big external watercooler.

[robinlawrie]

ok so im slowly getting there with my project, damn monster is built, just needs filling with water, and the mods to my pc's doing so they can connect to it.

i will of course be posting some pics of the big ugly thing.

im having major issues filling it though. the loop goes res-pump1-pump2-out to umbilical-pc waterblocks-back through umbilical- y splitter- 2 rads - y combiner-res.

res is directly above the two pumps, and the base of the res is at the same height as the base of the rads. the tops of the rads *are* a bit higher than the top of the res, but i didnt think this was a major issue.

ive done a temporary loop on the end of the umbilical so i can fill the thing and see if it works ( i have qdc's so i can leave it filled until my pcs are ready)


i put water in the res, and it fills up.. a bit of glug-glug as some drains down, but not much.

switch on, pumps go whirrrrrr, and swhoosh, a bit of water drains from the res, but then.. nothing. the pumps continue doing their thing, i can see there is a bit of water, but mostly air in the various transparent sections of pipe i have.. damn thing refuses to pump the water from the res into the rest of the system.

water is sitting there.. above the pumps.. waiting to be sucked away... not happening. any suggestions? ive tried settings upto 5 on both pumps and ive looked for obvious pipe kinks, but i dont see any. ive tried blowing into the top of the res to force water down into the pumps.. water level goes down, then swooshes back up when i stop blowing. ive tried opening the loop at the end of the umbilical, holding it high up and adding water there via a funnel.. water sits in funnel unless i suck on the other end of the tube.

one side note.. if i blow down one end of the tube.. its damn hard to blow.. like blowing up a really tough balloon.. i dunno if this is due to the weight of the water already in the system ( ive added a litre or so by now) the flow resistance, or a blockage somewhere.

 

[robinlawrie]

ok solved it. problem was firstly an enormous loop and difficulty getting the air out of the pumps.. i naively thought that if the res was above the pump, the pump would automatically fill with water and empty of air. but actually water was flowing straight through the pump and out into the umbilical, never actually filling the pump high enough to get it sucking.

i coiled the umbilical up and raised it above everything. i also made a long tube and connected it to the fill port of the res, so i could fill the thing up to 1m above the rads.

after much gurgling and shaking, suddenly it went sluuuurp and started pumping. i had to be quick to get water in before the res drained.


next problem was the y splitter to two rads. only way i could really clear the air from the rads was to pinch the pipe leading to one, causing a doubling of flow though the other. that had a drastic effect and emptied the res 2 more times. i repeated the process with the other rad, with the same result.

ive now got almost 4 litres of water in there, the pumps are quiet, and i -think- its full.

unfortunately due to my design, the radiators cannot be tipped horizontal (they are vertical with the ports at the bottom, not ideal) without disconnecting the hoses first. i certainly dont imagine tipping the whole thing over, its huge and very heavy. hm.. maybe ill try.