cooling computers and heating water / thermal store??

[Dan Robinson]

Wouldest you can although it is a lot of work for not much gain. You also have to change the oil periodically.

I doubt the low level heat generated will be of much use.

I've looked into a few a few options for my office which currently gets superheated I the summer and maintains a steady 23 degrees in the winter just by computer heat (mines about 900w plus printers, 1200w peak).

Looked at heart recovery through ashp, but was several grand. Would take eons to pay back.

 

[Agile]

I was also thinking about a heat pump for cooling. That has the advantage that a heat pumping failure will not stop the system working.

But what are these machines being used for? Whats the problem if they go off?

I thought graphics cards were only used for driving a display?

I went to a customer who had 5 kW of heat from computers in his basement. Some kind of servers. He had an a/c unit in his garden as well as a backup generator but was getting noise complaints from neighbours.

Tony

 

[Dan Robinson]

You can make graphics cards do a lot more than graphics now Tony.


Archway?

 

[miless2111s]

Wouldest you can although it is a lot of work for not much gain. You also have to change the oil periodically.

I doubt the low level heat generated will be of much use.

I've looked into a few a few options for my office which currently gets superheated I the summer and maintains a steady 23 degrees in the winter just by computer heat (mines about 900w plus printers, 1200w peak).

Looked at heart recovery through ashp, but was several grand. Would take eons to pay back.

Hence my thoughts about possibly combining it with existing, unformed, plans to do solar hot water, I fully accept that on its own the financial case might be a challenge!

The level of heat available / cooling required is an uncertainty though - I'm very interested in how much I need to make it work, then I can work out the costs to scale to that level...

 

[andytw]

If you really, really want to recover the heat from these machines and have working reliable computers then I would suggest you don't immerse them in oil which, as already stated, would cause all sorts of problems.
Just consider :-
Fans would need to be disabled
Every mechanical connection (there are many many 100's) on DIMMs, CPU etc would be in jeopardy
Hard drive breather holes would be blocked. On cooling, oil would be drawn into the hard drives.
Switches would all have to be extended
Oil would need to be circulated to prevent hot spots
Probably many, many other issues

You would be far better off placing the machines in an insulated and air conditioned environment and then research on how to recover the heat from the air conditioner unit.

andytw

 

[miless2111s]

I was also thinking about a heat pump for cooling. That has the advantage that a heat pumping failure will not stop the system working.

But what are these machines being used for? Whats the problem if they go off?

I thought graphics cards were only used for driving a display?

I went to a customer who had 5 kW of heat from computers in his basement. Some kind of servers. He had an a/c unit in his garden as well as a backup generator but was getting noise complaints from neighbours.

Tony

Failure of the pump would be an issue as the computers would then cook in their own heat do I will need a control system to check this, there will also need to be a Thermostat to send the content to an external rad if the heat store isn't cooling the oil enough.
Both should be fairly simple but I still need to remember them!

 

[miless2111s]

If you really, really want to recover the heat from these machines and have working reliable computers then I would suggest you don't immerse them in oil which, as already stated, would cause all sorts of problems.
Just consider :-
Fans would need to be disabled
Every mechanical connection (there are many many 100's) on DIMMs, CPU etc would be in jeopardy
Hard drive breather holes would be blocked. On cooling, oil would be drawn into the hard drives.
Switches would all have to be extended
Oil would need to be circulated to prevent hot spots
Probably many, many other issues

You would be far better off placing the machines in an insulated and air conditioned environment and then research on how to recover the heat from the air conditioner unit.

andytw

Andy
Thanks for the words of caution, they are appreciated. Many of the problems above are negated by the solid state nature, no discs etc. The mechanical connections comment is worrying - can you expand on it?

 

[andytw]

Yes, DIMMs CPU are plug in items and rely on gold contact touching gold contact. Gold is used because it does not tarnish. If you plug in a DIMM and it makes it's 200 or so connections then yes there will be gold touching gold. When immersed in oil then gold will still touch gold...fine. But as the items heat and cool and expand and contract then eventually oil would be introduced between the contacts.
Same with the CPU, all physical contacts. Same with any PCI cards. Same with the BIOS battery.
Looking at it a different way, would you take a good computer and wipe oil over all of the clean gold CPU and DIMM connections and then put it back together and expect it to work ? I wouldn't for one.

Have you googled cooling computers in oil. I haven't, but would suggest you are out on a very thin limb with this one.

andytw

 

[Dan Robinson]

I've seen it done a few times but the hard drives were housed remotely. Fans are easy to remove and replace with heat sinks.

Take your point on oil in the contacts though.

 

[andytw]

Well...theres plenty on Youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtufuXLvOok

 

[Norcon]

Why don't you just sit the pc inside a fridge freezer?

 

[andytw]

Why don't you just sit the pc inside a fridge freezer?

'cos he wants to recover the heat !

 

[Norcon]

The heat is dumped at the condenser.

Just submerge the condenser in water.

For every 3kw's in you'll get 9kw out! That's called the cop.

 

[miless2111s]

I think the actual technology to oil cool the computer is established, if not without some issues - especially around resale, the tricky but is about 1) getting the heat into the house heating/hot water supply and 2) understanding the calculations about doing so and 3) the methods to do this...

 

[NotAgainFFS]

I would pose this question on http://ask.slashdot.org