Can An Airstone Cool Your PC?

Sometimes you just have a random thought, what if. Well I like to take those thoughts and run with them. Today while looking at my fish tank I thought, I wonder if the airstone would act the same as a cooling tower, well, only one way to find out.
Follow me on Twitter @MAJHardware

[@Howema]

COOLER IDEA: why not make a evaporation cooler that looks like a decorative waterfall? either a rock wall style or maybe a one with steps.

[@samuelallix746]

I love this idea

[@dylan6182]

Same

[@mr.applejuice8546]

So a cool looking vapor chamber?

[@josergevasquez3767]

The other foreign object can stock on your pump or currosive things can stock on your pump

[@MooGCS]

@@josergevasquez3767 just dont put foreign objects in it lol

[@_mwomp]

"actually this is just fun to do anyways, so we're not wasting any time" 110%

[@manateekida1484]

Everyone: Struggling getting all the bubbles out of their system. Major Hardware: Lets´s get all the bubbles in there!

[@scottwilson419]

Take the res cap off so the heat has more room to escape

[@lunchie80]

The air is blown in under pressure, therefore any (very slightly heated) bubbles blows straight out through the hole. Removing the cap will do almost nothing. Like the airstone...

[@CtrlAltSk8]

@@lunchie80 it won't do nothing. The effect will however be small enough to be negligible. Think of it like boiling water in a pot with and without the lid. The water retains heat and boils much faster with the lid on however the scale here would be to small to make an impact

[@joshhoehne8281]

I agree with leaving the lid off, but so the water can be thrown out of the reservoir, transferring the heat out of the system with it. Just take precautions to protect the electronics!

[@iwenttogoogleheadquartersa1397]

There is no air circulation with that cap on so it fills up the atmosphere around it with water vapor very fast and you are losing no heat

[@lunchie80]

@@CtrlAltSk8 no. A boiling pot with a closed lid is different. No pressure is added. You're not BOILING the water in a loop, just warming it. There's no steam involved, just pressurised air. Plus a pot has MUCH hotter water AND a lot more surface area and is NOT having a stream of cool air blown through.

[@kasuraga]

water's getting too aerated. it's getting pulled into the loop so you're reducing how effective the water can pull heat out from the block.

[@ThePorritZ]

agreed. he is basically creating cavitation which is creating the same effect as vapor lock... trapping even more heat in the cpu...

[@letmein606]

You get it 👍

[@hughjazz44]

I was about to post this.

[@TravisFabel]

That's the secondary problem. You don't want the air going through the system. The primary problem is he's trying to cool via those cavitation bubbles but the volume of air he's pushing is absolutely tiny. You need a much larger volume of air than volume of water you have. So to match the other fan cooled radiator, you have to move just as much air as at other fan, while simultaneously putting that air under a higher pressure to be able to force it into the water. So you need a much bigger container at that point just so you don't make a mess. Lol Of course another problem if you wanted to use this realistically, is that the system is no longer a sealed loop. You have to let the air out. So you'll have evaporation issues but you could take advantage of this with a large upper surface area, imagine a very thin container as wide as his desk, You would have a much larger area to evaporate from. So you lose water but you would get cooling from it too. That may be the boost on this that is needed to really make it effective without shoving massive amounts of air

[@a.x.w]

​@@ThePorritZ This has absolutely nothing to do with cavitation.

[@lunchie80]

Considering a tropical fish tank has multiple air stones (usually) and can EASILY be heated with/despite the airstones running by a 25w heater.... There's your answer.

[@TheHungrySlug]

The air pump is heating up the air too. What happens to the hose on a bicycle pump as you pump up the bike tyres? The hose gets hot. Compression creates heat! It's not until the gasses/air decompress that you experience any cooling effects. So no, a setup like this will never work and that's why nobody uses a design anything like this. It was fun to watch though :)

[@zeanyt2372]

@@TheHungrySlug all fare points but also he didn't send the hot water to the top of the Reservoir so the thermal circulation wasn't sufficient.

[@lunchie80]

@@TheHungrySlug you're over thinking. A fish pump barely warms anything. The air comes out cool.

[@lunchie80]

@@zeanyt2372 the water is being circulated by the pump. There is NO hotter water to send to the top, the res will all be one temp. Plus the air bubbles will be circulating the water in the already rapidly moving water in the res. Have you never run a loop before? The water moves pretty fast.

[@zeanyt2372]

@@lunchie80 I know the water is moving pretty fast but mostly along the bottom of the reservoir. If the hot water was being pumped from the top to bottom would have better circulation with the bubbles.

[@christophertstone]

Air has a heat capacity of about 700 J/kg, water is about 4200. So you need about 6x the air (in kg) to transfer that heat into. Air also has a density of 1.2 kg/m3 to water's ~1Mg/m3. So per volume you're looking at 6000x more air to get the heat out. This is why the cooling tower is all air and a little water, you've got a reservoir that's maybe 1/5 air... 30,000x too little.

