And when you get hungry, throw in some cheese sticks or other deep-fried snack food of choice!

This issue have been discussed many time in Spanish wireless communities, actually, is being used on Wi-fi links and linux hot spots on roofs to avoid rust, and humid condensation. It’s really a good solution for not very hot processors, and you must consider oil, being degraded to grease (wich in fact can bring problems)… (sorry for my lack of practice in english ;-))

…should of used olive oil, I hear it’s healthier.

Pretty creative. The computer has lasted longer than my fish.

3. Set the computer to calculate the largest prime number
4. Toss in some french fries

Put in a few fountain heads, and you’re golden!

Even if there is degradation of the oil, a three thousand mile oil change (or like once a month or so) should cover that issue pretty good. If you did this as a case mod, add the pretty blue and green lights, the glass fish, bubbles and some other fish toys, put a section at the top for your “dry” components (CD, Drives, USB connectors). It would rock…

I wonder how long the fans last in the oil environment. It seems to me they are always kicking the bucket faster than you would want anyway.

I concept i googled and found :
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1098/

I’m thinking of trying this out, only thing tho I’m probably gonna be getting a couple of USB extension cables so that I don’t to dip my hand in the idle rot-brewing temperatured orangic material.

Also, if I cant get ‘mineral oil’ I’ll probably just use vegtable oil with loads of disinfectant mixed in and some sort of emulsuphire(sp?)

I would not suggest using food-grade oils, and go with either petrolium oil or mineral oils. Food grade oils have the tendancy to rot, while petrolium and mineral oils are more stable against rotting.

This is an interesting idea, I may even go as far as to suggest active cooling in combination with the oil. Keeping the oil cool will keep electrical conductivity low, and with active cooling and oil submersion you do not have to worry about condensation.

I would also make one potential change, and that is to seal all contact points. Enough oil getting between a loose connection would lead to a no contact situation.

This is not the first time. I check out Ars Technica (http://www.arstechnica.com) frequently, and a few years ago (note _years_) when I was going on a cooling binge, I read about a guy who took this a step further.

he submerged everything, except drives, into a custom tank made of closed cell foam, and placed the evaporating coil of an air conditioner in the minneral oil, above the hardware. needless to say, it was cold (at freezing at points). he messed it up by leaving for work. a pertion of the evaporator coil became airborne, water condensed on it, and contaminated the minneral oil. the result was “bad”.

for more cool sh!t check out their forums. a few college kids (a few years ago) took apart the evaporator of a fridge, reworked the tubing, and super-glued the _evaporator_ to the _core_! solid core temps below freezing at all loads. insaine!!!!

Use mineral oil instead of any veg based oil.
Second you some type of electronic cooler mounted above the level of the cpu with a heat sink out side of the oil could make for an effective cooler.

As per what kind of oil to use, It is simple:

1.) It shouldn’t rot easily
No Olive oil etc.
2.) It should have the highest possible resistance (e.g. lack of conductivity)

Pure water is 18 mega ohms… that would work, but it would be impossible to keep dust out of it and it would then conduct. Has anyone dipped a multi meter in

1.) Motor oil
2.) Transmission fluid
3.) peanut oil
4.) Canola Oil
5.) Mineral Oil
6.) Cod Liver oil etc etc.

Yeah, i used vegetbale oil i think 3 years ago, stuck the whole thing in an old freezer i ahd, ran extension cable for everything out through holes i drilled, and it worked fine. too bad the freezer was loud, otherwise it would have been silent

@ stephen crosby: it’s called Fluorinert & it’d made by 3M, costs ~ $500/ gallon i believe. A cheaper alternative is midel 7131, which was designed to cool transformers, not sure what it costs, but I know its cheaper than fluorinert. I have heard mineral oil is the best thing to use if you’re poor like me. Here is a guy who did a damn nice mod using midel 7131…
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=802563&page=1&pp=20&highlight=Submerged

When I said dry ice in my comment above I meant of course Liquid Nitrogen.

Phil

Now, put your webcam in :)

Definitely stay away from vegetable–I just spent the last week cleaning some parts that had congealed vegetable oil.

The following link has the conductivity of various substances. Hydraulic fluid looks promising but I don’t know if it is hydrophilic.

http://www.smartmeasurement.com/en/wizards/flowmeter/flmtr_mag_conductivity.asp

What you really want is Fluorinert

http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/en001/oil_gas/specialty_materials/node_HX0DNRHXKWge/root_GST1T4S9TCgv/vroot_G1F6DNZDBVge/theme_us_oilgas_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

another thing to consider is that a lot of oils are hygroscopic which means that unless you seal the system you are going to be slowly adding water to it.
An interesting concept would be a refrigerated/oil cooled system whereby the motherboard is immersed in oil, an airtight lid is fixed to the top of the tank and the necessary cables come up through an airtight seal, the air above the oil. You could then pull the air out of the tank and replace it with refrigerant. From my experience, the cheapest and easiest to work with would be ammonia, as you could use plain mineral oil in the system. You could then take a suction line from the top of the tank to a compressor and condenser, and just bubble the liquid back through the expansion valve at the bottom of the oil. Without running the suction on a vacuum you could still achieve oil temps of -30.
Actually, now i think – the easiest way to route the cables would be through a length of stainless tube which comes through the sealed lid and ends underneath the oil.
When i get a bit of spare time at work i will make such a system and post pictures and test results for you all.

