# Designing a liquid metal cooling system loop (yup, you heard me right)



## storm-chaser

This all started about two weeks ago when I purchased a chiller for experimental purposes. I was scanning ebay/newegg one night for various different types of coolant and brainstorming on how I could come up with some substance a little more exotic than water, or additives I could use to enhance heat exchange. This is when the thought popped into my head that *cooling a PC with liquid metal may very well be a viable and feasible option.* And something I might actually be able to pull off, given enough time and research. One of my side topics of interest are nuclear reactors, so that was what prompted me in the first place, as some nuclear reactors are actually cooled by liquid metal and it is extremely effective, and known as the "ultimate" coolant. I want to get a few things straight so you guys don't think I've gone off the deep end:

1) This is a long term project - It will likely take at least 6 months to a year to design and build and impliment what I am envisioning.
2) This is not practical in any sense of the word - I find it very intriguing, however, and I have a very curious mind, so yes, while early on it will be experimental, I do eventually hope to come up with a liquid metal cooling "solution" that perhaps could be developed into a real product for overclocking enthusiasts. 
3) This is not going to be cheap. Gallium costs about $100 for a 1/2 cup, to put things in perspective. 
4) This is totally experimental for the moment, but I think I can make it work, and if I do I will try to come up with a kit or formula that other hardcore OC people can buy and implement themselves. 
5) This will be a great covid project as I dont see us coming out of this pandemic anytime soon lol

I first came across Mercury, obviously one of only a few metals that is a liquid at room temperature. But this is nasty stuff, and the vapors alone are enough to keep me away, far away. Then of course there is Gallium, which I think with the right tweaking will make the most effective "liquid metal coolant" for this project. Gallium has some very cool properties and has a melting point of 85*F, which is obviously to high to be used practically in this scenario. It is also very corrosive to aluminum so all the parts used in this liquid metal loop will have to be compatible with a gallium based alloy. 

Galinstan - Wikipedia
So I did a little more research and came across a very interesting alloy known as *Galinstan*, mixture of gallium and indium (and a pinch of tin) which has a melting point of -19*C (-2*F). I need to do more research but if I really want to take advantage of liquid metal as a high performance coolant, I need to involve a chiller in this conversation. Because in a normal loop, with standard radiators you might only see 5-10% increase in thermal dissipation properties of LM vs standard water loop. If you can get the heat out of the liquid metal very quickly, you get more bang for your buck, and can further capitalize on it's superior thermal dissipation properties. In other words, my plan is to utilize a chiller and a plate heat exchanger which will interface the liquid metal loop with coolant loop from the chiller at about 33*F. A plate heat exchanger is a very interesting piece of equipment in that it offers a huge amount of surface area verses a standard radiator, and a radiator is air to water, whereas the plate heat exchanger is liquid to liquid. So right off the bat, we will be using a highly effective form of heat transfer (liquid to liquid is far more effective than liquid to air). The project requires two independent loops, at least as I see it right now (see graphic below). The liquid metal loop goes through the plate heat exchanger where it gets cooled by the chiller (and the chiller will have it's own independent loop and the two will never touch. For all intensive purposes, a plate heat exchanger is the most effective heat exchanger for use with this kind of idea and will provide well over 20x the surface area of a standard radiator. That's the key here in allowing us to flip conventional thinking about radiators on its head, as I will outline my theory below.

My goal is to run the liquid metal loop with a target goal of maintaining it at about 35*F in that loop. And this is where things start to get interesting. In a conventional loop, the radiators get hot, because you are removing all that heat generated from your CPU/GPU. But then it dawned on me, why would I want hot radiators INSIDE my case? I mean, in the conventional sense, *a radiator in a house is designed to heat the house. *Do I really want 90*+ radiators in a confined space around very temperature sensitive electronic equipment, especially when I'm overclocking? The rational answer is NO. 

What am I getting at? We will use the liquid metal to run the entire loop sub-ambient, so effectively, you will have 35-40* liquid metal flowing through your radiators. In other words, use the radiators to cool your internal case temps, not raise them. Because the liquid to liquid heat exchanger is so much more effective than liquid to air, any decent chiller should be able to maintain the entire loop at sub ambient temperature without to much trouble. There is a very common misconception that running radiators with a chiller is a no no, but actually, when you study it closely, the chiller should have no problem dealing with the temp increase in LM from passing through your radiators. This is effective air conditioning for your system. even if you have two or three large radiators, that's still nowhere near the surface area of the 60 plate heat exchanger I just purchased for use with this project. Yes, there will be condensation and other challenges, but one by one, I will address them.

This LM loop would require a different type of pump (electro-magnetic MDF pumps in particular would be ideal). Taking advantage of the metallic nature of the coolant, the pump pushes the liquid around electromagnetically. *Unlike water cooling, the process requires no moving parts, consumes little power, and is silent.*

The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.

In short, liquid metal is able to absorb heat more rapidly, and thus cool down chips faster. This property has led to its use as an “ultimate” coolant in some nuclear reactors, which are cooled with liquid sodium or potassium, as well as in the manufacture of high-quality machine components, such as gas turbine blades, where the components are rapidly “cooled” to 660 C with molten aluminum to prevent the formation of defects.

Before you laugh, just know that there are proven liquid metal loops already out there, designed for use with mobile devices all the way up to servers. Nothing holding me back from taking a couple pages out of their playbook for my little project.

This project is in it's intial phases. But I am proceeding with the idea and I will make it happen. Your comments are welcome, both good and bad, just please dont post things like "dont do it" or "it wont work" because I am doing it and WILL make it work. 

But your advice is appreciated because I know we have expert opinions out there who can help me or guide me in the right direction to make this whole experiment viable. 










Essentially, this layout is similar to what I am envisioning in my head (sump water would be chiller) and liquid-liquid heat exchanger in the center would be the plate heat exchanger)


----------



## Blameless

There are definitely liquid metal coolant loops that work well for their intended purpose.

However, I'm highly doubtful that it one will match or outperform a competent water loop for PC cooling. Water may not have the thermal conductivity of Galinstan, but thermal conductivity of the coolant isn't often the limiting factor and water has a much higher volumetric heat capacity. Liquid metal loops are normally used were compactness or silence takes priority, or where the working temperatures involved are above the range of liquid water. The temperature range you're looking at is the ideal range for water-based coolants.

With regard to chillers and radiators, the reason it's generally counter productive is that a correctly functioning water loop has nearly uniform temperatures throughout the enitre loop (if there is a significant gradiant, it means your flow rate is too low). So, if you're aiming for temps that would justify the chiller, the radiator is actually going to be a heat _load_, not a heat sink. Yes, this could be used as an air conditioner...but why? If the main thermally significant components are already in the loop, you don't need subambient air blowing over the rest. You're just making your chiller work harder, and without temperature control to keep things above the due point, risking condensation issues. Only if the chiller can't get the coolant below ambient will having radiators in a water loop be beneficial to coolant temp, and if this is the case replacing the chiller with more radiator area is much more efficient.

I haven't done the math to see what the temperature gradient would look like in a liquid metal loop--and I suspect it could be significanr given it's higher thermal conductivity--but I also suspect the same principles would apply, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in circulating the coolant. MDF pumps also have terrible performance relative to physical impellers.

Anyway, it still sounds like an interesting project.


----------



## storm-chaser

Blameless said:


> However, I'm highly doubtful that it one will match or outperform a competent water loop for PC cooling.


I agree with this statement for the most part. Part of me likes the extreme theory behind using liquid metal as coolant in your loop. So no doubt this is going to be challenging but I think I can at least break even here. 
In the sense that I like being different and I've found a liquid metal alloy that has a melting point of -2*F which is low enough to have some OC potential. 



Blameless said:


> So, if you're aiming for temps that would justify the chiller, the radiator is actually going to be a heat _load_, not a heat sink. Yes, this could be used as an air conditioner...but why? If the main thermally significant components are already in the loop, you don't need subambient air blowing over the rest. You're just making your chiller work harder, and without temperature control to keep things above the due point, risking condensation issues. Only if the chiller can't get the coolant below ambient will having radiators in a water loop be beneficial to coolant temp, and if this is the case replacing the chiller with more radiator area is much more efficient.


Yes, the radiator will be a heat load, but you have remember, I have probably 30X the surface area of all my radiators combined in a single water to water plate heat exchanger. So I have the ability to cool the liquid metal for a longer duration and with a much more effective thermal transfer (ie water to water as opposed to rads which are air to water)

So yes, you are correct, the radiators will be a heat load, but considering surface area and all the rest of it, I should be able to find a chiller that can easily cool a couple radiators and your CPU/and or GPU at the same time. I mean i never put the side cover on my case, lol but in theory, internal case temps are important in overclocking and just a few degrees can actually have a significant impact on OC reliability. I guess what sold me on the idea is would I rather have hot radiators or cold radiators in my PC? 

So yeah, it's just an experiment but I think it will at least be fun to try it out and see what I can learn along the way. It would be nice to respond to a "what's your favorite coolant" with liquid metal. lol


----------



## StAndrew

First of all, any gallium based liquid metal will react with copper and nickle. You will need chrome lining. Danamics made a liquid metal cooler but they used a sodium-potassium alloy. I wouldn’t recommend you play with this stuff; its explosive when it comes in contact with water.

Btw, the Danamics liquid metal cooler, with the electromagnetic pump, performed about as good as your standard air cooler.



storm-chaser said:


> My goal is to run the liquid metal loop with a target goal of maintaining it at about 35*F in that loop. And this is where things start to get interesting. In a conventional loop, the radiators get hot, because you are removing all that heat generated from your CPU/GPU. But then it dawned on me, why would I want hot radiators INSIDE my case? I mean, in the conventional sense, *a radiator in a house is designed to heat the house. *Do I really want 90*+ radiators in a confined space around very temperature sensitive electronic equipment, especially when I'm overclocking? The rational answer is NO.
> 
> What am I getting at? We will use the liquid metal to run the entire loop sub-ambient, so effectively, you will have 35-40* liquid metal flowing through your radiators. In other words, use the radiators to cool your internal case temps, not raise them. Because the liquid to liquid heat exchanger is so much more effective than liquid to air, any decent chiller should be able to maintain the entire loop at sub ambient temperature without to much trouble. There is a very common misconception that running radiators with a chiller is a no no, but actually, when you study it closely, the chiller should have no problem dealing with the temp increase in LM from passing through your radiators. This is effective air conditioning for your system. even if you have two or three large radiators, that's still nowhere near the surface area of the 60 plate heat exchanger I just purchased for use with this project. Yes, there will be condensation and other challenges, but one by one, I will address them.


Liquid metal specific heat is so low, it will be very hot after the first heat load. Water loops take a long time to equalize and temps generally don't vary more than 1*C with proper flow due to a very high (the highest) specific heat. You will need a heat exchanger between each heat load if you want one loop.



storm-chaser said:


> This LM loop would require a different type of pump (electro-magnetic MDF pumps in particular would be ideal). Taking advantage of the metallic nature of the coolant, the pump pushes the liquid around electromagnetically. *Unlike water cooling, the process requires no moving parts, consumes little power, and is silent.*


The pumps generate a large electromagnetic field; not great inside a computer case…



storm-chaser said:


> The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.
> In short, liquid metal is able to absorb heat more rapidly, and thus cool down chips faster. This property has led to its use as an “ultimate” coolant in some nuclear reactors, which are cooled with liquid sodium or potassium, as well as in the manufacture of high-quality machine components, such as gas turbine blades, where the components are rapidly “cooled” to 660 C with molten aluminum to prevent the formation of defects.


I don’t think this means what you think it means. Conduction is the transfer of heat through a material and only affect heat transfer at the median, predicated on the conduction coefficient and thickness of the barrier (in this case, copper). Water is just a way to transfer heat; its conduciveness means little here…

A few other thoughts:
-A water loop would perform better about 100% of the time 100% of the time. Just make a water loop with a chiller 

-Mentioned above, research Danamics Liquid Metal CPU cooler. It used an electromagnetic pump to circulate the liquid metal through 5 heatpipes. At best it matched but generally it lost to traditional air coolers.

-Unless your pump can really move that liquid metal, the low specific heat of liquid metal is going to be a big issue. If it’s not pumped fast enough, your CPU/GPU will overheat. Again, you’re going to need individual loops for each heat load or lots of heat exchanges.


----------



## Avacado

StAndrew said:


> -A water loop would perform better about 100% of the time 100% of the time


----------



## Shawnb99

Interesting idea but I see this being a big mess. Clean up after any spills would be extremely difficult, least with water you can just let it dry whereas you’d have to really clean any components if you spilled LM, if they even survive.


----------



## Cakewalk_S

I'm not so sure about this. I love the concept but not so sure about the practicality of this... I mean do we really need something better than water? 





Liquids and Fluids - Specific Heats


Specific heats for some common liquids and fluids - acetone, oil, paraffin, water and many more.




www.engineeringtoolbox.com




If you really wanted to build and outstanding loop...why not use ammonia? It's commonly used in coolant systems...besides the toxicity and potential death of a leak...what could go wrong? I think Glycol is also higher on the list which might be a possibility. I think your #1 issue that you're going to face is the viscosity of the liquid. You're going to put some MAJOR strain on that pump...not to mention the actual surface tension to try and push it through a radiator/cooling fins is going to be incredibly restrictive. 
Just a few thoughts.... Best of luck! I love the concept of water cooling... I wish there were better solutions for laptop cooling since that's all I've got now...


----------



## JSHamlet234

The main difference between liquid metal and water is that liquid metal would be able to conduct heat away from the fins in the block at a much lower gpm flow rate. I suspect that it would not significantly outperform any water loop that has enough water flow to reach the point of diminishing returns.


----------



## StAndrew

Cakewalk_S said:


> I'm not so sure about this. I love the concept but not so sure about the practicality of this... I mean do we really need something better than water?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Liquids and Fluids - Specific Heats
> 
> 
> Specific heats for some common liquids and fluids - acetone, oil, paraffin, water and many more.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.engineeringtoolbox.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If you really wanted to build and outstanding loop...why not use ammonia? It's commonly used in coolant systems...besides the toxicity and potential death of a leak...what could go wrong? I think Glycol is also higher on the list which might be a possibility. I think your #1 issue that you're going to face is the viscosity of the liquid. You're going to put some MAJOR strain on that pump...not to mention the actual surface tension to try and push it through a radiator/cooling fins is going to be incredibly restrictive.
> Just a few thoughts.... Best of luck! I love the concept of water cooling... I wish there were better solutions for laptop cooling since that's all I've got now...


Its an electromagnetic "pump" If they make one big enough for the tube sizes and volume he will need, it should work ok. Just keep your "everything in your computer" away from its electromagnetic field it will be producing...


----------



## warpuck

I am just wondering if this was designed for for 24/7 operation but not so much for powered down between usage?.
I guess the electromotive pump would have to be always on to keep the metal liquid. 
Probable advantage is the pump has no moving parts?
It would work with any conductive liquid. If it does not leak.


----------



## Awsan

This can translate well into laptops


----------



## Shenhua

storm-chaser said:


> The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.


When you refer to air cooling, you compare it with water and liquid, as a medium for heat transfer. Air is not used as a medium for heat transfer. Water is. Technically a water radiator, is an air cooler, just the same as a heatpipe cooler.
Liquid cooling rely more on capacity and extraction (due to an active mechanism that evens out the heat throughout the loop). Heatpipe coolers relies more on heat conductivity and dissipation, which results in a less evenness throughout the cooler than with liquid cooling.
Ever wondered how a 700gr cooler on a GPU can deal with 400w no problem, but a d15 has issues with loads over 250w??

Which leads me to my next point, and why your idea won´t work.



storm-chaser said:


> In short, liquid metal is able to absorb heat more rapidly, and thus cool down chips faster. This property has led to its use as an “ultimate” coolant in some nuclear reactors, which are cooled with liquid sodium or potassium, as well as in the manufacture of high-quality machine components, such as gas turbine blades, where the components are rapidly “cooled” to 660 C with molten aluminum to prevent the formation of defects.


Ignoring the flow rate and the build up problems, it doesnt matter, you're still going through the same barriers, which is IHS, TIM, coldplate. The cooler the coldplate, the better the temps. Doesnt matter how you do it.

You wanna improve conductivity for CPU cooling? start removing barriers. Remove the IHS from the ecuation. You wanna go further?, remove the coldplate+tim, and go direct die to liquid in the loop (this might be worst unless something exotic like a liquid metal loop is used, cus your usual water it's really bad as a thermal conductor and the die area is too small.........for those who might feel differently, think of the water as a heat reservoir at the same time as a bad medium for heat transfer).

Hope this helps.


----------



## Kana Chan

The guy didn't use a radiator/fan setup instead of only running a pump for some reason.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Liquid metal specific heat is so low, it will be very hot after the first heat load. Water loops take a long time to equalize and temps generally don't vary more than 1*C with proper flow due to a very high (the highest) specific heat. You will need a heat exchanger between each heat load if you want one loop.


Two seperate loops with a 60 plate liquid to liquid heat exchanger will have no problem cooling off the liquid metal.

This just arrived the other day:
It has about 60X the surface area of a standard radiator. (not to mention it's liquid to liquid which is many many times more efficient in removing heat than liquid to air). Chiller loop and liquid metal loop interface in this 60 plate heat exchanger. (see diagram posted above) 








More pics to follow shortly.


----------



## storm-chaser

Stainless steel barbs installed so I can connect up to both loops (before I switch to liquid metal these might change)

I forgot to mention, it will be hooked up to a chiller with standard coolant to see the effect it has on the conventional loop. So this project is not going to happen overnight.


----------



## thx1138

Following.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> The pumps generate a large electromagnetic field; not great inside a computer case…


This is no problem, I assure you.