[@Pheatrix]

Your numbers are a bit too high. They are correct for perfect cooling, but that's not what we need. We are ok with the water being a bit warmer than ambient so not that much air is needed. But a little less is still quite unreasonable.

[@fabiotiburzi]

You did not consider evaporation

[@misterasdfjkl]

Wouldn't you want that ratio between flow rates and not volume in the res?

[@carpediemarts705]

Nice numbers. But the heat isn't being transferred to the vapor air. The heat is transferred out of the liquid water by phase changing it into vapor water. The air bubbles give the water more surface area but isn't going to conduct much heat away itself.

[@scasny]

Heat capacity and thermal conductivity is not corelated. Also he is trying to achieve evaporation cooling. Witch happends only on the surface. So first wider not taller, meaning unpractical and i dont think the bubles make the surface significantly biger. Basicly its not air that cools the water but evaporated water that tranfer the to the air. If we use molar weight as a unit of flow water is 1.2 - 2x more efficient. Meaning you need compare to density 1000+ x more flow of air then water. But to irl comparison water cooler pump 7-20 l/m, garden hose have flow of 50 l/m, fire hose have up to 1140 l/m, home kichen hood fan have air flow of 3200 l/m

[@j4ck3t]

you really make the most interesting content, creative ideas and solutions to problems. Love it!

[@Sam-cp6so]

Prediction: it won't work well because the specific heat of water is much greater than air. You need much more air by ratio for evaporative and conducted cooling

[@PabzRoz]

I don't know what you said but it sounded smart so yes.

[@VascovanZeller]

@@PabzRoz water holds 4000x more heat than air. So you need A LOT of air to cool down even a little bit of water.

[@Skunkhunt_42]

Anyone using Stirling free piston coolers for this? They ain't cheap but some portable coolers on the used market. Some that go to -20c others to -85c.

[@prjndigo]

Prediction: Airstones drop grit all the time, he just fucked his pump and cold plate.

[@jakegarrett8109]

JM you can just use phase coolers (like your AC or fridge). They make commercial coolers for CPUs (mine was made by Asetech, the AIO giant in the industry). They discontinued mine in 2006, but even still the hottest I’ve seen was -35c at 350w heatload from an FX-8350 at 1.7 Vcore. At idle it’s about -60c. So it has pretty large cooling capacity (which would be about right for 6 GHz 9900k). I’m not sure if stifling can handle the high heat loads but if it can then it might perform the same as regular commercial units.

[@geofrancis2001]

this reminds me of a bong cooler that was used back in the athlon days.

[@beajayparker247]

I had a bong cooled fx8320 that was 24/7 at 5.2ghz. So janky, I love it haha

[@KaosII1968]

We used to do this stuff in the early 2000's Bay res with a waterfall ..trying to keep the water cooler. Finned res to act as a passive rad...Do you guys remember those tube rads running in series with no fans.???

[@GrimpakTheMook]

Alphacool still sells them :D hella cheap. some 10€ each single unit.

[@sammy_1_1]

Literally thinking the same thing.

[@Houstonruss]

@@GrimpakTheMook Cape cora iirc

[@kasuraga]

nah hes talking about the Zalman Reserator guys. It was a HUGE reservoir made out of a finned extruded aluminum tank. Had external lines running to it.

[@FrankLeeMadeere]

@@kasuraga I still have one in my basement. Don't have have the heart to throw it out! Years of silent watercooling...

[@happylatino]

yo dude, you need to feed hot warter on top on reservor. Now it just by passes bubles straight through the pumpm

[@martindinner3621]

Yeah.

[@s.c.6113]

This is what I was thinking. Not sure about that exact pump, but with intake and output on the same level I was pretty sure it's mostly recirculating. Also, the water will heat up to 40c at absolute worst? So the heat transfer will be tiny and you're relying on water vapour actually getting trapped in bubbles and not hitting the outside of the bubble and condensing back, because the transfer to the air without evaporation will be minuscule? Seeing it in action helps recognise all the flaws, it's a cool idea and I love that you did it, but it's very doomed to failure.

[@joeode5915]

finally someone said it

[@satibel]

suggestion: cool with style using a fountain. print a fountain, and use a waterproof fan underneath to cool the water.

[@warpedfusion]

I would love to see one like 6 ft tall. You can get clear pipe from the hardware store and I just think that would be such a cool thing to have beside your desk if it worked.

[@Longbowgun]

That's just a passive radiator.

[@thedeltaflyer666]

google FISH TUBE LIGHT and agree with me that it would be epic!!! Even if it doesn't work thermally it would be a very cool reservoir

[@carpediemarts705]

He needed a wider water chamber, not a taller one.

[@warpedfusion]

@@carpediemarts705 the idea of a taller one was to give the air more time to take heat from the water. Making a wider one would require more air stones to accomplish the same amount of cooling. Making it wider would theoretically work (while also making it slightly more complex) but so would making it taller.

