# 12 Feet Under: 1000 Square Feet of Geothermal PC Cooling



## Syrillian

You Sir, have my rapt attention.


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## FauxFox

Holy Jeezy.


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## Capwn

SUBBBBEEDD'd. 300 ft of geothermal cooling , Might as well call it Teh Ultimate Win.!.


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## slash129

This has got to be one of the best experiments I have ever seen...


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## Kiggold

Epic.

Subbed


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## xxbassplayerxx

Subscibed!


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## rasa123

Sub'd!!!!


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## MaxS

Impressive would be an understatement. Sub'd.


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## F1ForFrags

This
Is
WIN!!!!


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## ShortySmalls

wow.. most epic pc coling ptoject ive seen yet.


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## roanie25

whoa where you at in VA? im currently at LC, Norfolk. Maybe I can pay you a visit too see whats going on..


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## Bonz(TM)

Def. subbed to this one


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## unleaded91

I cant wait to see the results!! sub'd!


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## E_man

ummmmmmmmm, WOW! Subbed!


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## imadude10

Sub'd! If I could shake your hand over the internet, I would.


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## KusH

this will be rediculous









Go-Go-Gadget Earth cooling.

When you sell your house in the future you can assure that customer that they can get solid overclocks with there i7's lol.


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## slickwilly

This has been discussed before along with using a large cement slab
Slabs get hot in the summer, most ideas for geothermal where not going deep enough
but I see from your ground temp. graph that you sir have done your home work.

This is a very green idea and will affect your power bill in good ways
If you fold in the winter it will heat your home and depending on the sub level ground temps. it might cool it in the summer.

Subbed.







(have a drink on me)


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## Sozin

God I hope this goes through and works.


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## shurik06_83

i would of done it a long time ago but i dont have a back hoe handy
and i dont like diging by hand

how deep are u going ?


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
i would of done it a long time ago but i dont have a back hoe handy
and i dont like diging by hand

how deep are u going ?

The plan is 12 feet, every additional foot beyond six was worth 1 degree fahrenheit for a guy in Maryland. I'll have to see how big of a "V" is required to go that far in wet ground. I can make a huge mess at the base of this hill so if the hole is tapered enough on the sides, going that deep shouldn't be a problem. Horizontal geothermal trenches are installed at 5-6 feet with back hoes like you mentioned. Depending on the location and soil it seems like they would make a good silent radiator but the temperature swing might be too much.

I'm not 100% sure of the trench length yet because it'll depend on how wide the trench is and how much I overlap the coil loops. The longer and less overlap the better for cooling but I don't know if that will be necessary with less than 1000w of heat going into the loop.

The plan is to do two passes in the hole, with a couple feet (maybe 18", I don't have data to support either option!) of dirt separating the layers. The warm water will go down into that top layer and exit colder from the bottom return one. The length and density of the coils will most likely come down to how easy or hard the excavating goes on the big day.

Here's the link to the ground temperature probe results from Maryland. The guy who didn't isn't sure if his probes at the bottom of the tube are insulated from the others enough because the temperatures are higher than the prevailing wisdom says they should be. Also his long term data isn't collecting correctly unfortunately. I'm going to try and set up a 1-wire system like he did so there will plenty of hard data on this projects results.

http://www.duanesworld.net/duanesworld.net.sensors.htm

Condensation will become a problem at some point. The 1-wire controller pc could be programmed to monitor humidity and turn on de-humidifier (with drain valve) in the summer. The automation capabilities are quite amazing.


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## 31337

Words cannot express the shear awesomeness and how much of an epic win this is! Sub'd!


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## fatjake440

i pee'd myself a little,
you sir are a hero.


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## sgdude

AWE. SOME.







.


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## Vlasov_581

this is gonna be awesome


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## mnishimura00

Would have been cooler if you thought of the idea before this guy :/

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95193


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## Cerberus

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mnishimura00* 
Would have been cooler if you thought of the idea before this guy :/

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95193

but this guy is making it bigger and better.


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## Lt.JD

So SUBBED!


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## BlackOmega

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mnishimura00* 
Would have been cooler if you thought of the idea before this guy :/

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95193

I saw one a long time ago, on some TV show. The guy kind of screwed up as he didn't bury the coil deep enough and it froze and burst.


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## Mootsfox

Watching.


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## ericld

Good gosh, a 150 foot trench at 12 feet deep. What kind of excavator are you using. Ground water is going to be a major factor too. I would have a couple of guys and a CTL ready to start backfilling as you go. Take plenty of pictures, I got to see this. What part of Maryland are you at, I am in Hampton Roads. Might make a little road trip.


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mnishimura00* 
Would have been cooler if you thought of the idea before this guy :/

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=95193

I'm grateful for the handful of people who have done projects like this over the last decade and am looking to provide plenty of data points for anyone that does something similar in the future. I have mad respect for Naja002's hand dug pit. I'm dreading digging the crawl space trench to the utility closet already.

Before I moved in 2008, I was going to submerge a radiator into a very large diameter 300 foot deep well that was only 150 feet away from my apartment. It would've provided 56 degree cooled water all year round. That could have also solved the cooling problem in that apartment by blowing air through heater cores. Depending on how this works out, that might be worth revisiting for kicks. The workshop there always needs heating or cooling.


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## Naja002

for you, my friend! _Subbed!_


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## Slider46

Watching this one


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## [Adz]

I have absolutely no idea what you're doing because it all the terminology went right over my head, but it seems like you're burying a computer. Awesome


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ericld* 
Good gosh, a 150 foot trench at 12 feet deep. What kind of excavator are you using. Ground water is going to be a major factor too. I would have a couple of guys and a CTL ready to start backfilling as you go. Take plenty of pictures, I got to see this. What part of Maryland are you at, I am in Hampton Roads. Might make a little road trip.

I'm aiming more for a 15 foot trench with one long piece of piping in 50% overlapped coils, with two layers. Now that the piping's arrived I can figure out how many feet of its used per trench foot. 3/4" HDPE in 3 foot coil loops with 50% overlap uses 8 feet of tubing per foot. Since this Caterpillar 325 excavator has a wider bucket than that I'll have more like a dozen feet per linear foot of trench. Somewhere around a true 15 foot length trench could handle my coils in one layer, I'll look into this. The biggest problem will be getting the coils into the trench in an orderly fashion. Manipulating them with long poles is going to be challenging.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *[Adz]* 
I have absolutely no idea what you're doing because it all the terminology went right over my head, but it seems like you're burying a computer. Awesome









Just the radiator, effectively making one humongous cooler theoretically capable of removing well over 1000w at a 1 degree Fahrenheit delta. We'll see about that though...

Today's thoughts:

Getting the 1-wire system figured out and operation is going to be my biggest bottleneck. If it isn't worth strapping temperature probes to the tubes buried underground this could go a lot faster. I'm starting to convince myself the loop temperature will be so close there that it doesn't matter or the ground will throw them off. Buried in-line sensors are out of the question.

I could place only one sensor in the trench to get the loops soil temperature and only measure the HDPE pipes temperature in-line at its ends. If that's good enough, the loop could be finished in days with the sensors coming online later.

The piping coil arrived today, and the pump is in Richmond ready for delivery tomorrow. I'm fully committed to this if there are any doubts out there.









The coil markings. I have two fittings to jam into the ends but need to pick up the double clamps. At this "low" pressure they shouldn't leak. Proper fusion bonded connectors for HDPE piping is quite a bit out of the budget.









The Caterpillar 325 xtreme pc project tool.









Here's the four foot wide bucket with a cameo appear of my house in the top right. That corner is where my computers are and where the HDPE pipes will probably come up. The crawl space is several feet high on the side of the hill, so working under there will be easy.


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## Pheatton

This is actually being used to cool large housing developments in some areas. Its very efficent.

Watched a Dirty Jobs on it. I love that show. He had this slurry stuff all over the camera man and Barsky, ROFL!!


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pheatton* 
This is actually being used to cool large housing developments in some areas. Its very efficent.

Watched a Dirty Jobs on it. I love that show. He had this slurry stuff all over the camera man and Barsky, ROFL!!

That's essentially what I'm copying on a smaller scale, sans heat pump. I'd love to get a geothermal hvac system for this house, even only for the first floor. It would make a huge difference in the heating costs.

Edit: Here's a Droid in the bucket for a size comparison. I saw your sig which gave me more of a reason to post this.


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## Wavefunction

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Syrillian* 
You Sir, have my rapt attention.

Well said.


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## Greensystemsgo

i read an article maybe a year or two ago where a dude did this, but ran the piping through his houses foundation, the cool concrete acted perfectly to wc his pc.









edit: oh and subbbbb'd


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## trueg50

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
That's essentially what I'm copying on a smaller scale, sans heat pump. I'd love to get a geothermal hvac system for this house, even only for the first floor. It would make a huge difference in the heating costs.

Edit: Here's a Droid in the bucket for a size comparison. I saw your sig which gave me more of a reason to post this.









At least the cooling costs should be less (if you use AC), with the computers main power drawing components (CPU and what ever else you are cooling) having their heat evacuated outside into the earth.


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## wcdolphin

Question: did you get that digger off newegg or harbor freight?

Looks absurd, cannot wait to see it!!! (in all the best of ways)


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## shurik06_83

i know u might of saide what kinda pipe u will lay in the ground but i dint see it my guess copper will work best but u will have to cover it very lightly as not to crush it once u have 1-2 ft of dirt on it let er rip

whats the dig going to cost u ?


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## iamtheonlystevo

I'll be keeping an eye on this. I've never seen this done 12' down!


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## anershay

Insane.

definitely subbed!


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## Brian_

you have my attention


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## StormX2

Quote:



Originally Posted by *[Adz]*


I have absolutely no idea what you're doing because it all the terminology went right over my head, but it seems like you're burying a computer. Awesome










What he said

I read up as as much as I could, and the idea, that this, is connecting, to a processor?

Just sounds so very OCN like to me =)

I hereby Vote that this is OCN's #1 Super Awesome and Quite amazing Project of the Century!!!!

Like many, Subbed


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## .:hybrid:.

So you gonna overclock that caterpillar to make it dig faster?


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## StormX2

Next step will be Installing Solar panels to Run the PC?

Or atleast enough to run the internal Fans =?


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## CryWin

Quote:



Originally Posted by *StormX2*


Next step will be Installing Solar panels to Run the PC?

Or atleast enough to run the internal Fans =?


This was what I was thinking...


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## ericld

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
I'm aiming more for a 15 foot trench with one long piece of piping in 50% overlapped coils, with two layers. Now that the piping's arrived I can figure out how many feet of its used per trench foot. 3/4" HDPE in 3 foot coil loops with 50% overlap uses 8 feet of tubing per foot. Since this Caterpillar 325 excavator has a wider bucket than that I'll have more like a dozen feet per linear foot of trench. Somewhere around a true 15 foot length trench could handle my coils in one layer, I'll look into this. The biggest problem will be getting the coils into the trench in an orderly fashion. Manipulating them with long poles is going to be challenging.

Just the radiator, effectively making one humongous cooler theoretically capable of removing well over 1000w at a 1 degree Fahrenheit delta. We'll see about that though...

Today's thoughts:

Getting the 1-wire system figured out and operation is going to be my biggest bottleneck. If it isn't worth strapping temperature probes to the tubes buried underground this could go a lot faster. I'm starting to convince myself the loop temperature will be so close there that it doesn't matter or the ground will throw them off. Buried in-line sensors are out of the question.

I could place only one sensor in the trench to get the loops soil temperature and only measure the HDPE pipes temperature in-line at its ends. If that's good enough, the loop could be finished in days with the sensors coming online later.

The piping coil arrived today, and the pump is in Richmond ready for delivery tomorrow. I'm fully committed to this if there are any doubts out there.









The coil markings. I have two fittings to jam into the ends but need to pick up the double clamps. At this "low" pressure they shouldn't leak. Proper fusion bonded connectors for HDPE piping is quite a bit out of the budget.









The Caterpillar 325 xtreme pc project tool.









Here's the four foot wide bucket with a cameo appear of my house in the top right. That corner is where my computers are and where the HDPE pipes will probably come up. The crawl space is several feet high on the side of the hill, so working under there will be easy.









That Cat will get the job done nicely. You might want to raise the thumb when you dig, it will get in the way. With that type of thumb, you will need two people. Use the bucket to hold the thumb and take the pressure off the brace, remove the pins and brace, it is heavy, then use the bucket to help lift the thumb up and lock it up using one of the pins. Watch your fingers. You also might want to start laying that pipe out the way you want it. It has a good memory but laying it out in the sun will help soften it up. Tip, stretch it out in the lengths you want tied to two stakes in the ground, and let it bake in the sun for a while. Then coil them into your shapes, zippy tie them and let them bake some more. Then get some more heavy zip ties, tie it all together, then you can sling the whole pipe assembly into the pit using the bucket. Use a nylon rope, tie a loop on the top of the sling, and hook it to a tooth on the bucket. It would be nice if you had an operator so he could lower you into the pit using the bucket. I would also get a few yards of washed mason sand to dress the pit, then to cover the pipes a few inches before you back fill, and take it slow back filling till you get a few feet of dirt on the pipe so you dont crush the pipe. I usually just take little quarter buckets at first, then once I get a third of the way filled, use the flat side of the bucket to compact the soil. Do another one third lift and compact again, and again till it is filled. Dont loose the extra dirt, pile it nicely on top as this pit will settle for about a year. You might want to measure and mark this on your plat, for your reference too. I have done similar things as this for ponds no less. It helps to regulate a constant water temp in them. Koi go mad crazy for it. Good luck and be safe. That 325 is unforgiving and it will win.

Oh, nice house. I like that style.


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## CyberDruid

Go Virginians! Cool that PC!


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## Pheatton

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
That's essentially what I'm copying on a smaller scale, sans heat pump. I'd love to get a geothermal hvac system for this house, even only for the first floor. It would make a huge difference in the heating costs.

Edit: Here's a Droid in the bucket for a size comparison. I saw your sig which gave me more of a reason to post this.










NICE! I figured the concept was the same. Its a great idea.


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## 88EVGAFTW

I have to ask....all that tubing only for a CPU loop? I would throw everything into that loop that I could possibly put a block on


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *trueg50* 
At least the cooling costs should be less (if you use AC), with the computers main power drawing components (CPU and what ever else you are cooling) having their heat evacuated outside into the earth.

Wouldn't it be a draw with the loss of winter heating though, which is needed even more. If the cooling capacity is superb with plenty to spare, I'll look into attaching my two pa120.3s and blowing air through them. They're conveniently the highest flowing PC radiators.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
i know u might of saide what kinda pipe u will lay in the ground but i dint see it my guess copper will work best but u will have to cover it very lightly as not to crush it once u have 1-2 ft of dirt on it let er rip

whats the dig going to cost u ?

3/4" high density polyethylene geothermal pipe with a .86 ID and SDR 11 sized wall. Its over ten times cheaper than similar sized copper.

I have access to the excavator from work and the operator is kindly going to help me out. He's actually been encouraging me to plan this instead of using a bunch of radiators with slow fans to get a quiet build with loads of cooling power.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *.:hybrid:.* 
So you gonna overclock that caterpillar to make it dig faster?

Does factory turbocharged count?

Quote:


Originally Posted by *StormX2* 
Next step will be Installing Solar panels to Run the PC?

Or atleast enough to run the internal Fans =?

How about fan-less. The only noise coming from the motherboard electronics and the single 3.5" storage drive.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *88EVGAFTW* 
I have to ask....all that tubing only for a CPU loop? I would throw everything into that loop that I could possibly put a block on









Cpu, motherboard, and gpu(s). I have a bunch of blocks for my low power pc that I'd like to silence, but the extra restriction worries me. In the end it will probably be best to split the loops and have the geothermal one cool submerged head exchangers from the pcs. Figuring out the most economical way to do that has held me up before so I'm avoiding that for now.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ericld* 
That Cat will get the job done nicely. You might want to raise the thumb when you dig, it will get in the way. With that type of thumb, you will need two people. Use the bucket to hold the thumb and take the pressure off the brace, remove the pins and brace, it is heavy, then use the bucket to help lift the thumb up and lock it up using one of the pins. Watch your fingers. You also might want to start laying that pipe out the way you want it. It has a good memory but laying it out in the sun will help soften it up. Tip, stretch it out in the lengths you want tied to two stakes in the ground, and let it bake in the sun for a while. Then coil them into your shapes, zippy tie them and let them bake some more. Then get some more heavy zip ties, tie it all together, then you can sling the whole pipe assembly into the pit using the bucket. Use a nylon rope, tie a loop on the top of the sling, and hook it to a tooth on the bucket. It would be nice if you had an operator so he could lower you into the pit using the bucket. I would also get a few yards of washed mason sand to dress the pit, then to cover the pipes a few inches before you back fill, and take it slow back filling till you get a few feet of dirt on the pipe so you dont crush the pipe. I usually just take little quarter buckets at first, then once I get a third of the way filled, use the flat side of the bucket to compact the soil. Do another one third lift and compact again, and again till it is filled. Dont loose the extra dirt, pile it nicely on top as this pit will settle for about a year. You might want to measure and mark this on your plat, for your reference too. I have done similar things as this for ponds no less. It helps to regulate a constant water temp in them. Koi go mad crazy for it. Good luck and be safe. That 325 is unforgiving and it will win.

Oh, nice house. I like that style.

The operator/owner is going to handle the job so I'm in good hands. He told me to warm and straighten the piping like you mentioned but we both hadn't considered zip tying coils together ahead of time. That is such a great suggestion that will help so much. THANK YOU. I was getting concerned about how to keep the temperature probe series wiring intact without going into the trench. A trench cave in on some contractor nearby and he was cut in half by the attempt to dig him out before he suffocated.

Coincidentally with this excavator, the operator has previously dug ponds for raising Koi. Clean, warmed "waste" water from phase change condensers were piped into those ponds to extend the fishes growing "season".

I previously forgot to mention that I'm located at the northern radius of the daily presses delivery area.


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## Aick

most deff subb'd


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## TheCh3F

Excited to see this!


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## Slink

This is phenomenal, and I await news with baited breath.