Shawnb99 said:


> Interesting idea but I see this being a big mess. Clean up after any spills would be extremely difficult, least with water you can just let it dry whereas you’d have to really clean any components if you spilled LM, if they even survive.


Why would I spill liquid metal? I'm not going to be doing this when Im drunk.



StAndrew said:


> First of all, any gallium based liquid metal will react with copper and nickle. You will need chrome lining. Danamics made a liquid metal cooler but they used a sodium-potassium alloy. I wouldn’t recommend you play with this stuff; its explosive when it comes in contact with water.


Also note, room temperature liquid metals are free of thermal management, corrosion, and sealing issues, this is a well known fact. So no problem there either. And that's the beauty of a gallium based loop. I can actually use water with the gallium to create a "blended" loop. In other words, nothing is going to blow up, and one compliments the other.










Not saying this project is going to be easy or cheap, but it certainly should keep me busy until covid goes away .


----------



## speed_demon

Don't know if this is helpful to you or not but this style pump is often used for highly caustic fluids or compounds that would otherwise damage a pump's blades. Might be adaptable to your idea.

It's a rotor pushing on a piece of Tygon style flexible tubing. And they work really quite well without ever coming into contact with the working fluid.


















Peristaltic pump - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


----------



## geriatricpollywog

speed_demon said:


> Don't know if this is helpful to you or not but this style pump is often used for highly caustic fluids or compounds that would otherwise damage a pump's blades. Might be adaptable to your idea.
> 
> It's a rotor pushing on a piece of Tygon style flexible tubing. And they work really quite well without ever coming into contact with the working fluid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Peristaltic pump - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org


I’ve used these at work and they’re all noisy. Defeats the purpose of watercooling. I’m not sure what the purpose of LM cooling is, so maybe it’s a good fit.


----------



## Asmodian

I don't understand either. Unless you need 1000°C without pressurization there are better fluids than liquid metal. Water is really great if the working temperature is between 4°C and around 60°C, it is one of the best available liquids performance wise even ignoring safety concerns.

The reason liquid metal is a good thermal interface material (watts per meter K) is not that important with turbulent flow as found in a water block. Heat capacity is much more important in a pumped liquid cooling system, because the rate of heat flow into the fluid is directly proportional to deltaT, so the less the fluid's temperature increases in the block the more heat it soaks.

To design an optimal loop you need to understand the heat flow. Do not think about temperatures, think about watts.



storm-chaser said:


> I can actually use water with the gallium to create a "blended" loop. In other words, nothing is going to blow up, and one compliments the other.


No, you cannot. The liquid densities are too different, flow patterns would be absolutely terrible. They also react.
Oxidation of Gallium-based Liquid Metal Alloys by Water


----------



## storm-chaser

speed_demon said:


> Don't know if this is helpful to you or not but this style pump is often used for highly caustic fluids or compounds that would otherwise damage a pump's blades. Might be adaptable to your idea.
> 
> It's a rotor pushing on a piece of Tygon style flexible tubing. And they work really quite well without ever coming into contact with the working fluid.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Peristaltic pump - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org


Thanks for the suggestion. Very interesting concept here. Perhaps I can figure out an application for it to aid in the construction of my liquid metal loop. Very interesting design, to say the least.


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> I’ve used these at work and they’re all noisy. Defeats the purpose of watercooling. I’m not sure what the purpose of LM cooling is, so maybe it’s a good fit.


Liquid metal is known as the "ultimate" coolant for a reason ... lol


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> Liquid metal is known as the "ultimate" coolant for a reason ... lol


Yes and no. Water is also known as the ultimate coolant because it has the highest specific heat capacity of any liquid. Many times higher than liquid gallium. Then again don’t let pesky science get in the way of a cool idea


----------



## storm-chaser

Cakewalk_S said:


> I'm not so sure about this. I love the concept but not so sure about the practicality of this... I mean do we really need something better than water?


No, we don't. Water is an excellent cooling medium. However:

I thought I made it pretty clear this was not being done for practical reasons. But that being said, proof of concept has already been established, so it can be done and (also used in conjunction with a chiller). So the practicality aspect is proven, because there is a company that makes liquid metal loops for mobile devices all the way up to servers. I just need to adapt this design to follow suit as to what others have done. So over the next month or so I will be studying their designs and researching their methods to implement here to build a robust LM cooling system. 

Basically, metal is the ultimate coolant, so I will be taking full advantage of it's superior thermal qualities in my loop. And combined with the chiller, it will be substantially better than water. In other words, the loop will stay sub ambient even if I decide to leave a couple radiators on it for air conditioning. Plus, I can cool down my internal case temps very quickly and manage flow with virtually silent pumps that have no moving parts.


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> I don't understand either.


Liquid metal is known as the ultimate coolant, because it is. Understand now?
Point being, a properly designed LM loop will outperform a conventional liquid cooling system.


----------



## storm-chaser

*Public Service Announcement:*

All the naysayers, please drop it, you aren't going to change my mind. Apparently all these people that say it wont work haven't done their homework, and don't realize there is a company that indeed already makes highly effective liquid metal loops for mobile devices all the way up to servers.* Guys, I have a little point to make: proof of concept has already been established! lol*

Except my loop will be better because it will "chilled" liquid metal as opposed to ambient.

With your naysayer mindsets we would have never put men on the moon. Now that you know proof of concept has been established, please stop saying it wont work you are only making yourself look bad.

*We present a single-phase liquid cooling technology that exploits the highly conducting nature and superior thermophysical properties of liquid metals to cool high density power sources (>200 Wcm/sup -2/) with very high heat transfer coefficients (/spl sim/20 Wcm/sup -2/K/sup -1/), and pump the liquid metals using power-efficient, non-moving, gravity/orientation independent magnetofluiddynamic (MFD) pumps. We have implemented and characterized this cooling scheme using miniature (<5 cm/sup 3/) pumps operating at 25 kPa maximum pressure head and 10% efficiencies in a variety of computing applications including mobile notebooks, desktops, and servers. 
High-performance liquid metal cooling loops | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore *


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Btw, the Danamics liquid metal cooler, with the electromagnetic pump, performed about as good as your standard air cooler.


What's the deal with this Danamics liquid cooler you keep bringing up? Did I say anything about a Danamics liquid metal cooler anywhere in my posts? 

Again, proof of concept has already been established. A high quality MDF pump has already proven very effective. Silent and no moving parts..
High-performance liquid metal cooling loops | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore
*Abstract:*
We present a single-phase liquid cooling technology that exploits the highly conducting nature and superior thermophysical properties of liquid metals to cool high density power sources (>200 Wcm/sup -2/) with very high heat transfer coefficients (/spl sim/20 Wcm/sup -2/K/sup -1/), and pump the liquid metals using power-efficient, non-moving, gravity/orientation independent magnetofluiddynamic (MFD) pumps. We have implemented and characterized this cooling scheme using miniature (<5 cm/sup 3/) pumps operating at 25 kPa maximum pressure head and 10% efficiencies in a variety of computing applications including mobile notebooks, desktops, and servers.




StAndrew said:


> -Mentioned above, research Danamics Liquid Metal CPU cooler. It used an electromagnetic pump to circulate the liquid metal through 5 heatpipes. At best it matched but generally it lost to traditional air coolers.


LOL who said I was using a Danamics Liquid metal cooler? I already have a number of potential pumps to use as well, with most of them being silent with no moving parts. Google is your friend 





StAndrew said:


> I don’t think this means what you think it means. Conduction is the transfer of heat through a material and only affect heat transfer at the median, predicated on the conduction coefficient and thickness of the barrier (in this case, copper). Water is just a way to transfer heat; its conduciveness means little here…


LOL dont tell me what you think you think about what I know or don't know. LOL Shooting from the hip today are we? Perhaps challenge Sapphire Tech?

*The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat. According to Sapphire Technology, which has adopted the NanoCoolers invention for a PC graphics card, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.

The pump that moves the liquid metal around in the system is one of the invention’s main advantages over a rival technology, water cooling. Taking advantage of the metallic nature of the coolant, the pump pushes the liquid around electromagnetically. Unlike water cooling, the process requires no moving parts, consumes little power, and is silent. In a patent application, NanoCoolers even suggests powering the pump solely from the waste heat produced by the computer. While the liquid metal compound is non-toxic, according to Wilcox, it is corrosive to some metals, notably aluminum.*

I have a 60 plate heat exchanger that should be up for the task. Advantages? Liquid to liquid is much more effective than liquid to air.



StAndrew said:


> Liquid metal specific heat is so low, it will be very hot after the first heat load. Water loops take a long time to equalize and temps generally don't vary more than 1*C with proper flow due to a very high (the highest) specific heat. You will need a heat exchanger between each heat load if you want one loop.


Yes, I am looking for advice and suggestions but if you l look at my basic design I said nothing about having a heat exchanger between each heat load. Also outlined on the diagram I posted above, do you see heat exchangers between each heat source? And no, I would not need heat exchangers between each heat source (it's pretty clear you are no expert in liquid metal loops so I will take your suggestions with a grain of salt.) But it's irrelevant any way, because with this experimental first liquid metal loop, I am only cooling the CPU. I will test other things as well:

Not true at all. The liquid metal would remain sub ambient throughout the entire loop. The trick is implementation of the 60 plate heat exchanger in conjunction with a chiller, which will be very effective in cooling the metal back down at a very rapid speed. I think a lot of the naysayers here don't quite understand the effectiveness of liquid to liquid verses liquid to air. Or, perhaps have no idea what a plate heat exchanger is or how it works. 

And guys, let me make one thing clear.... I'm not doing this because metal is 1000X better than water.
*Water is an ideal coolant for PCs and more than up for the task.* Metal, maybe a little bit better with the correct design. I just want to do it so when a thread about your favorite coolant is started, I can say liquid metal. LOL

I will also be taking full advantage with the use of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNT’s) in my liquid metal coolant. Perhaps other additives as well. Will keep you guys posted as to my progress!

So for now:
hybrid LM mixed with H20 has proven effective both in the laboratory and the real world. In other words, I have to update my to do list:

-evaluate loop performance with just plain water
-evaluate loop performance with a CNT enhanced coolant
-evaluate loop performance with galis
-evaluate loop performance with water and LM in blend form.


----------



## storm-chaser

The cool factor for me is what this is all about. It would be absolutely sick to have a liquid metal cooled PC, at least in my opinion. Other reasons? Because I have a curious mind and like being different. For example, I didn't rush toward the 9900K like other techies did en mass. I chose the 9600KF, even though I had plenty of money for a 9900K, no, I wanted something off the beaten path because I want to be unique and I want this to stand out. Okay? Get it now?


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> The pumps generate a large electromagnetic field; not great inside a computer case…


Not true. They have implemented these pumps from laptops to servers with no ill effects.


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> No, you cannot. The liquid densities are too different, flow patterns would be absolutely terrible. They also react.


I see another person who hasn't done his homework yet. 

Not true they already have a hybrid galinston and water based, or blended coolant mixture, hint: its VERY effective.

A new oscillating heat pipe (OHP) charged with hybrid fluids can improve thermal performance. The key difference in this OHP is that it uses room temperature liquid metal (Galinstan consisting of gallium, indium, and tin) and water as the working fluid. The OHP was fabricated on a copper plate with six turns and a 3�3mm2 cross section. The OHP with hybrid fluids as the working fluid was investigated through visual observation and thermal measurement. Liquid metal was successfully driven to flow through the OHP by the pressure difference between the evaporator and the condenser without external force. Experimental results show that while added liquid metal can increase the heat transport capability, liquid metal oscillation amplitude decreases as the filling ratio of liquid metal increases. Visualization of experimental results show that liquid metal oscillation position and velocity increase as the heat input increases. Oscillating motion of liquid metal in the OHP significantly increases the heat transfer performance at high heat input.* The lowest thermal resistance of 0.076 �oC/W was achieved in the hybrid fluids-filled OHP with a heat input of 420 W. We experimentally demonstrated a 13% higher heat transfer performance using liquid metal as the working fluid compared to an OHP charged with pure water.*


----------



## speed_demon

Just one thing to be mindful of is that liquid metals tend to shrink with reduced temperature and expand with increased temps. Might need a bit of expansion room in a reservoir of some sort.

Also LOL yeah it's feasible and has been done before. Dunno why all the negativity guys - Storm-chaser is just having some fun and seeing what works here.


----------



## Asmodian

I am not saying it won't work, just that it won't be that good compared to a standard chiller based water loop. It is a great experiment and you could learn a lot from it and it might be really good. I would love to see real data from someone, since all the papers are behind paywalls. 

I can see it being especially useful without a chiller, you could have a water based radiator easily cool the liquid metal via a heat exchanger. The liquid metal can pull more watts off the CPU with a smaller deltaT, so you might get lower CPU temps and a hotter water temp in the radiators. You would need to be flowing the liquid metal directly over the die, no CPU IHS or anything like that.



storm-chaser said:


> A new oscillating heat pipe (OHP) charged with hybrid fluids can improve thermal performance.


That only works if you completely isolate it from oxygen. I suppose you could purge the lines, use gas impermeable tubing and fittings, and degas your water before charging. I am not sure why you would want to though.

Are you using a pump or not? Do not mix water and liquid metal while using a pump, that won't help anything. Pumping mixed liquids with very difference densities and/or viscosities is nasty (peristaltic is the only real option).


----------



## speed_demon

Asmodian said:


> I am not saying it won't work, just that it won't be that good compared to a standard chiller based water loop. It is a great experiment and you could learn a lot from it and it might be really good. I would love to see real data from someone, since all the papers are behind paywalls.


If you find the authors listed you can message them on social media like Twitter for instance and 99/100 times they will give you the white papers for free. Authors make nothing from the sales and they are not restricted at all to give the documents away so it's a really straight forward way to read up on various experiments without any cost attached.


----------



## Shenhua

storm-chaser said:


> LOL dont tell me what you think you think about what I know or don't know. LOL Shooting from the hip today are we? Perhaps challenge Sapphire Tech?
> 
> *The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat. According to Sapphire Technology, which has adopted the NanoCoolers invention for a PC graphics card, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.
> 
> The pump that moves the liquid metal around in the system is one of the invention’s main advantages over a rival technology, water cooling. Taking advantage of the metallic nature of the coolant, the pump pushes the liquid around electromagnetically. Unlike water cooling, the process requires no moving parts, consumes little power, and is silent. In a patent application, NanoCoolers even suggests powering the pump solely from the waste heat produced by the computer. While the liquid metal compound is non-toxic, according to Wilcox, it is corrosive to some metals, notably aluminum.*
> 
> I have a 60 plate heat exchanger that should be up for the task. Advantages? Liquid to liquid is much more effective than liquid to air.
> 
> 
> Yes, I am looking for advice and suggestions but if you l look at my basic design I said nothing about having a heat exchanger between each heat load. Also outlined on the diagram I posted above, do you see heat exchangers between each heat source? And no, I would not need heat exchangers between each heat source (it's pretty clear you are no expert in liquid metal loops so I will take your suggestions with a grain of salt.) But it's irrelevant any way, because with this experimental first liquid metal loop, I am only cooling the CPU. I will test other things as well:
> 
> Not true at all. The liquid metal would remain sub ambient throughout the entire loop. The trick is implementation of the 60 plate heat exchanger in conjunction with a chiller, which will be very effective in cooling the metal back down at a very rapid speed. I think a lot of the naysayers here don't quite understand the effectiveness of liquid to liquid verses liquid to air. Or, perhaps have no idea what a plate heat exchanger is or how it works.
> 
> And guys, let me make one thing clear.... I'm not doing this because metal is 1000X better than water.


Well you clearly don't understand the basic underline, which pointed by many, me included, the liquid in the loop, is not the bottleneck, so you're not gonna improve performance. Here!, I'm gonna quote myself.... maybe it makes more sense now after "10" comments that pointed it in different ways.


Shenhua said:


> ...... it doesnt matter, you're still going through the same barriers, which is IHS, TIM, coldplate. The cooler the coldplate, the better the temps. Doesnt matter how you do it.
> 
> You wanna improve conductivity for CPU cooling? start removing barriers. Remove the IHS from the ecuation. You wanna go further?, remove the coldplate+tim, and go direct die to liquid in the loop ........


Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> I am not saying it won't work, just that it won't be that good compared to a standard chiller based water loop. It is a great experiment and you could learn a lot from it and it might be really good. I would love to see real data from someone, since all the papers are behind paywalls.


You're funny. And you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.



Shenhua said:


> Well you clearly don't understand the basic underline, which pointed by many, me included, the liquid in the loop, is not the bottleneck, so you're not gonna improve performance. Here!, I'm gonna quote myself.... maybe it makes more sense now after "10" comments that pointed it in different ways.
> 
> Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


What the heck is this? Are you drunk right now? Did I ever say the liquid in the loop was the bottleneck?



Asmodian said:


> I can see it being especially useful without a chiller, you could have a water based radiator easily cool the liquid metal via a heat exchanger. The liquid metal can pull more watts off the CPU with a smaller deltaT, so you might get lower CPU temps and a hotter water temp in the radiators. You would need to be flowing the liquid metal directly over the die, no CPU IHS or anything like that.


Right, I'm using a chiller. Get it?


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> Are you using a pump or not? Do not mix water and liquid metal while using a pump, that won't help anything. Pumping mixed liquids with very difference densities and/or viscosities is nasty (peristaltic is the only real option).


So first you said you say you cant mix water and gallium, and then I proved you wrong by showing you they have hybrid liquid metal-water coolants. And now you are telling me what works and what doesn't? You were wrong the first time around, how much credibility do you think you have left? 

Your mouth might be a little faster than your brain.

Know anything about *electrically induced actuation*?