[@sl1mp1k1nz9]

You need the water in the res to go top down meaning water enters through the top and is pulled down and through the system then re-entering through the top if this has any chance of working even a bit, I love you man, you always have some crazy experiment or new do yo test, you and Jay are my top subs! Thanks man, cheers

[@SSB2121]

As an old school builder these types of mad science experiments are always more entertaining to me than reviews.

[@thewizardoftech5075]

if you were drawing cold air from your freezer it "might" help lol

[@pankothompson5903]

There used to be some much bigger ones, also crazy reservoir coolers like the Thermaltake Rocket external and zalman fanless one

[@GrimpakTheMook]

still remember the name, Zalman Rezerator.

[@Lilgoth89]

@@GrimpakTheMook My friend still has a pair in parallel, still cools his entire rig ( 1070 + 8700k )

[@TravisFabel]

Don't really care about PC cooling, but I love you enthusiasm. I think you're enthusiasm makes it more interesting, especially for those of us who only have a passing interest in the subject of your projects.

[@ralanham76]

I love this video format it's very easy to follow. I do love very technical and detailed stuff too.

[@izzieb]

When you came up with this idea, you were obviously stoned.

[@Sam-cp6so]

Cheap joke is cheap

[@kasuraga]

I'm watching this video and I'm stoned.

[@BrandonMaldonado]

​@@kasuragasamsies

[@Lecherous_Rex]

Bongs and hookahs cool smoke by passing it through water, it would seem the stoners beat us to the punch by a century

[@rjhacker]

Airstone does sound exactly like a callsign

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

So, some suggestions: 1) A larger diameter and height container. This will increase contact area between the air bubbles and the water. 2) Make sure the air going into the airstone is actually cool and/or room temperature, as in my experience it's usually warm. The air pump typically relies on the flow of the air that it's pumping to cool itself, and the motor can get quite warm.

[@FrickedUp]

normal water cooling: you want as little air inside as possible Major hardware: lets add more air and see what happens! love it

[@criznittle968]

You need to watercool the air before airstoning it into the loop, then cool the water with a radiator.

[@juroquesoucomunista6904]

Being the first is easy, difficult is being the last.

[@kens97sto171]

Great video, love seeing all the interesting experiments. With evaporative cooling it's really important to have significant amount of airflow and there needs to be an evaporative surface for the water to be on such as your cooling tower. Those types of cooling towers were actually used to keep stationary engines in the early 1900s. One other thing you could try would be to look on KZbin and build in a vaporative cooler for your room. And then pull the cold water out of the reservoir at the bottom. Because with evaporative coolers not only is the air cooled as it goes over the wet substrate. But the water itself also is cooled significantly. You can find on KZbin designs for homemade evaporative coolers. Some of them are extremely effective.

[@Alzorath]

There is the cavitation comment which holds a bit of merit, though watching this - another thing comes to mind - the hot air could be having issues escaping the reservoir (yes, it will push out as the air is pumped in, but choking it in there could be the major difference between this, and the more open design, especially since the tubes themselves are moving through the hotter liquid/air to reach where they are going Maybe approach it like you're turning the double reservoir into the radiator - install a pull fan up top (pulling air out of the reservoir), inject the rocks in the sides of the top cylinder of the double (obviously sealing them to prevent leaking - and the reason for the top cylinder is to prevent the pump from pulling as much/any air into it). This keeps the air tubes from heating up as much, letting cooler air into the system, and the fan helps pull the hotter air out. Won't work as good as the radiator/fan system, but could be more likely to function. Though this oddly enough has me wondering if a higher pressure loop would improve cooling or not

[@vincentgreen2001]

Instead of a taller reservoir try more wider I recon you need more surface area for that to work. Maybe something like an aquarium perhaps. More surface area and volume.

[@fabianvandermijde4066]

Owh yaaa and he could also throw some nice fish in there

[@cmarting83]

Interesting idea, maybe a second larger reservoir with the airstones connected to the pump/res unit would have better results

[@vincentgreen2001]

@@cmarting83 If it's deeper with a bigger opening at the top than you might have a better result.

[@Zenefor]

Can you hook up a pump to make the water flow even faster than with the stock one?

[@Zenefor]

I mean like a mid pump to make the water flow through one direction really fast.

[@patrickgronemeyer3375]

He should also try it different loop pressures. Like basically try running a loop pressurized at two or three PSI and see if you cool any better. But y'all compressed gas heats up so your air stone is actually heating up the reservoir.

[@AaronShenghao]

Thermodynamic insight: the cooling tower works because the hot water exchanged heat with cooler air. Faster cooling can be achieved by few methods 1. Increase temperature gradient (get colder air/hotter water). 2. Increase heat exchange surface area (get more bubbles or bigger cooling) tower. In this set up the biggest bottle neck is actually how much air you can pump in (go thought the reservoir), oh and don't forget air pumps will heat up air been compressed. And You don't want taller reservoir, you want wider reservoir to allow more hotter bubbles leave the reservoir.