Romir, it might be in your best interest to temporarily reinforce the trench walls once it is dug, to prevent collapse hazard. Sorry, I don't know the construction term, but I believe you can wrap the walls in soil netting and stake some lumber (or pipes, or ropes) to the trench floor every foot or so along the trench walls to support the netting in case of ground shift/settling (each lumber/pipe/rope running vertically). Each piece of lumber can be tied with 1/4" nylon rope to stakes, about as far away from the trench as the trench is deep, or as close to that as you can manage without complicating things.

I hope that didn't make me sound silly, and I hope more that it made lots of sense. I'm psyched to hear more about this project. As previously mentioned by others, this project of yours could have multiple applications, provided you don't overload the thermal discharge capacity of the geothermal loop system.

I've considered cooling entire PC labs this way, and using it for air temperature regulation as well (as it is usually employed, when used at all). Unfortunately, I am not as knowledgeable in the way of calculating so many physics aspects. Kudos.


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## jackeyjoe

subbed, i have access to similar machinery so maybe it'd be a good investment instead of an internal rad


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## Rebel4055

This has raised more than my attention. Sub'd


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## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Rebel4055* 
This has raised more than my attention. Sub'd









Hahahahah what's that supposed to mean?!?


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## RonindeBeatrice

With all that head on that Iwaki and tens of gallons in the loop you'd better make damn sure to quadruple check all the fittings in and around your PC. Don't forget a panic valve directly behind!

Edit: Goddamn I love these projects.


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *RonindeBeatrice* 
With all that head on that Iwaki and tens of gallons in the loop you'd better make damn sure to quadruple check all the fittings in and around your PC. Don't forget a panic valve directly behind!

Edit: Goddamn I love these projects.

I'm definitely going to work my way up to putting my final system in-line. I have four spare blocks to leak test with before risking the final hardware.

The loop should be about 11 gallons total, still enough to make a big mess. 9 are in the geothermal piping, 1 is in the remaining tubing, and around 1 will be in the reservoir plus the filter.

The two pipes coming into the computer room will be fitted with Ts so a bleed valve can be installed between them. I could lower the flow to the PC(s) this way if wanted or by shutting off the PC valves, I could keep the loop going through the bleed valve path. Later on I could put a manifold or reservoir for heat exchangers in the PC tubing path instead.


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## Jolly-Swagman

Massively Awesome Geo setup, looking forward to seeing more on this!


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## Pheatton

I was wondering what kind of line pressure are you expecting?


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## oliverw92

Wow this sounds amazing! Subbed fo sho


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## p1tbull

amazing


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## nseaton1

This has got to be the coolest cooling experiment I have ever heard about. I can't WAIT to see some final numbers on this.

Awesome work.


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## ira-k

I want one..







..Bet it will work well! Watching.


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## Thedark1337

Wow







You sir are epic


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## 21276

Umm...subbed!


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## [email protected]'D

subbed, and is this an OCN exclusive?


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## legoman786

I am jumping in on this.

Sub'd


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Pheatton* 
I was wondering what kind of line pressure are you expecting?

Around 8 PSI after all the line losses, without the PC hooked in.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *[email protected]'D* 
subbed, and is this an OCN exclusive?

I'm posting at XS too because that's where I picked out my first non-Koolance WC components in 2004. The activity is definitely here though!










All the main components are now on hand. Except for some Norprene, Lowe's carries the rest of the items needed for the project. They're going to start repeatedly seeing me in the plumbing department.

In other news, I've decided to move the geothermal trenches location as far uphill as possible. It seems like the drier, naturally drained soil is safer bet to maintain a constant temperature year round. I'll still look into installing a ground temperature sensor deep in the bottom of the hill for comparison purposes. Another loop could be installed there in the future if the temperature results turn out to be more consistent.


Ground temperature sensors installation how-to










The revised overview:









The tentative schedule and to-do list is:

*Friday*: Uncoil piping outside to take advantage of the mostly sunny weekend. Visit Lowe's to buy up all their 1" PE tube insulation and all the items needed to hook up the utility room components. The computer area's Ts, valves, and adapters could be started on too. I haven't fully decided on the crawl space piping yet so I'll finish the inside areas first.
*Saturday*: Assemble the reservoir. Finalize mounting plans for the utility room components. A ventilated pump box for vibration and noise dampening purposes will be needed for example.
*Sunday*: Hook up the pump, res, and the filter upstairs to simulate the trench depth. Connect them to the ends of the geothermal pipe to check the flow and to ensure the fittings don't leak. After running it during the day to check for leaks, the pipe will have to be drained down the hill to prevent it from freezing overnight. Possibly cap off the piping to minimize organic growth?
*Next week*: Do measurements in the crawl space and to the planned trench. Start forming coils and zip tying the piping to its final form. Insulate the piping that will go to and from the trench with the black PE tubes. Start doing whatever it is I'll do with the blue sheets of foam (cut up strip layers? wrap around?). A rented trencher from Home Depot will probably be needed at work next week. If so, quickly borrow it to dig a trench from my house to where the pit will be. Start to bury that insulated piping with the blue foam surrounding it in some fashion. Receive and wire some temperature sensors to the coiled tubing with burial cat5e. Also bury it in the thin trenched line. Decide on, purchase, and insulate the crawl space piping. Possibly shallowly bury said piping with blue foam sheeting. Secure the pieces coming out of the ground to the house. Drill the four holes into the floor, connect the pipes, insulate and properly seal the holes. Hook up the geothermal piping to test the fully assembled loop. Install OWFS on a linux server and troubleshoot/finalize the 1-wire network. Phew!
*Unknown*: Wait for the ground to be reasonably dry and get the geothermal trench dug, lower the assembled coils in, and carefully back fill.
*August*: Learn how well it actually cools in the hot humid summer heat. Possibly declare victory.


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## Liighthead

wow...... amazing really X)


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## Ricklez420

don't get mad, but that seems like it's just way over the top, and wouldn't be the best way to cool a PC. don't get me wrong, it may prove to have low temperatures, which is what we are all looking for. but i would just settle for regular liquid cooling, or mineral oil cooling. plus do you really wanna dig 12 feet deep even with an excavator?


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## 1156

Quote:


Originally Posted by *syrillian* 
you sir, have my rapt attention.

+1


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## PickledStiff

Wow, this is full of win.

subbed


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## Shane1244

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ricklez420* 
plus do you really wanna dig 12 feet deep even with an excavator?

Uhm... Who Wouldn't...?


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Ricklez420* 
don't get mad, but that seems like it's just way over the top, and wouldn't be the best way to cool a PC. don't get me wrong, it may prove to have low temperatures, which is what we are all looking for. but i would just settle for regular liquid cooling, or mineral oil cooling. plus do you really wanna dig 12 feet deep even with an excavator?

My system can dump a crazy 750w or so of heat into my loop so instead of adding more radiators to quiet my fans I'm pursuing this project. Both are overkill, but for me trying to push the limit has been the most enjoyable part of this hobby for me right now.

I'm not digging the trench, the machine's owner/operator is. He's actually been pushing me to do this and my plannings been the hold up for two years! The dig is actually the most straight forward part of the project and can be done in thirty minutes. A backhoe could go about that far but would take 3-5 longer. I'm going to collect temperature logs to help others decide if this type of project would be worth it for them, even factoring in a rented backhoe.

Since the equipments on site and the 300 feet of piping cost $72, why do this and make one hellacious radiator?


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## G|F.E.A.D|Killa

This reminds me of a way to make an efficient and quite house AC setup. the ground stays at about 60f year round at that depth i believe. i will be keeping an eye on this.


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## legoman786

Quote:


Originally Posted by *G|F.E.A.D|Killa* 
This reminds me of a way to make an efficient and *quiet* house AC setup. the ground stays at about 60f year round at that depth i believe. i will be keeping an eye on this.

Fixed







Don't worry guys, we've made a friendship of trolling each other


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## Rick Arter

Great stuff so far I think the bar has been raised on great ideas in PC cooling methods. I am keeping an eye on this for future ideas and testing I might do based on your project.


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## Sangko

subscribed







good luck


----------



## PickledStiff

I will attempt to top this project by harvesting comet ice to cool my CPU. There are a few logistics issues I need to resolve, but look for a build log in the near future.


----------



## StormX2

How about cooling your PC with the Cold Vacuum of Space!


----------



## SgtHop

I believe this has been discussed before, the space deal. You need substance to transfer the heat, such as air, which space does not contain. Therefore space computer wouldn't really work, lol.


----------



## nolonger

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SgtHop* 
I believe this has been discussed before, the space deal. You need substance to transfer the heat, such as air, which space does not contain. Therefore space computer wouldn't really work, lol.

Wrong. In outer space it'd work, not in a regular vacuum, though.


----------



## Pheatton

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nolonger* 
Wrong. In outer space it'd work, not in a regular vacuum, though.

Correct. Outer space would work but only in the shadow of something. Remember there is no atmosphere to keep in heat and none to keep the suns rays from heating it up either.


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## shnur

Whoa! This is why I believe I choose OCN as the forum on which I want to read, see and comment on stuff!

Good luck to you! It'll also bring up the resell value of the house


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## ericld

You are lucky. It would cost darn near a $1000 to rent and get that machine onsite, plus another $100 an hour for the operator. What does he just park that thing around there somewhere.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ericld* 
You are lucky. It would cost darn near a $1000 to rent and get that machine onsite, plus another $100 an hour for the operator. What does he just park that thing around there somewhere.

I live on the upstream corner piece of property of my work place. Not shown in the pictures were all the neighboring industrial buildings of a bygone era. All of them have pipes going every which way, making digging around here risky. Until five years ago there were (dying) trees where we're going to dig so it _should_ be safe.

At work we're actually renting a landscaping excavator for the longer reach to drag objects out of range of this Cat. The VMRC permit for the site work finally arrived so it'll be trucked in from Richmond next week. The owner hasn't had any demand for it recently so the monthly rate is quite cheap.

Today's update:

The geothermal piping was easily uncoiled and straightened out at lunch time this afternoon. The (SDR11) wall was thick enough that kinking it by hand seemed extremely unlikely.

Half of the piping loosely pulled to where I took the picture. When I let go it sprung that far away from me.









A short while later. The bend at the very end will be handy for exiting the ground. The rest was straightened out a bit more.









The corner of the house where the rest of tubing vanished around. This is the general location of where the geothermal trench will go.









Tomorrow morning we're renting a ditch witch to replace a shorted out power cable under a gravel road at work. There should be enough time left to dig my return trench too. It'll fill in some after next weeks forecasted rain, but re-clearing it with a trench shovel will go quickly. I'm still debating how much to spend on the pipe insulation. At least the run to the pit is shorter now. There's more cooling coil length, less line temperature loss or gain, and less insulation outlays.

I should start zip tying the coils together this weekend once the return lines lengths are finalized.

The 1-wire monitoring components have been selected and ordered. I hope they're all in stock. This data logging is going to cost 3/4th as much as the loop! The ground water moisture sensor, control board for it, and the indoor humidity sensor weren't cheap.

The planned monitored items, and currently purchases sensors are:

Water in to house temperature - inline (water in from ground)
Indoor humidity and ambient temperature - (dew point monitoring eventually)
PC area water out temperature - inline (PC heat dump monitoring)
Utility closet water out temperature - inline (post pump, water out to ground)
Ground soiltemperature by coils - in dirt (monitor the soil temperature to compare to the water ins)
Ground moisture sensor by coils - in dirt (learn how much moisture is there and how it affects the temperature)
Outside temperature - air (outside ambient to chart against the buried sensor)

I'm not sure if its worth placing temperature sensors at the ends of the buried pipe's insulated area. It would measure the insulated pipes effectiveness but the results also wouldn't be in-line temperatures like the indoor water sensors. Only one chance to do it... there's still time to order more of the sensors from Maryland.

Another temperature sensor buried twelve feet down would be nice as a control against my heated grounds one. Sending one down away from the coils in a pvc pipe my future plan. Extending the trench to install another one would be simpler though. I'd also like to monitor the temperature at the bottom of the hill and possibly install a moisture sensor there too.


----------



## JeevusCompact

This is fantastic







. I cannot wait to see finished results!


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## pingu666

awsome, goodluck


----------



## ericld

Sometime if I have to make a bend with the pipe that it doesnt want to do, I will use a heat gun and gently persuade it. Dont melt it, just soften it.

Yea, we havent been getting much use out of our 320 lately either.


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
I'm not sure if its worth placing temperature sensors at the ends of the buried pipe's insulated area. It would measure the insulated pipes effectiveness but the results also wouldn't be in-line temperatures like the indoor water sensors. Only one chance to do it... there's still time to order more of the sensors from Maryland.

Another temperature sensor buried twelve feet down would be nice as a control against my heated grounds one. Sending one down away from the coils in a pvc pipe my future plan. Extending the trench to install another one would be simpler though. I'd also like to monitor the temperature at the bottom of the hill and possibly install a moisture sensor there too.

Romir, I think you've planned your sensor placement thoroughly enough--I wouldn't go too crazy with in-line sensors, etc. I think that the 12' depth ground temp sensor is a must. Once it is in place, you could simply run the system cold, and compare the into-house temps with ambient ground temps for the first few minutes.

Also, be sure to account for remote sensor wire length, as it may affect the sensor readings, depending on sensor implementation. ICYDK, you can splice a larger gauge wire to reduce elec. resistance. I would also use shielded wire for long above-ground runs.

*Question:* Do your sensors interface with a computer in any way? USB or serial, perhaps? My purpose for this would be data logging & graphing.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ericld* 
Sometime if I have to make a bend with the pipe that it doesnt want to do, I will use a heat gun and gently persuade it. Dont melt it, just soften it.

Yea, we havent been getting much use out of our 320 lately either.

Excellent point. Colder temperatures make plastics much stiffer.


----------



## oliverw92

If you used digital temp sensors, you wouldn't need to worry about elec resistance issues would you?


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *oliverw92* 
If you used digital temp sensors, you wouldn't need to worry about elec resistance issues, would you?

As I said, depending on the implementation. "Digital temp sensors" doesn't imply that the connection to the business end isn't analog. After all, temperatures are analog data that must be represented digitally. Example: simple temperature sensor on the end of a wire, leading to a digital module/display. See? Still analog.

If you can actually bury a powered digital temperature sensing module and run data cable instead of analog wire, then more power to you, but it's a more expensive application, and prone to sooner eventual failure since the business end is more complex. Not only is the aforementioned true, but the module would generate heat, which is extremely undesirable in temperature sensors. (Granted, the end module could have an analog wire attached to a sensor to avoid self-heat pickup). Use the "KISS" principle.

PS: Pictures aren't loading for me.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
I think that the 12' depth ground temp sensor is a must. Once it is in place, you could simply run the system cold, and compare the into-house temps with ambient ground temps for the first few minutes.

Also, be sure to account for remote sensor wire length, as it may affect the sensor readings, depending on sensor implementation. ICYDK, you can splice a larger gauge wire to reduce elec. resistance. I would also use shielded wire for long above-ground runs.

*Question:* Do your sensors interface with a computer in any way? USB or serial, perhaps? My purpose for this would be data logging & graphing.

That's the plan, let the cold offline loop warm up and watch the recording sensor changes. They'll be logging and ftp'ing updated charts 24/7.

I learned how to cheaply test the loops capacity. A wired up 1500 watt heater element is under $20 for the few pieces at Lowe's.

The 1-wire network system is digital and will off direct burial cat5e. I didn't know about this system before so I'm really looking forward to setting it up and learning the automation capabilities. I took the easy route and bought an assembled hub from hobby-boards. It _should_ make an easy star topology that will give me extra channels for simple expansion any which way. On your subject, itt has a power injector for longer runs where parasitic power isn't enough. Some of the sensor boards, like the moisture one, can optionally use it too.

I bought a usb interface to hook the hub up to a Mini 9 with Ubuntu server. The software will be OWFS, or maybe Digitemp if OWFS is too hard to fully set up at first. Later on I'd like to get a $50 Linksys NSLU2 appliance and sell the netbook.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
PS: Pictures aren't loading for me.

Oops, I only gave the domain 2.5gb. Fixed, thanks.


----------



## Romir

Today's update:

After a bit of debate and re-reading the VT geothermal page, the coil's trench is once again planned for the bottom of the hill. It won't be as deep because it'll be constantly sinking and caving in. We're going to have to dig and lower the coiled piping down within minutes of digging each 5-6 foot section of the trench.

Having a moisture and temperature sensor with the coils will objectively reveal how this project works out. I'll plan on burying two temperature sensors near the top of the hill for comparison purposes. One sensor should be at the same depth, and the other can go "12 feet under". Something should be... If that location has more suitable temperatures during this summer and the next winter, look for a second coil loop project one year from now.

There was time to borrow the rented ditch witch for the return lines. Here it is trenching down the hill, going up is safer.









This is dry sandy so far. There wasn't much debris near the top of the hill.









Half way down a tree stump was encountered. Trying to go around it to the left was futile.









The finished trench. It looks short from this perspective. The soil was more moist every inch of the way. The pit will connect to the end here and be dug towards the right.









The side view.









The neighbor's golden retriever performed a surprise inspection of the operation.









The trenches depth is about 2.5 feet with a 4 inch width. I'll have to clean it out once it rains next week. The thicker pipe insulation from Grainger won't arrive in time.

Time to take some measurements and then head to Lowe's again.


----------



## Rebel4055

Too much secks in too little space!!! Bigger pixs!!


----------



## Ysbl

Epik.

You sir, have impressed me to the point where I have lost my ability to spell.


----------



## Slink

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


That's the plan, let the cold offline loop warm up and watch the recording sensor changes. They'll be logging and ftp'ing updated charts 24/7.

I learned how to cheaply test the loops capacity. A wired up 1500 watt heater element is under $20 for the few pieces at Lowe's.

The 1-wire network system is digital and will off direct burial cat5e. I didn't know about this system before so I'm really looking forward to setting it up and learning the automation capabilities. I took the easy route and bought an assembled hub from hobby-boards. It _should _ make an easy star topology that will give me extra channels for simple expansion any which way. On your subject, itt has a power injector for longer runs where parasitic power isn't enough. Some of the sensor boards, like the moisture one, can optionally use it too.