----------



## storm-chaser

Shenhua said:


> Well you clearly don't understand the basic underline, which pointed by many, me included, the liquid in the loop, is not the bottleneck, so you're not gonna improve performance. Here!, I'm gonna quote myself.... maybe it makes more sense now after "10" comments that pointed it in different ways.
> 
> Sent from my Redmi Note 5 using Tapatalk


Im only doing the liquid metal coolant to make my rig heavier. The case has been struggling with weight issues for a number of years, so I figured with this liquid metal stuff I might be able to fatten it up a bit. Still not has heavy as my z820, but getting there!


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> I can see it being especially useful without a chiller, you could have a water based radiator easily cool the liquid metal via a heat exchanger. The liquid metal can pull more watts off the CPU with a smaller deltaT, so you might get lower CPU temps and a hotter water temp in the radiators. You would need to be flowing the liquid metal directly over the die, no CPU IHS or anything like that.


I see it being more useful with a chiller and a liquid to liquid heat exchanger, with 60 plates. Which has about 40x the surface area of one little radiator. So, thanks, but no thanks!


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> Yes and no. Water is also known as the ultimate coolant because it has the highest specific heat capacity of any liquid. Many times higher than liquid gallium. Then again don’t let pesky science get in the way of a cool idea


And this is the thing guys. I'm NOT saying this is going to revolutionize CPU cooling, or that its 50x better than water cooling. I will explain again since people arent listening. 
-Proof of concept has already been established
-Proof of effectiveness of liquid metal cooling has been established.

I'm just taking it one step further. Because as far as I can tell, there are a number of liquid metal loops for computer applications, but I have not seen the liquid metal combined with a chiller yet. So it is fascinating subject and regardless of what people are saying here,* the naysayers continue to shoot themselves in the foot. Because effective liquid metal loops have ALREADY been proven.* No reason I can't borrow a few pages from their playbook. So stop whining like little children. The project is going to proceed whether you like it or not! LOL


----------



## storm-chaser

This is fascinating stuff guys...

Nano liquid-metal fluid as ultimate coolant - ScienceDirect 


*Abstract*
We proposed for the first time the concept of the nano liquid-metal fluid, aiming to establish an engineering route to make the highest conductive coolant. Using several widely accepted theoretical models for characterizing the nano fluid, the thermal conductivity enhancement of the liquid-metal fluid due to addition of more conductive nano particles was predicted. Further, the effects of particle size, cluster of nano particle, solid-like layer due to adsorption, volume fraction and particle types were evaluated. Having the highest conductivity, being electromagnetically drivable, the liquid metal with low melting point is expected to be an idealistic base fluid for making super conductive solution which may lead to the ultimate coolant in a wide variety of heat transfer enhancement area.

And don't get me wrong. I will be running a number of various coolants and hybrid coolants in this system to compare and contrast. I will need to get a bigger cooler before I implement the liquid metal loop. 

This thread will be updated continually until I have achieved my final goal. 

I never said it was easy. But it can, and will, be done. Much to the chagrin of the naysayers!


----------



## Luggage

Since it took a week to bash into your head that a radiator in a chilled loop will be a heat load - perhaps we are slightly worried you’ve gotten ahead of yourself again and not done all the homework again. It’s like that last 240 radiator you added to your case in the worst possible spot, with no airflow - but perhaps it was not your intended use for it to be effective.

It will at least be interesting to see where you go with this.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> Since it took a week to bash into your head that a radiator in a chilled loop will be a heat load - perhaps we are slightly worried you’ve gotten ahead of yourself again and not done all the homework again. It’s like that last 240 radiator you added to your case in the worst possible spot, with no airflow - but perhaps it was not your intended use for it to be effective.
> 
> It will at least be interesting to see where you go with this.


No it was more like 1 day. And even then, I found a very effective reason to keep the radiators on the loop. 
You and some other guy were saying the radiators would just heat the water back up to ambient, clearly revealing you had no idea that not all heat exchangers are created equal. I was coming at it with an understanding that liquid to liquid cooling is far more effective that liquid to air, something you failed to account for. And judging from your posts, it was clear you had no idea that:
1) liquid to liquid heat exchangers are much more effective than liquid to air
2) No comprehension of what a plate heat exchanger is/does 
3) No comprehension that the 60 plate heat exchanger has 40x the surface area of all my radiators combined. 4) Even if the water was ambient, the chiller would have no problem cooling it back down. 
5) Due to surface area, temp delta from before and after plate heat exchanger will be much more significant. 
6) You assumed you could apply conventional loop thinking that the temp delta would be narrow after flowing through the plate heat exchanger. Clearly revealing you have no idea how they work, and how much more effective they are than any other form of heat exchanger on the market (especially liquid to air)

In regards to the new 240mm radiator, it's positioned OUTSIDE the case. Passive cooling is still going on. And I asked you guys if it would be worth it, and people here on this forum said that's fine and it would help to some extent. It also adds coolant volume to the loop and torture tests have revealed an approximate 3*F decrease in CPU temp tested with AIDA64.

LOL remember this "haunting' diagram? Remember how I said I was going to set up my loop just like it? 
Hint: Im not the only one who thinks radiators can still serve a purpose on the same loop.. 
So you keep your hot radiators and I will keep my cold ones. LOL


----------



## storm-chaser

LOL @ get ahead of my self again, okay like I said, keep your hot radiators if you want too. Me personally? I don't mind a 5 degree drop in case temp.. so at the end of the day despite all your protests... I found a beneficial reason to keep them in the same loop!

Now, Luggage if you still want to mope about please dont muddy the thread anymore, send me a PM. I want to keep focused on the project at hand. 

Thank you.


----------



## Luggage

We did not say it would heat it up to ambient, we said it would work against the chiller making it less efficient. We know this, and I know this because I _have_ rads in my case working against my outside rad pushing water temp up. I told you this was intentional to keep from going under the dew point as outside temps drop lower. I even did the 500 W workload test you asked about to show you that watertemp equalise to within a few degrees when you run a loop at proper flow.
Your plate exchanger is not a problem, it’s fantastic, the small chiller is though.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> It’s like that last 240 radiator you added to your case in the worst possible spot, with no airflow -


LOL I consulted with OCN members before I even bought the 240. I asked how effective a passive radiator would be. They said so long is it was out of the heat stream, it would contribute to some extent. Hence, from member advice I purchased it and mounted it beside the 5.25 bays... and yes it has made a difference in temps.

Also added a blue LED light to match the EK Navy Blue coolant.... I'm really liking how this rig is looking. But I wouldnt call it pretty yet, just "less ugly"

It's almost hilarious how many radiators I have in this rig
One 360
One 240
One 120mm alpnacool monsta, which is basically the thickness of two standard 120mm rads
One 120mm on the back.
Amazingly, everything fits together very well. I think I've reached the radiator limit for this case, however.















I especially like the glow you get from the upper res


----------



## geriatricpollywog

Do people still install radiators inside their cases? Quaint. I stopped at 5 in my midtower before I realized what was going on.


----------



## mongoled

0451 said:


> Do people still install radiators inside their cases? Quaint. I stopped at 5 in my midtower before I realized what was going on.


Only special people have stopped doing that

😂 😂


----------



## geriatricpollywog

mongoled said:


> Only special people have stopped doing that
> 
> 😂 😂


Hm. Quaint.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> We did not say it would heat it up to ambient, we said it would work against the chiller making it less efficient. We know this, and I know this because I _have_ rads in my case working against my outside rad pushing water temp up. I told you this was intentional to keep from going under the dew point as outside temps drop lower. I even did the 500 W workload test you asked about to show you that watertemp equalise to within a few degrees when you run a loop at proper flow.
> Your plate exchanger is not a problem, it’s fantastic, the small chiller is though.


Nevertheless, I found a very good reason to keep the radiators on the loop. And I appreciate your contribution to that thread, because i did learn some things from you to be honest.

Hence, I'm back asking for more now that the goals for this chilling project have changed. Rest assured, I will build it to my specifications, *but better with help from the OCN community. *
Only feedback I don't like is "its not going to work" because we have already established validation of the liquid metal concept and it is already highly effective in cooling CPUs. 

Sometimes I can be strong willed but I am listening to you guys and I know with your help this will be a really cool project. no pun intended


----------



## storm-chaser

mongoled said:


> Only special people have stopped doing that


Please stay on track here, if you have something productive add by all means but otherwise don't post and dont let the door hit you on you on the way out.



0451 said:


> Do people still install radiators inside their cases? Quaint. I stopped at 5 in my midtower before I realized what was going on.


Yeah they do. And guess what? They are effective. Pretty sure you've never booted a 9th gen chip to 5.6GHz

Also, you might want to talk to @Luggage about radiators inside cases, He proports to be an expert, so does that make you the dummy?


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> Please stay on track here, if you have something productive add by all means but otherwise don't post and dont let the door hit you on you on the way out.
> 
> 
> Yeah they do. And guess what? They are effective. Pretty sure you've never booted a 9th gen chip to 5.6GHz


No. Not a 9th gen.



storm-chaser said:


> Also, you might want to talk to @Luggage about radiators inside cases, He proports to be an expert, so does that make you the dummy?
> 
> View attachment 2528958
> 
> 
> View attachment 2528959


I think @Luggage is a solid builder.


----------



## mongoled

storm-chaser said:


> Please stay on track here, if you have something productive add by all means but otherwise don't post and dont let the door hit you on you on the way out


No space for humour in this thread, with that I will kindly respect your request and decapitate my head with the door 

😁


----------



## storm-chaser

Guys here is the heat exchanger relative to the system so you can get an idea of scale.










In my mind the options are limitless with the use of liquid to liquid heat exchangers. Cheap and easy option is buy a very small but very powerful freezer, put the plate heat exchanger in the freezer, sealed so no cold escapes. Add a 2-3 gallon bin of anti-freeze within the freezer, add a small PWM pump or something, to keep cold fluid flowing through 1/2 of the heat exchanger (cold side) - I would think the freezer alone and with two - three gallons of antifreeze, it would be very effective and likely remain very cold, due to volume alone.. And then route your custom loop through the other two ports on the HE and then back to you CPU. This would effectively most likely give you chiller level performance and it is something I want to try. I'm keeping my eyes open on ebay for a cheap used freezer to test the theory with. I will also add this to the project list. I may actually be able to achieve chiller level performance with this. This may actually be a very cost effective alternative to an overpriced chiller...


----------



## storm-chaser

mongoled said:


> No space for humour in this thread, with that I will kindly respect your request and decapitate my head with the door
> 
> 😁


I don't consider mockery humorous. It's only humorous to children and immature adults. And go feet first out the door, you need to keep your head with all those witty jokes intact. So sever your legs instead of decapitation


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> Do people still install radiators inside their cases? Quaint. I stopped at 5 in my midtower before I realized what was going on.


Again, this isn't a case thread it's a LM cooling thread. If you are confused about radiator placement maybe you should ask an expert. 

Lets stay on track here. Things are just starting to heat up (or in a sense, cool down)


----------



## storm-chaser

This is also another interesting option...

*Abstract*
We proposed for the first time the concept of the nano liquid-metal fluid, aiming to establish an engineering route to make the highest conductive coolant. Using several widely accepted theoretical models for characterizing the nano fluid, the thermal conductivity enhancement of the liquid-metal fluid due to addition of more conductive nano particles was predicted. Further, the effects of particle size, cluster of nano particle, solid-like layer due to adsorption, volume fraction and particle types were evaluated. Having the highest conductivity, being electromagnetically drivable, the liquid metal with low melting point is expected to be an idealistic base fluid for making super conductive solution which may lead to the ultimate coolant in a wide variety of heat transfer enhancement area.


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> Again, this isn't a case thread it's a LM cooling thread. If you are confused about radiator placement maybe you should ask an expert.
> 
> Lets stay on track here. Things are just starting to heat up (or in a sense, cool down)


You are all over the place. Whatever you have is stronger than my home grow. I was replying to pictures you posted of your internal radiator build. Stop replying to the nay sayers and start building and proving us wrong.


----------



## storm-chaser

mongoled said:


> No space for humour in this thread, with that I will kindly respect your request and decapitate my head with the door
> 
> 😁


google sterile cockpit that should help you understand....


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> You are all over the place. Whatever you have is stronger than my home grow. I was replying to pictures you posted of your internal radiator build. Stop replying to the nay sayers and start building and proving us wrong.


You certainly aren't contributing, so in your case you can go head first out the door, not much up there anyway.


----------



## Luggage

storm-chaser said:


> LOL I consulted with OCN members before I even bought the 240. I asked how effective a passive radiator would be. They said so long is it was out of the heat stream, it would contribute to some extent. Hence, from member advice I purchased it and mounted it beside the 5.25 bays... and yes it has made a difference in temps.
> 
> Also added a blue LED light to match the EK Navy Blue coolant.... I'm really liking how this rig is looking. But I wouldnt call it pretty yet, just "less ugly"
> 
> It's almost hilarious how many radiators I have in this rig
> One 360
> One 240
> One 120mm alpnacool monsta, which is basically the thickness of two standard 120mm rads
> One 120mm on the back.
> Amazingly, everything fits together very well. I think I've reached the radiator limit for this case, however.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I especially like the glow you get from the upper res


It’s just…. If you moved it one step to the left, it would cover your nice tube work but at least you’d get some airflow, might even have space for a fan or two.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> It’s just…. If you moved it one step to the left, it would cover your nice tube work but at least you’d get some airflow, might even have space for a fan or two.


Could also wrap it in cold packs for benching, but yeah your idea would work too. I could obviously put feet on the 240mm rad and use two 120mm fans in "pull" mode. But I don't really want to see fans sticking out like that.


----------



## mongoled

storm-chaser said:


> google sterile cockpit that should help you understand....


I had stepped out of this thread as your requested, but seeing you insist



storm-chaser said:


> I don't consider mockery humorous. It's only humorous to children and immature adults. And go feet first out the door, you need to keep your head with all those witty jokes intact. So sever your legs instead of decapitation


I let the reader decide who is the child and immature adult.



Im out, have fun with your escapade ...


----------



## storm-chaser

In regards to tubing for the liquid metal loop, when I get there, I've decided I'm going to run braided stainless steel lines. To stay with the metal theme. TBH Im surprised these are not used more often in custom loops... with a kit its pretty easy to terminate the ends and adapt a standard G1/4 fitting.


----------



## storm-chaser

mongoled said:


> I had stepped out of this thread as your requested, but seeing you insist
> 
> 
> I let the reader decide who is the child and immature adult.
> 
> 
> 
> Im out, have fun with your escapade ...


Excellent! Now you can go head first out the door this time around!


----------



## acoustic

This thread is like watching different phases of psychosis happen in front of you, in slow motion.


----------



## StAndrew

Well At least your persistent...


----------



## thx1138




----------



## storm-chaser

Oh don't get me wrong guys. I never said this was going to be an easy project. 

It will likely take 6 months to a year to design and implement a viable liquid metal cooling loop.

But like I said many times,* the concept has already been validated*. It can be done, and done effectively. From mobile devices to servers. 

However, I have never seen a liquid metal loop combined with a chiller, so I suspect the key advantage to this design will put this liquid metal loop in a class of its own. 

The metal will more readily absorb the heat from the CPU so it will heat up more rapidly than a conventional water loop will. And so conventional thinking regarding temps at various points in the loop will change as well, due to the fact I am using a much more effective liquid to liquid heat exchanger (vs liquid to air) AND a chiller. In reading up on liquid metal loops, the most important part or the key obstacle facing me is how to efficiently and quickly remove the heat from the liquid metal once it has passed through the "metal" (water) block. The more heat you can remove, obviously, the more effective the system will be at dissipating heat. I'm also departing from what you might call a "conventional" liquid metal loop as well. So this design actually has two distinct advantages over standard liquid metal loops like the picture I posted in the first post of the thread. 

One key difference here is surface area. The 60 plate heat exchanger I purchased has 20x-40x the surface area (or more) of a conventional, 360mm radiator. So the hot side liquid metal coolant will be in contact with 33*F coolant from the chiller side (cold) for a much longer duration of time. Basically, with this plate heat exchanger,* I am able to cool a much larger volume of hot side coolant (liquid metal) at any given time, meaning the temp delta from before the plate heat exchanger to after the plate heat exchanger will be much more dramatic* from what you might see if you just had a normal air cooled radiator. Obviously, if you have 40x the surface area to cool with, it's going to be much more effective not only lowering the temp of the LM faster, but also taking advantage of liquid to liquid heat transfer which is far superior to air-liquid. And then go one step further and take advantage of sub ambient coolant using a chiller. 

So to sum it up these are the advantages: 
-Ability to cool with 40x the surface area of a standard radiator 
-Ability to take advantage of a liquid to liquid heat exchanger, which is the most effective form of heat exchanger.
-ability to use sub ambient coolant vs conventional ambient cooling.

So now you have the major ingredients. Implementation is key. And if I can get this right, I can assure you this loop will be very effective in not only cooling the CPU but also cooling and dropping internal case temps as well. 

Obviously I will be experimenting with various radiators and loop designs, everything is still on the drawing board. 

I'm contemplating building a prototype liquid metal loop on a very small scale first. This will allow me to study the heat dissipation properties and tweak the design, so I know where my limitations are and what areas need improvement. Essentially, this miniature loop will be tested with a 15 W TDP and temp sensors will be hooked up before and after the CPU and on both sides of the plate heat exchanger. Once I have this rough draft tested I can proceed and build the real thing having already worked out the kinks and problem areas.


----------



## thx1138

storm-chaser said:


> But like I said many times,* the concept has already been validated*. It can be done, and done effectively. From mobile devices to servers.