[@igarok123]

Hey, I'm new to your channel, and your experiments is exactly what got me hooked. I have an idea for you to try, actually I've discussed about it with a physicist and turns out it has merit. So it can work in two different ways, on of them is to use your evaporating water tower and to switch the dripping water with a fog - use a misting nozzle like from a perfume bottle or window cleaner bottle (in this case you can even ditch the fan). The second scenario, is to use an ultrasonic fogger (with a large volume of fog) it's like a humidifier, creates a mist from pure water, and drive the mist through the radiator with a fan. The mist will quickly evaporate due to the very small size of the droplets, and suck the heat from the air that is passing through the radiator, so essentially, you'll cool the radiator with cooler air than ambient. Good luck ;)

[@igarok123]

Also, you can use alcohol.

[@carlosesteban5601]

Can you check out the Noctua Redux series maybe? I'm rebuilding my PC for the RTX 3070 and the "Noctua NF-S12B redux-1200 PWM" for example claims a volume of 0.9dB (but not a pressure optimized like the louder "nf-p12 redux" ranging from 12.6-25.1dB 700-1700RPm. I feel like you could only use the NF-S12B as a rear exhaust since they aren't pressure optimized and won't perfom well. I dunno what I'm asking maybe attempt to almost mute your Pc or just compare them to the other Noctua fans or something. Or 3D print a mount to convert the 1dB fan into a Deskfan since it's so quiet and you can modulate the RPM.

[@nicolajstelzer7141]

A 0.9dB desk fan is something I would actually try if he succeeds. That's really practical and would probably look sick on a desk or maybe attached to the side of your monitor with adjustable angle.

[@BROTMASTER1]

0.9dB is Hella impressive but I think they would be the standard if it won't have drawbacks however I definitely want to see him do something with that. Maybe this time it'll actually be funktional if he builds a fan. Maybe he could even do all your ideas in 1 Video I really want to see that.

[@cooneytunes2525]

I'm here for that

[@BM1620]

Hmm, when you test that "air screw" also try testing it with another fan in front of it blowing air across the screw.

[@christophersimpson7052]

I was thinking what about printing it as a pull fan?

[@trothfox2160]

Christopher Simpson Seeing no one has done that in his fan showdown series, that would be pretty cool to see. If designing fan blades specific for pull would give any interesting results

[@lucasklaassen135]

I think it would be nice to make a cooler that’s just an open water tank (a little like in Nuclear centrals) or a little “river”, where the water just evaporates. Love your vids, keep up the awesome work!

[@Kualinar]

I've seen a water cooler that was totally passive. It consisted of a narrow but tall reservoir fitted with vertical ridges going top to bottom. The warm water enters from the top and cools down as as it travels down. For your setup, you need the warm water to go in from the top and out from the bottom. In your current setup, the warm water comes in from the bottom.

[@ericintampa9352]

remove the cap? the heat has to evaporate through a small hole in the lid, putting two tubes obstructed it even more. maybe?

[@michaelbaker8503]

As of this comment being posted this video has 666 likes and 69 dislikes

[@willlokeer5469]

I think some of the issue is there's no way for the heat to escape; it's all getting trapped by the cap and staying inside the system. That said, air is a terrible conductor of heat, so it could just be the heat transfer coefficient is too low, and while looking cool, just plain won't work. I think you're on to something with turbulent flow, but you'd need a heatsink in contact with the water, which I think isn't the idea of this experiment. Awesome vid though, loving the novel approaches to heat dissipation and absolutely loving the fan showdowns!

[@WouterVerbruggen]

It's a creative idea, very nice! You should definitely try it at a (far) larger scale, having a large number of air stones spread over an aquarium. You'll need far more air by volume than water to take away all the heat. Also, make sure the water "intake" to the rest of the loop is far from, and lower in height than, the stones. Such that the amount of bubbles that get cycled through the system is as low as possible

[@fuckin5kanks]

First

[@MajorHardware]

so fast

[@jamier4251]

Theory could work but I see three possible issues: 1- the reservoir is closed so heat/evaporation is not as readily able to escape. When it's forced through the small hole the increased pressure likely recondenses any evaporate 2. The pumps are also introducing heat in the forms of motor heat and compression heating of the air. It may not be significant at the lower pressures these work at but higher volume lower pressure pumps with wider diameter hose would further reduce it's influence. 3. You did hit on surface area as a concern, which I agree with. The drip tower had the water droplets falling and spreading over multiple surfaces through a substantial air flow at atmospheric pressure. Here we are rely on evaporation into bubbles under greater than atmospheric pressure in a shorter and narrower area. Maybe a shallower horizontal reservoir with a stick air stone like a side ways L | _______]

[@matthewdavenport9549]

One thing you should probably test is the temperature of the air coming out of the airstone. Its likely that the motor is designed to dispel it's heat with that air being pushed out so, you may have warm air, meeting warm water and just not giving you the cooling effect you want.