I bought a usb interface to hook the hub up to a Mini 9 with Ubuntu server. The software will be OWFS, or maybe Digitemp if OWFS is too hard to fully set up at first. Later on I'd like to get a $50 Linksys NSLU2 appliance and sell the netbook.

Oops, I only gave the domain 2.5gb. Fixed, thanks.


Awesome, Romir. Wow, great job on the research and resource location. You are going to have a very formidable system!


----------



## ira-k

I can smell that fresh turned dirt...







...And it smells like pure chip pawnage from here!


----------



## Slink

Romir, I was at the sink washing dishes, thinking about wasted heat and heat reclamation (as per waste water heat) and I realized that _if_ your system is really absorbing a lot of heat before the cooling section, and you want to use this heat to warm your living space while it's colder outside, you could run the return line through a radiator or two before discharging the heat underground. Just a thought. Easy enough with quick disconnects, ya?

I figure, if you could use some of the heat energy, why waste it?
Cheers.


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## dmitt25

This is really incredible. I've just now found it and read every page. I sure hope you get the results you're looking for. It certainly appears like you've done your homework! I'm subscribed!


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## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
Romir, I was at the sink washing dishes, thinking about wasted heat and heat reclamation (as per waste water heat) and I realized that _if_ your system is really absorbing a lot of heat before the cooling section, and you want to use this heat to warm your living space while it's colder outside, you could run the return line through a radiator or two before discharging the heat underground. Just a thought. Easy enough with quick disconnects, ya?

I figure, if you could use some of the heat energy, why waste it?
Cheers.

Yep, I'm going to use hose and barbs in the utility closet so things can easily be swapped in or out. That also avoids connecting the pump directly to pvc piping and not having to worry about the vibrations effect on the connections.

My two old PA120.3s are waiting in sideline to be used for some potential (minor?) climate control. These conveniently have the lowest pressure drop of any PC radiator. That's vital for the potential 3ish GPM flow rate of entire finished loop.










The best way to exploit that 65ish degree _air_ would be to blow it into a heat pump's air intake. DIY water ground source heat pump projects have been done before. One mega-thread on that is: http://ecorenovator.org/forum/projec...manifesto.html.

If this projects wet loop works out pretty well, and the readings from temperature probe buried at the top of my hill seem suitable, I'd like to attempt that kind of project. Once insulated, my garage could be cooled by a modified 6,000 BTU window ac unit, a more modest circulating pump, and another cheap 300' coil of buried piping. HVAC costs have prevented me from doing a garage gym. It'd be nice to move the power rack out of the dining room!

Quote:


Originally Posted by *dmitt25* 
This is really incredible. I've just now found it and read every page. I sure hope you get the results you're looking for. It certainly appears like you've done your homework! I'm subscribed!

Thanks for the kind words. Sourcing boxes of thicker pipe insulation has been a problem and will eat up more of my budget than planned. Unfortunately, it might take a couple weeks to get a couple boxes of r-value 4 pipe insulation from the cheapest source. I don't want to use the super cheap 3/8th walled ones with a 1.9 r-value and later regret it. If I wasn't going down a hill 45 feet each way, and putting the pump in another room, the outside insulation would be so much simpler. A short exterior run could be super insulated with high r-value spray foam in pvc conduit without breaking the bank.

Edit: I might do that for the COLD water pipe that goes in to my PC area. The insulation of the water pipe from the loops is the most important. If there's enough over-capcity in the trench, then the extra heat gained or coldness lost while going back down will be absorbed and negated.


----------



## shnur

Reading, watching, learning, looking forward progress!


----------



## Slink

@Romir: Cool. I guess you needn't concern yourself with the freezing temperature of water. Oh, what coolant are you using, anyway? I may have missed it... *Searches back through posts*

Also, I understand you aren't using much PVC in your system, but as long as you are, I hope you're aware that PVC will shatter with sharp/hard impact, and can also rupture given enough internal pressure (not that pressure would be of much concern in this case, but hey, a pressure kill-switch or a check valve with emergency overflow reservoir might be a good idea). Anyway, I doubt you will ever run into either problem, but at least a check valve would be nice, and a PSU sensor (can't remember if you were planning one of those).

I hope you intend to implement a kill-switch for the pump, in case of a leaks/coolant loss! Perhaps a float switch in the PVC reservoir would do nicely?


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## Jhony02

you sir are insane, and epic


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## JohnDProb

-face palm-
this is what i get for letting my parents move me to the city, it means i cant do crazy stuff like that, i mean we would have been living in an area with my family, there farmers they could have done this for me with a tractor

and like my friend jhon (yes we sort of know each other no more jhon john jokes plz) said *EPIC*_sauce_
whats the end price on this? show us a graph of price to degree compared to other common custom loops


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## loop0001

completely freakish project. really curious about the result. best of luck!


----------



## Slink

Quote:



Originally Posted by *johndprob*


whats the end price on this? Show us a graph of price to degree compared to other common custom loops


lawl.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *johndprob*


-face palm-


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
@Romir: Cool. I guess you needn't concern yourself with the freezing temperature of water. Oh, what coolant are you using, anyway? I may have missed it... *Searches back through posts*

Also, I understand you aren't using much PVC in your system, but as long as you are, I hope you're aware that PVC will shatter with sharp/hard impact, and can also rupture given enough internal pressure (not that pressure would be of much concern in this case, but hey, a pressure kill-switch or a check valve with emergency overflow reservoir might be a good idea). Anyway, I doubt you will ever run into either problem, but at least a check valve would be nice, and a PSU sensor (can't remember if you were planning one of those).

I hope you intend to implement a kill-switch for the pump, in case of a leaks/coolant loss! Perhaps a float switch in the PVC reservoir would do nicely?

Since this winter is about over, I'm only going to use water for now. Later on there's a good chance I'll split the loop and use a brazed heat exchanger to cool the PC(s) loop(s). Then I can get more aggressive with the geothermal loops coolant for the next winter because I don't feel up to trenching the below the house piping. They're all down the loop from the PCs so in theory the pit will fully absorb the temperature difference anyway. There will still be R4 insulation in the crawl space, which is better than my water pipes actually. I'm still leaning towards PVC because the Pex fittings are so expensive.

Flow sensor monitoring has been abandoned because of the $100+ cost. I haven't given any thought pressure problems because the pumps max system pressure of 24 seemed low enough. I do admit to being ignorant if that number is directly comparable to the pipes rated pressure, or if other factors in the loop increase that somehow. At work, the backrooms air hoses are connected by PVC manifolds, universally considered an extremely bad idea, for nearly twenty years now without a single problem. Well aside from the moisture in the lines.

A float switch is planned but I haven't picked one out. It looks like the cleanest way to install it will requiring cutting the cable and feeding it through a drilled hole in the res's screw on top (upside down drain valve). If the project works out okay I'm going to buy a spare pump while the eBay seller still has some left for under $100.

Thursday is the new tentative date for testing the pump, res, and COILED piping above ground. I'll get a couple fittings to have a 1/2 ID section for the King flow meter and my extra water blocks.

I'm planning on doing the coils Wednesday, it should be dry enough then. Straightening it out might not have been the best idea because I'll have to turn over the whole excess length once for every coil.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *JohnDProb* 
whats the end price on this? show us a graph of price to degree compared to other common custom loops

I budgeted $500 originally to go overkill with 800 rpm fans on 8 FPI SR1 radiators and then committed to this project instead. I'll probably go past that by a little bit, depending on what insulation I settle on. The cost overun is mostly due to having upwards of 100 feet of piping to go down and up the hill plus however much I use in the crawl space to connect my PC area with the utility closet.

IF I came straight up with BOTH loop pipes into my computer area and had the loop next to my house the lowest material costs would've been:

$99 - 3/4" X 300' PE Coil 160 PSI SDR11 PIPE w/ S/H
$4 - 2 3/4 steel coupler barbs for connecting the piping
$10 - 3/4 to 1.25 inch worm clamps
$102 - Iwaki MD 30RZT-115NL Pump w/ S/H
$6 - Plastic barbs and 3/4 coupler for the pump
$14 - 3" PVC reservoir's cost
$7 - PVC primer and cement
$5 - Steel band and screws to mount it
$3 - Plastic barbs for it
$10 - Utility hose to connect the pieces
$10 - 24 feet of 3/8th wall pipe insulation for the short run outside
$10 - Adapting to 1/2 computer loop

A respectable $279 total. Renting a back hoe to do this would be the real expense.

I'm getting killed on my insulation, numerous brass fittings for the extra in-line components, placing the pump in another room, and having half a dozen planned valves.


----------



## Lord Xeb

Subbed!


----------



## Romir

Today's quick update:

There's not much to report today. I finished the reservoir and connected all the utility closet component's fittings with some sealant. They're all ready to be connected.

That sealant is marvelous for liquids and gasses.









Bottom fitting of the assembled reservoir. The piece of piping was JB welded there to create a safe spot to put silver in the bottom of the res.









Look carefully and you can see the outline of that thin pipe.









The finished reservoir. It'll be mounted by steel bands to exposes studs in the utility closet.









Couplers and barbs mounted and sealed to the pump.









Smaller 1/2 barbs connected to a bushing on the King 5 gpm flow meter. I plan to mostly use this for testing purposes near the pc and probably won't keep it in the loop all the time.









Its going to rain tomorrow so I don't have anything planned. Coiling and zip tying the piping together is the next big step now that the trench size has been finalized. Keeping it under 20 feet (the plan all along) will allow the excavator to remain in one spot and dig the entire run. We're still targeting 10-12 feet, even in the wet muddy soil. The coiled loop will be ready to drop down in under a minute from the final muck lifting pass.

On a side note, I feel like an idiot for mis-reading this diagram.








.

The WET soil lines are the left most in both groups. I thought they were the outside ones which didn't make much sense. So at 12 feet, wet soil has a temperature rise equivalent to light dry soil at 20+! If this is accurate for my location, the ground temperature won't go above 18 degrees celcius ever.

Winter ambient temperatures in the summer, near silently. That was the lofty goal from the start.

I'll believe it when I see it.

(please be true, please be true, please be true)


----------



## Slink

I have to say, the thermal properties of water should do quite nicely, as long as your lines don't freeze. Provided you don't have many problems with corrosion, you COULD stick with water for a long time. However, I'm curious as to how the brass will hold up to water...

I'm considering chemical properties that increase corrosion, and for water, the only I can think of is _acidity_. I'm also considering lowering the freezing point of water, and increasing its alkalinity (decreasing its acidity). I can think of a really cheap, simple, and eco-friendly means of doping the water so that it doesn't freeze, and also that it becomes more alkaline (and less acidic): *baking soda*. Someone agrees with me.

Granted, this greatly increases the electrical conductivity of the coolant, so any leaks in/near electronics are more hazardous. Also, this probably won't lower the freeze point as far as Halite/NaCl, but it'll do. (*That'll do, pig. That'll do.*) It should quickly/easily/completely dissolve in boiling water, and will only precipitate (become solid again) in a supersaturated solution (takes a LOT to supersaturate). However, you will notice deposits wherever the coolant is allowed to evaporate (i.e. top of PVC reservoir). Any deposits should be minimal, and fairly easy to knock off and dissolve back into the solution.

What do you think? It's cheap, it's effective, it's "green".


----------



## nolonger

I'm worried most about galvanic corrosion between brass and copper used in the water blocks.


----------



## oliverw92

nolonger you don't get galvanic corrosion between copper and brass, radiators are made out of brass.


----------



## nolonger

Then nevermind my previous post!


----------



## Arakasi

Have any trees in the yard that will be near this piping ?


----------



## Tabzilla

Slink said:


> I have to say, the thermal properties of water should do quite nicely, as long as your lines don't freeze. Provided you don't have many problems with corrosion, you COULD stick with water for a long time. However, I'm curious as to how the brass will hold up to water...
> QUOTE]
> 
> Hasn't Romir said that he plans to insulate the piping going to and from the underground loop? Not to mention that the flowing water will keep it from freezing as well (assuming it will be running 24/7).
> There is no problem with brass holding up to water...
> Romir doesn't need to do anything out of the ordinary for a normal watercooling loop when it comes to preventing corrosion.


----------



## Arakasi

Tree roots will gradually grow towards the pipes and even grow into the pipes to get to the water. This of course is speaking long term, and depending on how much water is flowing constantly and for how long.


----------



## StormX2

Then Cool the processor using tree Root System lol


----------



## Naja002

Quote:


Originally Posted by *oliverw92* 
nolonger you don't get galvanic corrosion between copper and brass...

....because brass is any alloy of copper and zinc....


----------



## Romir

I only have time for a quick update tonight:

Before it started raining I was able to get in a little practice at coiling the piping. Starting 1/3rd into the length is rough. Every loop requires turning over a 200 foot length of straightened pipe. Its very tempting to scrounge up a 4x8 sheet and two 2x4s to create a center channel to work in. Holding everything together and sizing the loops equally is awkward. This has become a waiting game so the inefficiency of this doesn't really matter. It's more engaging than my daily cardio at any rate.

I settled on a package of 24 6' Black Tubular Polyethylene Foam Pipe Insulation. If "This item normally ships in 5-8 days" holds true, then it will be the project's bottleneck. The 1/2" ID Norprene tubing shipped today, along with the impulse buysmall blazed plate heat exchanger with 1/2 barb fittings. At $45 shipped with the barbs it was too hard to pass up. Hobby boards is also processing my order now and I haven't heard from the vendor with the temperature sensors yet.

Above the ground loop testing is still on for this week. Wed & Thurs rain/sleet/snow be damned. The coiling and under the house piping can both be finished in a couple late afternoons. Insulating and protecting the holes into the house from insects will take a bit of thought.


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Insulating and protecting the holes into the house from insects will take a bit of thought.

Or just a bit of expanding foam & caulk.


----------



## Naja002

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Insulating and protecting the holes into the house from insects will take a bit of thought.

Foam and caulking should work for most insects. If you have any concern about rodents then metal screen or steel wool will normally stop them....

What's the plateHX for....?


----------



## Romir

Trees: There are only some wild shrubs nearby in the narrow "ditch" the surface water drains into. The soil is saturated most of the year so not much has been able to grow and thrive in it. Certainly nothing with root systems that extend down a dozen feet to the side.

Corrosion: Aside from the PC barbs and blocks I won't have any mixed metal connections. The HDPE piping couplers are galvanized steel but only only be in contact with clamped down tubing. The colder quick disconnects have stainless steel in them, but without salt the steel in the loop will be fine. The rest of the loop is rounded out by PVC, brass on brass fittings, plus rubber and norprene tubes.

Loop freezing potential: Still wait and see at this point. There will approximately be a dozen or so gallons of water. I can state with 100% certainty that this loop will be MUCH safer than my house's old shallow iron water lines and uninsulated pex.

Entry points: Something went wrong with the water pipe entry points in this house before I moved in. The piping probably wasn't secured and might have loosened the foam's seal.

The plat heat exchanger is potentially for separating the PC and geo loop sooner rather than later. The directly connected performance will be better so its still the plan for now. If I have plenty of excess capacity in the ground I'll try and use it to claim some for climate control purposes.

I also might test it with that 600 foot deep, 12 inch wide well I previously mention. I could do an open loop on one of off the wells T valve to the garden hose and have water in the upper 50s flowing through one side of it.


----------



## shurik06_83

galvanic corrosion will happen but

cars have aluminum heads and copper rads why arent all those cars stopt dead in thier tracks ?

well antifreeze has aditivs that mostly prevent galvanic corrosion if u chnage the fluid every yr

why are so many ppl hit with galvanic corrosion ?
1 they buy snake oil water cooling aditivs that containe ither harsh soaps
strong sulfurs or oxides to kill bacteria wich they doo but they will eat ur rad and block too

2 rads are made by soldering a buncha small pices together do do that they use flux and lots of flux , that flux is left inside long after its made and when u buy a new rad and hook it up to ur loop the flux disolves in the water and makes the water slightly acidic wich againe eats ur rads and blocks , so even if its new wash it out with plenty of water or chnage the water in ur loop a few times after puting in a new rad

so wash out ur new rads and use antifreeze it will kill bacteria and prevent galvanic corrosion some will say water works best for cooling maybe soo but 10%-40% of antifreeze in ur loop will kill all the swampy monsters
and keep ur loop from rusting away









and brass and copper will not react with eachother no matter what u doo


----------



## Romir

Daily update:

It was mostly overcast all day so the piping was extremely uncooperative in forming coils when I got home. Its going to rain and snow tomorrow, followed by a high of 41 on Thursday with 18mph winds. The coiling will have to wait until this weekend when the wind calms down and the sun will be out.

With nothing else to do, I shimmied around the crawl space to measure the runs length. At 35 feet or so each way, its a bit longer than expected. There won't be enough left over R4 pipe insulation, so I'll have to buy some 3/8th wall R1.9 stuff. I'll use it in the "vertical" run into the middle of the house. The better insulation should go on the "horizontal" run along the side of the house where there will be more wind. I never found strong enough siding to seal off this hill side crawl space. The heavy winds here knocked a tree onto the previous incarnation of this house. I might as well get on with placing cinder blocks and reap the energy savings.

Finishing the crawl space plumbing is now my top priority. I picked up three 1/2" compact valves and four 3/4" ones from harbor freight tonight. With those in hand and the measurements recorded, I'll be able figure out everything else I need to buy at Lowe's tomorrow.

The in-line temperature sensors will somewhat hold up 100%ing the in-house sections of the loop. They're going to be mounted in 1/4" copper tubes, then inserted into 1/4" compression fittings, which will screw into a T. Actually, that's a horribly expensive way to do it fitting wise. It makes securing the water temperature sensors on the inside of some insulated tubing much more tempting!

Finishing the house section of the loop this week and then doing the coils this weekend seems like a realistic plan. I'm really looking forward to testing the flow of dual ddc 3.2s pushing the complete loop (minus the future pits depth of course).


