Any electricians here? I know my computer is unsafe, but don't know how unsafe
- Thread starter JonJ678
- Start date
Soldato
Whilst I'm all for tinkering, meddling with mains just isn't smart if you're not 100% certain of what you're doing. If you get any sort of leak in there you're going to have all manner of hurt unleashed on your PC.
In terms of a technical response, then some posters above have got the right idea, you'll get induction since you have 2 conductors linked by a changing magnetic flux caused by the AC.
I applaud your endeavours, but encourage you to stop...
In terms of a technical response, then some posters above have got the right idea, you'll get induction since you have 2 conductors linked by a changing magnetic flux caused by the AC.
I applaud your endeavours, but encourage you to stop...
Associate
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2009
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- 57
Jon, you should give this one up. Too risky. First off, you would just get paranoid about it.
Water cooling components that have are using a 12 volt DC supply is one thing. Water cooling anywhere near 240 volt AC is life threatening.
There is always a risk when water cooling. The water is under pressure and a leak could squirt any direction, even toward the PSU. I've seen a few pics of water cooled systems have the PSU in the bottom of the case. I'd even avoid that. A dribbling leak could drench a PSU very quickly, doesn't need pressure, gravity will do the job.
Electricity and Water do not mix. It doesn't take much electrical current to send you're heart into defib. Air is a very poor electrical conductor, water is a very good conductor. You would never you use
a fire hose on an electrical fire.
Do not do this.
There is also a potential fire risk, not to mention the toxic fumes given off by melting electronic components.
I agree with the posts above, a good PSU is near silent. I have a 1250W PSU, I can't hear it unless I'm gaming at full res. Even then it's pretty quiet. Water cooled PSUs are expensive. If you must have a WC PSU, buy one:
A - It might save your life.
B - You would have somewhere to turn to if something did go wrong.
Leave it be. No Water.
Water cooling components that have are using a 12 volt DC supply is one thing. Water cooling anywhere near 240 volt AC is life threatening.
There is always a risk when water cooling. The water is under pressure and a leak could squirt any direction, even toward the PSU. I've seen a few pics of water cooled systems have the PSU in the bottom of the case. I'd even avoid that. A dribbling leak could drench a PSU very quickly, doesn't need pressure, gravity will do the job.
Electricity and Water do not mix. It doesn't take much electrical current to send you're heart into defib. Air is a very poor electrical conductor, water is a very good conductor. You would never you use
a fire hose on an electrical fire.
Do not do this.
There is also a potential fire risk, not to mention the toxic fumes given off by melting electronic components.
I agree with the posts above, a good PSU is near silent. I have a 1250W PSU, I can't hear it unless I'm gaming at full res. Even then it's pretty quiet. Water cooled PSUs are expensive. If you must have a WC PSU, buy one:
A - It might save your life.
B - You would have somewhere to turn to if something did go wrong.
Leave it be. No Water.
electrical fires are bad, mmmmkay?
I like your thinking: however if you die, in the interests of science... can I have your rig?
Associate
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2009
- Posts
- 57
My first PC was an IBM. Got it cheap - office fire. It ran like a dream. Spent three weeks stripping down and cleaning it first tho.
Soldato
LoL!!
I find it interesting following Jon's thread, but I'd be damned if I would try anything like this myself, I'd already be dead if I did this!
Some interesting points above though, certainly makes this sound even more dangerous than I first thought.
Koolance make some (expensive with suspiciously short warranty) watercooled psu's, and shadowscotland has done this in the past. A couple of people have done this before me, though it sucks badly that the heatsink turned out to be live in this case. I already have an excellent psu, which makes me reluctant to buy a new one. If this one goes terribly wrong, then I'll be in the market for a new psu and will either get a passive one or a watercooled one. Until then, I want to see what happens when I try this 
Cheers AMG. I've always learned best from my own mistakes. Seems in the spirit of an overclocking forum to share them, this is all a learning process after all.
Only the absolute best ideas involve these
I'm not even close to 100% sure on this idea. A large part of me wants to connect the heatsink up to the waterblock directly, just tim inbetween, and see how that works out. This may be the death of my nas. However the process of experimentation is how we become sure of things, the whole point to life is experiment and observation, preferably recorded. This is an unusual idea, and stupid on many levels, but I am learning from it.
@.walls If upon my accidental death you can get to it before my girlfriend beats it to death with a hammer you're welcome to it. You'll have to move fast though
@Rjkoneill I'd given up on the psu warranty at roughly the same time as I took a piller drill to it. Ek told me I'd void the warranty by flycutting their block, but I believe you're also in possession of a machined flat block so I daresay you understand where I'm coming from.
I do hope this doesn't kill the rest of the system, as I suspect my best shot at a very immoral rma would be to wait for an electrical storm in my area then plead ignorance as to why it isn't working anymore, and I can't see this working out now I've started this thread.