I'm rooting for you @storm-chaser

Could you post some links to these systems that use liquid metal coolant in a cooling loop? When I try searching for anything liquid metal all I find are things related to the thermal paste and not an actual cooling system.

How do you plan to account for the corrosiveness of Gallium/Gallinstan?


----------



## storm-chaser

thx1138 said:


> I'm rooting for you @storm-chaser
> 
> Could you post some links to these systems that use liquid metal coolant in a cooling loop? When I try searching for anything liquid metal all I find are things related to the thermal paste and not an actual cooling system.
> 
> How do you plan to account for the corrosiveness of Gallium/Gallinstan?


I appreciate the vote of confidence. I've included some prototype designs, as this company in particular have done extensive testing with liquid metal cooling systems.

This is for a mobile device, but the layout will be very similar to what I am doing, except I am replacing the ambient heat exchanger with a chiller on a second loop.









Also looking into nano particles and looking for a way to effectively use them in my LM loop. See below.











Some benefits of LM cooling:


----------



## storm-chaser

While the idea was scrapped by NanoCoolers it must be pointed out that the theory and effectiveness of LM has been demonstrated. The project was canceled simply due to the liquid metal being cost prohibitive. So it worked, it was just to expensive for mass production.


----------



## shellashock

If my googling is correct, that kind of plate heat exchanger uses 316L stainless steel plates that are brazed together in a vacuum furnace with 99.9% pure copper foil around the edges. This should mean that any joints will be sealed with a reasonably thick layer of copper and the gallium wouldn't amalgamate much beyond a base layer given the lack of tin or zinc that a silver based braze filler like BAg-24 would likely contain. Given the brittleness of the copper/gallium amalgamation (and the plates being such a high pressure zone) though, wouldn't there be a big risk of the oxide eroding and eventually leading to pinhole leaks and/or clogging of the plates?


----------



## storm-chaser

shellashock said:


> If my googling is correct, that kind of plate heat exchanger uses 316L stainless steel plates that are brazed together in a vacuum furnace with 99.9% pure copper foil around the edges. This should mean that any joints will be sealed with a reasonably thick layer of copper and the gallium wouldn't amalgamate much beyond a base layer given the lack of tin or zinc that a silver based braze filler like BAg-24 would likely contain. Given the brittleness of the copper/gallium amalgamation (and the plates being such a high pressure zone) though, wouldn't there be a big risk of the oxide eroding and eventually leading to pinhole leaks and/or clogging of the plates?


Im still researching this issue, because it's a very good question and needs to be handled. but from what I gather amalgamation should not be much of a problem, so it will react with the base layer, but the initial reaction leave a very thin coating on the inside of the heat exchanger and the loop. But the good news is this is a one time cycle, and effectively stop the oxidation, or slow it down dramatically. The reasoning is that its easier for gallium to react with exposed metals but once you have the initial oxide layer, the gallium has a much more difficult time penetrating deep into the metal. This is not 100% confirmed right now and I still need to do more research but it sounds like we will at the very least, significantly be able to slow down amalgamation.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> Your plate exchanger is not a problem, it’s fantastic, the small chiller is though.


Yes, I've been thinking about ways to get there with out spending 500 bucks. I was thinking of getting a small freezer with temp control, put the heat exchanger in the freezer with a 3-4 gallon container filled with antifreeze. Get a small pump to circulate this chilled antifreeze through the cold side of the heat exchanger, and then run your hot side to the other two ports on the heat exchanger and send it back to cool your CPU. 

You could probably get away with just putting the heat exchanger right in the 3 gallon container, leave the cold side ports "open" and use the other side of your heat exchanger normally, because half the heat exchanger will be immersed in very cold antifreezet temp to, 32 degrees. .
With this idea you can take advantage of lowering your ambient temps via the chilled air inside the freezer, as well as take advantage of ice cold coolant at the same time. Two birds with one stone, because you get chilled AIR and chilled WATER at the same time. 

Sound feasible guys?


----------



## Luggage

storm-chaser said:


> Yes, I've been thinking about ways to get there with out spending 500 bucks. I was thinking of getting a small freezer with temp control, put the heat exchanger in the freezer with a 3-4 gallon container filled with antifreeze. Get a small pump to circulate this chilled antifreeze through the cold side of the heat exchanger, and then run your hot side to the other two ports on the heat exchanger and send it back to cool your CPU.
> 
> You could probably get away with just putting the heat exchanger right in the 3 gallon container, leave the cold side ports "open" and use the other side of your heat exchanger normally, because half the heat exchanger will be immersed in very cold antifreezet temp to, 32 degrees. .
> With this idea you can take advantage of lowering your ambient temps via the chilled air inside the freezer, as well as take advantage of ice cold coolant at the same time. Two birds with one stone, because you get chilled AIR and chilled WATER at the same time.
> 
> Sound feasible guys?


Everyone who has tried to use a freezer have failed (that I read about last 10 years)
It’s low power and not made for continuous use.
Either a ready made chiller, aquarium or beer/brewing industrial, or modding a window-ac seem to give the most success stories.

it very much depends on if you want a heat/cold buffer or not. In one extreme you have direct contact phase change* and in the other end you have a window AC dipped in a styrofoam cooler with 4 gallons of anti freeze.

* or cascade 😍

edit: read the forum section, everything has been tried already except for you LM loop.


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> I _have_ rads in my case working against my outside rad pushing water temp up. I told you this was intentional to keep from going under the dew point as outside temps drop lower. I even did the 500 W workload test you asked about to show you that watertemp equalise to within a few degrees when you run a loop at proper flow.


Interesting. So in a sense you are using the external radiators as a form of thermostat for your loop....?
No doubt you are correct regarding water temp not changing much in a conventional loop.

However, conventional thinking goes out the window with a liquid metal loop combined with a chiller. 
You may already know this, but just think about the surface area advantage a 60 plate heat exchanger has over a 360mm run of the mill PC radiator. So yes, the metal heats up very quickly, and the chief problem with a metal loop has always been "removing" the heat from the metal in the most effective and fastest way possible. So in designing this loop to take performance to the limit I have to consider 
1)What is the most effective form of heat exchanger
2)How can I achieve the greatest temp delta between the hot loop and the cold loop? 

So in effect, I am building the loop to perform at it's full potential by:
a) maximizing cooling surface area to many orders of magnitude over a standard radiator
b) Maximizing the heat exchange by using the most effective form of heat exchanger available
c) Maximizing the temperature differential between the chiller loop and the liquid metal loop via use of a chiller. The greater the difference in temp, the more effective the heat exchange will be.
d) Utilizing the superior thermal dissipation properties of metal vs water by going with LM coolant

In other words, I'm pulling out all the stops.


----------



## KingEngineRevUp

storm-chaser said:


> The attraction of liquid metal itself is its excellent conduction of heat, it is 65 times more thermally conductive than water – and 1,600 times better than air cooling.


I want to point something out here that can be overlooked when people see these kinds of numbers.

If you're considering a forced fluid type of cooling over a surface, like a heatsink or cold plate with fins, remember that heat transfer via *forced convection depends on fluid velocity.*

Liquid metal is 6 times denser than water and water is far more dense than air. So take this into consideration if liquid metal were to be used in a forced convection situation over a cold plate with fins if and only if that is the goal. You'll need to make sure the pump pushes the liquid metal relatively quick. Just because it's 65 times more conductive than water wouldn't mean much if you can't move it over a fin fast enough.

Next is what liquid metals do to metal surfaces, even copper will alloy with it and can get chunky crap on the surface. If this happens internally inside of a radiator, the chunks will affect fluid flow and will overtime hurt performance. So a metal with better corrosive resistance is suggested. That's why nickel plated copper works better with liquid metal vs bare copper.

Imagine if you had bare copper cold plate fins and this crap builds up in it.



















Good luck. Interesting projects. I believe it can be successful if the shortcomings of liquid metal are accounted for. Accounting for them will increase challenges.


----------



## StAndrew

A few more points:

Right of the bat, I think that, if you are serious about this, you will need to find a way to remove the water loop entirely and have the chiller directly chilling the liquid metal, or just stick with the traditional chilled waterloop without a complex and expensive middle man. Think about your logic here; chilling water to chill liquid metal so you can replace water with liquid metal... 

What CPU block? I don't think your pump pressure will do well forcing chilled liquid metal through microchannels. I would experiment with newer and older CPU blocks for flow rate; the old Fuzion ver 1/2 or even a maze CPU block would probably work better here.


----------



## KingEngineRevUp

StAndrew said:


> What CPU block? I don't think your pump pressure will do well forcing chilled liquid metal through microchannels. I would experiment with newer and older CPU blocks for flow rate; the old Fuzion ver 1/2 or even a maze CPU block would probably work better here.


This is probably the biggest concern I have. Just because liquid metal works in a larger application, like a reactor which OP references, doesn't mean it's going to scale the same over something far far smaller, the fins of a CPU/GPU cold plate.

It is 6 times denser than water, has a higher viscosity and therefore has greater kinematic resistant effects against surfaces.


----------



## StAndrew

KingEngineRevUp said:


> This is probably the biggest concern I have. Just because liquid metal works in a larger application, like a reactor which OP references, doesn't mean it's going to scale the same over something far far smaller, the fins of a CPU/GPU cold plate.
> 
> It is 6 times denser than water, has a higher viscosity and therefore has greater kinematic resistant effects against surfaces.


Yes, and it will need a lot of testing to find the ideal surface area vs flow rate. Performance of water and a very high surface area CPU block vs liquid metal and a lower surface area would be a concern.


----------



## storm-chaser

KingEngineRevUp said:


> This is probably the biggest concern I have. Just because liquid metal works in a larger application, like a reactor which OP references, doesn't mean it's going to scale the same over something far far smaller, the fins of a CPU/GPU cold plate.
> 
> It is 6 times denser than water, has a higher viscosity and therefore has greater kinematic resistant effects against surfaces.


This is high on my list of concerns as well. I know that this gallium alloy is, in its liquid state, "wet" however, I don't know how well it will flow through a copper water block designed for, obviously, water. This is a heatkiller IV, full copper water block.

Simple; You use a different type of pump. MDF pump is the key. Apparently 25Kpa is about 8 feet pressure head, which is actually less power then the freeze mod pumps i have in my custom loop! So clearly, it's not very difficult to pump liquid metal. It only has twice the viscosity of water, which actually doesn't inhibit or restrict flow in a significant way.

EXAMPLE: 
We have implemented and characterized this cooling scheme using miniature (<5 cm/sup 3/) pumps operating at 25 kPa maximum pressure head

High-performance liquid metal cooling loops | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore


----------



## KingEngineRevUp

storm-chaser said:


> This is high on my list of concerns as well. I know that this gallium alloy is, in its liquid state, "wet" however, I don't know how well it will flow through a copper water block designed for, obviously, water. This is a heatkiller IV, full copper water block.
> 
> Simple; You use a different type of pump. MDF pump is the key. Apparently 25Kpa is about 8 feet pressure head, which is actually less power then the freeze mod pumps i have in my custom loop! So clearly, it's not very difficult to pump liquid metal. It only has twice the viscosity of water, which actually doesn't inhibit or restrict flow in a significant way.
> 
> EXAMPLE:
> We have implemented and characterized this cooling scheme using miniature (<5 cm/sup 3/) pumps operating at 25 kPa maximum pressure head
> 
> High-performance liquid metal cooling loops | IEEE Conference Publication | IEEE Xplore


How do you plan on negating the alloying of copper and liquid metal and the chunks that form on the surfaces? Do you plan on putting a filter to catch the chunks? 

Something else to take into consideration is the wear of any nickel plating. The life expectancy of these surface finishes take into account the environment they were intended to interact with. In this case, it is water. How will the flow of liquid metal, a more viscous fluid, affect how well nickel plating can hold up on a copper surface? You'll also have to think about this as well.


----------



## storm-chaser

KingEngineRevUp said:


> Liquid metal is 6 times denser than water and water is far more dense than air. So take this into consideration if liquid metal were to be used in a forced convection situation over a cold plate with fins if and only if that is the goal. You'll need to make sure the pump pushes the liquid metal relatively quick. Just because it's 65 times more conductive than water wouldn't mean much if you can't move it over a fin fast enough.


Right, I'm not taking anything for granted. I am aware of this problem you are bringing up and it will need to be addressed, absolutely. 

The chiller just showed up today. I have a trick to make it a little more effective, as today, I am going test it's performance (or lack thereof) with the custom loop in my 9600KF rig. It's a very small chiller, I think 80 or 90w. Pics to follow.
But I'm going to put the heat exchanger in the freezer, along with a large quality of chilled coolant. I have a 3rd pump that showed up today, iirc it's PWM and 800L/H, and this will be used to flow the chilled water through the "cold" loop, through the "cold" heat exchanger, and for a period of time I should be able to measure it's effectiveness in cooling the "hot" side down, by having a large quantity of chilled water ready to pump through the liquid to liquid heat exchanger. So this may exceed the pace at which the chiller can cool down the water, but I will have 2-3 gallons of 33* coolant to flow through the heat exchanger so that will give me enough time to measure it's performance against the hot side loop, which at this time is just using water / EK navy blue coolant. Still it will provide some perspective on how effective this liquid to liquid heat exchanger will be,.










As you can see here, in this custom loop I have two freezemod 800L/H pumps that are connected in line (serial)

I did some maintenance on the loop last night and removed the last 90* fitting that was connected directly to one of the pumps, and it made a significant change and boosted performance of the loop substantially. I also noticed the pumps are now quite a bit quieter, so defintiely get those 90* fittings out of your custom loop!

You can see the two pumps here:









I posted this before, but here is the liquid to liquid plate heat exchanger for scale...


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> you will need to find a way to remove the water loop entirely and have the chiller directly chilling the liquid metal, or just stick with the traditional chilled waterloop without a complex and expensive middle man.
> Think about your logic here; chilling water to chill liquid metal so you can replace water with liquid metal...


Im not sure I understand here, are you saying let the chiller absorb the heat directly from the liquid metal loop? So have liquid metal running directly through the chiller? Do you think the heat exchanger on the chiller has more volume or surface area than my 60 plate liquid to liquid heat exchanger? Because it doesn't. Or tell me more, are you saying there is a better way to cool the liquid metal down with some other alternative type of heat exchange? I'm listening...



StAndrew said:


> What CPU block? I don't think your pump pressure will do well forcing chilled liquid metal through microchannels. I would experiment with newer and older CPU blocks for flow rate; the old Fuzion ver 1/2 or even a maze CPU block would probably work better here.


1) I am very serious about this. Do not doubt for one second that I wont get this to work, and work well. I don't start projects to abandon them half way through. It will work, make no mistake about it.

2) CPU block is a heatkiller IV full copper. I probably WONT be using it for this project, because I've had it apart, and also did flow testing and it is definitely the most restrictive part of the loop. I will be testing with other blocks as well, this is definitely on my mind. It's also possible that to do to the higher thermal conductivity of liquid metal, I may not need to be as concerned about the microchannels. In other words, gallium is a wet metal, but still may not perform like water through the micro-channels in the block. However, the liquid metal will much more readily absorb heat from the cpu block vs water. Meaning, I may not need 100% efficiency on flowing the liquid metal through all of the microchannel to still achieve a satisfactory result. At this time I do not know. Lot's of testing will have to be done to find the optimal solution. But yes, you raise a very valid concern.

3) Yeah, it's definitely going to be a hybrid cooling system If I want to achieve optimal results. But it's really not complicated at all. It's a simple dual loop system with a hot side and cold side with a heat exchanger in the middle.* And no, I wont be removing the chilled water loop. *Because without that, I cannot take advantage of the liquid to liquid plate heat exchanger, which easily be about 20x more effective in removing the heat from the liquid metal loop due to surface area increases alone. The entire key to making this effective is to use the most effective form of heat extraction to get the heat out of the metal. Which is liquid to liquid. Hence, I can then take my 60 plate heat exchanger, having one side chilled to 33* and the other side introducing the hot liquid metal. This is the most efficient and effective way to remove heat from a loop. And if you can think of a more effective way of cooling down my liquid metal loop after it goes through the CPU block, I'm all ears, so I am listening to your advice, but just going off what I know in my own mind, liquid to liquid is most effective, hence I need to keep the chiller (cold) loop in place to capitalize on the superior heat extraction of a plate heat exchanger.

Do you know of a better way to take heat out of liquid metal in a situation like this? Because you can't beat a plate heat exchanger, as far as I can tell. 

If I remove the chiller loop how do you expect me to cool the liquid metal?
Just saying, if you want me to ditch the water loop, tell me exactly how you would set it up to cool the metal back down and have it be as effective as a plate heat exchanger.


----------



## StAndrew

storm-chaser said:


> Im not sure I understand here, are you saying let the chiller absorb the heat directly from the liquid metal loop? So have liquid metal running directly through the chiller? Do you think the heat exchanger on the chiller has more volume or surface area than my 60 plate liquid to liquid heat exchanger? Because it doesn't. Or tell me more, are you saying there is a better way to cool the liquid metal down with some other alternative type of heat exchange? I'm listening...


Yes. The amount of heat removed from the overall loop is predicated on the chiller. Your overall temps are going to be predicated on Watts of load vs (watts of heat dissipation * efficiency of you liquid heat exchanger). If the efficiency is anything lower than 100% you are losing overall efficiency. If its 100% you just have an overly complex loop.