----------



## shurik06_83

THIS might be a bit off topic but what kinda insulation do u have beetween the floor joists ?
and have u considerd makeing a skirt for the house with some plywoood and some 2x4s will keep the wind from blowing right under the house and will limit energy loss

and ur stiff pipeing could be made very flexibel if u lightly hit it with a propane torch , i make pvc cond pipeing bend any wich way i want i just warm it up with a torch the flame just berly licks the pipe and i move the torch back and forth over a big area fast and the pipe will bend any way i want


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
Galvanic corrosion will happen but cars have aluminum heads and copper rads. Why aren't all those cars stopped dead in their tracks?

Well, antifreeze has additives that mostly prevent galvanic corrosion if you change the fluid every year.

Why are so many people hit by galvanic corrosion?

They buy "snake oil" water cooling additives that contain either harsh soaps, or strong sulfurs/oxides to kill bacteria (which they do, but they will eat your rad and block too!)

Rads are made by soldering a bunch of small pieces together. To do that, they use flux--lots and lots of flux. That flux is left inside long after it's made, and when you buy a new rad and hook it up to your loop, the flux dissolves in the water and makes the water slightly acidic, which again eats your rads and blocks, so even if it's new, wash it out with plenty of water or change the water in your loop a few times after putting in a new rad
So wash out your new rads and use antifreeze--it will kill bacteria and prevent galvanic corrosion. Some will say water works best for cooling. Maybe so, but 10%-40% of antifreeze in your loop will kill all the swampy monsters and keep your loop from rusting away!









...and brass and copper will not react with each other no matter what you do.

*FIXED.* That may have been hard as hell to understand, but once comprehension is accomplished, there's a lot of good info in there!  haha









Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
"Daily update:
It was mostly overcast all day so the piping was extremely uncooperative in forming coils when I got home. Its going to..."

"With nothing else to do, I shimmied around the crawl space to measure the..."

"Finishing the crawl space plumbing is now my top priority. I picked up three 1/2" compact..."

"The in-line temperature sensors..."

"Finishing the house section of the loop this week and then doing the coils this weekend seems like a realistic plan. I'm really looking forward to testing the flow of dual ddc 3.2s pushing the complete loop (minus the future pits depth of course)."

Good to hear the progress update!







Rock on, man. I'm psyched. Are you psyched? I'm psyched.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
THIS might be a bit off topic but what kinda insulation do u have beetween the floor joists ?
and have u considerd makeing a skirt for the house with some plywoood and some 2x4s will keep the wind from blowing right under the house and will limit energy loss

and ur stiff pipeing could be made very flexibel if u lightly hit it with a propane torch , i make pvc cond pipeing bend any wich way i want i just warm it up with a torch the flame just berly licks the pipe and i move the torch back and forth over a big area fast and the pipe will bend any way i want

Pink panther, I thought about putting the piping along side of it but the efficiency loss (after the pc loop section) shouldn't matter much. The ground will absorb all the extra heat or cooling in theory.

Woods an option sure. At least one section needs to be easily removable to gain access.

I used the (pictured) propane torch today to stretch the heaters water line over a new equal sized fitting today. Goodbye leak. The heaters water pipes hole insulation problem is there's none below the house and the foam in the utility closet came loose. That will be be easily taken care of when I go back down there to install my piping.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
Good to hear the progress update!







Rock on, man. I'm psyched. Are you psyched? I'm psyched.

*Waiting is the hardest part.
*

Today's haul with a two foot long Lowe's receipt:










Not pictured are the 100' of 3/4" pvc pipes (plenty of extra) and 48' of the 3/8th wall insulation.

Pretty much everything except lengths of 3/4", 5/8", and 1/2" tubing has been purchased now. I'm still looking for a pressure gauge with a maximum reading lower than 100 psi. I also need some of the materials for the pump's sound dampened, and actively cooled housing. A small float switch that doesn't cost as much as the pump would be nice too.

Tomorrow I'll glue together the inside the house fittings and mount some scrap osb board to the utility closet's wall. The reservoir and filter are ready to be mounted. I might need to put the pump on a shelf above the floor to avoid a 90 degree connection to the temperature probe -> ball valve -> exit line through the floor. Leaving enough spacing so the tubing can flex upward should be the simplest way to handle that.

This is why I don't want to work outside tomorrow, even under the house. Friday isn't looking so good either.










The $45 brazed heat exchanger with 1/2" barbs also arrived today. I can use it if I ever want to separate my pc loop from the geo one. Or it could be used to create a second cooled loop for other devices with only a slight reduction in the geo loops flow.



















I almost bought one of those $10 pumps at harbor freight last night. It could pump water through a radiator stuck outside the window to cool one side of this heat exchanger. I also had to resist buying garden house adapters to do that with an open loop with the cold well water. If you can circulate colder water through one side like that, you can easily lower your loops temperature without impacting the too flow much or contaminating your pc's loop. I'd really like to get a Dwyer digital manometer to test the pressure drop, but looking at the flow reduction on the King meter will do for now. All the 1-wire pieces have already made a mockery of my budget.

There's nothing new to report on the shipping status of the R4 insulation foam and the 1-wire components. I only really need the moisture and temperature sensor before digging the geothermal trench. Most of the pipe insulation could be installed on the shallow trench's pipe with the buried coils in the ground. The next week and weekend are supposed to be dry and warmer so I hope they arrive.


----------



## Rebel4055

More updatez!!!!









I love these HUGE projects!


----------



## dmitt25

Man... any watercooling project requiring (7) ball valves is just AWESOME!


----------



## dieanotherday

mom thinks you're an idiot for some reason...

but i support ya =D


----------



## xMEATWADx95x

This is epic!!!!!!!!


----------



## caraboose

You sure you have all your marbles? I've never seen anything this crazy!
This is very impressive so far!
Subbed


----------



## F1ForFrags

Eco-friendly overclocking FTW!!!!!


----------



## PeePs

Under taking building my own corn hole game (tailgating game with bean bags) was enough for me lol. Can't even imagine trying to do this. Good stuff!


----------



## Zzyzx

Looks awesome so far. Definitely looking forward to seeing the results.


----------



## Darkknight512

Quote:


Originally Posted by *F1ForFrags* 
Eco-friendly overclocking FTW!!!!!

Actually pumping heat into the planet like that is not the greatest idea, but the effect is so small I would say overclocking comes first!


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Darkknight512* 
Actually pumping heat into the planet like that is not the greatest idea, but the effect is so small I would say overclocking comes first!

Correctastic.


----------



## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Darkknight512* 
Actually pumping heat into the planet like that is not the greatest idea, but the effect is so small I would say overclocking comes first!

well it is more eco friendly then other foarms of cooling

the sun pumps bilions of wats of heat into the earth evry day his loop wont do any harm other then some worms geting cut up during diging

geo thermal cooling and heating is the most eco friendly way to go about it thier is no other way to cool or heat a house useing only 100w power to run the pump


----------



## Cappy71

Hey good luck with this man !! Pretty sick idea. I've heard of folks doing this to cool a house but not PC components.


----------



## Romir

Today's update:

It's the calm before the storm. I'm now well and truly ready to put together the entire loop. Leak testing is on for this weekend!

Unfortunately the geothermal trench will have to wait for the thicker insulation and moisture sensor to arrive. An inexpensive 15 psi hydraulic pressure meter has also been ordered. Everything's coming together now. I'll call and check on the insulation's status tomorrow.


----------



## Lord Xeb

My question:
Why?


----------



## LiquidForce

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lord Xeb* 
My question:
Why?

Philosophers question:
Why not?


----------



## legoman786

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lord Xeb* 
My question:
Why?

The answer:
Why not?


----------



## Mikezilla

So OP, do you have a wife?

If so, how did you convince her to do it?

If not, I see why no one has stopped you.









I LIKE IT!


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Lord Xeb* 
My question:
Why?

Because it costs less than my current pumps, radiators, fans, did and will knock about 5 degrees celsius off my summer temps *silently*.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mjg1675* 
So OP, do you have a wife?

If so, how did you convince her to do it?

If not, I see why no one has stopped you.









I LIKE IT!

Obviously not. I'm surprised it took so long for this question to pop up!

If I did, I think every dime of this would've gone to purchasing a mini-split hvac system instead. Brrrrrr, it's cold in here.


----------



## Mikezilla

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Obviously not. I'm surprised it took so long for this question to pop up!

If I did, I think every dime of this would've gone to purchasing a mini-split hvac system instead. Brrrrrr, it's cold in here.

The funniest part about this question, is that I've been thinking it since your first post.


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Mjg1675* 
The funniest part about this question, is that I've been thinking it since your first post.

Hahahaha it crossed my mind from time to time.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Obviously not. I'm surprised it took so long for this question to pop up!

If I did, I think every dime of this would've gone to purchasing a mini-split hvac system instead. Brrrrrr, it's cold in here.

LAWL.







You know, you could run that loop thru some rads in your house to claim some of the geothermal HEAT instead of dumping heat down there. ;-) (Eh, this will work with your inline rad whether the computer is running or not.)

Oh, oh, idea, idea!! You could get a USB-triggered (or current-triggered) switch that starts the pump when your system is on... eh, nix that... I wouldn't waste the time/effort/resources.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
You know, you could run that loop thru some rads in your house to claim some of the geothermal HEAT instead of dumping heat down there. ;-) (Eh, this will work with your inline rad whether the computer is running or not.)

Oh, oh, idea, idea!! You could get a USB-triggered (or current-triggered) switch that starts the pump when your system is on... eh, nix that... I wouldn't waste the time/effort/resources.

It's such low grade heat that it doesn't seem usable without a heat pump.

A 1-wire magnetic current sensor combined with an X10 switch could be scripted to remotely trigger the pump as well.

Getting a minutely dew point calculation that would power on a dehumidifier at a specified threshold is my highest priority for the monitoring system. That's the most practical part of constantly measuring the water in, room ambient air, and humidity. Having a low power, silent, lightly chilled loop that's mostly worry free would be nice.


----------



## nategr8ns

I can't believe I just skimmed this whole thread, but I did. This is so cool. Can't wait to see how it works!

subscribed


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *nategr8ns* 
I can't believe I just skimmed this whole thread, but I did. This is so cool. Can't wait to see how it works!

subscribed

Thanks! The best is yet to come. I'm trying to get this finished by the end of the next weekend, but the supply/return piping insulation might hold me up.

Today's update:

Not having any 45 degree angles kept me from finishing the crawl space plumbing today. The existing plumbing below the utility closet and the lack of crawl space the other way ruined my plan of only using one 90 degree angle.

That meant another trip to Lowe's tonight where I picked up a 10 pack and some more lengths of the 3/8th wall pipe insulation. I'm going to go ahead and use it for all of the pipes under the house. I just want to get it over with. 95% of the piping down there is AFTER the PC section of the loop so the ground should equalize the ambient gains or losses. It's also possible to add another layer of insulation down the road if necessary.

Working with one foot of clearance under the utility closet proved challenging with the power drill. With the screw its also about 1cm shorter than the space between the joists. My advice would be: use small tools, start at the hardest area first, and then work away from there.

That would've saved me time. Don't work in a open crawl space on a day with strong gusts either. Sand blasts to the face.









I'm not sure how I'll bring in the 3 sensors wired to cat5e cables yet. I'd also like to wire a 24 port switch in the utility closet as well. So a more forward looking solution for many network cables would be nice.



















The house section of the loop will be operational tomorrow. While leak testing I'll further coil the geothermal piping. Once that's done, I can connect it and check the flow with it above the ground. Seeing the flow rate loss upon adding a few spare waterblocks would be interesting if nothing else. They're going to add quite a bit of restriction to the estimated 4gpm flow.

The hobby boards 1-wire order will ship Monday, which means I'll have the ground moisture sensor mid-week. It'll probably read 100% all of the time so I'm considering tethering it to the bottom of a ten foot iron pipe that could be extracted later.

The excavator's current work project will also be finished mid-week. I'm feeling pessimistic on the chances of receiving the R4 pipe insulation next week though. It's getting more tempting by the day to spend more and source it elsewhere.


----------



## Darkknight512

Looks good man 24 port network switch mmmmmmm, I think you need to get a small PC and run Untangle on it so you can go networking crazy, then you can get a few pipes to the closet and liquid cool your mini pc (now a router) too!


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Darkknight512* 
Looks good man 24 port network switch mmmmmmm, I think you need to get a small PC and run Untangle on it so you can go networking crazy, then you can get a few pipes to the closet and liquid cool your mini pc (now a router) too!

A 16 would be enough but the 24s aren't that much more and have trunking possibilities! I have an embedded alix box running pfsense for those duties.









It bridges two wireless 54g CPEs to the two business offices here so I can perform (slightly) off site backups.


----------



## walker450

Bravo! I'm glad to see other people doing this!! It works great!!


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
A 16 would be enough but the 24s aren't that much more and have trunking possibilities! I have an embedded alix box running pfsense for those duties.









It bridges two wireless 54g CPEs to the two business offices here so I can perform (slightly) off site backups.

You are ****ing baller. LoL.

So you consider dunking your rig in oil at some point, and chilling the oil with a nice heat exchanger on your geo loop?


----------



## Romir

Today's update on the lack of said update:










The house loop is complete. I'm filling it up now.


----------



## moocha88

Wow this is just epic!
Good luck man!


----------



## E_man

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Today's update on the lack of said update:

The house loop is complete. I'm filling it up now.























So its done? or still need to finish the loop outside


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *E_man* 
So its done? or still need to finish the loop outside

The buried loop outside still needs to be finished. The hold up right now is the insulation for the supply and return lines to it.

When I've finished making the coils, I'll hook the ends up to the house section and try it out an an above the ground chilled loop. It'll be *cold*.


----------



## ericld

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Today's update on the lack of said update:










The house loop is complete. I'm filling it up now.























Wrap that water heater so you dont transfer any heat. And save some electric $$$ too .


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *ericld* 
Wrap that water heater so you dont transfer any heat. And save some electric $$$ too .

Once I'm 100% sure the replaced flexible pvc coupler stopped the leak...









A clamped down barb forced into the propane torch heated water pipe seems to have done the trick.

Even the quest pex T fittings had to be replaced. I've never heard of that ever needing to be done before this. They've been reliable everywhere else they've been used around here.


----------



## Romir

Oh, the pump uses 80-85 watts. It varies a bit with the pressure.

My Bitspower 45 rotaries leak on the test block with this 3+ GPM flow. No surprises there... It'll be straight up 1/2" tubing with hose clamps from here out.

I started water cooling with 1/4" tubing, moved to 3/8" with a DDC, and finally settled on 7/16" with 1/2" barbs. For restriction reasons its now time to accept the 1/2" tubing end game, five years later.


----------



## grillinman

Nothing less than astonishing...SUB'd


----------



## Romir

The water temperature of the house section of the loop has equalized to 50f or exactly 10c. It was only slightly lower when I turned it on this morning, so the full effect of the 30f night didn't transfer to the thinly insulated crawl space piping.

I couldn't resist hooking up a heat source and seeing how much the temperature went up over time. An overclocked 5970 is the hottest thing I have until I make the 1500w heat stick.










That's all I felt comfortable recording for now because I don't trust with barbs with the waterblock's mini spacer in them. There are so few threads attached to the block.

The idle core temps were 10c and 12c.

I need to get the coils finished for above the ground chilling! It'll be colder on the ground than when its deeply buried. Until the sun comes out anyway.

Edit: The 10c water temperature is in the ballpark of what I'd have if the piping was buried and all finished. So those 5970 load results would be about the same. The same or better than my current idle results (20c/21c) in an 18c ambient.


----------



## Rebel4055

God you are insane! I wish my mom would let me tear apart the yard and house









Well she probably would since she really doesn't care XD


----------



## Mikezilla

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Rebel4055* 
God you are insane! I wish my mom would let me tear apart the yard and house









Well she probably would since she really doesn't care XD

This is why OP is single.


----------



## Romir

Uh oh. Not having an o-ring between the spacer and the barb is allowing water to very slowly escape. J-B Weld would be a permanent solution to connecting the riser to a barb but I'll try some (removable) rector seal first. Its never let me down before. The spacer isn't needed on the acetel side of the block so I might use that side and make the card removable by hidden quick disconnects.

I've broken down my dual loops so I can combine them with the heat exchanger in the loop. That will help pass the time while waiting for the insulation this week. Crawl space chilling on demand.


----------



## shurik06_83

teflon tape works awsome and seals any small leaks that might show up and u can alwayse revome it unlike JB


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
teflon tape works awsome and seals any small leaks that might show up and u can alwayse revome it unlike JB

I've had many failures with plumber's tape that were fixed by replacing it with #5 RectorSeal. A Frick ammonia compressor mechanic introduced me to the stuff. Since then everything at work has been protected by it.

It's good for something like 10,000 PSI with liquids, 2,000+ with gasses, and is removable. Check it out if you haven't!


----------



## Romir

I'm going to screw two 2x4s "rails" into a 4x8 sheet of osb tomorrow and get the coiling over with. It's supposed to be mostly sunny with a high of 54f. There's always the heat gun too...


YouTube- Geothermal Heat Pump Installation





The house section of the loop seems leak free and I'm running everything through my (unplugged) pc's waterblocks as well. RectorSeal seemed to fix the water forming on the EK gpu waterblock's mini-spacer.

It's eerie being in the presence of silent flow through the blocks. Kind of like a silent heart pumping away. Seemingly dead, yet alive.


----------



## kevingreenbmx

subb'd


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
I've had many failures with plumber's tape that were fixed by replacing it with #5 RectorSeal. A Frick ammonia compressor mechanic introduced me to the stuff. Since then everything at work has been protected by it.

It's good for something like 10,000 PSI with liquids, 2,000+ with gasses, and is removable. Check it out if you haven't!









I was going to say "good advice" to shurik, but then I read this... lol

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
The house section of the loop seems leak-free and I'm running everything through my (unplugged) pc's waterblocks as well. RectorSeal seemed to fix the water forming on the EK gpu waterblock's mini-spacer.

It's eerie being in the presence of silent flow through the blocks. Kind of like a silent heart pumping away. Seemingly dead, yet alive.