[@HOWBOUTTASHORYUKEN]

It’s so entertaining just to watch you try off the wall things.

[@MrPruske]

floor to ceiling tube, same exact setup. also just a big enough metal res would start to work

[@christopherlenahan3906]

The surface area of a 2" copper tube 8ft long is 2sq.ft. Which at that point basically a passive radiator column. you'd net more gain by not decreasing the area of surface contact with bubbling.

[@waaksaam8525]

It didn't work because all of the evaporation happens at the top, but the way your water pump sucks in water from the bottom it isn't getting any of the cooled water. If you extend the loop with an additional water tank that receives water from the bottom and ejects water back into the loop at a higher level and the airstones in the middle you should be able to get better cooling from them. The only problem is air bubbles can get sucked into the loop as well. So maybe add a third water reservoir that allows the air bubbles to float to the top before the water goes into the system.

[@sebbes333]

*@Major Hardware* A big problem with this method (as opposed to dripping the water) is that water have about 4 times more heat capacity than air, meaning for every 1 unit of water used for cooling, you need 4 units of air, so you REALLY need make that air pump work hard. *Google:* "water heat capacity vs air" *Result:* "Water's specific heat capacity is 4200 Jkg-1K-1 and Air's is 993 Jkg-1K-1 therefore *water has 4.23 times more specific heat capacity.* Water has a density of 1000/m3 and air has a density of 1.275/m3 therefore water would be 784.31 x denser than air."

[@sebbes333]

*@Major Hardware* Maybe try this? *Hot-bulb engine cooling system:* kzbin.info/www/bejne/o4Gqkn1_dtOdfas (but I think this is for cooling higher temperature water)

[@ashraferaky5936]

I never thought fans and cooling systems were that interesting before i found this channel.

[@freemanzweidreifunf8025]

how that thing is just leaking out of every opening on that last cut, just resembles that whole idea perfectly :'D i love this channel

[@alexjasonchandler]

Love to see you switching it up :-)

[@8Jory]

There are air stones and bubble bars that are specifically designed to make finer bubbles which would eliminate the need for a wetting agent and thus eleminate the foaming issue and some of the trapped bubble issues.

[@17473039]

1. Make the surface area of the coolant in res approx the same as the cooling tower area 2. Have more stones evenly distributed to keep the surface uniformly turbulent. Achieving a light spray at the surface is the ideal scenario. The more surface area of water exposed to the air the greater the rate of evaporation. 3. you need a fan blowing across the top of the coolant surface to dissipate the saturated air to allow more coolant to evaporate and adiabatically cool the system. 4. Bonus points if you use a peltier to cool a condensing plate to collect and recycle the coolant, thus potentially making the system viable as a continuous operation cooling system (IF it works)

[@joshlloyd3133]

An issue of this could be that of the design of the pump as it is designed just for circulation; the water tank connected to the pump is simply designed to keep the water loop filled; there isn't any circulation from the pump into the tank and back as the initial design wouldn't have a reason to initially do this. one the best chances you have with the current setup is to cap-off the inlet of the pump and have the water from the PC flow directly into the top of the reservoir, so that the hot water is circulating within the tank and the bubbles are affecting the hot water. The increased height of the tank will help with cooling.

[@joejoemyo]

THIS IS A BEST GUESS and is outside my field of expertise. However if these bubbles are similar to those created by cavitation, the collapse of these bubbles can actually *create* heat instead of reducing it. This would neutralize any effect from the increased aeration. Aerated water also conducts less, holds less heat, and radiates less energy. This basically ruins everything you want from a water cooler, but still probably works better than a stock cooler ;)

[@benfubbs2432]

- Putting the cap back on will reduce evaporation. - Surface area is important for evaporation so if you can make a reservoir that is like a funnel it would improve things. even better would be to have it pump into a bucket or something like that because that will give you a massive surface area. - Removing evaporated water from the surface boundary is also important, near the water surface humidity will build up which will slow evaporation (this is why don't put the reservoir lid back on). It feels kind of like cheating for this but having a fan blowing over the water surface will speed up evaporation. - Going taller won't be too useful, the air will become saturated with water vapor as it rises through the column of water and after that any more height is making things worse. You want the air to load up on water vapor and dump it to the atmosphere as quickly as possible so if it has to make a long journey to the surface that will slow things down. I haven't mathed this but I don't believe that you can pull it off. I believe that the mass of water that is needed to evaporate to keep up with the cpu is too great.

[@techguy4110]

I think the issue is that the water to air ratio is way higher than the cooling tower so it didn't work as well. you can mitigate this issue by adding more air volume and 4 reservoirs or more.

[@LetsBuildOne]

Evaporation cooling works by evaporation, so you have to have somewhere for that water vapor to go. It doesn't work indefinitely in a closed system. Also water has (as far as I can work out) the highest specific heat capacity of any fluid you could reasonably use. This means that it can absorb more heat per unit weight. Adding air bubbles into that reduces it's thermal capacity. This would only work if the air stone was pumping into an open tank, and the bubbles were removed before it went around the system. And even then you're looking at minimal gains unless you have very low humidity environment.

