Watercooling question

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Soldato
Joined
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Newcastle/Aberdeen
Would it be possible to watercool a system using copper piping? Because i can think of many advantages to this, not the least of which being increased heat loss through the pipes, less likely to leak and since it would have to have more sharp corners; increased water speed. It would take more to install it, but as a concept is it possible? You could even weld lots of washer style things to the outside of the piping to act as a heatsink.
 
Sharp corners are more restrictive than gentle bends, so will reduce water speed. How are you going to install the copper tubes? Compression fittings?
 
Mounting the pipes to the cooler blocks/pump/resevoir could be an issue. How do you plan to do it ?

sharp corners are bad for water flow.
 
I think he meant he wuld have to use bits on tube to connect to the copper. When I buy a new placeI was thinking of drilling 2 20mm hols through teh wall and put a rad outside with copper pipes.
 
LupoLover said:
I think he meant he wuld have to use bits on tube to connect to the copper. When I buy a new placeI was thinking of drilling 2 20mm hols through teh wall and put a rad outside with copper pipes.
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I have done similar with my setup. My computer room is little more than a large cupboard and heats up quickly. I decided the best way to go was to remove most of the heat source from the room. As most of the heat comes from the CPU/GPU/NB i ran two six foot lengths of 15mm copper pipe down my pc room wall, through the wall to the top of the landing and have my radiator mounted on the landing windowsill. Each end of the copper pipes has a 15mm to 10mm step down that is drilled out internally to 12mm and then my 7/16" tubing fit's snugly over the step down and goes to the case at one end and the radbox ar the other. Works a treat and my temps are fantastic. In the winter i am mostly in single figure degrees!!! :D
 
Jokester said:
Sharp corners are more restrictive than gentle bends, so will reduce water speed. How are you going to install the copper tubes? Compression fittings?
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Not at all, bends would increase the flow of water. Kind of like having a smaller point at one end would speed it up. Forcing the water to take a different path speeds it up. Don't ask me how, it just does.
 
Superewza said:
Not at all, bends would increase the flow of water. Kind of like having a smaller point at one end would speed it up. Forcing the water to take a different path speeds it up. Don't ask me how, it just does.
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Ah sorry yes your right, but that is not important, except for impingement type blocks (which look after themselves). What I meant that it restricts the flow rather than speed. Flow velocity is otherwise irrelevant, flowrate is king and even then it has marginal affects on cooling performance.
 
Like it, Pasty, thats extreme cooling.

I considered running pipe thru the wall and mounting my rads outside the house. This would require some good coolant, I live a bit north of Inverness and CPU temp sits in the mid teens indoors during winter. In the winter, with the rads outside, I would be afaid to turn my PC off as it might freeze.

I'm not so sure when it comes to the sharp bends issue. Even long wide arc bends will reduce flow slightly. Another factor with wide bends is the distance invovled. The wider the bends, the more tubing you need, the long the cooling loop becomes. The length of a loop does make a difference, a shorter loop is better than a long loop. Pumps are only good upto a certain distance or the volume of liquid they have to push.

If you use straight fittings on everything you end up with a mile of tubing. I started out with all straight fittings. Then replaced a few with some 45 degree fittings. It made no difference to my system temps. I eventually fitted a few 90 degree fittings, and again didn't see much, if any difference in temps. Now I have loads of 90 degree fittings, temps are still good, and about a meter less of tubing. It is also tidy, I can see my motherboard again.

It would be ideal to have every cooling block in line, straight fittings and no bends. Thats unlikely. If you have more than one block in a loop the flow drops at the first block anyway.
 
Jokester said:
Ah sorry yes your right, but that is not important, except for impingement type blocks (which look after themselves). What I meant that it restricts the flow rather than speed. Flow velocity is otherwise irrelevant, flowrate is king and even then it has marginal affects on cooling performance.
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Yes, i understand. It would only have a noticeable advantage in a loop where you weren't using a pump. But copper is a far better heat conductor than plastic, so wouldn't it loose a lot more heat? Especially so if you had tubes like this (1337 Paint skillz!):

exam.png


If that makes it any clearer... the pipe is covered in lots of copper discs that act as heat sinks. And it would have a lot lower chance of leakage, how many times has the plumbing in your house leaked? Still, connecting it to the blocks and such would be difficult. Unless you somehow got exactly the right sized pipe and made some sort of screw thing... or *kicks self for forgetting the name* found a way to attach one of those things where you put them together then twist it on... like on a carabiner:

car208-500.gif
 
Easiest way is to use compression fittings with 1/4" BSPP (G) threads to match standard block threads:-

http://www.hydrasun.com/catalogue/page.aspx?i=24

Expensive though for that type but I would imagine home plumbing must have an equivalent. Other downside will be that they'll be quite bulky.