How poetic of you. ^_^ Ya, any insulation should deter condensation greatly, and having some absorbent material around it helps to wick away any condensation also, as per DICE pots w/ paper towels... You COULD lacquer, but eff that. You COULD coat your stuff with vaseline/gunk, but that's counter productive. You COULD dunk your rig in oil if you plan on cooling sub-dew-point.









Regardless, never forget the catastrophic powers of freezing water in lines. (I.E. Ice forms as a crystalline structure that expands, and as you know, destroys pipes, etc.) LoL good luck! Awesome work--it's good to see more progress. This should prove itself a very rewarding luxury.


----------



## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
I've had many failures with plumber's tape that were fixed by replacing it with #5 RectorSeal. A Frick ammonia compressor mechanic introduced me to the stuff. Since then everything at work has been protected by it.

It's good for something like 10,000 PSI with liquids, 2,000+ with gasses, and is removable. Check it out if you haven't!

yea i use something like that for gas fiting and sprinkler

but i had a few water blocks that would just all of a suden spring tiny leaks and teflon tape was right thier gave it a go and leaks wer gone

some ppl have problems with teflon tape they ither way over do it or dont put enonoghf the trick is to give the male thread 3-4 tight layers with NPT and 1-2 tight layers with normal thread


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
You COULD dunk your rig in oil if you plan on cooling sub-dew-point.









Regardless, never forget the catastrophic powers of freezing water in lines. (I.E. Ice forms as a crystalline structure that expands, and as you know, destroys pipes, etc.) LoL good luck! Awesome work--it's good to see more progress. This should prove itself a very rewarding luxury.

Mineral oil? Nah, I like having some semblance of a lifetime warranty on the x58 classified motherboard and the double XFX one on the 5970. My systems been on an open bench and case fan-less since it was built in September, it seems to be doing just fine with passive air and waterblocks.

Those crystalline ice structures detach old sediment in my iron water supply pipe every time it gets cold. Bless the Culligan filter company.

Since the pumps under 75w now, with more load on it, I'm planning on running it 24/7. I don't want to use antifreeze (less flow, less thermal conductivity), and might not legally be able to if I extended the outside loop (buried mechanical fittings) as discussed in...

Today's update:

Coiling the sun warmed pipe was quite easy. Once the first few loops are formed with the correct height, they can then be stood up vertically making further coils easy to size and secure. The coiled up slack piping can simply be "walked" down the line to the work area and quickly sized up then zip tied. When the slinky assembly got too cumbersome to support vertically , I moved it and rested it on the side of my house.

Slack coils down the line, the smaller the better. (Don't uncoil the piping like I did. Also when you do, remove the tie straps one by one. They're staggered so each strap frees a shorter length of the piping.)









A bit over 20 feet of 3.8 feet overlapped coils. I didn't need to make the overlap that tight but directly connecting the loops like that was fast and easy. Some of the far right coils need to be undone to run the return line back along the coils to meet up with the trench to the house.









It hasn't rained in days yet water has collected in the bottom of my supply/return trench. This ground is going to be WET.









My first knife screw up in over a decade. Pro-tip: use wire cutters to remove tie straps. Now to keep my left thumb clean and dry for a couple days. That's what I get for cutting towards myself, on the LAST strap.









So anyway, going down the hill and losing half of my piping to non-coil use wasn't part of the original plan. Visually seeing that has got me thinking.

If I could start over, I would've spent more on a 500 foot 1" coil and possibly used 1" PVC under the house. The head loss would've been lower resulting in more flow at a lower velocity. That would be extremely helpful for running a loop like this off weaker a pump or two. 18 feet of 1/2" ID PVC or 4 feet of 3/8" ID has the same friction loss as 500 feet of 1" ID pipe. 3/4" (garden hose size ID) is the sweet spot for flow, flexibility, and cost. This is why I didn't go with small refrigeration tubing.

On the other hand, pipe insulation for 1 inch ID piping isn't as commonly available. Something could be cheaply hacked together for a short supply/return line and if only coming directly up into one room. My 5/8th walled insulation hasn't shipped yet, probably in the next two days.

Right now I'm *strongly* considering buying a $30 100' coil of 3/4" black pe water piping and using it in the trench to the house. That's 100 more feet of cooling, a huge percentage increase.

I'd couple the loops near the surface so it could be checked up on or fixed if it developed a leak. With such low pressure in the loop I'm sure it'll be fine. Black PE water lines are pipes are coupled with barbs and clamps at pressures multiple times higher.

The Iwaki is now using 73w with my PC's three water blocks restricting it. I still have 10 feet of 7/16th tubing going to my PC, which is causing some unnecessary restriction. The filter will definitely be removed later too. I'm already further down the pump's curve than I want to be. Still no leaks.


----------



## StormX2

You should make links to each Real update =)

Link all the pages of progress on the first Page / First Post so people can easily find your stuffs, cus me lazy, nto want check every page =P


----------



## shurik06_83

the amout of pipe u alredy have if u put that under ground u can cool a server farm some ppl get really good results just droping 20 ft of pipe into a hole thats around 4 ft deep so u will have cold water no matter on what kinda load ur geting


----------



## Romir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *StormX2*


You should make links to each Real update =)

Link all the pages of progress on the first Page / First Post so people can easily find your stuffs, cus me lazy, nto want check every page =P


I was going to do that when I finished this weekend*, but now I'm not so sure if the insulation will arrive in time. Might as well do it now then.

There's not going to be much to report this week, outside of some initial 1-wire configuring. It's back to waiting now...

I did save some pictures to do an update or two with though.

*I'm still leaning towards having the trench dug this weekend and insulating/covering the little trench later.


----------



## G|F.E.A.D|Killa

shedding some blood, i like it.







post a pic of the battle scar.


----------



## Slink

Quote:



Originally Posted by *StormX2*


You should make links to each Real update =)

Link all the pages of progress on the first Page / First Post so people can easily find your stuffs, cus me lazy, nto want check every page =P


Not a bad idea, meguess.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


Those crystalline ice structures detach old sediment in my iron water supply pipe every time it gets cold. Bless the Culligan filter company.


HAH.









Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


It hasn't rained in days yet water has collected in the bottom of my supply/return trench. This ground is going to be WET.










Yucky mucky. Put your hip waders on, and tie a lifeline. ^_^

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


My first knife screw up in over a decade. Pro-tip: use wire cutters to remove tie straps. Now to keep my left thumb clean and dry for a couple days. That's what I get for cutting towards myself, on the LAST strap.


Sunnuva...







yeowch. Nexcare waterproof bandages are excellent if you can dry, then seal the cut. I've had good experiences with them, changing only every few days without antibiotic ointment.

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


So anyway, going down the hill and losing half of my piping to non-coil use wasn't part of the original plan. Visually seeing that has got me thinking.

If I could start over, I would've spent more on a 500 foot 1" coil and possibly used 1" PVC under the house. The head loss would've been lower resulting in more flow at a lower velocity. That would be extremely helpful for running a loop like this off weaker a pump or two. 18 feet of 1/2" ID PVC or 4 feet of 3/8" ID has the same friction loss as 500 feet of 1" ID pipe. 3/4" (garden hose size ID) is the sweet spot for flow, flexibility, and cost. This is why I didn't go with small refrigeration tubing.

On the other hand, pipe insulation for 1 inch ID piping isn't as commonly available. Something could be cheaply hacked together for a short supply/return line and if only coming directly up into one room. My 5/8th walled insulation hasn't shipped yet, probably in the next two days.

Right now I'm *strongly * considering buying a $30 100' coil of 3/4" black pe water piping and using it in the trench to the house. That's 100 more feet of cooling, a huge percentage increase.

I'd couple the loops near the surface so it could be checked up on or fixed if it developed a leak. With such low pressure in the loop I'm sure it'll be fine. Black PE water lines are pipes are coupled with barbs and clamps at pressures multiple times higher.

The Iwaki is now using 73w with my PC's three water blocks restricting it. I still have 10 feet of 7/16th tubing going to my PC, which is causing some unnecessary restriction. The filter will definitely be removed later too. I'm already further down the pump's curve than I want to be. Still no leaks.


There's always next month... ;-P Interesting to see some numbers. Thanks for the excellent update.
-Slink


----------



## $ilent

how much will this all cost?!

what do you hope to gain OP?


----------



## Hephasteus

You're plan has a few flaws. You need to use the pump to pressurize not to sump.
Oh never mind. Never look at plans while your asleep.


----------



## skunksmash

nice......









i was thinking of a similar mod a while back (but the missus refused







), i was planning on burying one of these 3ft down in the garden....










a domestic radiator....

attaching 2 pond pumps (flow / return) out by the rad, ultimately running a completely silent freezing cold rig..









there were problems with it though, the winter for one... frozen pipes is a real worry (no flow = melting rig)

& getting pups powerful enough for such a large loop while not being too much pressure & struggling to get through the cooling blocks...??

+1 OP...... very innovative


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
the amout of pipe u alredy have if u put that under ground u can cool a server farm some ppl get really good results just droping 20 ft of pipe into a hole thats around 4 ft deep so u will have cold water no matter on what kinda load ur geting

I'm aiming for as close to zero saturation of the ground's cooling capacity as possible to have little or no delta coming out of the ground loop. It seems like such a wasted effort to dig a trench that's only as long as a two full bucket swipes. I showed the operator the coil length and he offered to do it this afternoon because it would be such a small job.

I've buried 25 feet of vinyl tubing in a shaded hole before. It had a double digit degree Celsius delta in the summer which was worse than pa120.3 indoors. It was only good for warming the ground because the heat was too concentrated and the sandy ground wasn't cool at three feet down.

I do think the current 11ish feet of coils would spectacularly cool my pc but whats another $40 bucks to have 66% more cooling? (That and a small 1.5 lbs of extra head loss.)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *G|F.E.A.D|Killa* 
shedding some blood, i like it.







post a pic of the battle scar.

Accidental ones are un-cool though.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *$ilent* 
how much will this all cost?!

what do you hope to gain OP?

I'm still on budget for under $500. $150 of that was for an unnecessary filter, insulating the 60 foot (each way) run down the hill, and the PVC, fittings, and insulation to place the pump in the utility closet (cheap silence in the computer room, well worth it).

The main components cost much less than my PCs were.

Geo piping: $99 shipped (PA 120.3 + 3 yates & g3/8th adapters $155 shipped)
Pump: $102 shipped (Swiftech MCP355 w/ res top $120 shipped)
Res: $15 + $10 in fittings

The big expense would be renting a bobcat to dig a shallower but still effective 5-6 foot trench.

I'm aiming for 16-18c load loop water temperatures in august using only 70w for the iwaki pump. That's only about about 30w more than my current dual loop pumps and fans.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *skunksmash* 
nice......









i was thinking of a similar mod a while back (but the missus refused







), i was planning on burying one of these 3ft down in the garden....

a domestic radiator....

attaching 2 pond pumps (flow / return) out by the rad, ultimately running a completely silent freezing cold rig..









there were problems with it though, the winter for one... frozen pipes is a real worry (no flow = melting rig)

& getting pups powerful enough for such a large loop while not being too much pressure & struggling to get through the cooling blocks...??

+1 OP...... very innovative









Thanks for the kind words. The iwaki pump I found is readily available as a overstocked item for a fraction of the original price. It had enough head for any of these kinds of projects. The bios shutdown temperature controls have always work for me whenever I test a new board by unplugging the pump.

Just keeping the water moving at full speed and having larger ID pipes (for less head loss, and more water volume) would go a very a long way to avoiding freezing over.

I wouldn't mind trying that with an old heater core, a cheap harbor freight Chinese pump, antifreeze + a corrosion additive, and then a plated heat exchanger to keep the dirty loop separate. The trick would be burying it somewhere WET to avoid saturating the ground as much as possible.

http://www.overclock.net/air-cooling...ml#post8576956


----------



## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *skunksmash* 
nice......









i was thinking of a similar mod a while back (but the missus refused







), i was planning on burying one of these 3ft down in the garden....










a domestic radiator....

attaching 2 pond pumps (flow / return) out by the rad, ultimately running a completely silent freezing cold rig..









there were problems with it though, the winter for one... frozen pipes is a real worry (no flow = melting rig)

& getting pups powerful enough for such a large loop while not being too much pressure & struggling to get through the cooling blocks...??

+1 OP...... very innovative









IF u got 2 or 3 of them stript the 20 layers of paint off of them and drop them down in a hole atleast 4 ft deep and have them hookt up about 4 ft apart u should be good

but from thier age thier will be tons of crap inside so i will need a strong acid to get rid of that or leveave it juts dont mix the loops have them transfering threw a plate exchnager to ur pc loop


----------



## Darkknight512

Looks great man, I'm wondering if you use a rad in your room could you cool your room with this, probably not a good idea to have you computer on the same loop because of the added heat but would be interesting.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Darkknight512* 
Looks great man, I'm wondering if you use a rad in your room could you cool your room with this, probably not a good idea to have you computer on the same loop because of the added heat but would be interesting.

The ground loop shouldn't have any problems absorbing some heat from the house in that fashion. I'm keeping my super low restriction PA120.3s and will try it this summer. I'm skeptical about how effective they'll be. Selling them and putting the proceeds towards an efficient mini-split heating/cooling system might actually save more money in the long run.

*The ground loop is going to be installed this weekend.* Unless the excavator breaks tomorrow while moving human sized rocks. Something goes wrong quite often, and generally costs $1,000 to fix.

I probably won't have the supply/return pipe insulation, but it can be installed later with a little slack left in the line. It'll be interest to compare the heat load test results with the piping un-insulated and unburied vs the finished state.

Preserving the supply line's temperature from the ground loop to the PC (75 feet of piping away) is the crucial element.


----------



## TARRCO

I think I just came


----------



## skunksmash

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
IF u got 2 or 3 of them stript the 20 layers of paint off of them and drop them down in a hole atleast 4 ft deep and have them hookt up about 4 ft apart u should be good

but from thier age thier will be tons of crap inside so i will need a strong acid to get rid of that or leveave it juts dont mix the loops have them transfering threw a plate exchnager to ur pc loop

lol....i'd be using a new one









keep chatting Romir..... you know a fair bit about this sort of thing.

i work for a company that uses & rents out Excavators..... we have 4 diggers & 2 dumpers currently ....diggers(1.6t / 2.0t / 3.5t / 22.0t) dumpers (1.0t / 5.0t)

id be bringing one in to do my PC mod, but the things do break pretty easily, i find the tracks are most susceptible to problems..

what size in the machine your gonna be moving those human sized boulders with.??


----------



## shurik06_83

might want the preshurize the loop thats going in and keep it under preshure if preshure drops then u know a rock tore hole in the pipe

and the preshure will help the pipe from colapsing from the weight till the ground setels in


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
might want the preshurize the loop thats going in and keep it under preshure if preshure drops then u know a rock tore hole in the pipe

THAT would suck.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
...and the pressure will help keep the pipe from collapsing under the weight of dirt, 'til the ground settles in.

Extremely good point, could prove really important/useful. Rep+

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
A: The ground loop shouldn't have any problems absorbing some heat from the house in that fashion. I'm keeping my super low restriction PA120.3s and will try it this summer. I'm skeptical about how effective they'll be. Selling them and putting the proceeds towards an efficient mini-split heating/cooling system might actually save more money in the long run.

*B: The ground loop is going to be installed this weekend.* Unless the excavator breaks tomorrow while moving human sized rocks. Something goes wrong quite often, and generally costs $1,000 to fix.

A: Cool. Literally.
B: BAHAHAHAhaha







but seriously, I hope not.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
I probably won't have the supply/return pipe insulation, but it can be installed later with a little slack left in the line. It'll be interest to compare the heat load test results with the piping un-insulated and unburied vs the finished state.

Preserving the supply line's temperature from the ground loop to the PC (75 feet of piping away) is the crucial element.

Very interesting. 'twould be nice to see. Your curiosity is appropriate IMO.


----------



## LiquidForce

If the tubes are full of water and capped on the ends they won't collapse... liquid does not compress


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *LiquidForce* 
If the tubes are full of water and capped on the ends they won't collapse... liquid does not compress

Affirmative, for our intents and purposes.


----------



## Romir

Today's update, a pictorial:

First of all, the 5/8th foam shipped and will be delivered Saturday! The 1-wire components should arrive tomorrow so I've been getting the Ubuntu netbook ready software-wise.










The liquid filled hydraulic pressure gauge came in yesterday. 15 PSI, 2.5" gauge, 1/4" MPT fitting on the bottom. I hope it's accurate. The 100' return/supply piping coil was also obviously purchased along with couplers and more clamps.










Where the pressure gauge is going to be mounted. Connecting it to something else like this saves me from buying two more $4.50 5/8th barbs. The compact ball valve allow me to remove the filter element without draining the top of the reservoir.










I went the easy/secure route and didn't mount the temperature probes with copper tube spacers. The T fitting will create turbulence and should keep the water flowing around them. It's not like the loop will have fast changing temperatures, high flow, or large deltas where direct stream contact is important. They are very permanently attached with nearly an inch of J-B Weld epoxy around them. The picture doesn't show it well, but the tips with the sensors do stick out of the epoxied area.










The sensor in a fitting, in the T. It hasn't been assembled so it'll be more compact when screwed in & cemented.










The soon to be 1500w heat stick for graphing the loop's cooling capacity. I thought I had a spare 12 gauge power cord, but didn't, so I couldn't start J-B welding the element into place.










*I'm hyped.* The 10 degrees Celsius crawl space loop temperature results (before warming up) are _very_ encouraging. Check back in 6 months to see if I stayed under my 20 degrees Celsius peak water intake temperature goal.


----------



## shurik06_83

OK i might have missed something but ur loop in the hole will hit nice low temps maybe to nice if u go below 20c in the summer on a humid day u will get condensation so u might need a plate exchnanger and run the ground loop threw it only when temps go up once temps come down ground loop gose off while ur computer loop runs non stop threw the plate EX

like my chiller V2.0 the thing will hit sub zero temps but it will only come on when my rez temp gose past lets say 30c and once my rez hits 22c the chiller will shut down

i build my first chiller and then i found out to much cold can be a bad thing

and as for stuff freezing on u u can use plumbing antifreeze in ur ground loop and its totaly safe as in if u spill some the epa wont shut u down
u can buy it in lows in the plumbing section and its pink


----------



## Naja002

A simpler alternative would be to just add a rad on a bypass that can be tweaked with a $6 gate valve. For the cost of running a fan(s) it can provide a wee bit of cool air and bring the loop temp up closer to the ambient/non-condensation zone.

