Water Cooling Computers With A Swimming Pool 241
guzugi writes "This is a project I have been working for several months and been hypothesizing for much longer. The basic idea is to shortcut the need for an air conditioner when cooling multiple computers. Swimming pool water is pumped into the house and through several waterblocks to effectively cool these hot machines. This greatly reduces noise cooling requirements."
heated pool (Score:5, Funny)
Re:heated pool (Score:5, Interesting)
The only additional expense / work would have been an additional pump for the closed loop on the computer side, and figuring out the heat exchanger. A small car radiator (for the pool loop) in a 55 gallon plastic trash can with in/out tubes for the computer loop (this makes it easy to add coolant to the computer loop) would have been a very good start. If the system ever needs a little help, just throw a ziploc bag full of ice-cubes into the trash can (a good way to keep the system up if the pool loop ever goes down, too.)
Then again everybody can be an armchair quarterback, I give the guy props for actually getting something done.
Re:heated pool (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my dad friends in Russia had done that in his summer house for household hot water. He used the fridge external coil to preheat the water before the boiler unit. Worked quite well actually.
Re:heated pool (Score:5, Funny)
They have the added benefit of making it impossible to drain your whole pool into your house when a line breaks.
Re:heated pool (Score:4, Interesting)
Between keeping the existing AC running during summer + buying some quiet fans to replace the noisy ones and:
-possibly running pool water inside, and the risk of having pool water leaks inside as chlorine corrodes stuff (NOT pretty!) and likely some condensation (risk of shorts and electrocution even - think about using GFIs)
-having to run pipes for heat exchange through holes in the wall of the house (no thanks!)
-having water tubing all over the place going to every computer (like the wires alone isn't bad enough, and it's not a good combo)
-risking the pipes blocking from something (like leaves or even a pinched hose) or running out of water (leak, pool level too low or something)
-risking the whole thing freezing over (guaranteed in some regions - unusable here in Canada)
-having to run multiple lines (one per PC?) if the water gets too hot after each computer (after a few it wouldn't really be cooling anymore)
-having to buy several hundreds of $ hardware (heat blocks, pumps, flow switches, lots of piping, insulation, heat exchanger, coolant, filtering system, etc) for a sub-par system/solution that will surely be problematic (it's just a matter of time)
I'd just forget about the whole thing, and buy some quiet fans (dirt cheap too). Anything more than that, and you setup a server away in the basement or something, and run some diskless PCs (booting off iSCSI or something) when possible and also use that server to hold everything that needs lots of disk space (media files, etc) to keep the amount of HDs spinning nearby as low as possible.
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Because he can. Because it is there. Because you have got to do something with the time between birth and death.
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You like climbing mountains, the other guy may not find it interesting at all.
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Well, the setup shown in the photos has all the computers connected in parallel, so this wouldn't be a problem.
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Heat exchangers are used in a few types of solar hot water heating systems. Perhaps that type of heat exchanger could be adapted for this purpose to create an inner loop of distilled water or coolant that would be separate from the swimming pool water. A single walled heat exchanger would probably be adequate in this case since. Not only would that help prevent corrosion but if you ever spring a leak you would only have a limited supply of water or coolant in the inner loop to leak out.
Back in the 1970
Actually, I had already thought of doing this, but (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Actually, I had already thought of doing this, (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Actually, I had already thought of doing this, (Score:3, Informative)
One Upmanship (Score:5, Funny)
Re:heated pool (Score:4, Interesting)
As an aside, if you ever want to see three people really jump in a crammed laser booth, it will happen when a water leak springs up at a soldered joint just inside that power supply and just above the lunch box sized transformer in the bottom of the unit, also real close to where the three phase power ties in. That resulting bang will really get your heart pumping !
Cheap way to flood his house!! (Score:2)
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Finally! A way to rationalize building a Beowulf cluster.
noise cooling requirements? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:noise cooling requirements? (Score:5, Funny)
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Well said.
