Been tried? Or stupid idea?

[Black88GTA]

Hey all, I've never tried water cooling, but I've been thinking about it lately as my PC fans are loud and starting to become annoying. So I've been sort of toying with the idea of setting up a small WC system and eliminating the fans.

Anyway, the backstory behind this - a couple weeks ago, I parked my car and noticed it smoking a bit from under the hood. As it turns out, there's a small 12v water pump in there in addition to the main belt driven one, which had gone bad and started leaking. This got me to thinking - could this be used successfully in a water cooling setup?

Some details on the pump - made by Hella, available commercially for @ $150. Simple 2-prong hookup, 12VDC. The pump is about 2" diameter and 5" long, not including hose fittings. Inside diameter of inlet / outlet is 5/8" and 1/2". BMW part# 64 11 8 390 090. Here's a link to the pump on Ebay.

Pros: Durability should be outstanding, given that it's supposed to live in an engine compartment, it's designed for high temp / high pressure use, and it is designed to pump cooling fluid (Not fuel, or windshield washing fluid, etc). The size is workable for an average PC case, and it runs on 12v. I don't know flow rate or anything else, but I would guess it's pretty good going by its intended application and the size of the hose fittings.

Cons: I don't know how loud this thing is, as I have no easily accessible 12V source handy to test it. Unknown power draw (amperage). Unknown flow rate (although probably pretty good). Kind of ugly. Don't know how it would hold up to 24/7 constant use, although my original lasted 14 years and ~100k miles.

I searched a bit and found some people who were looking into using automotive fuel pumps, etc. but didn't find anyone who was using something like this.

Thoughts? Opinions? Possibility, or bad idea?

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Well, a couple things.

1) it proabaly has way too much draw to be hooked up to a standard PSU. 10A would not surprise me, neither would 15 or 20 amps.

2) the pressure this pump creates could cause problems using standard water cooling components(i.e. blowouts)

3) heatdump of the pump is unknown, it could be cooled by the liquid it moves as 200F is fairly regular for automotive coolants under load so, attempting to run a liquid through it at 80F could cause the pump to drop a lot of heat into the coolant.

3) you cannot run a water cooling system passively and expect it to perform as well as even stock cooling unless you use some truely exotic parts.

 

[Black88GTA]

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12
Well, a couple things.

1) it proabaly has way too much draw to be hooked up to a standard PSU. 10A would not surprise me, neither would 15 or 20 amps.

I found the fuse rating for this pump in the fuse panel diagram - two fuses (?), 7.5a each. Maybe redundant in case one blows? Either way, might be too much - don't know actual draw.

2) the pressure this pump creates could cause problems using standard water cooling components(i.e. blowouts)

Would it be possible to wire in a resistor so that the pump sees less voltage, thereby causing it to run slower / quieter / cooler, draw fewer amps, and decrease the flow rate / pressure?

3) heatdump of the pump is unknown, it could be cooled by the liquid it moves as 200F is fairly regular for automotive coolants under load so, attempting to run a liquid through it at 80F could cause the pump to drop a lot of heat into the coolant.

Looking at the design, it appears that the coolant is kept pretty well isolated from the motor / heat generating parts of the pump. There's a plastic impeller located right by the inlet / outlet, and a weep hole just behind the screws holding the housing together, indicating that fluid never makes it to this point except in the event of failure. I would guess heat dump would be low...

3) you cannot run a water cooling system passively and expect it to perform as well as even stock cooling unless you use some truely exotic parts.

OK, I'm new to this so bear with me You mean a WC setup is only activated when extra cooling is needed, and not constantly running?

Thanks for all the comments - looks like this may be more trouble than it's worth, mainly due to the probably too-high amperage draw, but I'm not giving up yet

 

[DerwenArtos12]

Originally posted by: Black88GTA

Originally posted by: DerwenArtos12
Well, a couple things.

1) it proabaly has way too much draw to be hooked up to a standard PSU. 10A would not surprise me, neither would 15 or 20 amps.

I found the fuse rating for this pump in the fuse panel diagram - two fuses (?), 7.5a each. Maybe redundant in case one blows? Either way, might be too much - don't know actual draw.

2) the pressure this pump creates could cause problems using standard water cooling components(i.e. blowouts)

Would it be possible to wire in a resistor so that the pump sees less voltage, thereby causing it to run slower / quieter / cooler, draw fewer amps, and decrease the flow rate / pressure?

3) heatdump of the pump is unknown, it could be cooled by the liquid it moves as 200F is fairly regular for automotive coolants under load so, attempting to run a liquid through it at 80F could cause the pump to drop a lot of heat into the coolant.

Looking at the design, it appears that the coolant is kept pretty well isolated from the motor / heat generating parts of the pump. There's a plastic impeller located right by the inlet / outlet, and a weep hole just behind the screws holding the housing together, indicating that fluid never makes it to this point except in the event of failure. I would guess heat dump would be low...

3) you cannot run a water cooling system passively and expect it to perform as well as even stock cooling unless you use some truely exotic parts.

OK, I'm new to this so bear with me You mean a WC setup is only activated when extra cooling is needed, and not constantly running?

Thanks for all the comments - looks like this may be more trouble than it's worth, mainly due to the probably too-high amperage draw, but I'm not giving up yet

Given that it's a germa car, I'd say it's probably redundant 7.5A in parallel.

Depending on the design of the motor you could probably run a resistor to drag it down a few volts but, the resistor is going to cost you a pretty penny.

sounds pretty isolated, thats good.

I was just saying that WC set-up still have to have fans so, you may just be better or atleast as well off replacing your fans.

All in all cosnidering the pump itself is $150 and all the bother it's going to end up being to get it hooked up, if you want to water cool you may as well spend $100 on one of the top WC pumps currently on the market and call it a day.

 

[aigomorla]

get a meanwell S320-12 for the pump.

that way it has a variable dial, 13-14V max, it YMMV's. Also can supply more then enough amps

tht pump doent look so great, its looks very big, probably has good flow rates, but poor head pressure. which would make it a bad pump.

try to find the head pressure on this unit