I am of course pleased by your compliment, thank you. Mental is a useful aspiration for a trainee engineer.
Ontopic after all that,
Does anyone know how to estimate the current available on the wet side of this system? Assuming 240V at 50Hz acting on an infinite plane, with another infinite plane perhaps 0.5mm away, what is the induced emf in the second plate and what current can be drawn from this? I'm going to have to track down a physicist I think.
System seems to be fine btw, it's passed stability testing and I'm now fighting with f@h.
Cheers AMG. I've always learned best from my own mistakes. Seems in the spirit of an overclocking forum to share them, this is all a learning process after all.
vortx said:
Only the absolute best ideas involve these
I'm not even close to 100% sure on this idea. A large part of me wants to connect the heatsink up to the waterblock directly, just tim inbetween, and see how that works out. This may be the death of my nas. However the process of experimentation is how we become sure of things, the whole point to life is experiment and observation, preferably recorded. This is an unusual idea, and stupid on many levels, but I am learning from it.
@.walls If upon my accidental death you can get to it before my girlfriend beats it to death with a hammer you're welcome to it. You'll have to move fast though
@Rjkoneill I'd given up on the psu warranty at roughly the same time as I took a piller drill to it. Ek told me I'd void the warranty by flycutting their block, but I believe you're also in possession of a machined flat block so I daresay you understand where I'm coming from.
I do hope this doesn't kill the rest of the system, as I suspect my best shot at a very immoral rma would be to wait for an electrical storm in my area then plead ignorance as to why it isn't working anymore, and I can't see this working out now I've started this thread.
I am of course pleased by your compliment, thank you. Mental is a useful aspiration for a trainee engineer.
Ontopic after all that,
Does anyone know how to estimate the current available on the wet side of this system? Assuming 240V at 50Hz acting on an infinite plane, with another infinite plane perhaps 0.5mm away, what is the induced emf in the second plate and what current can be drawn from this? I'm going to have to track down a physicist I think.
System seems to be fine btw, it's passed stability testing and I'm now fighting with f@h.
Soldato
yeah I agree some seem very risky, but its "so you don't have too" also it give some people a buzz (not only from getting blown across the room 
)
)yeah I agree some seem very risky, but its "so you don't have too" also it give some people a buzz (not only from getting blown across the room
That's a good idea actually, maybe he could record himself doing it, that way when he gets blown across the room we can all laugh, make him a custom GIF sig of him flying across the room, and quickly dial 999 all at the same time, however I think the latter might get delayed due to everyone laughing so much
Soldato
I was more thinking in terms of, if one gets blown across the room don't copy
Associate
Without meaning to be a killjoy - perhaps you might consider an oil-cooled psu? This has been done before with great success.
Associate
+1
Few thoughts, and apologies in advance if it seems a bit negative...
At full load your psu may be dissipating approaching 200W - can your chipset water block and cooling system cope with that? (With light load it might only be circa 30W heat dissipation). It seems like you'd need very good thermal contact between the heatsink and water block (i.e. not electrical insulation tape!). Even if you can remove enough heat from the heatsink, you'd be losing the forced cooling that the fan provides to other psu components. So I'm not too convinced that the scheme will work I'm afraid, or at best will cook and shorten the life of your psu.
From an electrical point of view, and without understanding the exact arrangement you've got, it does sounds like others have said that you've got some induction which can give high voltages (if measured by a high impedence DVM) but little current. I probably knew how to do the maths many years ago...
Be careful... and if your house goes up in smoke don't forget to remove the evidence before the fire investigator and insurance loss adjustor visit...
Soldato
^ Assuming a PSU is 70% efficient, 200W seems like a high figure. I imagine it will be around 50W or below...
Personally have no electrical qualifications or certificates, yet as a hobby it can be perfectly safe if you know what you are doing. I'm confident enough to know what I can and cannot do, and when it comes with mains voltages I'm always extra careful. It not as if the original poster is asking how it wire in his neighbours power shower is it!
Water and electricity can be a rather interesting combo however...
I find the risk of death always tends to spice things up... ;p Even driving to work has an element of risk however, so where do you draw the line?
Personally have no electrical qualifications or certificates, yet as a hobby it can be perfectly safe if you know what you are doing. I'm confident enough to know what I can and cannot do, and when it comes with mains voltages I'm always extra careful. It not as if the original poster is asking how it wire in his neighbours power shower is it!
Water and electricity can be a rather interesting combo however...
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Associate
At least I don't have the added fear of being electrocuted when on my commute though!
I would personally invest in a psu that was built for watercooling in the first place...
I can barely cope with photography, video is far beyond my skills. Probably for the best considering that I now flinch whenever my hand brushes against the casing of the computer or any of the tubes.
I'm not sure oil is any better than air to be honest, though I'd be interested in arguments in favour of it. The main issue would be oil leeching out along the cables, otherwise it's reasonable a reasonable idea if combined with something like this, without a waterblock on the heatsink the oil temperature would just rise uncontrollably under load I think.