But the ground will warm up some during the summer. Enough? I don't know. We'll all have to wait and see....









Keep in mind that the plateHX will add a delta. If that delta is beneficial 365 then that's cool. If not, then it will just reduce the performance of the loop unnecessarily...


----------



## shurik06_83

as alwayse naja has a good point but this cooling game comes down to picking a leser evil ither bad flow or condensation

another thing he can do is tap his pc loop into the ground loop rez if the rez temp gose up the ground loop cycels til it comes down then the ground pump stops before he gets too cold this way hes pulling water out of the rez thier is no extra suff in the way to kill flow , only thing he will need a controler to cycel his ground pump


----------



## Romir

I don't think I mentioned the Pex piping that's going to be feed off the water hose spigot line. There's around a 40 degrees Fahrenheit summer/winter swing in my house's water temperature because of some shallowly buried piping to the pumping station. A controllable flow of this water through a heat exchanger could be a simple moderating influence on the supply line.

The dew point has become a bigger concern for me after running the crawl space loop through my blocks for the last few days. 24/7 chilled blocks have a lot of potential sweating surface area, even with the PC powered off... That's the scary part. We'll see what happens when it gets warmer and more humid.

(These PC area pipes aren't secured to the joists at the ends yet, hence the sag. I'm waiting on the thicker insulation.)










The last dozen feet of the supply trench has standing water from yesterday's melted winter mess. The geothermal trench is going to be located another 6 feet down from the pictured spot, where the ground levels off. There's going to be plenty of thermal conductivity capacity from this deep wet soil.










Its been sunny all day so I'll be able to easily finish coiling the geothermal piping after work. The total loop length is going to be a little shy of 500 feet with around 17 gallons of water. That's going to take a _wee little while_ to fully circulate.


----------



## Slink

Better cover that PVC. It's susceptible to UV damage from sunlight. It's good to have covered or painted with a UV protectant.


----------



## Romir

It'll survive hanging down like that until the insulation arrives in 2 days. There's two feet of extra pipe that will come up into the room once its secured to the joist.




























The sensors seem to work when ghetto tested. I have Digitemp running on the ubuntu netbook and am slowly getting OWFS configured.


----------



## Romir

The coiled geothermal loop is basically finished. All that's left is to secure the return line to the side and straighten it up a bit. Before doing that I want to be absolutely sure that there's enough unused piping at both ends. Right now there's about 25 feet at both ends. Half of that be needed to come up out of the deep trench, and the rest will supplement the 50 foot runs of piping in the trench to the house.

Please excuse the camera phone photos and the excessive post processing on the first image.























































The last two pictures reveal how long the coiled cooling section is. The coils start at 28 feet and end at 242. So *214 feet* of coils, with a final linear length of *32 feet.* That's less dense than I expected, but the length is still doable!

I'm going to straighten out, cut in half, and insulate the 100' coil tomorrow. The loop will then be fully connectible, and the geothermal trench ready to be excavated whenever convenient.


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
It'll survive hanging down like that until the insulation arrives in 2 days. There's two feet of extra pipe that will come up into the room once its secured to the joist.

Oh, THAT'S where the insulation is going.







Oops!









P.S. Good progress/updates.


----------



## seward

+1, love it.


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## Sm3gH3ad

you sir are a badass

with plenty of free time


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## mcpetrolhead

subbed.
I was considering doing this sort of thing except with my pool but then university holidays ended and i have no free time


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
Oh, THAT'S where the insulation is going.







Oops!









P.S. Good progress/updates.











I know there's too much for anyone to keep track of or visualize. Myself included with all these fittings.

I've really made a mountain out of a mole hill. When it comes down to it, this project is just a hole in the ground with some piping as a radiator.

It should be finished within 36 hours though! I'll get a better batch of pictures collected for the initial completion write up.

Getting OWFS setup for the data logging and graphing isn't going to happen right away. I'll probably want that going before doing the the loop thermal capacity testing so I don't have to manually record the temperature for hours and hours. Next week.

I'm really looking forward to the temperature results. I'm now hoping the cooling is too good and causes condensation this summer. It'll give me an excuse to dump the heat from the spare bedroom into the loop water before it reaches the PC(s). That room's closet is right above the utility closet so it'll be simple to connect the two loops through plated heat exchanger and rock on.







When the (probable) de-humidifier is running, or the dew point threshold looks safe, I still could turn that loop's pump off and enjoy the cooler loop temperature if I wanted.

Anyway, that would be the best use of too much cooling capacity. Unsightly heater cores and the fan noise won't matter up there either.

Plus my server's hard drives up there will thank me. No failures yet because good airflow, even if its hot, keeps the drives under 50c. I have a full mirrored backup just in case though.


----------



## Romir

I think I'm ready for the big day tomorrow. It might be a bit hard to sleep tonight!










Yes, that's another 100' roll of 160 PSI piping. The previous 100' for the supply/return line wasn't enough! If I'd known I was going to locate the ground loop so far down the hill I would've bought the 500' roll to begin with ($120 + S/H). The colder summer ground temperature should easily be worth the small pressure loss. (There's also room and should be pump capacity to install another buried coiled loop to the right of this one, if desired.







)

Because of the higher than expected restriction, and the lower than expected power consumption of the Iwaki, I'll probably connect the PCs to the loop through plated heat exchangers. Doing that and cracking open the bypass valve should avoid all potential condensation problems.

My loop last summer was more than 5c higher than ambient when loaded so its possible to drop more than 10c off the intake water temperature and stay above the dew point. Going slightly below it isn't immediate doom and gloom either, but that area could be viewed as the safety wiggle room.

A couple pictures:

The pressure gauge and filter valve installed. Now I can remove the filter without spilling out the top water content of the reservoir.










Here's some of what the filter had in it. I wasn't very careful when working in the crawl space. Without the filter I would've had to cap all the tubing when moving it and have kept all the fittings in plastic bags.










Anyone care to guess what the ground temperature will be? *12 feet under*, _in wet higher water table soil_?

The constant ground earth temperature is supposed to be 58 in the coastal area here. So I'm expecting to see a temperature slightly below 50 tomorrow based on these:



















"A minimum delay of five days between loop completion and test start-up is
recommended in formations that are expected to have low conductivity [< 1.0 Btu/her-ft-Â°F (1.7 W/m-Â°C)] and three-days for other formations."

It looks like the final settled ground temperature will take a little while to get, but I'll have IR readings of the excavated soil tomorrow.

We're going to risk not using any sand as a dressing because of how wet the soils going to be. The coiled loop will need to be lowered immediately after temporarily scooping the muck out of the trenches finalized depth. Once it's down there, its going to float or potentially be raised by mud sliding in from walls. It'll need to be immediately backfilled from a pile of pre-screened soil to keep it in place. All the water should prevent air filled pockets of soil from remaining around the coils. This installation definitely won't need to be filled from a garden hose.

That's the expectations anyway. Only 14 more hours and we'll find out.


----------



## shurik06_83

i will be so mad if the bucket falls off the digger after just one swing and this gets held up for another week wel ok i know the bucket wont fall off but piston o ring blow out are comon when pulling out supper soggy wet soile or trying to move huge bolders out that are nicely stuck

i know in one week i managed to blow out 2 seals on 2 difrent pistons on the boom but it was a crappy old 1/4ton bucket deer basicaly a farm tractor that should have been retierd 10 yrs ago and its still digging


----------



## Romir

The pits dug and the coils are in the ground. The final connections will have to wait until tomorrow though.

We started three hours late because of an emergency errand this morning. So I didn't finish laying, insulating, and trimming the return/supply lines. I did manage to clean out most of that little trench though. I need to head to Lowe's now to get some PVC pipe to repair a broken water pipe.









The ground was a quagmire so the depth varied from 3-7 feet. The highest point was at the far end where the warm water will go first, and the deepest is where the two trenches meet. Measured soil temperatures were in the low 40s Fahrenheit. My temperature probe unfortunately isn't responding. I checked it before siliconing the connections and securing it the pipe, but not after. Oh well, water in and out are all that matter anyway.


----------



## Darkknight512

Looks awesome dude. Fail on the temp probe though.


----------



## G|F.E.A.D|Killa

i cant wait for the results from this badboy.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *G|F.E.A.D|Killa* 
i cant wait for the results from this badboy.

It'll take a few days for the pit to settle a bit, and get the most accurate results. Tomorrow will be both sunny and warm, perfect for starting to dry the surface out.

Thanks to the assistance of my neighbor, we were able to connect/clamp all the piping before it got dark. The return/supply piping still needs to be insulated, buried in the mini trench, and shortened a bit. I did fill and bleed (fun times) the loop to leak test. So far it's looking good.

I've installed the extra temperature sensor into a conduit pipe and will jam it 5-6 feet into the ground tomorrow. The grounds will still be so soft that walking on it isn't possible. I tested it this time and it's working fine with same ethernet cable. :up:

There's over 1gb of pictures to dig through, so more later... I still have things to finish and photograph.

Oh, it's kind of odd running furmark on the stock 5970 and watching the temperatures immediately jump to 13c, and then flatline.


----------



## Romir

Stock 920, 1.15v load. The is update removed my profiles. I'm going to run the OCCT GPU+CPU test overnight but the ambient air will cool the exposed pipes and skew the results downwards.


----------



## mcpetrolhead

35 degree load temps!








thats what i get at idle


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mcpetrolhead* 
35 degree load temps!








thats what i get at idle

*Winter results*, and unfinalized too, but still. The true test will come in six months.

Until then.


----------



## wumpus

this is impossible

these temps are too epic for any one man.


----------



## drjoey1500

Overclock more? Awesome temps.


----------



## PizzaMan

Getting any condensation on the pipes inside?

BTW, great read. Just spent ~30 mins catching up.


----------



## caraboose

I should do this up here in Canada in my north facing yard, no sun hits that ever.. That'd be nice and cold










I like your temps!

Can we get pictures of your tower?


----------



## bobbavet

This is freakin crazy! This forum got a hall of fame?

Well done!

Can you guesstimate the summer temp by the difference now between the gpu temps and current ground temp?


----------



## Raul-7

Legendary!









I'm interested in how you plan on preventing condensation using a heat exchanger (look similar?). So basically you have 2 loops, a PC loop and the geothermal loop, that only come in contact via the heat exchanger?


----------



## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *caraboose* 
I should do this up here in Canada in my north facing yard, no sun hits that ever.. That'd be nice and cold









I like your temps!

Can we get pictures of your tower?

in alberta u have to dig a hole atleast 5ft deep to keep the loop from freezing and so that frost wont push it out over 10 yrs , thats why ppl in pine boxes are put 6ft under cause some ppl saide 3 ft is good enoghf well over a few winters a pine box pops out from under the earth and the guy insed dosent look qite as good as he did a few yrs before and smell alot worse

and it dosent matter if the sunlight hits the ground cause at 5ft it wont do anything u can try burning 1 ton of wood with a temp probe 2ft in the ground under the fire the ground temp will only go up maybe 5c tho the fire is reaching crazy high temps


----------



## Eastrider

*subs and run*


----------



## G|F.E.A.D|Killa

dude thats awesome. i take it your GPUs are on water too right.


----------



## Romir

*First off, here are 100 half-sized photos of the dig.*

http://picasaweb.google.com/11578270...opInstallation

The main thing I need to note is that hitting the water pipe resulted in the far end of the trench being too short. That resulted in the distorted, shallower, and stretched piping at that end. I'm sending the warmed water down the side of the coils to there first. that way the water will exit through the deepest coil section at the other end.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *bobbavet* 
This is freakin crazy! This forum got a hall of fame?

Well done!

Can you guesstimate the summer temp by the difference now between the gpu temps and current ground temp?

Thanks! A nearly 20 degree Fahrenheit rise wouldn't surprise me, which would result in an 18 degree Celsius summer water temperature. I'm still optimistic about dropping 10c off of the previous loaded loop temperature.










Going half the depth in the wet soil seems equal temperature wise to what the dry sandy soil on my house's hill would've been. Aside from the lower winter temperatures there is a key difference. The wet soil can absorb twice as much heat and takes longer to start saturating.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *caraboose* 
I should do this up here in Canada in my north facing yard, no sun hits that ever.. That'd be nice and cold









I like your temps!

Can we get pictures of your tower?

50/50 antifreeze mix! The systems spread out on a table right now but I'll probably install it in my Case Appeal AV8 after swapping the cheap 1/2 vinyl for the Norprene.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *G|F.E.A.D|Killa* 
dude thats awesome. i take it your GPUs are on water too right.

Yup, EK 5970 block. The 1.3v Furmark vrm temperatures have finally been tamed. Even Crysis doesn't raise them nearly as much tbh though.


----------



## Syrillian

That Cat is hawt!









What an amazing endeavor you have taken on, Romir.

+


----------



## Slayem

This is so full of epic-ness.....Im at a loss for words....well done man!


----------



## jackeyjoe

my gawd i have to do this after i do my car radiator


----------



## shurik06_83

dont be disapointed buy ur curent temps it will take a while for the ground to setele in and the temps to finalize once u fill in the small ditch and insulate evrything it can take a few weeks for the ground to setel in and give u ur final temp wich will be a bit lower

if u get some good raine fall it wll speed things up


----------



## supaspoon

I have to say, this is the first time I've seen someones' pc modding tool arsenal include *"a freaking caterpillar!"*.








.........


----------



## Syrillian

Quote:


Originally Posted by *supaspoon* 
I have to say, this is the first time I've seen someones' pc modding tool arsenal include *"a freaking caterpillar!"*.








.........









Ahahahahahahah!

...no kidding!









Most extreme mod... EVAH!


----------



## Kriegen

Great idea, loving it


----------



## Thedark1337

Awesome


----------



## Romir

The weather was absolutely perfect today. I've now finished 99% of everything that needs to be done outside. The loop is essentially finalized from a performance perspective. It already seems safe to say the loop temperature won't be affected by my computer unless its doing something 24/7 like folding.

My goals this week are finalizing the indoor plumbing and getting the 1-wire temperature graphing going.

5/8th wall thickness insulation on the return piping. The trench runs downhill so I'm not concerned about moisture collecting inside the insulation.










The money shot. My grossly over-sized radiator, hidden out of sight.










The pvc valves need to be angled towards to the ground pipes for a straight hose connection. This picture doesn't show that well unfortunately. A 45 connector should do it for the left valve. The right one can be cut, rotated, and rejoined with a coupler.










The heat exchanger between my PC loop and the geothermal loop. I bought another one for the 2nd PC, or to test if dumping room heat into radiators can make a measurable difference. The temperature gun isn't cooperative on this shiny metallic surface. An in-line temperature probe on the PC loop would be useful...










After 90 minutes of bleeding:










The ground probe results. For reference, it's 5 feet down at the start of the geothermal trench. It took less than 30 seconds to slide the conduit pipe into the disturbed soil. I didn't end up burying the ($$$) moisture sensor.










I've given up on trying to raise the water temperature with my PC. I'm only managing to throw money away heating the outside ground. The gpu temperatures remained unchanged after 30m with a 950w measured load at the wall.

Clearly the 97% efficient 1500w heat stick is going to be required. Starting Monday I'll do an extended thermal conductivity test of the loop with it. The results can linearly graphed to determine how much heat it takes to raise the temperature in a given period of time. (1 degree Fahrenheit in 1 hour is the standard measurement.)

It could take all week to do the test because the heat load is undersized for 300' of piping. It'll be cheaper to do a longer test at $3.50 in electricity a day than to assemble another heat stick or two and in-line reservoirs for them.


----------



## Slink

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!1ELEVEN

Quote:


Originally Posted by *wumpus* 
this is impossible

these temps are too epic for any one man.

lol.


----------



## shurik06_83

the size of ur loop i cant see a problemwith it cooling ur pc and one room threw a car rad with some fans it might actualy bee ur best bet in the summer to have the rad cooling the room makeing ur water almost room temp and the room temp water hiting ur pc that way thier is no chance of ever geting condensation an even after hours and hours of run time in the summer the water comeing out of the rad will still be slightly colder then room temp so u will still get temps on the pc a few c over ambient


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
the size of ur loop i cant see a problemwith it cooling ur pc and one room threw a car rad with some fans it might actualy bee ur best bet in the summer to have the rad cooling the room makeing ur water almost room temp and the room temp water hiting ur pc that way thier is no chance of ever geting condensation an even after hours and hours of run time in the summer the water comeing out of the rad will still be slightly colder then room temp so u will still get temps on the pc a few c over ambient

I'll be trying this sooner than later with my radiators. I bought another plated heat exchanger to hook them all up on their own loop for so their power can be controlled by the 1-wire server.

Here are the results of a 6 hour OCCT max psu load test. It was pulling 680w from the wall with the i7 @ 4GHz HT 1.25v and the 5970 @ 5870 clocks (1.162v 850/1200).


































There's something like a 1 degree Celsius rise from the start to end. Not heating the ground up was the primary design goal, which is looking good! I'm now almost fully at mercy of the ground temperature.


----------



## CryWin

I don't see how that heat exchanger can be any good for your temps but it seems like it's working..


----------



## compuman145

I'm sorry, but I have a question.

A. How much did this cost you, surely phase change would have been cheaper?
B. Why?

Don't get me wrong, this is full of awesomeness, but I just don't know why. Are you a millionaire who doesn't work anymore?


----------



## SgtSpike

Very nicely done thus far!


----------



## o0jayp0o

you are jesus himself


----------



## SgtSpike

Quote:


Originally Posted by *o0jayp0o* 
you are jesus himself

Well, I wasn't going to admit it myself, but thanks.


----------



## supaspoon

Quote:


Originally Posted by *compuman145* 
I'm sorry, but I have a question.