As regards pump and tube length - it's all about the pressure drop, a 90degree bend has the pressure drop of something like a foot of hose so you're almost always better to use a gentle bend if you can.
 
They are expensive cos they are 316SS.lol This isnt a sea enviroment, good idea tho as you said im sure u could find an equivalent.

Sheldon
(Engineer)
 
Ever tried soldering copper pipe to acrylic or acetate?

The guy with the step down piece at the end of the tube is close to the neatest answer. use 15mm or 22mm copper pipe, cos it's cheap. Get/make a plug for the end. Drill & tap it to G1/4", finding the tap may be a laugh. Then take your pick of male to male g1/4" fittings, sli connectors and compression fittings with a short length of tygon inbetween.

Copper piping is popular in the well below zero group, since tubing doesn't work so well if it gets too cold. Bear in mind that you're going to need some serious care and a bending jig of some sort to get the tolerances good enough, this is part of why I suggested sli connectors.

Unless you're going well below zero tygon is a much better choice. With compression fittings it'll fit just about anywhere, if it's so tight that it's inclined to kink you put something around the outside to stop it. I particularly like the idea of a short length of copper pipe bent through 45 degrees from linear with the tygon threaded through it as a low-restriction alternative to a 45
 
JonJ678 said:
Ever tried soldering copper pipe to acrylic or acetate?

The guy with the step down piece at the end of the tube is close to the neatest answer. use 15mm or 22mm copper pipe, cos it's cheap. Get/make a plug for the end. Drill & tap it to G1/4", finding the tap may be a laugh. Then take your pick of male to male g1/4" fittings, sli connectors and compression fittings with a short length of tygon inbetween.

Copper piping is popular in the well below zero group, since tubing doesn't work so well if it gets too cold. Bear in mind that you're going to need some serious care and a bending jig of some sort to get the tolerances good enough, this is part of why I suggested sli connectors.

Unless you're going well below zero tygon is a much better choice. With compression fittings it'll fit just about anywhere, if it's so tight that it's inclined to kink you put something around the outside to stop it. I particularly like the idea of a short length of copper pipe bent through 45 degrees from linear with the tygon threaded through it as a low-restriction alternative to a 45
Click to expand...

You don't solder on to the block. You still need fittings. You solder the pipe on to the fittings.

Still not easy tho. Lot of accurate pipe bending and a steady hand with a blow torch.
 
If you could work it out in such a way that everything could be lined up, you could forgoe the pipe bending and use 'L' bends. It would be a lot easier.
 
You could do away with the bends and fit ready-made bends (elbows). You would end up with more joints and therefore more leakage points/possibilties. On the plus side, elbows would certainly be an easier build.
 
That's what i was talking about with 'L' bends. But a squirting of Epoxy around the places where it might leak would greatly decrease the possibility of that happening, and i doubt it would anyway.

The problem i envisage would be upgrades... how would you get to the CPU and such likes? You could unscrew it from the CPU clips, then use a good enough case and take off the motherboard tray through the other side of the case than you usually would, if i'm making any sense here :p
 
If you mean a change in water block or a new res, yeah, you would have to adapt the pipework to suit.

Back to you're original post, I like the idea of a water cooled 'heat pipe'. A sort of in-line passive radiator, cool. Would be great if you buy ready-made lengths.
 
the size of the bore on water systems and or sharp bends have very little effect on flow rate unless they are so small to be restrictive, which would either kill the pump or make it run very hot. Thermaltake commonly supply 2 bore sizes of tubing with there cooling systems regardless of size it pumps at 500L/H remember the faster the flow means less time in the rad to cool you need to find a good balance.
 
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