This page is in English because the entire site is in English and why start
in Dutch now
Part
1: The Mobile Heat Exchanger
I
got this idea for water-cooling my PC in the summer of 2002.
At first I figured I'd just buy all the components I needed, install it and that
would be it.
But then I got the idea of doing it myself and 'low-cost'.
Little did I know that I just started the most intricate and expensive water-cooling
project to date.
I'm an
avid reader of Tweakers.net and
in particular the Gathering of Tweakers forum.
This forum is visited by dozens of nerds and other ingenious people with loads
of good ideas and projects
(usually
hidden between a vast array of non-sense questions and remarks).
There was
this one guy, Imhotep, that could make a near perfect copy of one of the best
waterjackets around, the Maze 3.
It took a while before they were made and shipped, but when I got one and
saw the amazing shine of this piece of art with
my own
eyes, I got cracking at the rest of the setup.
I also needed a radiator and I was told that you could find good copper radiators
really cheap at junkyards.
It needed to be full copper to reduce electrolyses and increase heat transfer.
I got a list of cars that had copper rads, but none of the yards had any nor
did they have rads lying around.
I did find one, but it was too dirty, too expensive and too banged up.
Just when I was about to simply buy a Black Ice Extreme, my neighbour
pointed out a garage quite close to where I live.
I knew
about this garage, called Autotemp, but the dots never connected that
they might be able to help me with a rad.
Maybe this doesn't seem very stupid to you, but I have to tell you that that
specific garage is an A/C and radiator specialist.
DOH!! R-A-D-I-A-T-O-R !
So I went there to talk to them, explain what I was trying to do
and they just gave me an almost new, big, copper radiator for free!
The size was absolutely perfect, I could place four 80mm standard
PC fans in a square and it fitted within a few milimetres!
Next step was
deciding the type of aquarium pump I needed.
I thought that since bigger is better (usually is, one good thing about those
yanks )
I got me an Eheim 1250. 1200 litres per hour should suffice for the plans I got.
I read an article on the net about so called 'air traps' that double
as a reservoir.
That was an idea worthy of stealing. I bought some similar stuff, glued it together,
used silicone to waterproof it and made my own 'airtrapavoir'
The system would be a closed system, but that meant that as the water would
heat up and expand,
you'd get a certain pressure buildup.
No matter how small, a continuous pressure can and eventually will
create leaks by flexing of the seals.
So I stuck a little Praxis balloon on top of the airtrap for overpressure and
presto
So after a couple of sleepless nights I decided to make the project external!
I found a good solid aluminium casing at Praxis that looked just right.
It took a while before I found the ideal way of mounting all the stuff
inside, but then I could finally start making some holes for the radiator and
the fanblock.
The fans needed to be able to run at the full 12 volts, but also go into
'whispermode' for when I sleep. The answer lied in a small transformer that
could supply six different voltages from 12v down to 3v and a simple rotary switch.
I took it apart and figured out the best way of mounting and connecting it.
Then came the great day of assembly. I drilled all the required holes earlier,
measuring as closely as I could. I stuck all of the components in there, took them
out again and stuck it all back in in the right order, hooked it up and tested the
system.
...and presto:
cheap, lightweight, flexible fingerguards/rad protectors
The next step was soundproofing the whole lot. At first I mounted the pump directly,
and firmly, to the case. But the case acted as a
soundboard for all the nasty vibrations and hums.
I tried to leave the pump free floating inside the case and let the hose and
reservoir connection become the bearing pillars.
This worked just fine, most of the vibrations were gone. I just pray it holds
together...
It still needed further soundproofing though. I bought a packet of soundproofing
eh
foam-stuff... yes, Praxis again...
cut it into
pieces and stuck it everywhere I could find an opening.
And these
are the final pictures of what the Mobile Heat Exchanger (MHE) looks like on
the inside and the outside.
Read
part 2: The MOAWC (the mother of all water coolers)