[@yeost187]

[sug] 3 Identical water chambers, the same size as you have already. Chamber 1): Hooked up like normal to the water pump (full of water). At the top put a cap on connected to a tube in the center. Chamber 2 (condenser chamber): laid not quite sideways. Slightly higher side goes towards chamber 1 connected from the tube. The lower side is capped with a tub in the center, going into chamber 3. Chamber 3): Full of water, connected towards the bottom of chamber 1 with a one-way valve, to prevent back flow. In theory: As the first chamber starts getting hot, the hot moist air rises to chamber 2 building up condensation forming cooler water droplets, then drips into chamber 3. The temperature difference should be enough to make the water flow from chamber 3, into chamber one. Don't expect it to cool the system like a radiator, but it might be enough to keep it running without throttling the cpu.

[@GremlinSciences]

I'd recommend you find some form of dye or indicator that doesn't dissolve in water (or whatever you may be using as a test coolant at the time) but has roughly the same density, or that can otherwise remain suspended in the water without damaging or clogging the system, so you can see how the coolant is actually flowing in your system. For this system, you want the water to be in contact with those bubbles as long as possible, but it looked like the water flow was barely even touching the bubbles. If you don't already have a divider in there, add one to separate the intake and return. If there already is one, try to extend it so the coolant only goes over it by 1 inch (about 2.54 cm) or less. The airstone should be on the intake side (where water is pulled _from_ the reservoir) and sit about half-way down.

[@thedeltaflyer666]

As you mentioned on several occasions that this "may be a complete waste of time", i kept thinking back to the 80s song. Here is your new anthem - Owen Paul - My Favourite Waste of Time. Keep wasting our time dude - its brilliant fun.

[@Lardzor]

I had an idea for a fan blades. Imagine a circle where the area of the circle is filled with a honeycomb pattern. Then extrude it to make a disc maybe an inch thick full of hexagonal holes. Now rotate the top layer of the disk about 20 degrees while keeping the center of the layer stationary. That would have the effect of the hexagonal tubes near the center of the disc being nearly straight through with little to no offset compared to the other side, but the hexagonal holes near the edge would be offset by 20 degrees compared to the other side with an arcing hexagonal tunnel connecting between them. I know this wouldn't be efficient since a fan blade made from dozens of tubes would have a lot of surface area, and a lot more air friction, but I was just curious if it would have an impact on static pressure, and especially on how it would sound.

[@dalm312]

Print a rectangle box that at the top feeds water into it, have it be caught by a drip mechanism that spreads the water over the the whole container. Then near the middle have a long air stone. The water will have to drip down and pass through the bubbles in order to make it into the exit. The bubbles are outside air so theoretically it should cool the air. There may have to be some holes at the top to let air out so it's not just pressurizing the the system. If anything it could be a cool looking/noisy reservoir

[@DadsDeerTrailCam]

To make it work, use a ~10 ish gallon fishtank. have the intake be in the bottom of the tank and the return line be almost waterfalling into the top of the tank. That would probobly work even without the bubbler, but if it doesn't, the bubbler is likely to struggle. Compressing air produces heat, which will probably heat up the compressed air. If you connected your airstone to an air compressor that was pre charged and not hot, you'd have much better chances. From your results, the pump your using seems to be heating up your loop. A bigger tank will also help avoid air being sucked into your cooling loop.

[@lesleymunro4964]

You need to change the air too. It's a very small volume of air. To work like the cooling tower, you'd have to let the air escape somewhere, and have water droplets. It's the evaporation of water in air which cools, the aeration won't cool, just because there's little evaporation taking place. So you need 3 tubes in the top, water return to a spray nozzle, air in, and air out. And you'd need a 1/2 fill of water, so there is some space for air. And an air filter on the air inlet, to stop dirt getting into the system.

[@cyrosgold7]

For this to work you might need 3 separate chambers, one for the bubbler open to the air, one for the water to settle, and one that feeds into the PC.

[@Foxilein]

I remember as a kid there where those high tower like tanks with a bubbler at the bottom and floating plastic fishes in it. This kind of tank as a reservoir with bubblers.

[@franklinlara1831]

Cooler idea: Lily Impeller

[@gadgetbuster69]

That air screen looks so similar to the lily impeller I suggested. Cant wait to see how it works. Thanks for all the great content. I'm looking at the FL sun printer so maybe I can make some contributions of my own!

[@mattmeikle1528]

I know its a year later, however, you need to make sure the return line isn't directly feeding the out line. your reservoir water is a reserve in this case and not a feed. you need to bring water in from the top, so the hot water actually runs through your bubbles instead of screaming by underneath in the d5 pump. Did something similar myself, hope this helps the idea along.