That's an excellent post wonko and most appreciated.
I hadn't considered the dissipation limits of the chipset block, and that's a pretty glaring omission on my part. It's very unlikely to be good for 200W. Under full load in my computer it's probably drawing around 500W from the wall (overclocked i7, two overclocked 8800gt cards, folding) and wasting 100W as heat, also rather more than the average chipset. I've contacted xpsc to ask for details on their block, though it's quite possible they're going to ignore me on the basis that they can't possibly condone doing something like this. At present the fan is running in addition to the water block, for the best really given I don't think the block is doing anything much.
Even if I get this working nicely I don't think I'll remove the fan completely, as under full load I don't care that the computer is loud (untrue, but I don't have space for many more radiators). However I would like a switch that turns the psu fan off when idling, and at idle (surely to be sub 150W, even with 8800s), passive cooling of the psu components with a block on the heatsink will probably be fine. I'm relying on pc p&c overengineering this to some extent, since it's good for 64A continuous at 50 degrees ambient and I'm placing a far smaller load on it this is probably a good assumption.
I'm happy to see another cautious vote for high voltage, low current as a result of inductance. I probably should have learned some details about ac before starting this.
Don't be silly Mr Fire Investigator, you can't have a fire in a watercooled computer, as it's full of water and water doesn't burn. Feigned ignorance probably isn't a legal defense though. Regardless, after leaving it folding overnight I'm now pretty confident in it.
I should have a 50mm square piece of thermally conducting (-60 to +180 degrees), electrically insulating (up to 1kV at 50Hz), 0.2mm thick silicon tim arriving in the post which will make this project far more successful. Fingers crossed.
note: I "invested" in an 800W ocz elitexstream from here perhaps a year ago, before starting water cooling, on the basis that it was brilliantly reviewed and I thought it would last just about forever. It died very gracefully with a common fault a few months after this, and ocz swapped it with my 860W pc p&c, a far better psu. This is how I ended up with a ridiculously overspecified, air cooled power supply.
I'm not sure oil is any better than air to be honest, though I'd be interested in arguments in favour of it. The main issue would be oil leeching out along the cables, otherwise it's reasonable a reasonable idea if combined with something like this, without a waterblock on the heatsink the oil temperature would just rise uncontrollably under load I think.
That's an excellent post wonko and most appreciated.
I hadn't considered the dissipation limits of the chipset block, and that's a pretty glaring omission on my part. It's very unlikely to be good for 200W. Under full load in my computer it's probably drawing around 500W from the wall (overclocked i7, two overclocked 8800gt cards, folding) and wasting 100W as heat, also rather more than the average chipset. I've contacted xpsc to ask for details on their block, though it's quite possible they're going to ignore me on the basis that they can't possibly condone doing something like this. At present the fan is running in addition to the water block, for the best really given I don't think the block is doing anything much.
Even if I get this working nicely I don't think I'll remove the fan completely, as under full load I don't care that the computer is loud (untrue, but I don't have space for many more radiators). However I would like a switch that turns the psu fan off when idling, and at idle (surely to be sub 150W, even with 8800s), passive cooling of the psu components with a block on the heatsink will probably be fine. I'm relying on pc p&c overengineering this to some extent, since it's good for 64A continuous at 50 degrees ambient and I'm placing a far smaller load on it this is probably a good assumption.
I'm happy to see another cautious vote for high voltage, low current as a result of inductance. I probably should have learned some details about ac before starting this.
Don't be silly Mr Fire Investigator, you can't have a fire in a watercooled computer, as it's full of water and water doesn't burn. Feigned ignorance probably isn't a legal defense though. Regardless, after leaving it folding overnight I'm now pretty confident in it.
I should have a 50mm square piece of thermally conducting (-60 to +180 degrees), electrically insulating (up to 1kV at 50Hz), 0.2mm thick silicon tim arriving in the post which will make this project far more successful. Fingers crossed.
note: I "invested" in an 800W ocz elitexstream from here perhaps a year ago, before starting water cooling, on the basis that it was brilliantly reviewed and I thought it would last just about forever. It died very gracefully with a common fault a few months after this, and ocz swapped it with my 860W pc p&c, a far better psu. This is how I ended up with a ridiculously overspecified, air cooled power supply.
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Associate
Think this looks like his PSU: http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_...ower_and_Cooling_Turb_Cool860-860W-Report.pdf
200W looks correct if the PSU is at full load, but agreed it would be a lot less with a typical load though. Still, whether it's 30W or 50W or 70W it's still a fair amount of power to remove.
Soldato
Wear your rubber wellies\gloves while you're gaming!
I wish i had the know how to do this sort of thing, I'd not know where to even begin
I wish i had the know how to do this sort of thing, I'd not know where to even begin