Cool electronics with outside air via hose.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Do you really think that you can keep pulling air out, without
sucking hot outdoor air into the house?

Certainly not, but the air outside is usually cooler than the air in a room
with three computers (let's say 1kW). Actually pulling in air from outside
can solve heat problems. This is all under the condition that there's no
aircon in the building.

The negative pressure will pull
air in form anywhere it can, including a crawl space, and areas that
have been sprayed with pesticides.

Don't spray pesticides near your house if you don't want it inside, too. At
least not when your house has a "crawl space", i.e. is one of those cheap
(but overpriced) US buildings, which have no proper isolation, and are very
far from being airtight.

The outdoor air is humid, and could
lead to black mold problems, which can make you sick, or even kill you.

Black mold is mostly a problem when the dew point of the air *inside* is
above the wall temperature - i.e. in winter, with unaired rooms (high
humidity) and unisolated walls (cold). With the computers heating up air
inside (but not adding more humidity to it, like sweating humans would),
it's a non-issue. You can have summer black mold in tropical countries
where the bottom 2m in summer usually are so damp that it's fog everywhere.
Solution: Build house on stilts (then you don't have to crawl in your crawl
space), make sure you use tropical wood which resists the mushrooms.

Actually, controlled air-flow similar in spirit to this idea in server rooms
solves quite some problems, and reduce energy consumption (and is actually
state of the art). You cool down outside air with an aircon (say from 30°
to 20°, and reduce humidity), feed it through the fresh air channels
(that's also where the crew works), heat it up inside the servers to 50°C,
and then take it out through the backside channels. That way the aircon
removes only 1/3 of the thermal waste of the servers, whereas a closed
circuit airflow would require to cool the 50°C down to 20°C, and the normal
way things operate (with unordered racks and no air flow control), you even
need strong airflow at lower temperatures to achieve an intake temperature
of 20°C, since the thermal output dilutes the air in the whole server room.

In most circumstances, you can use ground water for the cooling, since most
non-tropical regions have average temperatures below 20°C, so all you need
are some water pumps. In winter, you can heat up entire office buildings
with your servers.

Scaling down that idea to three random computers in a room (e.g. one tower
under the desk, a laptop on the desk, and a HTPC in a rack full of other
equipment, which also dissipates heat) is far from trivial ;-).

--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/

It does seem a waste to buy electricity to run a few computers, which heat
up a room, and then have to buy more electricity to cool the room. In
winter it's not a total waste but in summer you wind up paying twice to run
the computers. Seems someone ought to invent something like a house vacuum
system so hoses could be connected to the wall and heat generating devices.

Why so complex. Someone should simply invent a computer that generates
cold rather than heat. You'd just have to switch from one system to the
other between summer and winter. After all, if computers are general
enough to replace stereos and TVs, why not go a bit further and replace
heaters and ACs as well? Imagine the benefits: you could grep through
your collection of past cold air...


Stefan

Bernd Paysan wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
Do you really think that you can keep pulling air out, without
sucking hot outdoor air into the house?

Certainly not, but the air outside is usually cooler than the air in a room
with three computers (let's say 1kW). Actually pulling in air from outside
can solve heat problems. This is all under the condition that there's no
aircon in the building.


Not going to happen in Florida the humidity is high, year round and
it xcan hit 100 degrees in the early afternoone.


The negative pressure will pull
air in form anywhere it can, including a crawl space, and areas that
have been sprayed with pesticides.

Don't spray pesticides near your house if you don't want it inside, too. At
least not when your house has a "crawl space", i.e. is one of those cheap
(but overpriced) US buildings, which have no proper isolation, and are very
far from being airtight.


Once again, you don't know what you are talking about. No pesticides
means no wood within a couple years.


The outdoor air is humid, and could
lead to black mold problems, which can make you sick, or even kill you.

Black mold is mostly a problem when the dew point of the air *inside* is
above the wall temperature - i.e. in winter, with unaired rooms (high
humidity) and unisolated walls (cold). With the computers heating up air
inside (but not adding more humidity to it, like sweating humans would),
it's a non-issue. You can have summer black mold in tropical countries
where the bottom 2m in summer usually are so damp that it's fog everywhere.
Solution: Build house on stilts (then you don't have to crawl in your crawl
space), make sure you use tropical wood which resists the mushrooms.


Black mold is a problem all over Florida.


Actually, controlled air-flow similar in spirit to this idea in server rooms
solves quite some problems, and reduce energy consumption (and is actually
state of the art). You cool down outside air with an aircon (say from 30°
to 20°, and reduce humidity), feed it through the fresh air channels
(that's also where the crew works), heat it up inside the servers to 50°C,
and then take it out through the backside channels. That way the aircon
removes only 1/3 of the thermal waste of the servers, whereas a closed
circuit airflow would require to cool the 50°C down to 20°C, and the normal
way things operate (with unordered racks and no air flow control), you even
need strong airflow at lower temperatures to achieve an intake temperature
of 20°C, since the thermal output dilutes the air in the whole server room.