A. How much did this cost you, surely phase change would have been cheaper?
B. Why?


Phase is probably more expensive overall when you stretch the energy costs over time, especially considering the quantity of units the system serves. How much 'time stretching' it takes for the initial vs. long term costs to equal out?......I've no clue.


----------



## compuman145

How many machines is he cooling with this setup? I must have missed that bit


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *compuman145* 
I'm sorry, but I have a question.

A. How much did this cost you, surely phase change would have been cheaper?
B. Why?

Don't get me wrong, this is full of awesomeness, but I just don't know why. Are you a millionaire who doesn't work anymore?

It cost a bit more than $500, the same as my dual loop setups pumps, tops, radiators, fans and fittings. Going 80 feet down the hill with extra piping and insulating it took up $120 of that. Routing to the utility room for the pump/res location cost at least $65. The unnecessary filter was $35. I could have kept it just under $300 by directly coming into the computer area with the loop buried closer.

The long term cost is only the pumps electricity usage which varies from 65-80w depending on the restriction. That's efficient chilling!

Iwaki pump: $85.53 shipped
300' geothermal pipe: $98.53 shipped
144' 5/8th wall insulation: $53.67 shipped

Why? Because it was cheaper than switching to low fpi radiators with silent fans. My fans were driving me nuts and the loops didn't cool as well as I needed.

Most importantly it was fun to plan and design it.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *compuman145* 
How many machines is he cooling with this setup? I must have missed that bit

Two through heat exchangers at first. Four servers indirectly by pulling heat out of the room through radiators. How much summer capacity there will be for cooling the room remains to be soon.


----------



## compuman145

What about digging the big hole with the diggers? Did you have to rent them?


----------



## Romir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *compuman145*


What about digging the big hole with the diggers? Did you have to rent them?


Nope, the excavator was borrowed from work down the road. It took a couple hours to dig and fill. The operator has been encouraging me to do this for two years instead of me throwing more money at my system chasing 1c improvements.

The cheap surplus pump and very inexpensive 3/4" geothermal piping made it possible.


----------



## compuman145

Impressive, If you had to pay for the digger then that would have bumped it up a load. Nice work though, Defo impressive.

This is covered, drenched, SOAKED in awesomesauce


----------



## allikat

That has to be the biggest piece of equipment ever used for a PC modding project. I'm loving this idea


----------



## Romir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *compuman145*


Impressive, If you had to pay for the digger then that would have bumped it up a load. Nice work though, Defo impressive.

This is covered, drenched, SOAKED in awesomesauce


Yep, thanks. I couldn't have afforded it. A more reasonable installation would use a rented bobcat to dig 5 feet down in dry ground.


----------



## IBuyJunk

Or, uh, a shovel.


----------



## Romir

Quote:



Originally Posted by *IBuyJunk*


Or, uh, a shovel.


Better pray it doesn't rain!


----------



## SgtSpike

The title, 12 feet under, makes me think of an interesting experiment. Someone bury a computer in the ground, turned on, and see how long it runs til it dies.







Do it in the summertime to make things more interesting.


----------



## LiquidForce

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SgtSpike*


The title, 12 feet under, makes me think of an interesting experiment. Someone bury a computer in the ground, turned on, and see how long it runs til it dies.







Do it in the summertime to make things more interesting.


I think permafrost would work better


----------



## MrAlex

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Romir*


*First off, here are 100 half-sized photos of the dig.*

http://picasaweb.google.com/11578270...opInstallation


You sir, have a lot of money.


----------



## oliverw92

Quote:



Originally Posted by *SgtSpike*


The title, 12 feet under, makes me think of an interesting experiment. Someone bury a computer in the ground, turned on, and see how long it runs til it dies.







Do it in the summertime to make things more interesting.


One would presume that the lack of airflow would kill it.


----------



## SgtSpike

Quote:



Originally Posted by *oliverw92*


One would presume that the lack of airflow would kill it.


One might presume that, but then again, cold hard earth might soak up enough of the heat that it'd survive without a problem at idle. The fans would still act to stir up the air inside the case, and the case itself would act as the heat spreader to the earth outside...

I have a 900mhz Athlon XP I might just try this with, just for the heck of it.


----------



## oliverw92

But say you have an exhaust fan and the back of the case is right up against the soil, the fan will die because it has nowhere to exhaust the air in the case.


----------



## SgtSpike

Quote:



Originally Posted by *oliverw92*


But say you have an exhaust fan and the back of the case is right up against the soil, the fan will die because it has nowhere to exhaust the air in the case.


Put a fan face down on your desk, and power it on. Tell me when it dies.









I wasn't thinking the exhaust fan would contribute much to the cooling effort (although I'd still say that any extra moving air would be a good thing in the situation). I was thinking more about the CPU fan, and how that would keep air moving around in the case, and touching the inside sides of the case, and help keep things cool. I have no idea if that sort of passive cooling would be sufficient, but it would certainly make for an interesting experiment.


----------



## shurik06_83

if the loop cant handel ur server room i can sell ya the chiller V1.0 that thing will take any I7-30c on water or u can chill a big rez to slightly below ambient like Naja and cool all ur servers but the monster chiller will draw close to 500W h if its runing non stop









but ur loop should take almost anything u throw at it

another idea for ppl wanting to try this but dont have a bigg AS5 digger laying around is go into ur basement cut the cement with a diamond grinder blade the cuts should be about 6" apart then 2 ft over make another 2 cuts 6" apart then conect the 2 6" chanels at one end rent a hilti 500 chipper alltho a 900 would make it fastrer bash out the 6"midels so u have a 6" trench going in a U take out the rubel dig down about a foot with a small spade lay ur pipe buy some mix at home depot fill the trench and enjoy cause ur basement will be alredy atleast 4 ft down so all u have to do is beat out a part of the slab and repoure it and dont be scared the slabs in basements are usualy 4" thik max unless someone orderd to much mix and u dont want to make the cuts near any wals or poast cause they will have footings that are about 12" thik with rebar


----------



## Darkknight512

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SgtSpike* 
Put a fan face down on your desk, and power it on. Tell me when it dies.



















I'll get back to you.


----------



## CryWin

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Darkknight512*











I'll get back to you.


Duke Nukem Forever will be released before that fan dies.


----------



## Cappy71

OMG that thumb would have drove me crazy digging that.
LOL. Nice work though. Someone needs to call a dentist about the bucket on that hoe.


----------



## SgtSpike

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
if the loop cant handel ur server room i can sell ya the chiller V1.0 that thing will take any I7-30c on water or u can chill a big rez to slightly below ambient like Naja and cool all ur servers but the monster chiller will draw close to 500W h if its runing non stop









but ur loop should take almost anything u throw at it

another idea for ppl wanting to try this but dont have a bigg AS5 digger laying around is go into ur basement cut the cement with a diamond grinder blade the cuts should be about 6" apart then 2 ft over make another 2 cuts 6" apart then conect the 2 6" chanels at one end rent a hilti 500 chipper alltho a 900 would make it fastrer bash out the 6"midels so u have a 6" trench going in a U take out the rubel dig down about a foot with a small spade lay ur pipe buy some mix at home depot fill the trench and enjoy cause ur basement will be alredy atleast 4 ft down so all u have to do is beat out a part of the slab and repoure it and dont be scared the slabs in basements are usualy 4" thik max unless someone orderd to much mix and u dont want to make the cuts near any wals or poast cause they will have footings that are about 12" thik with rebar

I made it about halfway through that second paragraph, then said, "screw it." Amazing how not using proper spelling, punctuation, and capitalization makes it so difficult to read....


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Cappy71* 
OMG that thumb would have drove me crazy digging that.
LOL. Nice work though. Someone needs to call a dentist about the bucket on that hoe.

That tooth was broken off last week while moving large rocks for a (permitted) wave shelter. It was recovered after sifting through the sand for half an hour. The middle one has crack that needs welding on too. Poor thing.

Here are the results of using an in-line radiator as an "air conditioner" so to speak. With the heat load test results it'll be possible to solve for how much heat is being dumped into the ground. Right now, it's just something different to look at.


----------



## Darkknight512

Cool, is the air coming off the radiator cold?

I also see "Alarm Devices" in that screen shot, wondering if you have any installed or are you planning to install one.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Darkknight512* 
Cool, is the air coming off the radiator cold?

I also see "Alarm Devices" in that screen shot, wondering if you have any installed or are you planning to install one.

Alarm devices? Not like what that refers to. The linux software I'm going to use can be scripted to do just about anything based on the sensor data though. E-mail alerts, speaker alarms, and text-to-speech read outs are all possible.










As of this posting the temperatures are now 55.7 and 64.5. I can feel the cold draft from that corner of the room. Eight feet away, 1-wire sensors are reading 66 degrees and 46% humidity.


----------



## mcpetrolhead

Amazing, im looking forward to seeing the results of sticking that 1500W heater into the loop.


----------



## Romir

The repeatedly delayed rain has finally arrived and will sporadically continue over the weekend. It'll help the ground loop settle before the heat load test next week.

In the mean time I've gone ahead and finished some quick flow tests. I hooked the 0-5 GPM King flow meter and my two MCP355s into the geothermal loop and went to work.
*
In the loop there's about 550 feet of .75 ID pipe, 10 PVC 90s, 2 PVC 45s, 7 ball valves, a set of colder no spill quick disconnects, and a full house water. Oh, plus a dozen feet of 7/16th ID tubing, 7 feet of 5/8th ID heater hose, and 6 feet of 3/4th ID heater hose.* That adds up to 18 gallons of water. Sounds restrictive doesn't it? Well, lets find out!

This three foot table is getting crowded. All three pumps are in the loop and will be powered on one by one.









One MCP355 with a XSPC res top (preserves nearly all of the head pressure unlike most custom tops): 1.2 GPM.









Two MCP355s, the second has a Petra top: 1.7 GPM









The Iwaka MD-30RZT: 2.3 GPM









I removed the filter cartridge, but not the housing, and gained less than .1 GPM with the Iwaki. It was still out in the following tests.

Another set of QDs were part of my computer's loop consisting of a HK 3.0, EK Classified block, and an EK 5970 block to the loop. That sub-loop also added 5 feet of 1/2 ID vinyl tubing.

The results were:
One MCP355: .8 GPM
Two MCP355: 1.15 GPM
Iwaki MD-30RZT: 1.55 GPM
Iwaki + 1 MCP355: 1.85 GPM
Iwaki + 2 MCP355: 2.05 GPM

I've been curious all along if the dual ddcs would hold 1 GPM. It's nice to see they can.


----------



## tehpwnerofn00bs

Oh man... this is so epic.

Sub'd


----------



## Threefeet

Quote:


Originally Posted by *SgtSpike* 
One might presume that, but then again, cold hard earth might soak up enough of the heat that it'd survive without a problem at idle. The fans would still act to stir up the air inside the case, and the case itself would act as the heat spreader to the earth outside...

I have a 900mhz Athlon XP I might just try this with, just for the heck of it.

You're underestimating moisture and critters I think.

The heat from that is going to attract so many worms I think you'd have to seal it, not to mention the buildup of moisture would end its life after a relatively short period I think...

Sorry for thread-jacking Romir, I'm still enjoying your updates


----------



## Naja002

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 

The results were:
One MCP355: .8 GPM
Two MCP355: 1.15 GPM
Iwaki MD-30RZT: 1.55 GPM
Iwaki + 1 MCP355: 1.85 GPM
Iwaki + 2 MCP355: 2.05 GPM

I've been curious all along if the dual ddcs would hold 1 GPM. It's nice to see they can.

Everything looks good!







Frictional loss is the reason that the Iwaki doesn't hold up as well spec for spec as the mcp355. The more liquid that you try to shove through x-diameter pipe...the more frictional loss. And no it doesn't scale directly...it scales exponentially. The 355 and D5 are excellent pumps with their high psi/head and lower flow rates.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Naja002* 
Everything looks good!







Frictional loss is the reason that the Iwaki doesn't hold up as well spec for spec as the mcp355. The more liquid that you try to shove through x-diameter pipe...the more frictional loss. And no it doesn't scale directly...it scales exponentially. The 355 and D5 are excellent pumps with their high psi/head and lower flow rates.









A quick visual way of looking at that is this Eheim 1250 vs Iwaki 30 RZT comparison. The windows version of that calculator supports adding pumps by inputting the PQ curve information. I would've started with 500' of 1" ID geothermal piping if I knew my run was going to be this long.

For the final flow check I removed the geo loop from the bridged mcp pumps and PC sub-loops. The res top mcp355 managed a hair over 1 GPM, and the Petra top one came in at .95 GPM. Combined they were a tad under 1.5 GPM.


----------



## mcpetrolhead

Whens the 1500W heat dumping test going to begin? thats going to be interesting.


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *mcpetrolhead* 
Whens the 1500W heat dumping test going to begin? thats going to be interesting.

Early to mid next week. There's an areal flood watch in affect with 2-4 inches of rain expected overnight, and then more tomorrow. I might delay starting until Wednesday so the ground drains and compacts a bit.

The ground temperature sensor has been remarkably stable at 51f so far.


----------



## Thedark1337

Oh my god this is epic!


----------



## Romir

Related to the subject of friction loss and larger diameter tubing (which allows the water to flow through the center of the pipe): apparently 4.3 GPM is required to fully purge the air out my 3/4 ID geothermal piping.

Small air bubbles sticking to the 1/2 vinyl tubing became _very_ apparent when using one MCP355 to run the loop. Oops. This needs to be sorted out before the heat load test.

I might be able to do this with the spare Iwaki, but every time I break open the loop, some air will enter and become trapped. That's +1 for connecting devices to the ground loop with heat exchangers. Or the spare Iwaki could simply stay in the loop as a purging, backup, and temporary performance enhancing pump.


----------



## Naja002

Not sure what to tell ya on the purging. Adding heat will cause everything to expand...gases and liquids. That will help remove a bit more of the air. May need to see if you can rent, borrow, steal a pump powerful enough for purging.









Once the ground settles, you may want to consider having the ground graded/leveled some. Whoever gets to cut the grass along the down hill run and main pit is going to be in for a heck of a ride!


----------



## shurik06_83

have the ground loop pump set up on pushing and ur return comeing to the top line in the rez then cycel the pump on of really fast for a few min the fast back and forth motion of the water inside the lines will force small bubels to murge into big ones and the big bubels will want to escape on thier own

as naja saide u can try pulling a vacume on the rez

u can convert an old bike tire pump into a vacume pump but to reach any kinda vacume ur hands will be sore

alsow a small compresor air pick up line will pull a vacume but the compresor might not last long pulling a vacume

alsow if u know where thier is an old fridge or a/c the compresor from one of those will pull a nice vacume but it will be junk after that du to the moisture it will pick up so no building a phase unit out of it latter


----------



## Romir

Here's the live graph of my 48 hour loop thermal conductivity test. The in-line heater element is pulling 1400w at the wall with a 97% efficiency. Sometime tomorrow morning the temperature rise should have leveled off and continued at a linear pace.




























More details to come tomorrow, I need to get some sleep.


----------



## leppie

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 
Here's the live graph of my 48 hour loop thermal conductivity test. The in-line heater element is pulling 1400w at the wall with a 97% efficiency. Sometime tomorrow morning the temperature rise should have leveled off and continued at a linear pace.

More details to come tomorrow, I need to get some sleep.

< 5 deg dew point









Mine here in summer is around 18 deg....


----------



## Romir

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Naja002* 
Not sure what to tell ya on the purging. Adding heat will cause everything to expand...gases and liquids. That will help remove a bit more of the air. May need to see if you can rent, borrow, steal a pump powerful enough for purging.









Once the ground settles, you may want to consider having the ground graded/leveled some. Whoever gets to cut the grass along the down hill run and main pit is going to be in for a heck of a ride!









I've learned that the typical geothermal loop is pressurized to 15-20 PSI for greater pumping efficiency. So that's where all the talk about their need for purging comes from. I bought the couplers and barbs for the spare Iwaki but didn't feel like opening it and re-doing the utility closet plumbing yet.

This ground will definitely need to be graded to keep the water draining into the ditch line at the bottom. I'm going to do that with a backhoe next month and reseed it. For optimal summer temperatures it would actually be better to leave it overgrown to let the grass absorb the suns heat. I'm afraid the mosquitoes would carry off the neighbor though.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
have the ground loop pump set up on pushing and ur return comeing to the top line in the rez then cycel the pump on of really fast for a few min the fast back and forth motion of the water inside the lines will force small bubels to murge into big ones and the big bubels will want to escape on thier own


I cycled the pump some after installing the water in/out sensors outside. Thanks. The ground loop is about 25 feet below the top of the reservoir so gravity is on my side.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *leppie* 
< 5 deg dew point









Mine here in summer is around 18 deg....









Me too. Last summer I had periods of 25c indoor temperatures with 65% humidity.


----------



## Romir

Here's the messy finished heat stick. The element's hexagonal base edges had to be slightly ground down to fit into this spare 2" pvc tube. It was JB epoxy welded into place with three layers. The interior wires were also covered with epoxy and then filled with silicone through a hole drilled into the side. The electrical tape was used to cover the hole while the silicone slowly dried. With the drain port top it conveniently screws into my reservoir which keeps water flowing past the element.










Watt meter readings at 19.33 hours into the testing. It's plugged into a 14 gauge extension cord that goes to a GFCI outlet in the kitchen. The power use is slightly higher without that extra 20 feet of cord being used.










The crawl space temperature sensor (purple) is being hit by the sun, hence the swings. It's interesting to note the water temperatures are also very slightly affected at those points too. Aside from that there's not much to note about the readings so far.

Well, it looks like more than 48 hours will be required.


----------



## Sangko

Sir, if this has been said before, I'll say it again: You are living the dream. This is an awesome project and you rock


----------



## shurik06_83

if ur worryde about the ground geting heated in the summer by the sun u can lay down filter cloth over where ur pit was and cover the filter cloth in landscapeing wood chips about 2 " layer will leave the ground cold on the hotest summer day and the filter cloth will stop weeds from sprouting up among the wood chips ,but will still let water draine

and some nice stones around ur wood chip pile and u have over came the power of the sun and it will look nice too


----------



## shurik06_83

hey man u still alive ? i am thinking maybe u zapt ur self or something with the home made heating element ,i want to see more rusults of the heat dumping , if ur loop pans out i will dig up my back yard and cool my house like this


----------



## Slink

LOL That heat stick looks barbaric.







