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Author Topic: Nifty cooling fluid... Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2017 12:02 PM                     Wondering why a light engine couldn't be submerged in this stuff... I haven't looked up it's optical properties, but its 100X more efficient than what TI is using now.Cost is about $400 a gallon... Novec 7000 Cooling  |  IP: Logged Jim Cassedy Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1661 From: San Francisco, CA Registered: Dec 2006 posted 02-28-2017 01:56 PM                     WoW, Mark... that is pretty amazing. I've heard of submersive cooling, but have never seen it "in action". I'm assuming the liquid must be non-conductive. I think $400/gal is still cheaper than printer ink. I wish they could apply this to some of the new projection systems. I've been working a lot with laser DCP projectors lately, and one of the things I was surprised at is how noisy they are. In one booth, the two DolbyVision projector heads have 24 fans each, & at least another 30 more in each of the laser racks, plus the power supply fans and the dedicated ventilation system for the laser modules. It all creates a lot of noise, even in a large (50x27ft) booth. I'm tempted to bring in a meter and measure it some day. I'm almost sure it must be over some OSHA spec for acceptable noise level. I'd give anything to be able to put all that stuff in a vat of coolant that would quelch the noise level, as well as keep them cool. Maybe we could even raise the temperature of that booth a bit, since it's now kept comfortably at what seems to be a few degrees above freezing, mainly for the sake of the laser systems.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-28-2017 09:00 PM                     I agree Jim, I think this could have some very definite applications in all types of D-Cinema projectors. You could submerge the entire light engine itself to cool it and this stuff has a claimed efficiency of 100X that of air cooling. All they'd have to do is figure out the baffles to keep the resulting CO2 bubbles out if the light path. Cooling like this could also completely solve all of Sony's woes with LCOS... You can bet that in larger quantities it is much cheaper. A small group of home computer burners are already using this stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ErbZtpL88 Mark  |  IP: Logged Dave Macaulay Film God Posts: 2321 From: Toronto, Canada Registered: Apr 2001 posted 03-12-2017 03:25 PM                     I saw a similar thing rather a lot of years ago. The bubbles are not CO2, they are the coolant boiling off. The fluid I saw (some freon-like stuff as I recall) had a low boiling point suited to the electronics it was cooling- there was a refrigerated coil of stainless tube above the fluid, the vapor condensed on that and just dripped back into the pool. The vapor was very heavy compared to air and the tank could be left open without much/any vapor escaping. This was mid 70's computer hardware, I don't remember if it was in commercial use or a research project.  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 03-12-2017 10:42 PM                        quote: Jim Cassedy I've been working a lot with laser DCP projectors lately, and one of the things I was surprised at is how noisy they are. Interesting - our Barco DP4K-30L is a lot quieter than the DP4K-32B it replaced. It's almost entirely gas cooled, though there are one or two fans in it. The chiller makes a soft whining noise, a bit like a jet engine in the first few seconds of spooling up from cold.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 03-13-2017 01:30 PM                     Dave, this is probably similar to what you saw... it may actually be what you saw. This fluid also condenses back after boiling off and is 100% reclaimed back to it's original job. Mark  |  IP: Logged Jay Glaus Expert Film Handler Posts: 123 From: Pittsburgh, PA USA Registered: Dec 2010 posted 03-13-2017 03:12 PM                        I don't know what exactly is in that coolant, but I know I've seen a few computer tower builds where everything is submerged in mineral oil.  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 03-15-2017 11:02 PM                        quote: Jay Glaus I don't know what exactly is in that coolant, but I know I've seen a few computer tower builds where everything is submerged in mineral oil. I do remember the fad of submerging components in mineral oil. It died out pretty fast when people realized that it's just dumb. Mineral oil is really expensive (at least for that quantity), does a piss-poor job of transferring heat, and guarantees a new type of hell to experience when you end up having to clean it up. It was only really considered because no other fluid was feasible. There are plenty of problems with submerging everything, and no real ultimate benefit even if it does work. Even the fluid shown here is only being used as an oversized vapor chamber. Copper heatpipes use the exact same process for transferring heat from smaller surfaces on a much smaller scale, and vapor chambers just spread that over a larger area. And that's where the fundamental flaw with submerged cooling comes into play. The components generating the most heat are pretty small. Why on earth would you want to submerge absolutely everything in it when very little is going to benefit in the first place? It makes a lot more sense to focus on pulling as much heat away from the most important components (e.g. the DMDs and other chips), while keeping a strong airflow across the rest to maintain a low ambient temperature. And in that regard, submerged cooling is just a pipe dream (there's a pun in there somewhere). I think the projectors would benefit more from a cooling solution that pulls more heat from the important stuff, dissipates it over a larger radiator (the heat exchangers I've seen being used are freaking puny!), and an overall stronger focus on noise. I get the feeling that most manufacturers don't even care about how loud it is.  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 03-18-2017 09:25 AM                        Remember when certain speakers had water-bed balloons in the side walls? Great. Now my speakers can freeze and leak. Never had THAT problem before.  |  IP: Logged John Roddy Expert Film Handler Posts: 114 From: Spring, TX, United States Registered: Dec 2012 posted 03-22-2017 11:21 AM                        quote: Louis Bornwasser Remember when certain speakers had water-bed balloons in the side walls? Great. Now my speakers can freeze and leak. Never had THAT problem before. And thus is the problem with wacky new technology like this. The disadvantages will sound pretty obvious in retrospect, but it's a pretty tall order to recognize all of that beforehand. I'm sure the people who spent hours desperately trying to remove the excess mineral oil from the inside of their CPU sockets took that to heart too…  |  IP: Logged

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