Think about what I said. You are replacing water with liquid metal because liquid metal is better, but you are cooling the liquid metal with water... Doesnt pass the logic test.



storm-chaser said:


> 1) I am very serious about this. Do not doubt for one second that I wont get this to work, and work well. I don't start projects to abandon them half way through. It will work, make no mistake about it.
> 
> 2) CPU block is a heatkiller IV full copper. I probably WONT be using it for this project, because I've had it apart, and also did flow testing and it is definitely the most restrictive part of the loop. I will be testing with other blocks as well, this is definitely on my mind. It's also possible that to do to the higher thermal conductivity of liquid metal, I may not need to be as concerned about the microchannels. In other words, gallium is a wet metal, but still may not perform like water through the micro-channels in the block. However, the liquid metal will much more readily absorb heat from the cpu block vs water. Meaning, I may not need 100% efficiency on flowing the liquid metal through all of the microchannel to still achieve a satisfactory result. At this time I do not know. Lot's of testing will have to be done to find the optimal solution. But yes, you raise a very valid concern.
> 
> 3) Yeah, it's definitely going to be a hybrid cooling system If I want to achieve optimal results. But it's really not complicated at all. It's a simple dual loop system with a hot side and cold side with a heat exchanger in the middle.* And no, I wont be removing the chilled water loop. *Because without that, I cannot take advantage of the liquid to liquid plate heat exchanger, which easily be about 20x more effective in removing the heat from the liquid metal loop due to surface area increases alone. The entire key to making this effective is to use the most effective form of heat extraction to get the heat out of the metal. Which is liquid to liquid. Hence, I can then take my 60 plate heat exchanger, having one side chilled to 33* and the other side introducing the hot liquid metal. This is the most efficient and effective way to remove heat from a loop. And if you can think of a more effective way of cooling down my liquid metal loop after it goes through the CPU block, I'm all ears, so I am listening to your advice, but just going off what I know in my own mind, liquid to liquid is most effective, hence I need to keep the chiller (cold) loop in place to capitalize on the superior heat extraction of a plate heat exchanger.
> 
> Do you know of a better way to take heat out of liquid metal in a situation like this? Because you can't beat a plate heat exchanger, as far as I can tell.
> 
> If I remove the chiller loop how do you expect me to cool the liquid metal?
> Just saying, if you want me to ditch the water loop, tell me exactly how you would set it up to cool the metal back down and have it be as effective as a plate heat exchanger.


I understand you are serious but you are more motivated to make you idea work than to understand the concept and how to make your idea work well. Take a breath, take some criticism, and use it to your advantage.

Do yourself a favor and look up heat transfer, the heat transfer coefficient of the median (water or liquid metal) does not affect heat transfer from load to median at all. Period.

The resources you are sighting are designing heat pipe replacements that speed up the transfer from the heat source to the hear exchanger but the heat transfer at the load is still the same... 

Water doesnt need a high coefficient to transfer heat in a loop, it just need a pump. In a heatpipe, liquid metal can make sense I guess.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> I understand you are serious but you are more motivated to make you idea work than to understand the concept and how to make your idea work well. Take a breath, take some criticism, and use it to your advantage.


Please drop the "holier than thou" attitude.

You are welcome to make suggestions and even criticisms, but don't tell me what I know or don't know. Nobody is an expert on liquid metal including you so please, it just makes you look arrogant and foolish to profess to understand the dynamics of liquid metal cooling in a PC, when you yourself obviously have ZERO time and ZERO education with implementing a liquid metal loop. In fact you are wrong about removing the second loop as well. I know the image below isn't exactly what I'm doing, but its very similar in configuration to a standard chiller layout.

Just by the questions you've raised in the last few posts, it's very obvious you have a very limited understanding of a typical chiller implementation (diagram). It's funny, you are telling me to get rid of the second loop, when in reality this is a very typical configuration for building a high performance chiller system.










See this? This is a standard chiller loop implementation. Which I posted on page one. I'm doing exactly what is recommended as standard convention with a chiller loop, except I'm enhancing the hot side by using liquid metal. So I am not exactly sure what to make of your demands, considering from a general perspective, I'm designing a conventional chiller loop, except this one will be much more effective due to the use of a very efficient liquid to liquid heat exchanger with 60 plates.













StAndrew said:


> The amount of heat removed from the overall loop is predicated on the chiller.


*Heat removal is also predicated on thermal efficiency of your heat exchange from "hot" to "cold" side.* *And, the thermal performance qualities of the coolant itself.* This is obvious stuff, why would I buy a chiller that would not be able to effectively cool down the cold side after absorbing rejected heat from the hot side? Matter of fact, depending on what I chose for final implementation, I may also look to modify the chillers heat exchange system as well if the initial result is not satisfactory.

I'm not quite sure what to say, or if you have never seen a conventional chiller diagram before.



















See these chiller configurations above? All standard stuff. And I'm following basic conventional thinking here in terms of layout. Be honest, do you actually even know what a chiller is/does?


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Think about what I said. You are replacing water with liquid metal because liquid metal is better, but you are cooling the liquid metal with water... Doesnt pass the logic test.


You dont pass the logic test.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Do yourself a favor and look up heat transfer, the heat transfer coefficient of the median (water or liquid metal) does not affect heat transfer from load to median at all. Period.


Again, please tell me what this is response to, my previous post was pretty long so I need to know exactly what you are referring to. 

Does this clear anything up for you?


















Assuming I said something and this was your response. Please let me know what this is in relation to better understand what you are saying here.
[/QUOTE]



StAndrew said:


> Do yourself a favor and look up heat transfer, the heat transfer coefficient of the median (water or liquid metal) does not affect heat transfer from load to median at all. Period.


The resources you are sighting are designing heat pipe replacements that speed up the transfer from the heat source to the hear exchanger but the heat transfer at the load is still the same...
Water doesnt need a high coefficient to transfer heat in a loop, it just need a pump. In a heatpipe, liquid metal can make sense I guess.
[/QUOTE]
Again, I dont know specifically what you are talking about here, tell me exactly what this is in relation to and I will respond.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Yes. The amount of heat removed from the overall loop is predicated on the chiller. Your overall temps are going to be predicated on Watts of load vs (watts of heat dissipation * efficiency of you liquid heat exchanger). If the efficiency is anything lower than 100% you are losing overall efficiency. If its 100% you just have an overly complex loop.


LOL Two loop systems have been used with chillers since their inception. Hate to break it to you. Seriously, have you any ide









Hence I bought a 60 plate heat exchanger which is the most effective type of heat exchanger in history. 

Perhaps the disconnect here is that you are framing a liquid metal loop with conventional water based loop logic, which is done in error. Another problem I'm guessing is that you don't quite understand the benefits of a plate heat exchanger.


----------



## JSHamlet234

StAndrew said:


> A few more points:
> 
> Right of the bat, I think that, if you are serious about this, you will need to find a way to remove the water loop entirely and have the chiller directly chilling the liquid metal, or just stick with the traditional chilled waterloop without a complex and expensive middle man. Think about your logic here; chilling water to chill liquid metal so you can replace water with liquid metal...
> 
> What CPU block? I don't think your pump pressure will do well forcing chilled liquid metal through microchannels. I would experiment with newer and older CPU blocks for flow rate; the old Fuzion ver 1/2 or even a maze CPU block would probably work better here.


I would think that a very simple block would be best. Liquid metal will not need nearly the same surface area in the block, nor will it need anywhere near the same flow rate as water due to the high thermal conductivity.


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> Please drop the "holier than thou" attitude.
> 
> You are welcome to make suggestions and even criticisms, but don't tell me what I know or don't know. Nobody is an expert on liquid metal including you so please, it just makes you look arrogant and foolish to profess to understand the dynamics of liquid metal cooling in a PC, when you yourself obviously have ZERO time and ZERO education with implementing a liquid metal loop. In fact you are wrong about removing the second loop as well. I know the image below isn't exactly what I'm doing, but its very similar in configuration to a standard chiller layout.
> 
> Just by the questions you've raised in the last few posts, it's very obvious you have a very limited understanding of a typical chiller implementation (diagram). It's funny, you are telling me to get rid of the second loop, when in reality this is a very typical configuration for building a high performance chiller system.
> 
> View attachment 2529248
> 
> 
> See this? This is a standard chiller loop implementation. Which I posted on page one. I'm doing exactly what is recommended as standard convention with a chiller loop, except I'm enhancing the hot side by using liquid metal. So I am not exactly sure what to make of your demands, considering from a general perspective, I'm designing a conventional chiller loop, except this one will be much more effective due to the use of a very efficient liquid to liquid heat exchanger with 60 plates.
> 
> View attachment 2529247
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Heat removal is also predicated on thermal efficiency of your heat exchange from "hot" to "cold" side.* *And, the thermal performance qualities of the coolant itself.* This is obvious stuff, why would I buy a chiller that would not be able to effectively cool down the cold side after absorbing rejected heat from the hot side? Matter of fact, depending on what I chose for final implementation, I may also look to modify the chillers heat exchange system as well if the initial result is not satisfactory.
> 
> I'm not quite sure what to say, or if you have never seen a conventional chiller diagram before.
> 
> View attachment 2529251
> 
> 
> View attachment 2529252
> 
> 
> See these chiller configurations above? All standard stuff. And I'm following basic conventional thinking here in terms of layout. Be honest, do you actually even know what a chiller is/does?


I already explained a few times that this is an example of a cooling system used in liquids manufacturing. The purpose is to cool a 20,000 liter 80 degree batch down to ambient. The cooling tower is an air-water heat exchanger on the roof of the building. The cooling tower is used to heat the batch down to a midpoint (let’s say 40C), then the chiller takes it down to 20C. On a summer say when it’s 35C outside, the cooling process would slow down at about 40C, hence the need for a chiller.


----------



## StAndrew

Well I can see you're pre disposed to be right. All I can say is you deserve what you have coming. Good luck.



JSHamlet234 said:


> I would think that a very simple block would be best. Liquid metal will not need nearly the same surface area in the block, nor will it need anywhere near the same flow rate as water due to the high thermal conductivity.


I disagree slightly. It will mater I just dont know how much. The high thermal conductivity helps heat transfer through the liquid metal but it wont help at all the heat transfer from the load, through the cpu block. Surface area, block thickness, deltaT, and the thermal conductivity of the copper block are the only things that will affect heat transfer.


----------



## storm-chaser

JSHamlet234 said:


> I would think that a very simple block would be best. Liquid metal will not need nearly the same surface area in the block, nor will it need anywhere near the same flow rate as water due to the high thermal conductivity.


Yes I am in agreement with you on this. As I alluded to in my post above. I will certainly test a number of water blocks and continue to research this. 



0451 said:


> I already explained a few times that this is an example of a cooling system used in liquids manufacturing. The purpose is to cool a 20,000 liter 80 degree batch down to ambient. The cooling tower is an air-water heat exchanger on the roof of the building. The cooling tower is used to heat the batch down to a midpoint (let’s say 40C), then the chiller takes it down to 20C. On a summer say when it’s 35C outside, the cooling process would slow down at about 40C, hence the need for a chiller.


*Very interesting. So the two diagrams below... these are depictions of a chiller system that cool a 20,000 liter loop? *And it doesn't have to be computers only. I was merely demonstrating the conventional chiller design because the other guy didn't see the need for the second loop. At that point i realized he didn't really even understand the basic design principles of a chiller loop, so I posted some examples, illustrating the need for two independent loops. While the "application:" can change, they all still use the same layout, more or less.

It's a standard, universal chiller layout. There is a hot side and a cold side. Two loops are normal!


----------



## storm-chaser

Some parts arrived today!!
lol @ baby chiller (it's tiny)

If not tonight perhaps tomorrow i will test and see if it drops my temps by any margin,.


----------



## storm-chaser

Currently torture testing 5.2Ghz 9600KF so I can get baseline numbers . lol im going see if this puny little thing has an impact on temps. We shall seee.

*Product model: XD-35*

Voltage: 220V
Power: 120M
Cooling capacity: 85W
Current: 0.5A

Net weight: 3KG
Connector outer diameter: 8mm / 2 tubes
Energy type: single cold / cold
Adapt to water: below 35L
[product name] chiller (suitable for use in fish tanks of 20 liters / 35 liters or less)

【technical parameter】
Voltage: AC220-240V/50-60Hz
Power: 70W-120W
Applicable water pipe: water pipe with inner diameter of 8mm
Suitable for water flow: 1-3L/min
Suitable for lift: less than 2.8m
Power cord length: 1.5m, GB three plug / Hong Kong type 3 plug
Temperature control probe line length: 2m
Dimensions: length 11.3CW* width 11CM* height 20.3CM (small size)


----------



## Blameless

StAndrew said:


> In a heatpipe, liquid metal can make sense I guess.


Heatpipea requires a phase change to work. Galinstan's boiling point is on the order of 1300C and even at reduced pressure no electronics cooling loop is going to come close.



JSHamlet234 said:


> I would think that a very simple block would be best. Liquid metal will not need nearly the same surface area in the block, nor will it need anywhere near the same flow rate as water due to the high thermal conductivity.


Might be able to get away with less surface area.

However, it's going to need quite a bit of flow because it's volumetric heat capacity is less than half that of water.


----------



## storm-chaser

Blameless said:


> However, it's going to need quite a bit of flow because it's volumetric heat capacity is less than half that of water.


Yes from what I gather this is very important. It will require a decent amount of flow. Basically, its rush delivery to the liquid heat exchanger as fast as possible lol.

There was a research team that designed and built a liquid metal system to cool a CPU and had success with MDF pumps with a supposed pressure head of 25 kpa, which is about 8 feet pressure head in conventional water pump speak. I only read the synopsis so I don't know on what scale this was done. Obviously, if the liquid metal loop was built for a laptop or mobile device, I cant use these numbers for reference on a much larger loop like the one I am planning. However, with the liquid metal being so costly I really do want to keep this loop as short as possible. In other words, MDF pump ----> CPU block ---=->plate heat exchanger.


----------



## storm-chaser

Blameless said:


> Might be able to get away with less surface area.


I need to start researching the flow patters of Galinstan. From what I gather so far, it has approximately 2x the viscosity of water. It's obviously a liquid so it will have some characteristics much like water. 

But I really think Galinstan is the most ideal liquid metal for this loop, because it has a melting point of 33*F which is reasonable for chilling.


----------



## StAndrew

Blameless said:


> Heatpipea requires a phase change to work. Galinstan's boiling point is on the order of 1300C and even at reduced pressure no electronics cooling loop is going to come close.


Yes, phase change for heat transfer. The liquid metal relies on heat conduction through the median + the EM pump for the transfer. From the reviews of the Danamics liquid metal heatpipe with EM pump CPU cooler, it doesn't make sense in the traditional fashion. The only thing I can think of for liquid metal heatpipes is it should be able to transport the heat more efficiently over a distance?


----------



## Blameless

StAndrew said:


> The only thing I can think of for liquid metal heatpipes is it should be able to transport the heat more efficiently over a distance?


Standard heat pipes with water as a working fluid have phenomenally high effective thermal conductivity:








Heat Pipe Thermal Conductivity | Celsia


Heat pipe thermal conductivity definition, explanatiion, equation. Links to online heat sink calculators for heat pipes & vapor chambers. CLICK NOW




celsiainc.com





Metals do tend to have higher heat of vaporization than water, so a heat pipe with metal as a working fluid can potentially move more heat than a similarly sized one using water. However, in practice, there is no way to use them for the same applications because the practical temperature ranges have so little overlap: Heat Pipe Operating Temperature Range | Heat Pipe Technology

Water in a copper heatpipe can't be used above ~150C. While the lowest temperature metal that's practical to use in a heatpipe is cesium, and it can't be used below ~127C.


----------



## StAndrew

Blameless said:


> Standard heat pipes with water as a working fluid have phenomenally high effective thermal conductivity:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Heat Pipe Thermal Conductivity | Celsia
> 
> 
> Heat pipe thermal conductivity definition, explanatiion, equation. Links to online heat sink calculators for heat pipes & vapor chambers. CLICK NOW
> 
> 
> 
> 
> celsiainc.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Metals do tend to have higher heat of vaporization than water, so a heat pipe with metal as a working fluid can potentially move more heat than a similarly sized one using water. However, in practice, there is no way to use them for the same applications because the practical temperature ranges have so little overlap: Heat Pipe Operating Temperature Range | Heat Pipe Technology
> 
> Water in a copper heatpipe can't be used above ~150C. While the lowest temperature metal that's practical to use in a heatpipe is cesium, and it can't be used below ~127C.


I don't think the liquid metal 'heatpipes' use vaporization for heat transfer but rely on convection and advection (hence the pump). They should be able to transfer heat more efficiently over long distances. Water based heatpipes are great but they loses efficiency as the length increases (shorter is better). Liquid metal 'heatpipes' shouldn't have this issue. 

Yes, operating temperatures are also important.


----------



## Blameless

StAndrew said:


> I don't think the liquid metal 'heatpipes' use vaporization for heat transfer but rely on convection and advection (hence the pump).


Those aren't heat pipes (which are defined by that that phase change mechanism), just a liquid coolant loop where the coolant happens to be metal.


----------



## StAndrew

Blameless said:


> Those aren't heat pipes (which are defined by that that phase change mechanism), just a liquid coolant loop where the coolant happens to be metal.


Agreed, which is why I used the quotation marks. But to my original point, it looks like they are being developed to replace traditional water filled heatpipes.


----------



## Jpmboy

I've been drawn away from the OCN site for a while, but this thread... had to toss in my 2 cents. Always fun windmill chasing! 

Very "cool" idea... but contact surface combability is gonna be a bear of an issue with Ga/In (like you gotta use Monel or another very inert alloy on every surface otherwise the coolant will degrade. In a different field we struggled (over decades) with finding a single, non-viscous fluid that is compatible with multiple contact surfaces, has reasonable working life-span and operates in the temp range of -100C to +400C. Syltherm. It's a synthetic "oil", not flammable, non-corrosive and has excellent heat-transfer and "wetting" properties. Ga/In alloy only meets one of those criteria (heat transfer... but it is really poor at wetting the contact surfaces, compromising it's true heat transfer efficiency). We use Syltherm at the lab scale and in production (complex synthetic organic chemistry at the milligram to metric ton scale). Pumps well and is non-conductive. Probably cheaper than Ga/In and has a much wider useful temp envelope.
Just a thought.... sorry for being late to the battle. Slog on!