[@Road2Rally]

I love these tests you do bro. just knowledge for knowledge's sake

[@infi84]

Everyone: Always try to get rid of all the bubbles in your loop. Major Hardware:

[@lambcasualexperience7585]

What I read : Can you cool your pc with acetone. In my head : Today I will see flames. Consensus : I nees more sleep.

[@ShootMyMonkey]

That heptuple-helix-tannenbaum fan design would need at bare minimum a shroud of some kind to effectively move any air.

[@prjndigo]

The main problem you're facing is fairly simple... the air pumps use the air flow out the tube to vent their heat of operation. So you're adding heat into the system by using a diaphraghiphympbm pump. Now if you were to use a pressurized can of CO2 that was brought down to ambient temp and then gained some cooling from the pressure relief you might see something about this work.

[@s0litaire2k]

Idea: move the inlet to the top with the air-stones so the warm water is dropping down the tube through the air bubbles. that might help with the cooling since the cooler air is directly contact with the warm water. At the moment it looks like the warm water is just getting recirculated at the bottom, without reaching the cooler water at the top.

[@RATTL3R186]

You remind me why I got into PCs, FUN. Uhhhh what about a separate reservoir ? Air doesn't cool , so air going into the pump is a no go . Have a tank and the pump dumping into it from the water block maybe a transfer pump pushing water to your reservoir/pump . What I'm trying to get at is separate your pump from the aeration and increase the time the air has to interact with the water. Water wetter also . And really aerate the hades out of the water. Big tank/reserve reservoir . Bucket/milk jug. Since you have no rad your water supply needs to grow by a large amount. Nuclear power plants come to mind .

[@goldcountryruss7035]

Evaporative fluid cooler= Make a suitable copper tube coil and place it between the hot water source and the water return to the tank. Spray water mist over the coil while also blowing air over the coil. If properly designed the air will evaporate the water off the coil exterior and remove about 1,000 BTU per pound of water evaporated. If you have everything in the proper proportions and the air humidity is fairly low it should cool the return water to something like 84 or 85F. Capacity is determined by coil surface area, water flow, adequate exterior coil wetting, air flow, and wet bulb air temperature. You could easily make one out of a plastic bucket w/lid, copper heat exchanger, small submersible pump, 2ea 4" muffin fan, and drip irrigation spray nozzles.

[@Operational117]

I’m still hoping you can combine the cooling tower with the radiator (water goes through radiator to cool down to as close to room temperature as possible, then through the cooling tower to cool down even further through evaporative cooling).

[@PcItalian]

That lemon juicer fan looks impressive.

[@Vivi_Sterling]

Crazy cooler idea: run your system on a liquid cooling loop filled with super cooled liquid. Essentially have a block and pump that runs into a small container that you fill with high proof alcohol and then you drop in pieces of dry ice to super cool it down to -50 F and you can do some amazing overclocked on this. I did this for a project in one of my mechanical engineering classes on exotic cooling solution for electrical components, worked great, first time I ever got my 4790k to peak over 5.2 GHz

[@dizzystj]

Mate recently subbed and really enjoy these vids thank you for your work cheers from Australia

[@dabnation2534]

LOL knew it wasnt going to work from the start still a great video. these fan videos are pretty fun to watch. i think its about time to upgrade from that 7700k its starting to show age. Love the channel keep it up.

[@The-SaltiestPretzel]

This gave me an idea for a thinner cooling tower actually: Either this configuration or one more reservoir taller, with at least half of it being headroom, with one of those ultrasonic fog making pucks right at the water's surface. Not sure if this would work like I'm thinking, and might need some extra work, but might be fun to try!

[@beajayparker247]

And my hypothesis about why the airstones didnt work is because the reservoir isnt an active part of the loop. It was water storage, but not much water flow. Maybe if the water flowed into another chamber/jar, that the stones could be placed in, Maybe that will actually cool the moving water instead of just bubbling up stagnant water? My guess is the best place for the bubble tank would be between the cpu outlet and the pump inlet. And have the cpu outlet high in the tank and the pump inlet low in the tank. To make sure the pump doesnt pick up too many bubbles.

[@teardowndan5364]

You may want to drop one or two drops of food coloring while the water pump is running without bubbles to see how quickly the water column gets mixed into the cooling loop. Bubbles were moving straight up, seems to indicate not much other coolant movement interfering with them. The reservoir is intended to hold a reserve to offset losses, collect bubbles from the system over time and facilitate filling, not to thoroughly mix return fluid into the reservoir for optimal bubbler heat exchange. The mixing rate between reservoir coolant and loop coolant may be too slow for air stones to be effective without tweaking. If the colorant test shows such poor mixing, then you may want to SLA-print a reservoir coupler with a built-in return port so coolant can be returned half-way up into the reservoir with the air stones below it. Give the return port a pretty good off-center offset, perhaps make its ID tangent with the coupler's ID, and you should get some nice bubble swirl action.

