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Liquid Nitrogen (LN2) Evaporator – LN2Cooling.com – Part 1: Unboxing

Slappa

Slappa

Member
I know some of you saw my recent dry ice runs on my Phenom II rig. In a few threads I discussed that for my next run I will have a different pot to play around with --- and I assure you that promise was kept.

I got in touch with a friend and he agreed to let me take one of his cooling pots for a spin. Aaron Schradin of LN2Cooling.com http://www.ln2cooling.com has lent me an excellent pot to play around with and review for all of you guys. This pot is usually meant for the purpose of running under LN2 and LHe4. This is seen in the many AMD world record breaking overclocking attempts, which can all be seen over at amdblackops.com. However I will be playing around with the dry ice performance of this pot, which has mostly been overlooked until now.

The new little toy in town is in fact not little at all. This pot is huge. Much larger than the previous aluminum cooling pot I have been benchmarking with. There is also a lot of mass to work with which in turn equals to better cooling. Combine that mass with high quality copper and lots of surface area and you have yourself an excellent cooling pot.

The full review will be coming in the next few weeks. For now, feast your eyes on the unboxing of this badboy:

IMG_2837.JPG


med_IMG_2849.JPG


med_IMG_2846.JPG
 
Why put anything in it? Something that massive is gonna cool better than any HSF just by sitting there. Might fill it with water, that way I could slow cook a roast or some ramen.
 
Actually Ive always wondered that, why are water blocks always so stupid small? Doesnt matter if they transfer heat more efficiently, bigger is still better. Imagine something like a heatpipe tower hooked up to a water pump...
 
EliteRetard said:
Actually Ive always wondered that, why are water blocks always so stupid small? Doesnt matter if they transfer heat more efficiently, bigger is still better. Imagine something like a heatpipe tower hooked up to a water pump...
Click to expand...


OMG.. isn't it obvious,, they try to sell you MORE shit that's all.. you get a dinky water block,, so you need a big radiator,,, now you add another dinky block to your gpu,, you need ANOTHER radiator... OMFG.. is this making any sense now... omfomfomf
 
EliteRetard said:
Why put anything in it? Something that massive is gonna cool better than any HSF just by sitting there. Might fill it with water, that way I could slow cook a roast or some ramen.
Click to expand...

EliteRetard said:
Actually Ive always wondered that, why are water blocks always so stupid small? Doesnt matter if they transfer heat more efficiently, bigger is still better. Imagine something like a heatpipe tower hooked up to a water pump...
Click to expand...

Kinda funny that you mention that.

This pot actually has an accessory that allows it to run in a watercooling loop. Essentially a very efficient giant waterblock.

This pot does it all
 
EliteRetard said:
Actually Ive always wondered that, why are water blocks always so stupid small? Doesnt matter if they transfer heat more efficiently, bigger is still better. Imagine something like a heatpipe tower hooked up to a water pump...
Click to expand...


Because all that really matters is the interface between the block and the water. Any more volume than that is just wasted bulk.

The most efficient waterblocks have "nozzles" pointing at the interface right next to the part of the block that interfaces with the CPU to get the maximum turbulence and heat transfer as close to the core as possible. You want a high thermal gradient in a short distance. A HUGE pot of water has a low gradient in a very long distance, this is not thermally efficient.

Very early water cooling efforts were just large chambers with water in and out. DIY efforts refined efficiency to the point where the "big boys" bought designs from DIY offerings (http://www.swiftnets.com/products/storm.asp) which used high impingement and low chamber volume designs.

Now that water cooling is essentially all commercial, the designs have been further refined to offer similar efficiency with lower manufacturing costs. very fine ridges for impingement receivers and maximum impingement velocities are key. Large volume designs are really not very good, modern large high quality heatpipe air cooling designs are probably on a par with the efficiency of those old large chamber designs.

A huge pot works great when your medium is colder than ambient. In this case it works more like a "cold storage device" though.
 
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^ yep, same reason why direct-contact HSF's can be higher performing than the HSF's with the heatpipes embedded in a block of copper that is contacting the IHS.

It's all about the thermal transfer, heat capacity matters to but only if you have too little. Big volume of water in the loop avoids that, the real design is in the water-block.

Same reason vaporphase heads are not pots of super-cold refrigerant.

A DICE or LN2 loop setup the same as a water-cooling loop or a vaporphase loop would be vastly more efficient than the contemporary "big ass pot" approach.

I have every expectation that just as was the case with water, the next big thing in extreme cooling will be loops for LN2, LHe, DICE, etc and a move away from the gravity-well pots.
 
Idontcare said:
^ yep, same reason why direct-contact HSF's can be higher performing than the HSF's with the heatpipes embedded in a block of copper that is contacting the IHS.