Pool water? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pool water? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pool water? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pool water? (Score:4, Informative)
at least he's not using graywater (or blackwater) (Score:2)
graywater [wikipedia.org]
blackwater [wikipedia.org]
He needs a heat exchanger... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I can tell you that chlorinated water will not cause corrosion.
Chloride ions are extremely corrosive. They are the major reason that seawater is so corrosive. Stainless steel and aluminum are pretty resistant to chloride corrosion at low pressures and temperatures (such as a pool). Heat that pool water up to about 500 degrees at a couple thousand pounds and then watch what happens.
For many metals, a high (basic) pH reduces the corrosion rate.
If you want metals that really resist chloride corrosion, then you need to look at nickel based alloys: inconel, monel, etc.
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Chloride is basic, chlorine is acidic (Score:4, Informative)
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You all are confused. (Score:4, Informative)
On the flipside, to get the Kb of Cl-, you simply take Kw divided by the Ka of HCl. Kw is 1e-14, so a really small number divided by a really big number is an even smaller number - showing that Cl- is effectively neutral.
What I think you guys are confused about is what they put into pools. The chlorine of choice nowadays is calcium hypochlorite [wikipedia.org] - similar to sodium hypochlorite, found in stores as "bleach." (I use quotes because some bleaches aren't chlorine-based.) Hypochloric acid is a weak acid, which makes the hypochlorite ion a strong base. And a strong oxidizer. That's what will get your waterblocks eaten away.
Close, but (Score:3, Informative)
It's a weak base, since it exists in solution with its conjugate acid. Sort of like how sodium acetate is added as a buffer for acetic acid in salt&vinegar chips. *crunch*
Re:You all are confused. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I'm not. I've owned a pool for years. The most commonly used form of chlorine is Trichloro-S-Triazinetrione (or Trichloroisocyanuric acid or simply, trichlor). Calcium hypochlorite breaks down very quickly in sun light (uv light) and requires the use of a stablizer (usually cyanuric acid). Trichlor already contains a stablizer, making it much more economical to use.
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Newsflash: not all pools use chlorine (Score:5, Informative)
Because I always choose clorinated water to ensure the maximum corrosion in my computer's cooling system
Believe it or not, there are pool chemical suites that do not use chlorine. For example, the one I use includes a very strong (90+%) hydrogen peroxide as a sanitizer.
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meaning... (Score:2)
So, if it reduces "noise cooling requirements", this means that users are OK with having their computers run hotter and be noisier if they are cooled with swimming pool water? I don't see why.
(If you mean "cooling with swimming pool water is less noisy than cooling with fans", say so.)
Tropical aquarium (Score:4, Interesting)
Turn it off. (Score:4, Interesting)
Chlorine. Bird droppings. Leaves in the pool. Human sweat, with its high salt content. Algae heaven. That setup is going to provide very effective cooling for a couple of months before something corrodes through - and when it does, you will have a leak. Possibly a big leak - and a leak that will not stop flowing until the pool is empty, potentially enough water to flood your house.
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Take what you've done and get a (preferably new) truck radiator and rig THAT up as your means of cooling off the water. Make the water as pure as possible. Life will get better after that. And if you insist on using the pool for this novel purpose, then put your radiator in the pool. The heat from the water in the radiator will be absorbed by the pool water. But even then you can
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also, because of the chlorine, algae isn't gonna grow.
Re:Turn it off. (Score:5, Informative)
The chlorine attacks iron even in ally form, rotting stainless steel at an alarming rate. It will also react with copper (slowly, but the higher temeratures in the water block are going to help it along) to dissolve the copper into a Copper (II) Chloride solution. That corrodes the copper waterblock and puts the copper into his pool - not good. Aluminum will cause a reaction to make aluminum chloride, and reacting with the water to ultimately form aluminum oxide (which will fall out of solution and likely clog and small passages over time) and hydochloric acid.