[@UnrestrictedClimb15]

I’ll say this until it changes: I don’t know how you’re not a bigger channel. To take the radiator delete concept to the next phase maybe there’s some clever way to use refrigerant, copper coils in the reservoir, some way to chill the water in the reservoir faster than it absorbs heat from the loop... I don’t know lol I’m not an engineer but you have to admit the vague idea sounds cool. Pun intended.

[@nacoran]

Got me thinking... maybe a system that runs the heated water through a weeping wall or some other sort of decorational waterfall and then pumps it back in. Seems like a way you could conceal an awful lot of cooling space, and hide the pump fans with the more pleasant waterfall sounds to boot. I know a guy who rerouted the drain pipes from his shower so the waste hot water pumps through a pipe into a towel warming rack. Maybe the trick isn't to think of heat as the enemy but to harness it. You just need to turn the heat exhaust into a system to keep your coffee warm or something useful. :)

[@sergiefox7149]

Here is an idea for a project that would definitely work, but would still be informative. What about water cooling using a direct attachment to your faucet and outtake to your drain. No fans or pump required. What would be interesting would be how the flow rate affects your temps. I suspect that you could do such a thing at an EXTREMELY slow flow because even at a slow rate, the amount of water that would be heated would be very small and would not be contained in any kind of loop...something like a slow trickle of water might actually be somewhat economical and the outtake could be used to water a garden or something via maybe a soaker hose?

[@ahmedalshamsi1150]

If you pressure the air then the air heats up, its a bad idea to cool that way the water it may raise the temp or even not affect it at all. 1. Try dismanteling cheap mini fridge and turn the copper cold pipe side into a coil that fits the water reservoir. The more coils submerged in the water the better the effect will be. 2. Use the biggest air coolers you have to cool a thermoelectric that is connected to an extra cpu water block but it is connected the water where is which will be used to cool the water and the positioning of it will be between the cpu and the pump. < I recomend you test this one

[@Alansdadude]

The air becomes fully saturated pretty soon after exiting the air stone. So it could be a mile tall and not make a difference. You can use pieces of evaporative media (munters) and blow air across it. Consumer version would be sold for a furnace humidifier. It’ll work way better than the cooling tower.

[@jdgdesign]

Maybe a reservoir with a larger surface area in contact with the air would help (like casserole dish versus drinking glass shape). Another outside the box idea if you have an aquarium would be to pull water from near the bottom and return through the top. This would prevent stagnation and would also aid aeration. I would guess that a several gallon aquarium would likely serve as a fairly efficient heat sink.

[@kendokaaa]

Thank you for your throttling O7

[@LKLM138]

Simple: Make a long big tube, like a sewer pipe or bigger, bout 30cm in diameter and whole room tall. Then add a small shower head on top and pump your water there. Also either pump cool air in it, or make some holes on top and bottom. That way you change the ratio of water / air drastically.

[@albemontors]

Ok this needs some explanation: In the cooling tower there is no heat transfer between air and water, the heat that is dissipated is actually used when water evaporates due to the large contact surface with air. This heat is called latent heat of evaporation. The same thing does not happen with the bubbles due to the poor airflow the pump provides, the water is not evaporating. The evaporation is also the cause for the water reducing in amount in the cooling tower video, it is not a defect, it is the working principle.

[@0cujo0]

Maybe use vacuum cleaner dust in an Archimedes screw at a 45 degree angle then the dust falls back into the hopper to be re-used again? Dust will work as long as its dry.

[@ardemus]

I would expect cooling similar to the same CFM across a radiator. Looking at a few random aquarium air pumps, they push between 2.5 LPM and 110 LPM (0.09 - 3.88 CFM) while a Noctua NF-F12 PWM pushes 1250-1560 LPM (44-55 CFM). One of the 110 LPM commercial aquarium air pumps I found on amazon, maxed out with 12 stones, might produce a measurable result. I'd like to see 10 of them running 120 stones in a 10 gallon fish tank, compared to a radiator running a fan at 1100 LPM (using the same tank as the reservoir). I'd consider adding an under gravel filter grate and gravel to the tank and using the filter riser for your water intake, to avoid sucking a ton of air into the cooling loop. You could use a fish tank heater to bring the water temp up to a certain starting temp to speed up the test.

[@stevenp.3303]

Airstones in one reservoir, pass the water in to a second reservoir in series to release the air, then to the cooling block. Also try with distilled water.

[@beajayparker247]

Ayyy redline waterwetter!!, I use the same in my track car!! I love the stuff

[@enderoftime2530]

Put a screen in between the air stones and the reservoir outlet. The idea is to put a “filter” to stop the bubbles from entering the loop. Alternatively, you could add something like isopropyl alcohol to reduced foaming.

[@kintustis]

For evaporative cooling, I would think the evaporated water would have to leave the loop. As it is, evaporating water would cool the loop, but it brings the heat right back into the loop when it condenses and drips back down. If you ran it with some sort of wick like a humidifier/evaporative cooler does, you should get some cooling, but the loop will drain over time. Not practical for daily use, but a good proof of concept.