Watercooling with house type radiator??

Skree

Skree

Skree

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Having done a little cpu watercooling back in the SKTA Athlon days, with a home assembled but fairly standard kit (RBX, Eheim 1250, mk1 fiesta heater matrix) I'm still interested in watercooling and do fancy putting together a rig just to mess about with, possibly with an idea to making an entirely fanless pc. I was around in the early days of water, when people were using all kinds of weird bodges for cooling, have seen car radiators, etc.. was wondering..

How good would a house type radiator be - the conventional two-sided jobbie with steel ribs between. Have done some work on the house recently and have a pretty new 3'6"x1'6" (so relatively small) heating rad going spare and would like to include it in a project for a cheap build just to give me something to do.. anyone done this? got experience in doing so? I'd like for this to sink some fairly serious heat if possible... any experiences would be greatly appreciated..

ty
 
Can't see it working too well due to lack of surface area (relatively to the amount of liquid that is in it) for getting rid of the heat.
 
On a modern boiler you'd expect around a 20c difference between the flow and return pipes and that's with the rad up to temperature. If you're only warming it with computing components it's not going to get nearly hot enough to start throwing out heat as a household radiator convects heat, it doesnt radiate it.
 
As far as i can see the sheer water volume in a CH rad is a big advantage. that's going to take a long time to heat up. I'd assume that any rad will start cooling water once it gets above room temperature with the transference of heat from warm to cold. as far as i can see it should work, either with two pumps or one big one..just fancied a natter with someone who's done it..
 
Been looking through some old archived forums/logs from the early days of watercooling, when homemade waterblocks were all you could get.. Have some pretty cool ideas i'd like to experiment with, using a TEC in a sort of cascade watercooling loop etc.. ohhh the ideas.. lol
 
I was considering doing this a couple of years back, but i decided against it just from a mobility point of view.. If you have some success though Skree, please keep me in the loop, I might follow your lead :)
 
I seem to rememeber reading ages ago about someone buring a watertank underground and using that as the radiator. That should work pretty well, as the heat is all taken away by direct contact rather than air, plus its always nice and cool even just a few inches underground.
 
Crashgate3 said:
I seem to rememeber reading ages ago about someone buring a watertank underground and using that as the radiator. That should work pretty well, as the heat is all taken away by direct contact rather than air, plus its always nice and cool even just a few inches underground.
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Take it he was single? LOL My wife would probably divorce me if I did something like that. She'd call me a 110% geek :)

RoEy
 
MadMacs said:
Love to see pics if you do deicide to do it.
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I might do it myself, small house radiators are less than £50 last time I checked. The main thing is putting the right connectors on it for your tubing...

Crashgate3 said:
I seem to rememeber reading ages ago about someone buring a watertank underground and using that as the radiator. That should work pretty well, as the heat is all taken away by direct contact rather than air, plus its always nice and cool even just a few inches underground.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I remember that too. Pretty neat idea :-).
 
im currently cooled by a house rad. i got fedup with the bong.

FYI - my 650 ish btu small ( dual layer, standard hight, ~60cm wide) rad will hold about 7-10c above ambient full load with ~120w cpu..

im using a single pump, house rads are VERY low flow-resistance, but its hard to get the right fittings. i settled for flow in at top left, out at top right - it gave the most even distribution of heat across the rad. you will also need to run a closed loop, or atleast ensure that inlet and outlet are always fully submerged or the rad will fill with air and stop working correctly.

central heating inhibitor is a must, but dont use to much - it turns jelly like and will block up your waterblock. make sure you run it for a while just circulating to flush out the rad - it will be full of rust and other scurf...
your pipes WILL go brown on the inside, unless you use all copper pipes as the iron oxide tends to settle along the walls the water remains clear howver, and my copper block shows no sign of damage after several months running. if the pipes bother you, a gentle squese will dislodge it, and pipes are as new (the deposits form a layer blocking the water from the pipe and preventing clouding up) but it will reform pretty fast - since its all oxidation id advise against running open loop or disturbing the pipes, this layer apears to stop oxygen transfer to the water thru the pipe walls, (and the metal/plastic in the rad and blocks will not allow it) and thus will stop the rad rusting up to much and gumming the system.

central heating rads have a suprising ammount of surface area, and are designed to run passive - they work better than you would expect them to. and if you want a bench run - aim a desk fan at it.

as for mounting the rad, ive got mine sat on a pair of old baked bean tins (room for experimentation, does heins give better temps than tesco value? hahahah) - its important not to rest it on the floor directly as this messes up the airflow.

ill provide pics/details of the fittings i used if wanted. i got everything from B&Q. the rad + fittings were about £30.
 
you *have* to post pics :D

That sounds awesome.. if I can find a CH radiator that's samll enough to fit to the case, it'd be som funny turning up at a Lan with it!

<thought>omigod.. does anywhere sell transparent/translucent CH radiators?</thought>
 
Well that ends my foray into this project - my rad went missing from the yard last night.. bloody ***** binners must have nicked it.. gits
 
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