You need a heat exchanger to keep the chlorine away from metals. That means a non-metallic heat exchanger or one that's been coated with a chlorine resistent material.
A better solution would be to get an aftermarket automotive radiator and an electric fan, and use clean water (distilled or at least low mineral) with a coolant solution specifically designed to prevent corrosion.
=Smidge=
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Re:Turn it off. (Score:5, Informative)
=Smidge=
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That's all fine, in theory, but
Two Words (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you're using the pool as a heat sink doesn't mean you have to run the actual pool water through your computer.
Now, this guy doesn't seem to have caught on to that, but it's not a totally implausible solution. Keeping the heat in water, even through an exchanger, is still more efficient than trying to dump the heat directly to the air, at least until you build a radiator the size of your pool.
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the W.W. Grainger Co has most of the parts in their catalog
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/wwg/start.shtml
Depending on how far you have to run your cooil
RIt won't empty the pool. (Score:2)
I completely agree that running pool water through water blocks to cool computers is a Daft Idea(tm). A heat-exchanger linked in somewhere near the pool or one actually in the pool would be a better idea, preferrably with some ethylene glycol mixed in on the wa
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When I worked as an electronics engineer many years ago in NYC, one of my fellow engineers had done some work for the Navy where they needed a raft floating in the ocean covered with copper. They also have similar corrosion problems with large steel ships that float in the ocean.
The solution to stop the copper from corroding was to attach an electrode to the copper sheet that was made of a different metal with a different electrovalence (or whatever) so
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Re:Turn it off. (Score:5, Interesting)
Water is commonly used for fire suppression in data centres these days (although it won't come from a pond). When a fire is detected, automatically kill the power and douse the area with a fine mist of deionised water. It's very effective, generally doesn't damage equipment and (unlike halon) is safe for any people who are in the area and is environmentally friendly.
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I'm melting... Melting... Oh what a world... what a world...
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Chemistry? (Score:4, Interesting)
rj
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Some practical advice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Plan for a bit of condensation. Flip your motherboards around so if drops of water (*god forbid*) were to form, they drop away from the mainboard. Water from condensation tends to be pure enough that it won't short out your system as easy as one might think. Still... bad things can happen.
Also, you will want some sort of anti-crap mixed into your water, or you can get all sorts of funky growth. More of an issue for closed systems than water from a swimming pool (with all the CL, etc). Be sure your piping can handle that. I've seen folks use hose that did deteriorate over time. Not pretty. A clogged 'artery' on a heat sink will kill your system dead. Non-conductive anti-crap additive is a really good idea.
Lastly, if the water pump dies, everything else will die. Make sure you have some sort of kill switch so all your hardware shuts down if you lose water flow.
Check out the overclockers forums out there. While you don't need the extreme lower temperatures, a big radiator and large low RPM fan in another room make for a very quite office environment.
wrong pump (Score:5, Interesting)
And here we have the first potential failure in the chain.
Putting it in 'a waterproof box' is not the same as using a pump designed for outdoor use. Condensation inside the box WILL kill it.
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85 Watts! (Score:3, Informative)
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A. need to leave an air con on low all the time (variable speed or "inverter" style ones are best)
B. deal with a stinking hot room and the possibility of cooked parts every now and again
100W of cooling seems like a good way to cool 300-500W of CPUs, maybe a heat exchanger (yeah, second pump needed) to keep the nasty chemicals away from the PCs, and of course have current monitoring on the pum
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Quiet? The typical "quiet" fan sold these days is about 20-25dB. Many are higher despite the bogus advertising that reads "30dB is a quiet library". Unless you're playing music, have the TV on, or live beside a trafficked roadway, that translates in a fairly noticeable whine. Multiply that by any number of fans per system, and you end up with a lot of unwelcome noise. And there is no indication that pl
Heat Exchanger (Score:2, Insightful)
Must have been in the Navy (Score:3, Interesting)
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I don't know, but just from the nature of the project I think we can be pretty sure that he does.