It's all about the thermal transfer, heat capacity matters to but only if you have too little. Big volume of water in the loop avoids that, the real design is in the water-block.

Same reason vaporphase heads are not pots of super-cold refrigerant.

A DICE or LN2 loop setup the same as a water-cooling loop or a vaporphase loop would be vastly more efficient than the contemporary "big ass pot" approach.

I have every expectation that just as was the case with water, the next big thing in extreme cooling will be loops for LN2, LHe, DICE, etc and a move away from the gravity-well pots.
Click to expand...

It would absolutely be more efficient than the current pot. However I don't think the current pot approach will ever be phased out entirely.

Then we have the question of would the possible LN2 loop be cheaper than a cascade or multi-stage phase setup.
 
Very interesting thread...

Don't suppose anyone has links or more info on current water blocks, reading about that jet design one was informative. I always figured more surface area would transfer heat better. Like all those thin fins on towers, I figured a bunch of those dimpled with water running through them would transfer tons of heat. Especially since some of the "fancy" ones Ive seen look like just a bunch of straight lines cut in a copper block to make triangles. Ive got a /really/ basic water loop for AM2/3 & 775...always thought I could make a better block for it someday.

How goes the LN2 pot?
 
EliteRetard said:
Why put anything in it? Something that massive is gonna cool better than any HSF just by sitting there. Might fill it with water, that way I could slow cook a roast or some ramen.
Click to expand...

are you being very serious about this statement?
:$

EliteRetard said:
Actually Ive always wondered that, why are water blocks always so stupid small? Doesnt matter if they transfer heat more efficiently, bigger is still better. Imagine something like a heatpipe tower hooked up to a water pump...
Click to expand...

Oh man... OK..

Welcome to Thermo 101...
I am going to just go by the basics.

The medium in which heat is being used to transfer and also the holding capacity of water.


The heat transfer is not just in base alone.
It has to do with the shape heads and which the water causes turbulance inside the block.
The more nicer bling bling blocks now a days have a very even water path to maximize the full efficiency of water.
IMG_1639.jpg


The Vol. and flow Also holds the temp of water stable.
Looking @ flow alone, if you hold 1 gal/min in flow, though a good radiator and a deicent block, the cooloff potential for water to go up even 1 C is somewhere around 270-330W of heat. Tell me an air sink which could hold that to a 1C delta 😛

The radiator once u get to the thick 120x1's have more surface area of dissipation then a the top tier heat sink has.

What your basically saying is How come this Electric car gets better gas milage then this 1 cylinder..

Because it uses a completely different form of fuel. 😛


Now to answer your second question, you are limited to ambient on both water and air, unless you put work into the system. The rules of thermo states, unless you somehow figured out a way to produce zero point energy, you can never get more then what u have.

So if ambient is 50F the lowest your temps on that sink will be is 50F.

This type of sink is called a LN BOMB, or a POT.
Basically what they do is majorly insulate the board with Vaseline, and other water proof covering, and throw LN2 inside the pot.

LN2 which has a very very low boiling point will drive the temps on that cpu to -100C +

This allows the user to use another physics trick in trying to get max transfer energy. Remember as you run things a ton cooler, it becomes more efficient like a super conductor.

So the freaks are trying to work all these nice phsyics into 1 beautful number in which we see a 6+ghz clock with one draw dropping bench mark.
 
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EliteRetard said:
"are you being very serious about this statement?"

Serious yes...something that large should cool passively. Add water to it and shouldnt the evaporation allow it to cool even better?

LOLz that water block looks like the peice of junk Ive got...just a swirly path.

http://www.rbmods.com/Bilder/Articles/Thermaltake/Bigwater/pic7.jpg
Click to expand...

no because now u have somethign called a bong chiller.
Bong chillers can only go serveral degree's below ambient.

The guy wishes to go in the (-100C) area so he can in turn bump more voltage, and try to get as close to super conducting as possible.

And that block u linked seems like a full on custom from an older time.
Or a Chilled waterblock on the principle of mass to keep the block cold.

You can see here on this Aqua Computers Kryos where a shaped injector is, and the uniform plate i was talking about:

aqua&


Koolance's uniform plate:
IMG_1641.jpg



Anyhow OP sorry about the derail... i'll ask mark to clean the thread up if you like.
Cooling question came up, and i am the moderator for cooling. 😛

Slappa said:
It would absolutely be more efficient than the current pot. However I don't think the current pot approach will ever be phased out entirely.

Then we have the question of would the possible LN2 loop be cheaper than a cascade or multi-stage phase setup.
Click to expand...