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Agreed, which is why I used the quotation marks. But to my original point, it looks like they are being developed to replace traditional water filled heatpipes.


I don't really mind you and your discussion here, however
You are kind of dragging this post off topic. If you are that enamered with heat pipes and wish to discuss further, please take it to PM. Not trying to be rude or anything but this thread needs to remain sterile for best collaboration to take place and in order to achieve that we need to stay strictly on designing a liquid metal loop.


----------



## storm-chaser

Jpmboy said:


> I've been drawn away from the OCN site for a while, but this thread... had to toss in my 2 cents. Always fun windmill chasing!
> 
> Very "cool" idea... but contact surface combability is gonna be a bear of an issue with Ga/In (like you gotta use Monel or another very inert alloy on every surface otherwise the coolant will degrade. In a different field we struggled (over decades) with finding a single, non-viscous fluid that is compatible with multiple contact surfaces, has reasonable working life-span and operates in the temp range of -100C to +400C. Syltherm. It's a synthetic "oil", not flammable, non-corrosive and has excellent heat-transfer and "wetting" properties. Ga/In alloy only meets one of those criteria (heat transfer... but it is really poor at wetting the contact surfaces, compromising it's true heat transfer efficiency). We use Syltherm at the lab scale and in production (complex synthetic organic chemistry at the milligram to metric ton scale). Pumps well and is non-conductive. Probably cheaper than Ga/In and has a much wider useful temp envelope.
> Just a thought.... sorry for being late to the battle. Slog on!


Excellent ideas. Good to have you on board.. Very glad you stopped in to share your knowledge with the rest of the class. I don't hav time right now but I will respond with questions tommorow. Like you pointed out I need to figure out a way to allow these various alloys and metals to coexist peacefully in the loop with the gallium. You mentioned the coolant may degrade, can please fill us in on what that looks like and what causes it.


----------



## Logic11

*I would say Direct to CPU core cooling is required for this to be beneficial:*

With a std Water block, the water block has enough surface area (small fins) to negate the superior thermal conductivity advantage of Ga.

But that superior thermal conductivity becomes invaluable when the cooling surface area is decreased.

Think of it this way:
Air Cooling: *0.025 W/m.k*: Big surface area/fins reqd.
Water Cooling: *0.6 W/m.k*: Much smaller area/fins reqd.
Gallium Cooling: *16.5W/m.k*: No fins reqd..?

So if one were the make a CPU cap that sealed onto the substrate, around the core/s, and had enough flowrate, Ga would come to the fore, for the following reasons:

Zero delta T losses as there is no:
*Core-TIM-IHS-TIM-Water block-coolant* (where each one has to be cooler than the other)
you go:
*Core-Coolant*
direct..!

If there is a small space on the sides of the CPU core; you are cooling said sides of core too, increasing the cooling surface somewhat.
For eg:
A 1cm square and 1mm high core you get 4X 10mm^2 = 40mm^2 extra cooling area.
And who knows what cooling the sides of a core does for hotspots etc..?

If said space is as large as possible, without exposing the caps etc surrounding the core; you also get some bottom of CPU cooling via the TIM and interconnects below, and cooled substrate.

The other thing about a 'Cooling Cap" sealed to the substrate is you can use a plastic that is not affected by Ga's predilection for dissolving other metals!
For the Rad:
Research reqd on which metal is least affected by Ga.
(Gold? Most Inert. We know Nickel is better than copper)
Then you will need to electroplate the inside of a copper rad with said metal.
That will require adding flow to the electroplating electrolyte, through the rad, besides just a a sacrificial Anode...

NB:
That people who have tried this, direct to core, cooling with water have NOT seen the hoped for results.
IMHO this is due to the Thermal conductivity of Water just being too low for the small surface area of the core.
But *0.6 vs 16.5 W/m.k is a 28X increase in Thermal conductivity..!*

I wish you the best with your experiment and look forward to your results!


----------



## Jpmboy

storm-chaser said:


> Excellent ideas. Good to have you on board.. Very glad you stopped in to share your knowledge with the rest of the class. I don't hav time right now but I will respond with questions tommorow. Like you pointed out I need to figure out a way to allow these various alloys and metals to coexist peacefully in the loop with the gallium. You mentioned the coolant may degrade, can please fill us in on what that looks like and what causes it.


Yeah, the Ga/In alloy will become contaminated with metals extracted/leached from any of the loop's metallic contact surfaces. This will alter the properties of the Ga/In alloy most likely in a manner you would not appreciate  ... in addition to the contact surfaces undergoing exchange "alloyfication". Room-temp-liquid metal cooling loops, including hot Sodium metal do require very special flanging and gasket materials (you probably know this). Even tygon and other tubing materials have poor long-term compatibility. The siloxane oils (Syltherm) do not have any of these issues (some even have flash points above 300C). Peristaltic pumps work fine, impeller pumps need to be quite strong especially if going cryo temps.
One of the major barriers for LM (Ga/In) is the poor surface "wetting" it has. This is why you need to "paint" in on your CPU IHS and on the base of the cooling block... LM forms a good thermal bond-line with itself, but not with most any other surface. This could be used to your advantage: paint the thermal transfer contact surfaces (block interior and heat transfer block interior) but not the "flow-only" surfaces. Remember, any solder in the loop with dissolve in Ga/In and pretty fast!). Forget about using rads.


----------



## storm-chaser

Jpmboy said:


> Yeah, the Ga/In alloy will become contaminated with metals extracted/leached from any of the loop's metallic contact surfaces. This will alter the properties of the Ga/In alloy most likely in a manner you would not appreciate  ... in addition to the contact surfaces undergoing exchange "alloyfication". Room-temp-liquid metal cooling loops, including hot Sodium metal do require very special flanging and gasket materials (you probably know this). Even tygon and other tubing materials have poor long-term compatibility. The siloxane oils (Syltherm) do not have any of these issues (some even have flash points above 300C). Peristaltic pumps work fine, impeller pumps need to be quite strong especially if going cryo temps.
> One of the major barriers for LM (Ga/In) is the poor surface "wetting" it has. This is why you need to "paint" in on your CPU IHS and on the base of the cooling block... LM forms a good thermal bond-line with itself, but not with most any other surface. This could be used to your advantage: paint the thermal transfer contact surfaces (block interior and heat transfer block interior) but not the "flow-only" surfaces. Remember, any solder in the loop with dissolve in Ga/In and pretty fast!). Forget about using rads.
> View attachment 2529420


Thanks for all the good data. Dropping the rads. 

When you are maple sugaring you run into similar problems in a sense. Not directly, but what I mean is you need to reduce surface tension after u boil off about half the water out of the sap. This requires about one small drop if bacon grease to cover about 50 gallons, instantly dropping surface tension down to nothing. Reason I'm bringing it up is because it's an illustration of the same thing you brought up. The gallium alloy will not be "wet" enough to deliver the cooling performance I'm looking for. Hence I am going to need to modify the alloy by adding other elements and compounds to formulate a new alloy, very similar to galinstan but with wetter properties and a similar melting point of about 35*F. That way I can still take advantage of the chiller if I want. However, liquid metal thermal conductivity improves as the temps go up so using a chiller perhaps won't deliver the performance I am looking for. At this point I'm on the hunt for a smaller laptop with a 40-50w TDP processor to use as a prototype for the LM metal loop. I haven't done the research yet in the tubing material yet, but from what I gather hardened stainless steel is probably going to be fine. Or nickle plated copper / ss. wrapped with a layer of nylon and then a layer of wool and then a layer of aluminum, if I create a "breathable" layer between inner stainless and the outer aluminum I can pump air through the outer sheeth to evaporate condensation that will naturally form if I am using the chiller. That's neither here nor there however. But I should have you know extensive testing has already been conducted with liquid metal relative to corrosiveness / LME to solid metals that it comes in contact with. This is relevant to the subject at hand because of the rise of using LM as thermal paste in such products as grizzly conductounaugt (Yes I know I butchered that). The grizzly stuff is nearly identical to what I will be using in my LM loop. It's essentially galinstan. So any testing done with it will apply directly to my project. According to research done by gamers Nexus, I should be ok with using heat treated stainless steel or nickle plated steel in parts of my loop. Also copper. The reason I included copper is that the reaction between copper and gallium did not compromise the thermal conductivity between the LM and the solid metal it was in contact with. However, I will not be using any copper (unless it's nickle plated) in this loop. Primarily because it will no doubt more readily react with the gallium and therefore degrade the LM in my loop much more quickly than other solid metals. I am sure there are some polymers and other synthetic plastics out there that could be successfully used with LM to comprise most of the loop, however I think doing that would be sac religious in this case because I don't want a paradox here. Plastics/synthetics don't belong in a LM cooling loop. I'm sure you can figure out my reasoning here.


----------



## Luggage

storm-chaser said:


> Thanks for all the good data. Dropping the rads.
> 
> When you are maple sugaring you run into similar problems in a sense. Not directly, but what I mean is you need to reduce surface tension after u boil off about half the water out of the sap. This requires about one small drop if bacon grease to cover about 50 gallons, instantly dropping surface tension down to nothing. Reason I'm bringing it up is because it's an illustration of the same thing you brought up. The gallium alloy will not be "wet" enough to deliver the cooling performance I'm looking for. Hence I am going to need to modify the alloy by adding other elements and compounds to formulate a new alloy, very similar to galinstan but with wetter properties and a similar melting point of about 35*F. That way I can still take advantage of the chiller if I want. However, liquid metal thermal conductivity improves as the temps go up so using a chiller perhaps won't deliver the performance I am looking for. At this point I'm on the hunt for a smaller laptop with a 40-50w TDP processor to use as a prototype for the LM metal loop. I haven't done the research yet in the tubing material yet, but from what I gather hardened stainless steel is probably going to be fine. Or nickle plated copper / ss. wrapped with a layer of nylon and then a layer of wool and then a layer of aluminum, if I create a "breathable" layer between inner stainless and the outer aluminum I can pump air through the outer sheeth to evaporate condensation that will naturally form if I am using the chiller. That's neither here nor there however. But I should have you know extensive testing has already been conducted with liquid metal relative to corrosiveness / LME to solid metals that it comes in contact with. This is relevant to the subject at hand because of the rise of using LM as thermal paste in such products as grizzly conductounaugt (Yes I know I butchered that). The grizzly stuff is nearly identical to what I will be using in my LM loop. It's essentially galinstan. So any testing done with it will apply directly to my project. According to research done by gamers Nexus, I should be ok with using heat treated stainless steel or nickle plated steel in parts of my loop. Also copper. The reason I included copper is that the reaction between copper and gallium did not compromise the thermal conductivity between the LM and the solid metal it was in contact with. However, I will not be using any copper (unless it's nickle plated) in this loop. Primarily because it will no doubt more readily react with the gallium and therefore degrade the LM in my loop much more quickly than other solid metals. I am sure there are some polymers and other synthetic plastics out there that could be successfully used with LM to comprise most of the loop, however I think doing that would be sac religious in this case because I don't want a paradox here. Plastics/synthetics don't belong in a LM cooling loop. I'm sure you can figure out my reasoning here.


Actually no, unless it’s aesthetics rather than performance, please spell it out.


----------



## storm-chaser

Whatever piping I decide to use will be an alloy metal that contains a substantial level of Tantalum, which is highly resistant to gallium and will not undergo LME whatsoever, even under direct contact with gallium. It will form an oxide layer but this will not in any way degrade the gallium in my loop nor will it ever need to be replaced down the road. There are also many other alloys used by the industrial sector that are readily available, cost effective, and could remain in permanent contact with gallium that would never need to be replaced and would never degrade the liquid metal in the loop itself. Tantalum is totally impervious to the alloy galinstan as well. It also has an insane melting point of over 5400*


----------



## storm-chaser

Luggage said:


> Actually no, unless it’s aesthetics rather than performance, please spell it out.


Spell what out? I said a lot of things in that post.

Edit: got it. I don't want to use plastics if I can help it. Something about using plastics in a LM cooling loop cheapens the appeal. I want everything to be metal if indeed I'm using LM as a coolant.


----------



## storm-chaser

Essentially I'm building this pc like you might go about building a nuclear reactor. All the best materials possible will be used.


----------



## storm-chaser

Jpmboy said:


> impeller pumps need to be quite strong especially if going cryo temps


I will be using a shielded MDF electromagnetic pump. They are readily available, have no moving parts, consume less power than a conventional pump and are completely silent.


----------



## storm-chaser

I will load the loop and if I decide to use a reservoir for some reason I can use nitrogen in place of the oxygen. The reason I am doing this is because nitrogen will not in any way whatsoever react with the gallium. So that solves the problem of degredation of my liquid metal, when combined with the aforementioned element tantalum, which will comprise most of the metal loop plumbing.


----------



## storm-chaser

Guys I may have figured out a way to eliminate plate heat exhanger completely from the loop. Will update u later. Just need to read the updates first.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> Well


Don't think I'm not listening to you. However,

a) If you want to shoot out ideas or suggestions that's fine, but leave it at that. However, most of your posts up to this point have been critical and mostly needlessly critical of my methods. Bottom line: You don't get to make the rules. I do. The design of my LM project will be... guess whos? Mine! . And I'm pretty sure you aren't an expert in liquid metal cooling so it's kind of funny to see your critical tone when you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. For example, you didnt even understand the concept why two loops are needed (hot and cold). It was at that point that your credibility fell into question. 
b) Basically, don't question my judgement. The project will proceed and I will have the final say as to how it's designed and implemented. It will be rock solid.
c) to be honest, I'm shocked that you continued to impose your "understanding" of LM over my own with out even the knowledge of the basic "blueprint" of a high performance chiller loop and how it is constructed (at least as best practices)


StAndrew said:


> Do yourself a favor and look up heat transfer, the heat transfer coefficient of the median (water or liquid metal) does not affect heat transfer from load to median at all. Period.


Do yourself a favor and look up the word *clueless.*


----------



## storm-chaser

I had some time today to respond to old comments...



0451 said:


> I’m not sure what the purpose of LM cooling is, so maybe it’s a good fit.


Take a hint: It's called *exotic* cooling. 


StAndrew said:


> First of all, any gallium based liquid metal will react with copper and nickle. You will need chrome lining.


Actually, you are wrong again. According to gamers nexus, nickle does alright wth gallium and galinstan. Truth fail, *again*. 



StAndrew said:


> I wouldn’t recommend you play with this stuff; its explosive when it comes in contact with water.


can I play with mercury instead? I wanted to get your feedback specifically since you are making a foolish attempt to sound like you actually know what you are talking about here. 



StAndrew said:


> The pumps generate a large electromagnetic field; not great inside a computer case…


No way! Obviously, they will be shielded.



StAndrew said:


> A few other thoughts:
> -A water loop would perform better about 100% of the time 100% of the time. Just make a water loop with a chiller


Are you bench racing again? How many times do I have to point out your credibility is in the tank? LOL you didn't even know the typical chiller hot loop / cold loop layout and configuration / arrangement. And two loops are generally used, that's the conventional chiller setup. I suggest you use gasoline to build your next loop. It's fun to live dangerously, right? 😂

Here, a simple reminder (count the number of loops):


----------



## storm-chaser

Cakewalk_S said:


> If you really wanted to build and outstanding loop...why not use ammonia?


I was thinking of using something more unique like hexavalent chromium. You should build your next loop with applesauce. Lol or vinegar


Shenhua said:


> When you refer to air cooling, you compare it with water and liquid, as a medium for heat transfer. Air is not used as a medium for heat transfer. Water is. Technically a water radiator, is an air cooler, just the same as a heatpipe cooler.
> Liquid cooling rely more on capacity and extraction (due to an active mechanism that evens out the heat throughout the loop). Heatpipe coolers relies more on heat conductivity and dissipation, which results in a less evenness throughout the cooler than with liquid cooling.
> Ever wondered how a 700gr cooler on a GPU can deal with 400w no problem, but a d15 has issues with loads over 250w??
> 
> Which leads me to my next point, and why your idea won´t work.
> 
> 
> Ignoring the flow rate and the build up problems, it doesnt matter, you're still going through the same barriers, which is IHS, TIM, coldplate. The cooler the coldplate, the better the temps. Doesnt matter how you do it.
> 
> You wanna improve conductivity for CPU cooling? start removing barriers. Remove the IHS from the ecuation. You wanna go further?, remove the coldplate+tim, and go direct die to liquid in the loop (this might be worst unless something exotic like a liquid metal loop is used, cus your usual water it's really bad as a thermal conductor and the die area is too small.........for those who might feel differently, think of the water as a heat reservoir at the same time as a bad medium for heat transfer).
> 
> Hope this helps.


It does. I will factor in everything u said to my LM loop. I get what you are saying. However if u had read the first post carefully you would see I am not necessarily doing this and expecting massive gains. It's exotic cooling and will be a very good covid time killer


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> Yes and no. Water is also known as the ultimate coolant because it has the highest specific heat capacity of any liquid. Many times higher than liquid gallium. Then again don’t let pesky science get in the way of a cool idea


I never said water was bad as a medium. In fact I pointed out in the very first post I think water is great to use as a coolant.


----------



## storm-chaser

Asmodian said:


> I don't understand either.


Thats for sure.


