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Basic Watercooling Q & A

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thorilan

Member
Joined
May 29, 2002
Location
Japan/Daytona Beach
removed by me thorilan
ADDENDUM: The following addition was written by SewerBeing:
How to cut tubbing 101:


There are many ways to cut tubing, there are many ways to do this. First you cut the tubing using scissors, box cutters, or xacto knives. Then if its still uneven, use an exacto knife or a knife. The following list are some suggested ways of cutting tubing.

1) Plain old kitchen scissors or garden scissors
2) Box cutter
3) Pvc/Plastic Pipe Cutter
4) Fiskars Utility Scissors
5) Exacto Knife
6) Plain old kitchen knife
7) Straight edge razor blade

Recommended way of going about it, kink the tubing at the place you want to cut it, then use one of the above tools to make a quick clean cut, don't be slow, a quick smooth motion, if your using scissors. if your using an exacto knife, a slow sawing motion is best.
 
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My calculations for systems with paralleled blocks were wrong. The following are corrected graphs.

p-vs-s-rev.gif


p-vs-s-eheim-rev.gif


For the Sim20-R, per block flowrate is:

WWS 7.5
WWP 7.8

MCWS 12.3
MCWP 9.6

For the Sim20-RZ, per block flowrate is:

WWS 8.5
WWP 5.8

MCWS 10.8
MCWP 6.2

So, for restrictive blocks combined with a pump with a 'general purpose' PQ curve, per block flowrate may be better with a parallel setup. (The resistance of the rad and tubing have an impact on whether parallel or series is best.) With a pump designed for 'high' pressure, series is still best though.

Of course, all this assumes I've got my maths right this time.
 
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Thought I would throw my .02 in to the fray. :argue:

Religion is such a boorish topic, but WTF ;)

There are essentially two schools of thought when it comes to H20 cooling. Some people believe in large tubes with high flow and most of the others believe in smaller tubes and lower flow. A very small minority, like me, believe in a nice happy medium. Everybody seems to be able to point out statistics, mathematical equations, reviews, and other errata that proves their point of view. However, when it gets down to the nitty gritty both schools of thought seem to work just as well as the OC's of the actual machines don't seem to vary much. Now what that means I don't want to get into as that is really religious in nature. ;)

So lets take the big is better (BIB) school of thought first. Here we want something like 1/2" ID tubing, the water blocks, and other stuff that will excel in that environment. For that kind of stuff you can be plain Jane or you can have a Cadillac. Depends on your $$ supply and how much you value looks along with performance. The following are some links for you to peruse:

Asetek, Danger Den, HardWare Labs, D-Tek, Little River, PolarFlo, Swiftech.

There are probably more manufacturers out there so if you think you have been slighted in some way please call your therapist. I just call them the way I see them and these are pretty much the big players in the BIB school. Please note that if you go this way you will want to stay in this group of products and can pretty much mix and match to your modding pleasure.

Now lets discuss the low flow school of thought. As I mentioned earlier this is the highly engineered stuff that uses smaller tubes, blocks, and other stuff to get to the same results as the BIB school. They really do this by carefully designing their products to use all the little tricks possible to make sure that everything works with each other in a nice cohesive manner. Some links to peruse would be:

Alphacool, Aqua Computer, Asetek, HardWare Labs, Innovatek, Koolance

As I pointed out earlier there are other manufacturers, but this is a representative sample of the major players in this school. As you have probably noticed the BIB school is primarily associated with domestic companies and the low flow school is associated with imported companies. This is something to consider in any plans you have as the exchange rates do vary and can make your desired products fluctuate in price over a given amount of time. If you go this route you can also pretty much mix and match in this group of products, but you do have to be more careful as sometimes products are developed to perform the best with their own stuff.

You probably have noticed that two companies are on both lists. This is because they both make products that are usable within either group, but not all their products so you have to be discerning in your plans.

My personal preference is for a happy medium between the two schools of thought. I tend to design rigs that utilize the best of both worlds and to do this it does get more advanced in that often you will need the services of machine shops and other specialized industries outside of the computer modding crowd. However, my suggestion is that you carefully look around and decide what you really want as both lines of products will get you to the same place. :cool: :D
 
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