LN2 loop. :O
NOWAY... were talking about MASSIVE pressure, and a MASSIVE compressor required to recompress N back to LN.

multi cascade to get close to LN2 requires massive compressors, and would be a very big unit.
Also cascades are very unreliable over time.

Will the pot be phased out?
HELLZ NO... even koolance makes pots.

cpu-ln2-v2_p0.jpg

cpu-ln2-v2_p2.jpg


Also people have fun with LN2 outside the pot after all the benching is done.
You guys who played with LN2 know EXACTLY what i mean... 😛

You cant do this with a cascade or a full on ln2 loop.
 
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I do relize hes using dry ice or LN2 for extreme cooling, I was just saying that thing is huge enough you could use for regular cooling just sitting there.

That block I linked is like 5+ years old. I still havnt used it, I think Im affraid of putting water in a computer. Ive got lots of worries about the block and pump/resevoir too...
Ive got a whole setup...water pump, resevoir, and 1x120mm copper radiator. Tubing and coolant too...Im currently using old 939 AC 64s on both the rigs Ive got...an old E6600 (origional Core2) and a Phenom2 X3 (unlocked). I definately cant use it in the C2D rig though, thats all stuffed in a custom case and its impossible to dissasemble it again (and I dont think itd fit anyway). The AMD rig isnt really mine and I dont even know if the kit Ive got would cool better...on top of the fact that it runs cool enough anyway.

This one, I still dont get it...there is very little surface area to transfer heat to the water. Its just a tube pusing water onto a plate. How can that cool better than the ghetto swirly thing I posted? Something like this looks like it would cool better than either: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/imagehosting/846a7d6f56eb19.jpg
 
EliteRetard said:
This one, I still dont get it...there is very little surface area to transfer heat to the water. Its just a tube pusing water onto a plate. How can that cool better than the ghetto swirly thing I posted? Something like this looks like it would cool better than either: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/imagehosting/846a7d6f56eb19.jpg
Click to expand...

lolz... i can see this is going to take a while.

From practice more mass is only good when you dont have the required move.
On water, you have more then enough move provided you have the required flow rate.

This is why a thinner plate, to get less resistance is prefered over a thick mass plate.

Water is tons more efficient then air at moving the heat, so you want the least amount of resistance possible @ the cpu end, with the most turbulence so you get better pickup.

...

It has to do with specific heat and movement of heat... i dont want to get into it more without majorly derailing his thread.

Thinner base, injector heads... more turbulance is the direction the waterblock is going right now and so far has had the best results with.
 
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Yeah sorry about the hijacking (perhaps we can continue this conversation elsewhere, Im finding it interesting)...

I am still curious about the results here and the Pot O' Doom.

Actually is it just a pot, or is there something inside?
 
EliteRetard said:
I do relize hes using dry ice or LN2 for extreme cooling, I was just saying that thing is huge enough you could use for regular cooling just sitting there.

That block I linked is like 5+ years old. I still havnt used it, I think Im affraid of putting water in a computer. Ive got lots of worries about the block and pump/resevoir too...
Ive got a whole setup...water pump, resevoir, and 1x120mm copper radiator. Tubing and coolant too...Im currently using old 939 AC 64s on both the rigs Ive got...an old E6600 (origional Core2) and a Phenom2 X3 (unlocked). I definately cant use it in the C2D rig though, thats all stuffed in a custom case and its impossible to dissasemble it again (and I dont think itd fit anyway). The AMD rig isnt really mine and I dont even know if the kit Ive got would cool better...on top of the fact that it runs cool enough anyway.

This one, I still dont get it...there is very little surface area to transfer heat to the water. Its just a tube pusing water onto a plate. How can that cool better than the ghetto swirly thing I posted? Something like this looks like it would cool better than either: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/imagehosting/846a7d6f56eb19.jpg
Click to expand...
Technically speaking, heatsink is not a cooler, but a radiator. It isn't about the mass or weight, but its surface area, which is why there are fins. The water block in the picture is only one part of the radiator setup. Yes the surface area is small, but the liquid running inside moves really fast. Shall the pump fails, you will probably see those liquid boils. The purpose of the water block is not to cool off the CPU, but allow more water to carry heat away from the surface of the CPU. In other words, the entire water loop system, is one big radiator.

LN2 cooling is different. It is simply a pot of very cold stuff sitting on top of the CPU. It doesn't radiate heats off, but to absorb it. Since liquid isn't the state nitrogen should be in at room temperature, it evaporates quickly and absorb heat from anything it has contact with. The design of LN2 cooling block is, in a simple term, a big metallic cup sitting on top of CPU. It isn't a radiator, so there are no fins, pump or fan. Without something very cold to absorb the heat radiates off the CPU, it is actually a very bad radiator.
 
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