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> I had some time today to respond to old comments...
> 
> 
> Take a hint: It's called *exotic* cooling.
> 
> Actually, you are wrong again. According to gamers nexus, nickle does alright wth gallium and galinstan. Truth fail, *again*.
> 
> 
> can I play with mercury instead? I wanted to get your feedback specifically since you are making a foolish attempt to sound like you actually know what you are talking about here.
> 
> 
> No way! Obviously, they will be shielded.
> 
> 
> Are you bench racing again? How many times do I have to point out your credibility is in the tank? LOL you didn't even know the typical chiller hot loop / cold loop layout and configuration / arrangement. And two loops are generally used, that's the conventional chiller setup. I suggest you use gasoline to build your next loop. It's fun to live dangerously, right? 😂
> 
> Here, a simple reminder (count the number of loops):
> View attachment 2532627


Making fun of the concept is getting old. I’ll be back when it’s completed.


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> Making fun of the concept is getting old. I’ll be back when it’s completed.


Please don't go. It was fun watching you make a fool out of yourself over and over again! 😂


----------



## geriatricpollywog

storm-chaser said:


> Please don't go. It was fun watching you make a fool out of yourself over and over again! 😂


This thread has too much talk and not enough building. As much as I like to troll, I still have my limits. If you spent your time building instead of replying to comments you’d be done by now.


----------



## storm-chaser

0451 said:


> This thread has too much talk and not enough building. As much as I like to troll, I still have my limits. If you spent your time building instead of replying to comments you’d be done by now.


ok you must have missed the first post where I said it would likely take longer than 6 months to complete. Im still in the study phase.


----------



## storm-chaser

StAndrew said:


> What CPU block? I don't think your pump pressure will do well forcing chilled liquid metal through microchannels. I would experiment with newer and older CPU blocks for flow rate; the old Fuzion ver 1/2 or even a maze CPU block would probably work better here.


Agreed. Do you guys have any suggestions on what I should start testing with? Obviously it's not going to be a copper water block with micro channels. Perhaps Nickle plated copper. Besides, my heatkiller IV is already in need of another cleaning. In the interim I've added a third pump just to force water through the bottlenecked water block. The two pumps on the other side of the water block worked fine but I wanted to balance it out a little (as in push - pull, not just pull - pull) until I can get around to pulling the water block AGAIN and using an industrial pressure washer on it. So much for "loop filters" they did absolutely nothing to stop smaller particles from getting into the micro channels and creating a block.

EDIT: CNC machine is set to replicate the maze from the shining, only very small of course. 

It's going to be hilarious when I eventually get this project up and running to see the look on your face. Like I said, keep making yourself look foolish and then we can all laugh a little more at the end when I complete what I set out to do and all you did was sit in the peanut gallery and act like a nimrod.


----------



## storm-chaser

Okay new pump placement isn't so great but it's only temporary, at least I can once again go to 5.3 for benching with this rig....


----------



## acoustic

storm-chaser said:


> Agreed. Do you guys have any suggestions on what I should start testing with? Obviously it's not going to be a copper water block with micro channels. Perhaps Nickle plated copper. Besides, my heatkiller IV is already in need of another cleaning. In the interim I've added a third pump just to force water through the bottlenecked water block. The two pumps on the other side of the water block worked fine but I wanted to balance it out a little (as in push - pull, not just pull - pull) until I can get around to pulling the water block AGAIN and using an industrial pressure washer on it. So much for "loop filters" they did absolutely nothing to stop smaller particles from getting into the micro channels and creating a block.
> 
> EDIT: CNC machine is set to replicate the maze from the shining, only very small of course.
> 
> It's going to be hilarious when I eventually get this project up and running to see the look on your face. Like I said, keep making yourself look foolish and then we can all laugh a little more at the end when I complete what I set out to do and all you did was sit in the peanut gallery and act like a nimrod.


Sounds more like poor loop cleaning if you have had to clean the block out once before, have filters, and it's already clogged again..


----------



## storm-chaser

acoustic said:


> Sounds more like poor loop cleaning if you have had to clean the block out once before, have filters, and it's already clogged again..


Yes to some extent (however, the filters have now been removed because small particles would go right through them anyway) and the fact that I didn't have an adequate pressure washer the first time I had it apart. I'm just limping along until the new coolant arrives, then it will get a proper cleaning, including both reservoirs and fresh coolant. Just didn't want to waste the new coolant on a half way clean loop.


----------



## Kana Chan

Won't the gallium pull heat out of the microscopic fins faster than pure water despite lower flow rates? It only needs to transfer the heat away from the coldplate to the cooling system on the 2nd loop, right?
What's the flowrate/cooling perf of the gigantic plate heat exchanger in the OP?
Does the 2nd loop go to window/outside the home by any chance?
Are you testing this with a 10980XE or the W-3175X/LGA3647 or the LGA4677 cpu in ~10months?


----------



## storm-chaser

Kana Chan said:


> Won't the gallium pull heat out of the microscopic fins faster than pure water despite lower flow rates?


It should, after all gallium is a wet liquid metal, meaning it should theoretically flow through the micro channels but it is in fact twice as viscous as water, so the micro channels may need to be cut again just a little bit wider to account for the difference. idk then again it might do just fine. It's not very much more difficult to push liquid metal vs water. But the flow rate must remain high because the LM will more readily absorb heat when compared to water. So this is crucial, I must have fairly high flow rate to fully capitalize on LM performance attributes.



Kana Chan said:


> It only needs to transfer the heat away from the coldplate to the cooling system on the 2nd loop, right?


Correct. Still working out the details of the second loop but more or less:











Kana Chan said:


> What's the flowrate/cooling perf of the gigantic plate heat exchanger in the OP?


Careful with the term gigantic. Doesn't even come close. 








It's totally dependent on your pump not the heat exchanger - it's (my 60 plate HE) not restrictive at all. I did some testing last week on flow and concluded the liquid to liquid heat exchanger does not pose a restriction whatsoever in regards to flow rate through the loop. in fact for kicks i tested the mini pump that came with the chiller and it had no trouble pushing water through it either.



Kana Chan said:


> Does the 2nd loop go to window/outside the home by any chance?


No. Second loop will be completely under the hood with the first, might go pipe in pipe design, it's slightly radical but it might just be the ticket. I'm not using the above computer for this LM project, wasn't my intent to imply that. z820 has numerous advantages for testing this concept. Tool less case, Lots of room, lots of power and excellent airflow.



Kana Chan said:


> Are you testing this with a 10980XE or the W-3175X/LGA3647 or the LGA4677 cpu in ~10months?


I'm going to be testing with one of my dual processor z820 rigs.
This particular rig has two OEM Xeon E5 2696 v2 processors, which surprisingly outperform Intel's flagship retail 2697 v2 in multi core performance due to +100Mhz all core turbo (3.1GHz all core, 3.5GHz single). It makes for 24 cores and 48 thread when paired up. Enough to just take down a 10980XE in the cpu-z multi-core performance benchmark. 









So here is the plan guys:
Pull two z820 liquid coolers from storage. I'm stocked up for the end times lol.









This is what they look like from the back:









Believe it or not, these little buggers are capable of cooling a 2687w v2! In fact they are mandatory for that processor, which is a 150W TDP processor. As you can see, its a closed system. But very easy to take the sleeve off and drain, flush and fill with gallium (galinstan) and get right to testing. This is probably the most compact way in which I can create a prototype design to test and get meaningful results from, since I can always go back and reference performance characteristics with water as a coolant as well. 

This is going to be a sacrificial test. Nothing is going to suffer from LME but I will probably have to chuck the gallium after testing is complete because it will react much more readily with copper, of which 99% of the radiator is. It wont compromise the cooling capacity of the LM, however, which is why it's applicable to test in this scenario and I can still get accurate results I can then use towards a slightly larger loop.

In this case, the z820 liquid cooling system is ideal for testing liquid metal as a coolant. First off, the pump is built into the base, second, it requires very little coolant to fill the loop. Third, everything is self contained. Forth, I have a very acute idea how these coolers perform so it will be interesting to see if the LM is going to be better right off the bat.


----------



## storm-chaser

Kana Chan said:


> What's the flowrate/cooling perf of the gigantic plate heat exchanger in the OP?


You should be able to do the math and translate over from the much smaller one you posted earlier. 
Mine is more or less dimensionally the same in terms of footprint? But get the spect sheet and then compare how many plates it has. Mine has 60 stainless steel 316L plates which should hold up just fine. So clearly it's all about surface area. I want to focus on delta T with LM. Plus liquid to liquid HE are much more effective at extracting heat than any other type of heat exchanger, including air to water.


----------



## storm-chaser

Kana Chan said:


> It only needs to transfer the heat away from the coldplate to the cooling system on the 2nd loop, right?


Right, after passing CPU, heat will go from the liquid metal(hot side) to water (cold side) via plate heat exchanger, and then once the heat is transferred into the 2nd loop (the cold loop) that second loop will be cooled by:
a) Chiller
b) conventional means
c) a simple, conventional, standard, custom loop.

One of the benefits of running a liquid to liquid heat exchanger and having radiators on the cold side is that I wont have to deal to much with LME or degradation of LM itself since the aluminum radiators are on a secondary loop which only has water in it. And I can initially build the LM portion of the loop with a very minimal amount of volume and no reservoir, so I wont have to spend $500 on LM coolant just to build my prototype. 
So at first, I will be starting with a very small LM loop and a much larger water (cold side) custom loop, just like you see here. Part of the reasoning is that if I have twice the volume of water as opposed to LM, I'm going to be able to extract more heat from the LM side and never max out the cooling capabilities of the secondary cold loop. Hope this makes sense to you guys.


----------



## Jpmboy

Those z820 coolers work real well! Waiting to see that thing pumping metal! 🤞


----------



## storm-chaser

Jpmboy said:


> Those z820 coolers work real well! Waiting to see that thing pumping metal! 🤞


I think I need to spend like $80-90 for the Galinstan, much better than the $500+ I had originally intended to purchase. Plus, this operation should be very straight forward and we will get meaningful data immediately. 

Check back around the 5th of next month and around that time I should have it up and running.


----------



## storm-chaser

Okay Guys, I think I found a suitable work around for extracting as much heat from the liquid metal as possible. The problem that I face with a liquid metal loop is that the "heat" will be moved quickly away from radiators/ heat exchangers, calling into question the efficacy of the loop to actually cool the liquid metal effectively.










OR




















It's called a counter flow double heat exchanger... get the idea? We have the liquid metal flowing in red, and cold coolant flowing the other direction, this way we can extract as much heat from the LM metal as possible and loop velocity will not compromise cooling performance.










And this is standard operation of the 60 plate heat exchanger, which will be used in conjunction with the above double pipe heat exchanger for max heat transfer..


----------



## KingEngineRevUp

Kana Chan said:


> Won't the gallium pull heat out of the microscopic fins faster than pure water despite lower flow rates?


That depends. Convective heat transfer requires a materials thermal conductivity yes... But velocity and turbulence matters as well. Thank about air, it has no business moving heat away with its "conductivity" rating. But when forcefully pushed over fins with some turbulence, it extracts heat and that's due to flow rate!

The convection coefficient is a function of both conduction and velocity of fluid flow via the Nusselt Number (Nu).






Nusselt number - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org





h = (Nu * k) / L where Nu is found via empirical data and some partial differential equations , Nu is dependent on fluid flow and fluid flow characteristics (laminar, turbulent).

TL;DR: h is not a easy parameter to follow without testing in a lab.

Even though the k value is high, what if your Nu is very very low... then h might not improve much. And h is the major contributor to heat transfer in convection.


----------



## ShrimpBrime

This reminds of the time I almost built a water loop with Acetone and DryIce as the chiller. Instead of using a DryIce pot, I thought this would be a neat approach to a water loop. Keeping in mind the dangers, issues with rubber o-rings dealing with acetone and then boiling issues actually inside the waterblock, I decided against this project.

Neat to see someone come out with a similar idea and actually go for it. I had to chicken out. It's just easier to use a Dice pot and be done with it I guess is the final thought.

Speaking of thoughts, through many years of cooling experiments, TEC is one of my favorites. 

Let me share with you the number 1 issue I always came across. 

The IHS plate on modern chips are just too small. Too thin. And the surface area of modern silicon hasn't changed much, there's just more of them now. 2 to 3 chips to cool under a single IHS plate. Which again, is just too small. 

The Very first problem with cooling a processor is only being able to pull heat in a single direction for a single surface area. I call this in my head 2D cooling. The IHS plate has 6 sides, you only remove heat from one side. So that becomes and issue. Then the thermal mass of such a small plate (IHS) makes it so you need to remove heat basically immediately. 

I found that removing the plate and replacing it with one with about 4 times the amount of mass, I was able to slow the exchange process from CPU to the cooling, in my testing cases a TEC heat exchanger. To put it simply, it took longer for the CPU to heat the enlarged plate, or, because a TEC does the chilling, longer for the TEC to get the plate cold. But once cold, would take a considerable amount more energy and time to warm the plate up again. Despite the cpu core reading a 15c positive temperature at load, I was able to keep the new enlarged plate frozen. This helped quite a bit for my experiments. 

Anyhow, that's the basics of any findings of my recent experiments. Transistor density is our issue more so than the coolers we use, but I really enjoy experiments like this one. I hope it works well, but if it doesn't, then you're learning something. Good Luck!


----------



## storm-chaser

ShrimpBrime said:


> This reminds of the time I almost built a water loop with Acetone and DryIce as the chiller. Instead of using a DryIce pot, I thought this would be a neat approach to a water loop. Keeping in mind the dangers, issues with rubber o-rings dealing with acetone and then boiling issues actually inside the waterblock, I decided against this project.
> 
> Neat to see someone come out with a similar idea and actually go for it. I had to chicken out. It's just easier to use a Dice pot and be done with it I guess is the final thought.
> 
> Speaking of thoughts, through many years of cooling experiments, TEC is one of my favorites.
> 
> Let me share with you the number 1 issue I always came across.
> 
> The IHS plate on modern chips are just too small. Too thin. And the surface area of modern silicon hasn't changed much, there's just more of them now. 2 to 3 chips to cool under a single IHS plate. Which again, is just too small.
> 
> The Very first problem with cooling a processor is only being able to pull heat in a single direction for a single surface area. I call this in my head 2D cooling. The IHS plate has 6 sides, you only remove heat from one side. So that becomes and issue. Then the thermal mass of such a small plate (IHS) makes it so you need to remove heat basically immediately.
> 
> I found that removing the plate and replacing it with one with about 4 times the amount of mass, I was able to slow the exchange process from CPU to the cooling, in my testing cases a TEC heat exchanger. To put it simply, it took longer for the CPU to heat the enlarged plate, or, because a TEC does the chilling, longer for the TEC to get the plate cold. But once cold, would take a considerable amount more energy and time to warm the plate up again. Despite the cpu core reading a 15c positive temperature at load, I was able to keep the new enlarged plate frozen. This helped quite a bit for my experiments.
> 
> Anyhow, that's the basics of any findings of my recent experiments. Transistor density is our issue more so than the coolers we use, but I really enjoy experiments like this one. I hope it works well, but if it doesn't, then you're learning something. Good Luck!


Hi Shrimp. Still delidding? Perhaps I will send you my 9600KF (or 1680 xeon v2) to delidd so I can put your theory to work here in my setup. People have been saying, I need direct die cooling here to really capitalize on heat transfer. I just like the exotic challenge of making liquid metal work in a loop. 

Most of the parts are here for the new z820 build. Yes, I'm building a brand new z820 despite the fact I already have two of them. This is going to be the experimental machine and I didn't want to compromise the other two, that's why I'm starting fresh with a different unit. 

CPU showed up today. It's a xeon 1680 v2, that has an unlocked multiplier. 
Memory also showed up. It's DDR3 1866R. It's a 48GB kit, (6x8GB) but I will be adding two more identical dimms to get to quad channel memory (64GB)
I didn't want to destroy any z820 liquid coolers from my stock so I purchased one specifically for this project and it is also here. 

Just waiting on the z820 computer itself AND the wireless usb card. 

With the unlocked multiplier I will really be able to push the CPU hard and that will give me pretty good insight into how liquid metal performs during overclocked circumstances. Sources tell me I should be able to go to 4.6 or 4.7GHz no problem.


----------



## ShrimpBrime

storm-chaser said:


> Hi Shrimp. Still delidding? Perhaps I will send you my 9600KF (or 1680 xeon v2) to delidd so I can put your theory to work here in my setup. People have been saying, I need direct die cooling here to really capitalize on heat transfer. I just like the exotic challenge of making liquid metal work in a loop.
> 
> Most of the parts are here for the new z820 build. Yes, I'm building a brand new z820 despite the fact I already have two of them. This is going to be the experimental machine and I didn't want to compromise the other two, that's why I'm starting fresh with a different unit.
> 
> CPU showed up today. It's a xeon 1680 v2, that has an unlocked multiplier.
> Memory also showed up. It's DDR3 1866R. It's a 48GB kit, (6x8GB) but I will be adding two more identical dimms to get to quad channel memory (64GB)
> I didn't want to destroy any z820 liquid coolers from my stock so I purchased one specifically for this project and it is also here.
> 
> Just waiting on the z820 computer itself AND the wireless usb card.
> 
> With the unlocked multiplier I will really be able to push the CPU hard and that will give me pretty good insight into how liquid metal performs during overclocked circumstances. Sources tell me I should be able to go to 4.6 or 4.7GHz no problem.


I haven't done a cpu in a year'ish. Last one was an EYE-7 930. It did help, but the chip wasn't the greatest clocker in the world... 

4.6ghz... I'd hope for higher frequency. But this frequency seems normal to the generation of the chip.....