It should be added that all components entering the oil should be thoroughly cleaned.

i like the idea of nailing the motherboard to the wall that would be rather interesting and some conversation piece

so, you are going to dip your motherboard into a bucket full of astroglide and your own man juices aao_pwner? thats sick you twisted bastard!

someone should get some lard melt it down and put their motherboard in it the chill it so it becomes a solid motherboard lard block that is kept chilled cooling the motherboard i think that would be pretty sweet

probably sound stupid but do oyu still need a heatsink etc on top of the processor?

——Martyn Compton

probably sound stupid but do oyu still need a heatsink etc on top of the processor?——–

Unless you have an extremely (and constantly) high rate of fluid flow acting upon the CPU a heat sink is recomended! ;)

Your question prompted me to some thinking, however! The large heatsinks that come with or are purchased for a CPU are made with air-cooling in mind. If immersed, such a large heat-sink will probably actually INSULATE the processor to a small degree (depending upon fluid flow rate and temp.) With this in mind, a high-flow system should probably be built using a smaller heat-sink.

or am i just completely off the mark lol

There are inherent problems with the full immersion liquid cooling systems, namely involving what oil to use. First, you have the professional grade oils: the ones that cost hundreds of dollars a litre. This (obviously) is unappealing to anyone who is not looking to spend a lot on one of these systems. Then, the cheapies: the natural oils, the kind you can go down to Von’s or Ralph’s or Piggly Wiggly whatever! to buy. These, as most of you know, were meant for human consumption, and because of this fact, they can be used by microorganisms for their consumption. Nobody wants 10 litres of rancid corn oil in their room, right? So here’s my idea:

1) Get fish tank.
2) Put parts in.
3) Submerge in biological oil of choice.
**Now, the key!**
4) Add beta-mercaptoethanol.
5) Remove most of the air and seal.

Bam! Problem solved. For those of you who don’t know, beta-mercaptoethanol (hydrogen sulphide gas with ehtylene oxide) is an agent commonly used in biological applications as a non-selective germicide. I’ve used it most often to destroy impurities in protein slurries to prevent further corruption (I’m a research technician at USC). ANYWAY, the point is that adding this to your oil of choice then (semi-)vaccuum sealing it minimizes (if not eliminates) your chance of your oil rotting. Beta-mercaptoethanol is, if memory serves me, 400x, so for 10 L (~2.6 gal), all you would need is 25uL to do the job. Very appealing if you ask me.

this is just.. the shit.. i have nothing further ^_^ btw hackaday rules, thank you almight webmaster! ;)

FAO john,
if you wanna avoid dust and fluff and so on, you’d probably wanna seal it… in fact, its probably best that way because impurities will probably introduce conductivity or something which just isnt good. i dunno though, i’m only going on what i’ve skim-read from the comments so far…

A gaming friend of mine filled a small freezer with synthetic hydraulic oil. It worked fine.

Well i want to to this for a school DT assignment. i was thinking of submerging my old computer into a liquid called ‘PC ICE’ instead and then cooling the liquid with peltiers. Im wondering if this would work and how cold i could get it to go? what would be the best wat to keep it all watertight etc.

what is the problem with Hydraulic Fluid? it conducts less than distrilled water.

I don’t think it will go bad if contaminated. the smell might not be that great but if thats the least of my worries.

Hey, I wanna try this but with liquid silicone.

A friend who has a degree in chemistry told me silicone is inert, and is used in lab in heating baths. It comes in several densities.

http://www.clearcoproducts.com/standard_pure_silicones.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone

Somebody has some warning about that, before my test?

My dad sells this vegetable oil coolant for machining. He said if you pulled a vacuum in the tank over the oil, it will not rot. If water gets in it, it will rot.

I have also built 1 (now 2 actually) of these oil bath pc’s. The smaller enclosure runs @ approx 90*F… and the larger of the two runs @ approx 75-80*F. Not all that bad I would think…

i have two questions, First dose this cause any rust?, and two, what kinds of vegitable oil would work? I might try this out myself thought.

What requirements for a pump for the mineral oil would I need if I was going to submerge an P3 motherboard running at 733? I was thinking about overclocking this P3 so I could get a little more out of it for Linux.

try cyclomethicone — it’s a light silicone oil about the consistency of water. It looks like it would be easy to pump. It’s easy to get, non-toxic, used in cosmetics, perfumes, and hair products as a carrier. Cyclomethicone evaporates easily, though, so your setup needs to be sealed. Cost is not cheap — saw some on eBay for $75 a gallon, so you would have to be careful about your design.

wholesaler charges about $60 a gallon – non-flammable too.

if you want to do this correctly use phase change liquid with pelters on the outside of a conductive box to lower the temp to -130 phase change liquid will freeze solid and maintain an thermal constant over the entire computer then overclock the hell out of it, energy consumption will be incredible possibly parallel computing remains a better option

i just found out you can

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