The airspirit Watercooled Rackmount Project
Pro/Geeks!               By: Airspirit 12/06/02

I thought to myself that it would be nice to have a server cabinet to stack all of my machines in, freeing valuable  floor space, and by hooking the majority of my networking gear up on a shelf on the  top it would free myself from the spaghetti mess of the CAT5.  The only problem was that one of my machines was watercooled in an especially bizarre way (including a "football" [reservoir/air trap] trailing behind it), making it difficult to fit the system into a 4U rackmount case.

After rolling this idea around in my head for a while, I came across a thread on Pro/Forums that asked what we would  change if we could redesign our WC system from scratch.  Immediately I  pictured a centralized cooling system for a rackmount unit with a giant vertical reservoir running up one side, also serving as a gravity based return feeding the radiators, and eventually the pump.  I pictured the pump pumping up through  multiple parallel channels, one feeding each computer system, with the 4U cases  uncluttered, only containing a hose coming in one side, a water block on the CPU, and a hose going out to the drain on the other side.  My initial idea was like this:

Using very little floor space, I could keep all of my  hardware together, and watercool all of my machines from one well-built loop.

Item

Use

15 ft 1/2" tubing

To string from the manifolds to the computer internals

10 ft 3/8" tubing

to attach to the water blocks and run outside to the manifold lines

1 large radiator

To cool the heated water

1 powerful pump

To keep a highly restrictive loop flowing

A homemade box

To contain all of the major cooling components

PVC

Lots of it ... you'll see!

X desktop cases

To stack the PCs in on the cooling box

1 large fan

To turn the cooling box into a big wind tunnel, allowing the radiator to breath

Gallons of water

To fill the cooling loop with

Hyperlube

To keep the coolant from "rotting"

X water blocks

To cool the CPUs

Little isn't quite the right word for it though.  It is a Lytron 6320 with threads for 1/2" fittings on the end, 1/2" tube throughout, and  measures 23"x12"x3.5" in size.  Hell, the thing weighs 17.5 lbs of pure  copper!!!

The Surplus Store from EBay sells these all the time, if anyone wants to try this at home.  Be sure you consider what I'm using this for before wanting to hook it up to your single PC ... you'll never fit this into a  standard PC case (not even the full towers) necessitating an external mount.

I made a chest style box with a window in the front to mount the radiator.  In the back I'm going to make cutouts for fans and  other peripherals (a light, maybe, to shine through the radiator?).  In each side I'd have 1-2 2" holes for coolant access.  On top of the box I'm going to stack the old  school desktop cases with rubber feet on the bottom of them to keep them from  tumbling down like toy blocks if I bump the base.  This is a very  stable box, capable of supporting the combined weight of my wife and I standing on top of it.  I don't think we'll have a structural problem.   Not too shabby for someone who hasn't done any woodworking in years.

See?  Bare bones and utilitarian.  Wouldn't it look good with the face plate covered in chrome paint?  We may get there later.   The pictures and cases were acquired through Newegg (another excellent  distributor, and the pictures they provide have helped me with numerous buying  decisions, such as this one).

Initially, I was planning on using a 5 ft length of clear 3" PVC for a res/gravity airtrap.  Unfortunately, that would set me back over a  hundred dollars, so I decided to go with opaque PVC (since price isn't a problem  with this, I upped the size to 4").  The design of the  system was simple.  Near the top I'd put in a "Y", and in the offset section (down-tilted to ensure that the bubbles would rise out of the coolant),  I would attach one of two manifolds for the PCs to exhaust into.  To fill this beast, I'd just have to close the valve, unscrew the lid, fill the res to within 6" of the top with coolant, and plug in the pump.  With an airtrap so long and efficient, it  would be a manner of minutes before the system would be completely bled of air  ... the trick is going to be arranging the cooling box so that there is nowhere for air to be trapped.

The second manifold would be placed on the opposite side of the cooling box, so that the coolant would enter one side of the Enlight 7200 cases,  and exhaust out of the other side.

Further along the acquisition trail, I found on Pro/Deals (exclusive deals for Procooling members by various merchants) an  advertisement for Clearflex 60 for 50% off at CoolTechnica.  I did a little dance, picked up 10 feet of the 3/8" (for use inside the  cases ... adds restriction to the parallel loops preventing massive fluid  slowdown), and 15 feet of the 1/2" (for the lines inside of the cooling box  and connecting the cooling box to the cases).  For those of you that  don't know, Clearflex 60 is the same formula as Tygon R-3603, giving you all the benefits of the premier WC tubing at a third the cost.  Most of  you are paying $0.75 a foot for vinyl at Home Depot or Ace Hardware ... you really should look at the good stuff.  Picture from US Plastics.

As far as water blocks for the CPUs go, I need two things:   good cooling, and low price (though I'm trying to de-ghetto my house, I'm  not rich ... I have a wife to put through college and three voracious  weasels to feed!).  I decided on the Black Edge from Becooling.  I already have one, and it has performed relatively well (I suspect the 3/8" interior size and lack of proper lapping is what prevented it from being  excellent), but since a 3/8" waterblock is what I'm after, I can't go wrong  with this proven performer.  One thing to note about this block is that the lapping from the manufacturer is very lacking ... you really need to re-lap this baby to get good results.  If you're looking for bang for  your buck in 3/8", you would be hard pressed to do better.