I like it.

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
if ur worryde about the ground geting heated in the summer by the sun u can lay down filter cloth over where ur pit was and cover the filter cloth in landscapeing wood chips about 2 " layer will leave the ground cold on the hotest summer day and the filter cloth will stop weeds from sprouting up among the wood chips ,but will still let water draine

and some nice stones around ur wood chip pile and u have over came the power of the sun and it will look nice too









Nice!! AHHHRRGH MUST CLICK REP FOR GREEN COMMENT!! AHHHH

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
hey man u still alive ? i am thinking maybe u zapt ur self or something with the home made heating element ,i want to see more rusults of the heat dumping , if ur loop pans out i will dig up my back yard and cool my house like this

(LoL) I hope he is okay.


----------



## Romir

I'm doing science, and I'm still alive. Well it was somewhat scientific until the flaws became apparent. At this point I'm only making a pretty graph I can compare future results to. (Ambient temperature swings are wrecking the data.)

The daily and weekly images in my last post have been updating every 5 minutes with the new results. However, here are the saved full charts of the last two days.










Cliff note legend: Blue = Water in and Red = Water out










The water out spike down at 10:45 was caused by my topping off the reservoir (loop wasn't fully bled). The element was unplugged for one minute and two cups of pre-warmed water were added. It still took a while to recover from that.










(Repost of the updating Day and Week chart)

















At 10:30 this morning I placed a cardboard box in front of where the pipes exit the ground in the crawl space. The effect was visible in the exposed water out readings a few minutes later. It doesn't look like the sun was adding many BTUs directly to the loop, but the sensor was being slightly warmed.

The increased warming effect while the sun is at its strongest (9-3) is also interesting. The next time I do this test, the crawl space will be closed off and I'll have added another layer of foam to the pipes.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but that ground sensor's readings can't be used to accurately determine how much the ground has heated up. Its located at the start of the loop, at the side of the coils and at least a foot higher in the ground. Its more of a general ground temperature guideline to go by. That being said, the ground sensor reading has gone from 11.2c to 14.8c. The water in one has moved from 11.6c to 19.3 in 65 hours. Only 2.42c of that occurred in the last 48 hours though.

I'm really looking forward to how quickly, or slowly, the water and ground normalizes once I remove the heater at 1am tonight. I'll keep the pumping running without a load on the loop so the cooldown rate can be recorded.

The effect on the loops equilibrium should be noticeable immediately.

Yeah Shurik, I definitely need a chiller to extract heat from the ground this winter. Replacing a condenser with a heat exchanger to the ground source isn't as big of a energy saver in a temperature climate. It's nice and clean though, since the window AC unit would still be installed and used in exactly the same fashion.

Edit: The live temperature data is also updated every 5 minutes in a table here.


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## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Romir* 

Yeah Shurik, I definitely need a chiller to extract heat from the ground this winter. Replacing a condenser with a heat exchanger to the ground source isn't as big of a energy saver in a temperature climate. It's nice and clean though, since the window AC unit would still be installed and used in exactly the same fashion.

lol ur thinking of the Original Ocn A/c modder known as Naja me i would run about 2-300 ft of 1" copper line all over my yard and run the water threw a G3 accord rad wich actualy fits inside my furness and have furness fan cycel when it gets hot and have the pump cyceling non stop

been thinking about this ghetto cooling for yrs now but never have 2 key components at once time/$$$ now i have time but no $$ when i have $$ no time

if ur looking for a chiller then u are in the right place Naja and I can sort u out and get u on the path to ghetto chiling







my path is slightly more ghetto


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## Romir

I'm putting these pictures in their own post for the update listings.

Here's the final energy use tally at the 72 hour mark. I pulled the plug two minutes after the sensor results shown in the image, so they're spot on for the final results.










(Most of) day 3's chart of the thermal testing. Not much happened. There was a little over a 1c rise in the water temperature from the 113,000 BTUs dumped into the loop yesterday.










Its been 20 minutes and the water in temperature has already dropped 1.5 degrees Celsius.


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## Thedark1337

Wow that was fast


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## Slink

Romir, I can hardly believe the extent to which you have carried this project, and the professionalism and efficacy with which you have implemented it. You've inspired me, and I hope you have inspired others as well. One last REP for you for making sure the system is properly gathering data, testing it, and posting the results (as well as the auto-updating HTML table. Nice touch.)







I will be following this thread in the future. I'm hooked.









Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
lol ur thinking of the Original Ocn A/c modder known as Naja me i would run about 2-300 ft of 1" copper line all over my yard and run the water threw a G3 accord rad wich actualy fits inside my furness and have furness fan cycel when it gets hot and have the pump cyceling non stop

been thinking about this ghetto cooling for yrs now but never have 2 key components at once time/$$$ now i have time but no $$ when i have $$ no time

if ur looking for a chiller then u are in the right place Naja and I can sort u out and get u on the path to ghetto chiling







my path is slightly more ghetto









Shurik, you've proven to me that having somewhat "unusual" English doesn't mean you aren't really intelligent. (In other words, you're really intelligent. LoL) I have learned much from you in this thread and in PM. ^_^


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## shurik06_83

man i wish i could get my hands on an old oil drilling rig for cheap drill about 15ooM-2oooM and heat my house with the heat from the core of the earth


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## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
man i wish i could get my hands on an old oil drilling rig for cheap drill about 15ooM-2oooM and heat my house with the heat from the core of the earth









OFF TOPIC: That's how they did it in Bioshock. ;-P


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## Error 404

Hate to play thread necro, but you guys might want to know that this is featured on Hackaday









It may be a bit late, but congrats!

Edit: Ahhh, nvm. Only a day









Also, I guess HaD was waiting for more data. Oh well. Still congrats!


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## Slink

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Error 404*


Hate to play thread necro, but you guys might want to know that this is featured on Hackaday









It may be a bit late, but congrats!

Edit: Ahhh, nvm. Only a day









Also, I guess HaD was waiting for more data. Oh well. Still congrats!


Wicked. Thanks for posting.







Congrats, Romir.


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## SgtSpike

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Error 404*


Hate to play thread necro, but you guys might want to know that this is featured on Hackaday









It may be a bit late, but congrats!

Edit: Ahhh, nvm. Only a day









Also, I guess HaD was waiting for more data. Oh well. Still congrats!


Rofl, I love some of the comments... noobs that have no idea what they are talking about. And the jokesters here and there.









Quote:



in other news, a man murders his wife after she decided to move the computer room to the other side of the house



Quote:



Well, while itâ€™s a great thing, he shoudnâ€™t have realy done it for the environment.. the emissions of the shovel would take years to compensate with a heat pump..



Quote:



Is it just me or is his geothermal cooling system in fact just an underground heat store thatâ€™s slowly but surely accumulating the heat itâ€™s supposed to transfer.

Methinks circulating the water through a conventional radiator would be more efficient and cost effective.



Quote:



Would probably work better if the loops were in a decorative pond in the back yard.


(not a bad idea actually...)

Quote:



Or, â€œâ€¦ in testimony before a grand jury, a drug cartel informant described the cartelâ€™s practice of â€œcooling my computer,â€ crime world jargon meaning digging huge trenches in the front yard to lay pipe to cool a gaming machine, trenches that coincidentally provide an outstanding place to dump bodies and hide large weapons cachesâ€¦â€



Quote:



I think its brilliant, perhaps its a bit overkill, but go big or go home!

Seriously, if every project was designed for â€˜just enoughâ€™ or â€˜common senseâ€™ then think about what we wouldnâ€™t have. ie: pyramids, manned moon missions, dubai towers, twinkiesâ€¦



Quote:



It would seem to me that this would be better if you used it for your home AC and heating.
Of course it did get me thinking. I have seen some desks that used concrete for the desktop. Now if you embedded lines in the concrete you could use your entire desktop as a heatsink.
So the longer you worked the warmer you desk would get.


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## KusH

Lol SgtSpike I just read the comments, some people really do have *no* idea what they are talking about


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## Thedark1337

I loved that noob quote about using concrete as a desk







Imagine how heavy it would be. Also that gives me an idea. Copper pipes inside the block of concrete, barbs on the end connected to the GPU/ CPU/ everything else


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## Slink

LoL That was amusing.







Hahaha silly nubelz.

LOL THIS ONE: 
Quote:



nice claw. people in cities would require a building permit for a task like that.
you should try to dig a hole so deep that it resurfaces elsewhere, if you just dug at the right angle away from houses, and then come back up somewhere.. if it collapeses you just built a nice drainage ditch so your house wont flood. and maybe your own grave but thats why u need a Technodrome or whatever.


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## shurik06_83

ok i might not be the best at writeing things







and some ppl see that as dumb i dont claime to be smart i claime to have to much common sence for my own good









but some of the hack the day ppl make me wana cry no comon sence no imagination and no idea of what why and where

they have acsses to the thing called the interweb anyone can be as dumb as a post but some resurch and some light reading and serching the interweb they can understand why geo loops how they work and why building a huge desk out of cement would be a bad idea

no not everyone can get a big cat to dig thier hole but they shouldent knock the work cause he did like if i had a digger for the weekend my back yard would have more trences then WW2









so 80 % of the ppl thier are tards and 20 % of the ppl have comon sence and an idea of how and why


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## leppie

Quote:



Originally Posted by *Thedark1337*


I loved that noob quote about using concrete as a desk







Imagine how heavy it would be. Also that gives me an idea. Copper pipes inside the block of concrete, barbs on the end connected to the GPU/ CPU/ everything else










That probably wont work, as the concrete will take too long to absorb the heat. But that's just a guess


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## mcpetrolhead

Quote:


Originally Posted by *leppie* 
That probably wont work, as the concrete will take too long to absorb the heat. But that's just a guess









I agree, there would be too much thermal resistance between the copper and the concrete. But i'm not quite sure what the thermal conductivity of concrete is, it could be enough for it to work.


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## Thedark1337

Concrete can absorb heat. Ever heard of heated floors?


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## shurik06_83

but a cement slab will hold lots of heat and let it out slow

so lets say u did a few hours of gameing with ur cement cooled rig then u went to sleep got up after 8 hours the temp of ur desk will only drop about 10c - 15c from the high temp last night

if ur desk was outside in the shade then maybe it would have dropt to ambient temp but in a room it will just heat the room till the desk and the room is the same temp kinda like air cooling after a while ur room gets hot and ur temps creep up

geo loops even with 10ft of copper line 4ft deep u can dump insaine amounts of heat and then after 8-10 hours it all cools down so u can dump more insaine heat cause the ground is conected to more ground and it disipates but a desk is siting on ur floore and it has no where to disipate the heat but the air once air temp hits desk temp then temps stay the same for a long time

radiant floore heating is painfuly slow heating proses and is almost never used as a singel means on heating but its used as a suport heating to work with a maine heating system, convetional forced air is fast but disipates fast too ,floore heating takes a while to get heating and takes a really long time to disipate all of the heat


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## shurik06_83

ok i want more graphs and results and and an update on the epic geo loop


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## Slink

Yeah, I would like to see how it performs at different times of year.


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## Romir

I've been pretty bummed that my thermal test is unusable to find a co-efficient for the loop. The temperature sensors were influenced too much by the sun and outside ambient conditions at the edge of the crawl space. The water in/out and ambient sensors mirrored each other perfectly. I'm going to install my last in-line sensor indoors to find out how much the water temperature is really changing throughout the day.

It's quite annoying not knowing if the crawl space is having that effect, or if its mostly the sensors brass housings being warmed. I did this to stop worrying about the ambient temperatures!

It looks like the peak loop temperature in 4-5 months will be higher than I hoped for. I highly doubt it'll be in the condensation range. The initial ground temperature was warmer than expected at the ground loop's depth. I'd like to think the high water table keeps the soil in a tighter temperature range throughout the year, but that might be wishful thinking. Even if I see a 20f rise, the water will be below room temperature even after using it for hours. Unless the crawl space pvc, or return/supply trench dump too much heat into the loop...

Anyway, I can tell you guys that dumping most of the computers heat elsewhere is really noticeable right now during this spring weather.

Here's my new dubious personal wattage record:










20% of that was lost as heat to the 80+ PSU, so lets be generous and say 1/3rd of the heat stayed in the room. It was noticeable after 30 minutes. Under normal usage, that minimal heat dump into the room has been GREAT! My PC is in the southern corner of the house, the most effected by the sun, so temperature stability was a slight problem in the summer.

Oh, while heat testing, I hooked up my radiators to measure my old loops water temperatures. The overclocked 5970 was throttling on a quad radiator with 1850rpm GTs because of the VRM temperatures. It was going to be on a dual radiator too because "gpu water temps don't matter because going from 30 to 40 or even 50c won't net you anything". Well those vrm temperatures do matter when the 5970 is sucking that much power, but it doesn't happen in games to be fair, just furmark. It's a safe bet the ground loop will stay below 100f under load.









Linx and furmark stability at these voltages were nice to see. 13.6c water intake temperature.



















The ssd died (out of no where) in the netbook I was going to 24/7 log/graph the temperatures on. That's why I used LogTemp in windows for the test graphs. It makes the most economical sense to purchase a $40 Linksys NSLU2 to do the logging, so I bought one. I haven't flashed it, set it up OWFS, or installed the restore-power-after-power-failure mod yet.


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## shurik06_83

what about insulateing the hell out of the tubes and all the fitings in the crawl space ? and worst case if the shalow trench is dumping heat into the line dig it up and insulate it

and when i say insulate i mean wrap hot and cold and give them boath atleast 1/2" closed cell foam wrap should take care of any cold loss

if all fails Naja and me will get u on the road to building low power consumption chillers out of old window A/c 's and water coolers








my low power consumption chiller is in servivce as of thursday night and wow stabel temps and i use berly any power


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## Lazloisdavrock

Took me an Hour to read this thread, and it was worth every second.


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## Ice98

wow, this is quite beyond anything ive ever heard of before


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## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
what about insulateing the hell out of the tubes and all the fittings in the crawl space? and worst case, if the shallow trench is dumping heat into the line, dig it up and insulate it.

and when i say insulate i mean wrap hot and cold and give them both at least 1/2" closed cell foam wrap should take care of any cold loss

Agreed! This is what I was going to say. I'm pretty sure that Shurik hit it right on the head.


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## shurik06_83

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Slink* 
Agreed! This is what I was going to say. I'm pretty sure that Shurik hit it right on the head.

i am the hit it on the head kinda guy , oh waite that dosent sound right


----------



## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *shurik06_83* 
i am a "hit-it-on-the-head" kinda guy--oh wait, that doesn't sound right

















Heh heh heh.


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## 102014

wow, this project rocks!! i just spend the last hour or so reading all 33 pages, i would love to do somthing like this, even just as a cheap air con,

nice job!!!


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## KusH

How are the temps on this thing still. I'd like to know about your summer time temps with that loop.


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## FannBlade

sub'ed


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## Slink

Quote:


Originally Posted by *markp1989* 
wow, this project rocks!! i just spend the last hour or so reading all 33 pages, i would love to do somthing like this, even just as a cheap air con,

nice job!!!

I know, isn't it wicked?

Quote:


Originally Posted by *KusH* 
How are the temps on this thing still. I'd like to know about your summer time temps with that loop.

Yesh, pleaz.


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## FannBlade

Any updates?


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## SpeedNuggeT

I think he has given up due to the heating of the earth's crust in a 2012 like scenario.


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## ehume

Shh. He's sleeping. Digging ditches is hard work.


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## shurik06_83

he ran into a problem with how he set it up

he had 20 or so feet of a really shalow ditch that went from the house to the yard where he had his deep ditch well the shalow ditch would dump heat into the loop once the sun came out and heated the ground

thats why i told him to dump wood chips on path of the shalow ditch to create a sort of insulation from the sun but he gave up or moved on to something els the idea is not bad but ultimitly the ground will heat up and and it will take a while for the temp to drop back down

thats why i built phase chillers and called it a day set a temp i want and forget it

and no Cat excavator is required for my build







just some plumbing bits and a few tools from ebay


----------



## Slink

^lol

Really? Aww I didn't know that short run skrewd him.


----------



## blizzard182cold

is there not another way of chilling the water like in a salt water fish tank ? tbh i think that would be the go although the power consumption of course is much higher the results should also be a lot better then current liquid coolers well closed loop versions other versions may just have chiller units in them i have not read enough on this subject tbh


----------



## Noskcaj

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *blizzard182cold*
> 
> is there not another way of chilling the water like in a salt water fish tank ? tbh i think that would be the go although the power consumption of course is much higher the results should also be a lot better then current liquid coolers well closed loop versions other versions may just have chiller units in them i have not read enough on this subject tbh


first, SUPER BUMP
second, overkill is fun, that's why i have a volenti, and this thread happened


----------



## ramicio

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *Arakasi*
> 
> Tree roots will gradually grow towards the pipes and even grow into the pipes to get to the water. This of course is speaking long term, and depending on how much water is flowing constantly and for how long.


What?


----------



## doyll

Very interesting read. Thanks.


----------



## Slink

Quote:


> Originally Posted by *ramicio*
> 
> What?


It's true. Never underestimate the intrusive and destructive power of tree roots + time.


----------



## OCAddict

I considered doing something similar myself but using 1/2" copper coiled tubing as the cold ground pickup, no where near as elaborate as this setup and not requiring high pressure pumps, just digging straight down a 4' diameter hole, setting the copper coiling and encasing it in concrete, and insulating the supply and return.

However I live in South Carolina and my ground temperature is just not as dependable as Virginia.

Meaning a lot of work for not that great a gain, so I decided not to do it.

The other negative beside ground temperature was trying to explain it to my wife!


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## luckyduck

This blew my mind. I wont even pretend to understand it all but looks amazing!


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## Magical Eskimo

Necro bump for awesomeness. Does the set up still work??


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## goodtobeking

I would be interested as welll


----------

