down those 24 feet thus pushing up the water on the other side. Just make sure you can add water and/or bleed air at the highest point of your system so you can take advantage of the closed loop efficiencies.

Assuming you do get good waterflow, you shouldn't need any pumps at all in the computer. Depending on how many devices you are planning to water cool, you could try to cool them in series (easiest) or in parallel. If you plan to cool them in parallel, simply use a valve for each device so you can balance the flow appropriatly. This is much like adjusting the baffles in a forceded-air central hvac so every room is heated appropriatly.
 
I think a year or 2 ago someone on here posted about his watercooling on her.
Maybe your better of using his system (as your still building the house)

He had a system that pumped up cold water from the ground (dont know what its called)
cooled his PC,s and then was pumped back into the ground.
Because of the temperature of the groundwater, and the amount of it, the warmed up water would be cooled down, thus creating a no rad, no fan WC setup.

The only thing that would be needed are some casefans @ 5 or 7 volt to cool mosfets and such.

Sadly i dont know the posters name, topic name or anything. :(
 
codename47 said:
136lb copper radiator
Click to expand...
The going rate for copper is close to $1.00 per pound. Bring that big thing into a scrapmetal yard, get some cash, and buy normal computer watercooling components.
 
BioHazard.NL said:
He had a system that pumped up cold water from the ground (dont know what its called)
cooled his PC,s and then was pumped back into the ground.
Click to expand...
Maybe he was pumping it out of his well?

I know a crazy old fart that laid lots of copper piping a few feet under the dirt in his field, He pumps water through it. I cant remember what he used it for, I think it was cheap ass airconditioning.
 
Just out of curiousity. I am a farmboy, and I am wondering what combine this is out of? Can you let me know, my dad just got a new John Deere 9760.

Cooter

edit: i look at it and it looks like a Case combine radiator, we just sold our 2388.
 
yes you'd be right about the case IH brand...I believe it was his 1680 but it could have been the 2188... don't remember.. it happend awhile ago... you can see in the pics where the fan on the radiator cut loose and gashed it ....

Man your dad has a sweet rided with the STS series 9760... My dad loves John Deere and has most of his tractors 4 wheel drive equipment is John Deere Green :) but always stuck with Case for combines... I'm assuming it is b/c he knows how to work on them so it makes it easier to fix problems now... either way... I know he was looking at a 2300 series but crops this year sucked so.... not gonna happen....
 
I see Kase combines day in day out..harvest is going on right now, they drive past my house every day...some Deere's and the odd Gleaner...

Cheap ass air conditioning as described does work...another way is to run water used for irrigation through a radiator that is in line with the airflow in the air ducts, I've considered this but bedrock is 4-8 feet below my house...and I dont have ANFO, tank drill or a back hoe...
 
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