I have worked in a lot of broadcast facilitiies where using outside
air couldn't keep up with outdoor heat unless the airflow was enogh to
blow the staff out of the buuilding. I have been in early cellular base
stations that will die within minutes without AC. High tmeperatures
shorten the life of the equipment, particularly the electrolytic
capacitors. If downtime is no problem you can do whaever half assed
cobbled up mess you can think of. If .01% downtime is too much, you do
things right.


In most circumstances, you can use ground water for the cooling, since most
non-tropical regions have average temperatures below 20°C, so all you need
are some water pumps. In winter, you can heat up entire office buildings
with your servers.


Yeah, right. In winter, you just have lower cooling costs around
here.


Scaling down that idea to three random computers in a room (e.g. one tower
under the desk, a laptop on the desk, and a HTPC in a rack full of other
equipment, which also dissipates heat) is far from trivial ;-).


Only THREE computers? BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!


--
http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in
your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm

Sporadic E is the Earth's aluminum foil beanie for the 'global warming'
sheep.

"Stefan Monnier" wrote in message
...
It does seem a waste to buy electricity to run a few computers, which
heat
up a room, and then have to buy more electricity to cool the room. In
winter it's not a total waste but in summer you wind up paying twice to
run
the computers. Seems someone ought to invent something like a house
vacuum
system so hoses could be connected to the wall and heat generating
devices.

Why so complex. Someone should simply invent a computer that generates
cold rather than heat. You'd just have to switch from one system to the
other between summer and winter. After all, if computers are general
enough to replace stereos and TVs, why not go a bit further and replace
heaters and ACs as well? Imagine the benefits: you could grep through
your collection of past cold air...


In my best Monty Python voice:
Oh all right then! This sketch is now totally silly and I want it to stop
right this instant.

Unless we want to talk about a perpetual motion machine. Take the heat
generated by the PC and use it to generate electricity that runs the PC.
Patent is mine.

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:58:24 GMT
"Virgil Smith" wrote:

Last I knew .. condensation only occurs onto a cooler surface, when
it comes in contact with warmer, moisture-laden air. The inside of a
warm computer should
be the last place you would expect condensation.

-vs-

The problem is, you would have extreme variations of input air
temperature, which would lead to condensation. It might not be bad,
but ANY condensation in a PC is really bad. -Dave

Skybuck Flying wrote:

Could be interesting idea... to connect the computer to the outside air via
hose/tunnels.

Except maybe in summer

But in winter it would supply the pc with cold outside air instead of room
temperature

Bye,
Skybuck.

Maybe you could use your head with brain connected?
How big must the hose be to get sufficent air flow?
What would the rating of the fan(s) have to be to move the air thru
those hoses at a sufficent air flow?
Note the longer the hoses, the greater the resistance is to a given
air flow.
How do you maximize laminar airflow for minimum resistance?

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:08:23 -0700, Robert Baer wrote:

Maybe you could use your head with brain connected? How big must the
hose be to get sufficent air flow? What would the rating of the
fan(s) have to be to move the air thru
those hoses at a sufficent air flow?
Note the longer the hoses, the greater the resistance is to a given
air flow.
How do you maximize laminar airflow for minimum resistance?

Skybuck is a notorious PC nincompoop. I doubt if he can wipe his arse
without getting **** on his nose.

Marty wrote:
On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 23:08:23 -0700, Robert Baer wrote:

Maybe you could use your head with brain connected? How big must
the hose be to get sufficent air flow? What would the rating of
the fan(s) have to be to move the air thru
those hoses at a sufficent air flow?
Note the longer the hoses, the greater the resistance is to a
given air flow.
How do you maximize laminar airflow for minimum resistance?

Skybuck is a notorious PC nincompoop. I doubt if he can wipe his arse
without getting **** on his nose.

Which is why I'm surpriased so many people fell for it, and hence my
original reply to his question.
--
SteveH

* Michael A. Terrell:

Once again, you don't know what you are talking about. No pesticides
means no wood within a couple years.

Ever heard of bricks?

Benjamin

Stefan Monnier wrote:

It does seem a waste to buy electricity to run a few computers, which heat
up a room, and then have to buy more electricity to cool the room. In
winter it's not a total waste but in summer you wind up paying twice to run
the computers. Seems someone ought to invent something like a house vacuum
system so hoses could be connected to the wall and heat generating devices.

Why so complex. Someone should simply invent a computer that generates
cold rather than heat. You'd just have to switch from one system to the
other between summer and winter. After all, if computers are general
enough to replace stereos and TVs, why not go a bit further and replace
heaters and ACs as well? Imagine the benefits: you could grep through
your collection of past cold air...

Stefan

How about an Acoustic Stirling Cycle Engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

Los Alamos National Laboratory: Acoustic Stirling Heat Engine Home
http://www.lanl.gov/mst/engine/

"The acoustic power can be used directly in acoustic refrigerators
or pulse-tube refrigerators to provide heat-driven refrigeration
with no moving parts"

Eric