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he's cooling his computer with his pool, He MUST BE from California :)
Fish Like This Idea As Well (Score:3, Interesting)
Ed Almos
Budapest, Hungary
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6 gallons of water is a LOT of thermal mass, putting in into a cooling tank with an open top is a really big thermal release.
Althoguh most of you here know incredibly litte about physics and chemistry so it's no suprise there.
Your "uber PC" could be easily coold with probably 3 gallons of water in a open tank as the only cooling vessel. evaporation is far more effici
Safeguards? (Score:4, Informative)
2. I don't see any sensors that will shut off the pump and computers, should the circuit run dry. Water leaks in the house are messy.
Accidents? (Score:2, Insightful)
That reminds me of a friend who was quite proud of his fanless water cooling solution which worked with several litres of water as heat dump in a container sitting under his desk.
When one of the main pipes got loose somehow, it not only fried some hardware, but majorely pissed of his landlord...
Urgh! Very bad design! (Score:5, Insightful)
Problems:
The right way to do this is with a heat exchanger that is robust on the swimming-pool side and has conditioned water in a closed circuit on the other side. Requires two pumps, but has a change of working longer than a few (if that) months.
I tried water-cooling some time ago. (Score:3, Interesting)
interesting, but why bother? (Score:2)
One tiny flaw. Gate valves are shutoff valves. They offer pretty much no flow control whatsoever. If he wanted control, he should have used a globe valve.
I give the whole effort lots of geek points. However, I doubt very much the cost of the project is worth it.
Cooling with outside heat sinks. (Score:2)
As everyone with a clue points out, he needs a heat exchanger in there somewhere.
Control Data, in Chippewa Falls, MN, used to use an outside water cooling loop which pumped warm water into the ground via one well, and pulled in cold water via another well. Ground temperature a few hundred feet down was relatively constant year round.
I once worked at a large industrial R&D center which had a sizable decorative pond with water spraying into the air in front of the building. This was actually a heat
Definition of insanity (Score:2)
I was unaware that gold could corrode or cause corrosion; that's why it's used so heavily in jewelry to begin with? Could that in fact be the chlorine comming in contact with the aluminum, creating aluminum salts? Hopefully the first computer's water block doesn
My university tried this once... (Score:3, Interesting)
Worked fine until a particular group of students decided that it would be great fun to make a big bubble bath out of the fountian... several gallons of 'joy' soap later, and the server room was overheating a bit, and the pumps were burning out.
Oh well...
Swamp Cooler (Score:2)
i am in the other camp (Score:4, Insightful)
You've given me an idea :-) (Score:2)
Re:"Yer In" Trouble! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"Yer In" Trouble! (Score:4, Funny)
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Who said anything about it being from their bladder ...?
Re:FROM TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
By the look of the setup in the article, multiple CPUs are tapped into the line from the pool, potentially dozens all in the same room, all watercooled from the same water source. The bucket did well for just one, but not multiples.
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My computer uses the Zalman Reserator [zalman.co.kr] fanless water cooling system which has an almost 2-foot tall finned aluminum water tank. That would probably be much like the single bucket of water test. The Zalman Reserator is somewhat expensive, but after having once owned a noisy computer, I was willing to pay the extra cost to build one that is totally quiet. I have been using an earlier version of the Reserator for about two years now and it runs cool and is almost totally quiet. A newer version of their prod
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That sounds like a variation of the various ideas people have had about using water heat pumps [alliantene...hermal.com]. Back in the 1970s and 1980s there were several articles about ground water heat pumps in magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. In some parts of the country, such as in parts of Arizona, at a depth of about 4 feet the temperature stays at about 68 degrees F. year round. If shallow groundwater is available, it would be easier job for a heatpump to transfer heat to and from something that is al