Experimenting Again...

[Mauser 98K]

new toy i been building... found the radiator a few weeks back in scrap pile.. just got finished with the water block about an hour ago.... im going to try it as a Thermosiphon to start, and it is the reason for the design of the water block and radiator, which is set up to easily pull the hot out of the top of the block, run it in the top of the radiator, and pull the cooled coolant out of the bottom of the radiator...





it works ok for what it is, being i milled the water block out of material salvaged from a large heatsink for a welders rectifier and the copper pate on the bottom is salvaged from another CPU heatsink. tested it with a pocket torch, and it didn't get over 48*C at the hottest... it still may get a pump though, but that depends on how the test goes on the crash test dummy PC i have...

[Winger Ed.]

Interesting.

If it doesn't work for that, it might make a good cooler for a TIG welding torch.

[Mauser 98K]

yep, it needs a pump.. what i learned.. thermosiphen of cpu water cooler is not sufficient enough to bring CPU temp down below 80*C. something else i learned. it seems that a core II Duo processor, just on idle, creates more heat than a dam pocket torch. who would have thunk it..

[Winger Ed.]

I'm no thermal engineer,
but I don't think you'd get enough flow & heat transfer without a pump and maybe a small fan
on the radiator to really make it work efficiently.

[rancher1913]

the early john deere tractors used thermo siphon for cooling, they had to add a pump to later models.

[country gent]

A B and some C internationals were also thermos siphons. These were I the 15-18 horse power range. small inline 4 cyl fan and very open design. If I remember the radiator in my c was taller than wide. helping with the heat rise flow. I don't think these systems ran the same pressures as circulating systems do either. There was an aftermarket pump that went in the one radiator line for awhile.

One thing I noticed on your radiator ( heater core???). ON the old systems hoses were 1 1/2" dia hoses yours appears to be 3/8" - 1/2" dia a lot less flow there. may be to much restriction for good cooling

[Mauser 98K]

yep. kind of where i got the idea from. worked good for the engines, not so good for a CPU..

[Adventure Fish]

The biggest issue with a thermal siphon is the driving head. You have to have the radiator or heat sink mounted significantly higher than the heat source and keep the tubing as straight as possible to minimize head loss. I did manage to do it on mid tower build but...….. the rad was mounted on top of the case, and the mobo was rotated so the cpu was almost at the bottom of the case and I had almost no slack in the tubing. I also found that if I did negative vent on the case I got better results, but I never got below 75C. If I plugged a 12$ fan onto the rad, I was 70C at peak load. TL;DR: Just put a fan on it.

[Kenstone]

Kind of related to adding a heat sink...
I recently converted a cheap Harbor Freight Flux Core wire feed welder from AC to DC negative torch by adding a Bridge Rectifier and Capacitor for hot start.
I went to the thrift store and bought a BIG aluminum cookie sheet, for use as a heat sink for the Rectifier.
Cut a hole in the welder case, mounted the cookie sheet on stand offs to the outside of the case, and mounted the rectifier thru the case hole so it was inside the case, onto the cookie sheet.
Pic from the inside of welder case (black/louvered) you can see the aluminum cookie sheet behind the case:

$30 in parts, no more spatter.
worked for me,

[cub45]

my jd R takes 14 gal, it's thermo siphon, later tractors with the water pumps took much less water.