----------



## storm-chaser

So I pulled the trigger on some gallium. I will most likely be using the HP OEM liquid cooling system as my guinea pig. Yes, I know all about liquid metal embrittlement. However, I should get all the data I need in time before anything bad happens. I think this is a great test piece for the project because it's so compact, yet I will still be able to measure performance and tweak as necessary. 

The z820s cooler makes for easy access to drain and refill with gallium. Also because this prototype is so compact, I wont have to waste much gallium filling it. 









(I will tap into these lines)


----------



## Logic11

A thought: *No* (slowly dissolving) *heat exchanger reqd..!?*

Lets say you have a container (like a res) filled with water and you pour some GA into it.
The GA will pool under the water as its denser.

Now if you pump the GA pool below the water away at the same same speed you're 'pouring it in'... which you are doing...
Get the picture?

ie: GA loop dribbles drops of GA into water.
Drops sink (and cool) and pool below the water.
You pump from that pool to CPU, GPU etc and back to dribbles above the water, so levels in the res remain constant...

The res or container just needs to be large enough so the pumped water flow slows down to the point it doesn't disturb the GA pool too much and you have a heat exchanger with an unbeatable delta T and zero corrosion..!

I haven't looked into GA/water reactions etc. That's up to you, but an idea worth pursuing IMHO..?


----------



## Logic11

storm-chaser:  Glad you like the idea.

For this to be worthwhile; I still believe GA needs to make direct contact with the naked CPU core/s, as discussed earlier here:








Designing a liquid metal cooling system loop (yup, you...


Standard heat pipes with water as a working fluid have phenomenally high effective thermal conductivity: https://celsiainc.com/heat-sink-blog/heat-pipe-thermal-conductivity/ Metals do tend to have higher heat of vaporization than water, so a heat pipe with metal as a working fluid can...




www.overclock.net





Here's a ...'water block' similar to what I envision, but tidier and with an O-ring seal/slot:
Direct-Die water cooling - Page 5 - AOA Forums


----------



## storm-chaser

Logic11 said:


> storm-chaser:  Glad you like the idea.
> 
> For this to be worthwhile; I still believe GA needs to make direct contact with the naked CPU core/s, as discussed earlier here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Designing a liquid metal cooling system loop (yup, you...
> 
> 
> Standard heat pipes with water as a working fluid have phenomenally high effective thermal conductivity: https://celsiainc.com/heat-sink-blog/heat-pipe-thermal-conductivity/ Metals do tend to have higher heat of vaporization than water, so a heat pipe with metal as a working fluid can...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.overclock.net
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's a ...'water block' similar to what I envision, but tidier and with an O-ring seal/slot:
> Direct-Die water cooling - Page 5 - AOA Forums


I just purchased another z820 for this project so I can finally get down to business. I might have someone delid the xeon 1680 v2 so I can test your theory. Sounds very interesting to me, especially due to the fact that cooling the gallium will be much more effective with it being in direct contact with the water. Still need time to wrap my head around what you are saying, but I think I understand the theory you are putting forward.


----------



## storm-chaser

Okay guys after much delay I can finally revisit this project and hopefully get good results. As I said earlier, Im going to use a z820 liquid cooler as a test bed. Best part about that is it only holds little more than 60cc, so I wont have to break the bank trying to get results here.

This is what you need to make galinstan.


----------



## caseyxsharp

I like your idea on this subject and I might be capable of providing some well thought out ideas for you. I barely have anything to work with pc wise although I have built my own. I first gotten interested in water cooling because I thought about building a homemade ac system. I have no job and sometimes I spend countless hours researching topics I find interesting. So what I've gathered so far, specifically speaking about any cooling system with liquid, there's nothing more better than water, unless you want to use lower viscosity liquid from which I've done research into, and it turns out there's nothing that works that's not either extremely poisonous or explosive. You could find a way of using lower viscosity liquid but that's a problem concerning if you're without any pressurization on hand. Liquid Nitrogen would be the safest because if it does leak air is mostly made of nitrogen and all you need to do is at least open a window lol.

But there's another option I've found even better than water, it's not explosive but it is combustible, it is anything that is actually higher viscosity or has a higher thermal specific heat to it, which there's only one material such as the likes of that and that's, Kerosene. If you were asking me what I would use in a liquid cooling loop it would really just be Kerosene. Believe it or not it is way better at dissipating heat than water, I know those others out there speaking to you would have to say that water conductivity isn't important that it's just a medium for transport, however, that's not true, you're right thermal conduciveness is very important, or at least if it cannot be achieved the only option left to anyone building a cooling system is that the flow rate, which is why that modern AC systems using liquid gas is so efficient, contrary to the belief that AC system work so efficiently is being due to the heat transfer rate of liquid gas, it's actually not that case at all, it is just such low viscosity that it's simply able to circulate fast enough than the heat has time for accumulation and that's it. There's only so much that using water in any system can possibly achieve despite no matter how fast you're able to circulate that liquid. The fact is that water can't even compare to anything having higher viscosity to it whatsoever, I said I was speaking about thermal conduciveness before, but that's not entirely something I'd be "really" that concerned with at all, I want something that can move more heat to it no matter just what the real conduciveness can possibly be. That's the bases of the whole idea of "having a cooling system "if you have to use "anything just transport of heat," then your problem is no longer how you're moving that heat around at all, it's "the cooling system" you're using to dissipate that heat, I mean if you can't dissipate the heat generated, then why are you using a medium for heat transfer in the first place, that's the question being asked by any cooling system that has a medium for heat transfer. Obviously, no matter what anyone ever has to say about it, no system that has moving energy is ever 100% efficient, but you're not going for efficiency are you, you're trying just reach the highest performance with the least amount of energy possible right? Just because you have a more efficient cooling system operating anything using that system, it doesn't mean that your whole entire system, using it on is going to be any better than it was.

There's a cooling system I would make myself for a mining rig or a pc if I could have the right things to do it, I might try sooner or later, I don't even have a gpu yet. But if I was going to do what you're thinking about doing, this is what I would do. I know you're trying to make your own mixture for optimal result right, but there's an easier way to do it. I would use this stuff besides the other metals used in your mixture, it's basically graphene particles that people add to their cooling loops, but I would add it to the metal instead. If you're going to try being capable of utilizing the aspect of thermal conductivity, then those metals you're using wouldn't be any better than if you could be using graphene, it's literally the most thermally conductive material on the planet and it's super cheap compared to making your own mixture. I say heck, I've looked at simply looking at the liquid metal needed called gallium just for staters, and that's easily over 750$ alone for one loop. Well, you could easily also simply be using mercury instead, you would, really would be able to if you tried, it's not like mercury can just kill you just by being exposed to it, it's only dangerous if you have an open wound or are down wind to the fumes leaking off it, people literally actually stick their whole arms in this stuff on YouTube, but I'm talking from a price point worthiness though, it's not less expensive.

I would solely use Galium because it is capable of liquid being melting point at 29.76c and any pc cpu or otherwise gpu is going to at least always run at over 30c, that's not even over clocked. I have an i7 7700k, base 4.2 and boost clock 4.5, all of the time, and it's always 36c, and I even included the Arctic Freezer II which is legitimately the best all in one aio, and there's just one fan blowing in my pc besides the aio. But what I'm saying is, it's not the matter being that it being a cooling issue, it's only a matter of getting the heat there to be cooled. I want to simply make a custom loop, adding in the Graphene and liquid Gallium, and if viscosity is ever going to be an issue, I'd just include the CPU to the gpu loop too. Yeah, it would probably be quiet stressful on any pump you could possibly be using, it might even short-circuit any pump doing the pumping too if it is a weak pump, after all, liquid metal is many times more conductive than water and not to mention you're also adding graphene to it too. Although, but if you're trying to get the best cooling performance possible out of a machine, I mean, you're probably not just going to be the weakest, cheapest water pump on the market anyway... so. I've thought about it before like water always short-circuits anything electrical, but that's not always true, I've seen how people tested out pc fans being ran under open water of a swimming pool before, and these high end water pumps now are also equipped to handle highly eclectically conductive liquids too. If you did you liquid metal and graphene materials in a cooling loop, then you get the best of both worlds, both thermally conductive and enough viscosity that it is actually capable of holding enough more heat too. You should be careful simply about what materials you're going to use to hold the loop too, it may be basically liquid, but it's still corrosive in the sense that it's thicker particles moving through a circular closed system too. I don't think it reacting to copper or nickel is seriously ever going to be a real problem, I've seen liquid metal not corrode a cpu cooling system for over a year, but reactions don't usually occur so naturally between materials unless they're being exposed to excessive heat, that's why you're building a cooling system though. But hey, if you're going to try building something from scratch, you can easily just switch up the materials being used too.

I wouldn't use an electromagnetic pump to move that much liquid though, unless you are using just a little bit. Using a magnetic pump like that kind of defeats the purpose of having two materials moving about to transfer heat between them. It's basically the exact same thing as an actual magnetic AC system, which the problem has always just been, it looks good on paper because heat moves without any mechanical motions, but in implement actuality, it doesn't work that way. No closed energy system is ever 100% efficient. A piece of technology that isn't being used to dissipate actual heat but simply moving it around is never going to be worth it in efficiency terms. I'm not arguing it can't be done though, yeah you could do it. But this is how heat energy is actually meant to behave, and despite how human intelligence is meant to interpret it, human understanding of how heat works is very much more limited than any scientists on the subject is capable of having. If we could figure out how heat is meant to behave among all the other types of energy, there wouldn't be any need for any cooling AC systems to begin with, believing that you know how heat is supposed to act, is like the same thing as practicing alchemy. But here's the limit to that knowledge that currently humans posses right now, they test thermal conduciveness against heat transfer between two different martials, and that's why it's so limited. Heat is more capable of transferring between any materials depending on what that difference of their heats are, which means, that to overcome that loss of efficiency, it's not a matter of heat transfer it's only a matter of how much heat that other material is capable of holding at one time, like for instance when you touch aluminum which has a higher thermal conduciveness it feels colder than room temperature even though it is technically the exact same temperature as everything else in the room. So basically, everything anyone currently is able to understand anything to do with how heat relates to physical matter of any type is completely wrong. People would like to think that copper for example is better at dealing with heat than say lead which has the lowest conduciveness and highest specific heat than any other metal, however it's the exact opposite way around, lead has the lowest conduciveness because of how much heat it can possibly hold at one time, lead within contact of heat is capable of more able to change temperature than it is for copper or any other metal for that matter can change to another temperature at all. It's how energy behaves, that's probably just why that lead is being used to protect anyone against radiation too, because that's how much energy it is capable holding. Thermal energy isn't the same thing as how much energy is capable to transfer from one form of energy to another, that's why that scientist's first assumption of how heat relates to photons was very wrong to start with when they first realized that the amount of energy required to emit photon light due to temperature changes would technically require an infinite amount more energy to do than the amount of energy being used to simply heat the object up, that's why when you see glowing hot metal it's only an indication of temperature to a certain extent, once the metal becomes bright glowing white, it is incapable of ever holding any more energy than it currently has and what you're seeing is the temperature of that metal becoming hotter anyways, you cannot put more energy into a material than it's capable of holding without loss of energy, they assumed through observations that because the heat of the metal was far less than the energy required for it to emit light that the heat energy being transferred to the metal was lost in transfer, but what they see as loss of heat energy, I see as simply the remainder of what's left not being transferred into light energy, honestly, I don't know they could even call themselves scientists at that point, they were trying to figure out how heat energy behaves between other forms of energy, but the purest form of any energy is simply light itself, which has no mass at all, heat isn't what changes the temperature between two different materials, it's the energy that does that in the presence of those materials, you can't test for how much energy something has nothing to test against, people just assume that energy exists, because they know anything that has mass just happens to have energy for it to be formulated, they're able to infer about the influence of matter reacts to energy, but that says absolutely nothing about how real energy behaves around matter. If they could understand that, then they wouldn't be having such a hard time trying to piece together how the universe formed according to the model they formed around their understanding of energy that they already have made, and they could actually figure out how gravity is supposed to relate to all of the other forces out there. But they haven't, so here we are, still trying to figure out how to make the most efficient energy transfer technology that's magically supposed to break the laws of physics just like free energy is supposed to, and we happen to be calling it real science now because apparently we're unable to call it a working model of the universe, because we all know that's not ever going to work the way they say the universe is supposed to now.

If you're really so interested in making an overclocked piece of technology right now, I'll get serious for a moment right now. There's no workable material that acts as a cheap superconductor that can operate simply at room temperature. But Iridium is the closest material that you can get to being a superconductor at relatively room temperatures. You need to make all of the components of that pc out of Iridium first, then you use the liquid metal cooling system to operate it. If you can get the temperature down below 65 degrees, then you're truly start to see a real energy efficient device. Then if you could, do that, then you'll also be capable of maybe implementing a magnetically operated liquid pump too, because then a superconductor is capable of repelling magnetic waves to move the metal. It's significantly important, because if you can produce electromagnetic waves, you'll be able to convert that energy into electrical power too, so you could keep your pc cool at the same time as powering the pc at the same time. People think that what makes a superconductor is just that energy actually moves through the wire, but it doesn't, you can't pour more energy into anything than it can hold, a superconductor has zero resistance to it, so electrons aren't moving through it, the energy that is currently held within the wire never move, energy in the form of electrons or an anti magnetic field flows around the wire, heat causes resistance, superconductors have no resistance, but it's that resistance that creates that magnetic field, so without heat being a superconductor while having no resistance causes no magnetic field because it is flowing energy that creates that magnetic field, that's why superconductors repel magnetic fields, the magnetic field generated by superconductors exist within the outside of the wire that repells other magnetic fields. The reason normal wires heat up, is because the resistance is causing the wire to draw more energy than it can hold, which then creates the magnetic field, that magnetic field being generated is the result of that energy being lost through thermal energy. You think that magnetic fields are capable of being generated by the flow of energy, because magnetic fields have energy, but it's not energy that has magnetic fields it's the flow of that energy, and without thermal energy there is no which of a means to transfer that energy meaning no magnetic field.

You could build my design of how I would build a liquid nitrogen cooling system, how it's done is different when you're making an AC system but the principle would be the same for any pc. You can't use liquid nitrogen today to super cool a pc without having to replenish that nitrogen. It has to not be pressurized for it to cool other materials. So if you made something that kept the pressure high enough for the nitrogen not to escape while air was being pumped into it, you could still use it to keep anything cool and keep passing it around at the same time. If you keep it moving at the same time, you could use that energy from the superconductors to keep the liquid moving while it is being cooled down. To move the motor, not to move the liquid. It would be easier because the nitrogen has to be pressurized so it would be easier to move too, the hotter it gets, the faster it moves meaning the faster it keeps everything cool at the same time. I'm not saying it is supposed to hold more heat, but it would definitely keep a cpu cool if you simply passed the already boiling liquid nitrogen over it at the same time, then it wouldn't matter how hot it got, you'd still have all the time in the world to keep it cool too. That's why you're building a cooling system to keep it cool, you can't keep cool liquid nitrogen that stays boiling at negative 300 degrees. But I realize the problem with it, if you're going to be adding air to it to keep it from escaping and making it move, it has to come out somewhere, but, that's why you're using liquid nitrogen for this because when you remove pressure to something the temperature falls because there's nothing to absorb heat, if there's a constant vacuum stronger than the pressure coming into it, then you could create a closed loop that can never hold more energy being pumped into it while keeping things moving still, for instance, instead of the air coming out the other end, there's a second vacuum pump inside the system that is sucking the pressure out of the reservoir just as just enough pressure is being pumped into it to keep the nitrogen moving inside of it, which would then make the process of moving that liquid more efficient because the lower the pressure gets the more the liquid nitrogen boils over. You're not trying to just create a system that removes heat, you're trying to make a mechanism that does it for you. That's a cooling system!!...

.....You could, use that process of using that transfer of heat problem for your advantage than using it as a roadblock.. But there you have it, two different ends of the spectrum. Either a completely ridiculous, absurd liquid nitrogen technology, or the poor man's solution just pour Kerosene on it and turn it on... And then there's liquid metal...


----------



## caseyxsharp

storm-chaser said:


> Okay guys after much delay I can finally revisit this project and hopefully get good results. As I said earlier, Im going to use a z820 liquid cooler as a test bed. Best part about that is it only holds little more than 60cc, so I wont have to break the bank trying to get results here.
> 
> This is what you need to make galinstan.
> 
> View attachment 2559656


I was speaking about using liquid metal just for cooling a pc. But, really the implications could go beyond that if you combined the use of it, with superconductors, with a mechanism like I was discussing, if you could do it, it would be more beneficial to making an even more advance computer than a typical electrical one. I just didn't mention that. Imagine making a system so complex like that, the more complex the system, the more closer to being able to develop real intelligence it can get to. I imagine that if you could get something like this to work, you could use the cooling system in the process of cooling it to actually incorporate it into the computing processes it has too. Like, liquid intelligence. It needs to be pliable like a biological artificial organism. Make the liquid electrically conductive, so instead of signals going back and forth through the processor it makes its computations by how much electrical charge is capable of going through the liquid as it's passing through. Ordinary technology has to have electricity passing to and from the spots that needs analyzing, but something like this would act more like a supercomputer so to speak by only analyzing the single electrons passing through it at one time to make decisions. And with if it's a superconductor, it can convert back and forth between electrical signals and magnetic fields generated by how much power is passing over superconductors. So it changes based on how many electrical signals there are, not by the power itself required to keep it powered. That's just my idea of what I would be using that kind of technology for if it could be done. That wouldn't be the whole system though, that's just what can be done to allow artificial intelligence, it still has to be able to react to what it learns for it to actually have intelligence.


----------



## storm-chaser

@caseyxsharp 
You have a lot of good ideas here. Let me re-read your posts a few times and crunch on them for a bit. I'll be back to discuss!


----------

