Water cooling on USB Erupters? - page 2.

tk1337

sr. member

Activity: 266

Merit: 250

As far as the cost of water blocks themselves, yes, could be costly if you were buying them from a manufacturer. I have a few blocks of aluminium laying around (oddly enough) and the fabrication experience to make the blocks, in theory, they could be made pretty cheap after a mold was made. I'm just merely tossing out the idea of water cooling to see if it would have a sustainable difference. It's more of a "what-if" project from boredom, just because I have a few blocks of aluminium laying around. Granted copper would be ideal, but when you had materials just sitting around... Cheesy

I personally have made a custom rig from a old gaming case, which has (2x) 200mm, (1x) 230mm, (3x) 120mm, (1x) 140mm which all fans are ran from an separate power source from everything else. It's quite efficient for a case that was laying around for 3 years collecting dust and it's completely silent as well..

DeathAndTaxes

donator

Activity: 1218

Merit: 1079

Gerald Davis

I would say it is next to useless. Watercooling isn't a magical fix.

For watercooling to make sense it should be economical, improve cooling, and be used on a device which can significantly expand its power consumption.
What is the computing power per waterblock? You want those lowest waterblock cost in terms of $/GH and that means larger hash power chips will be better choice.
Is air cooling acting as a limitation? Chip temp, size of heatsink, noise of fans. If the device is only warm to the touch with no air flow then water cooling isn't going to improve anything.
Do you have extra power to overclock? Can you supply more power to raise the clock to benefit from the increased cooling. Increased hashing power out of the device offsets the increased costs.

USB miners fail hard on all three.

Better choices for exploring watercooling (from most benefit to least benefit):
Hashfast (uses watercooling. I wonder why? See above)
KNC (100GH/s 250W ASIC and board can supply up to 320W)
BFL (not jalpeno)

No significant benefit IMHO:
ASICMiner Block Eruptor blades (will need very large heatsinks)
Avalon (will need very large heatsinks)
Bitfury (stock board has no spare current)
USB Miners (see above)

zackclark70

legendary

Activity: 868

Merit: 1000

ADT developer

i would stick with a copper water block

also i would be willing to test a water block for you if i get a block erupter

The Avenger

hero member

Activity: 798

Merit: 1000

Most people use a cheap usb fan to cool 5 to 6 eruptors, which works just fine. Why would anybody want to water cool them?

tk1337

sr. member

Activity: 266

Merit: 250

As it stands right now, I'm looking to get my hands on a couple of erupters to prototype some aluminium water blocks for, sounds like overkill, which I'm sure it is. However I've been entertaining the idea for awhile and I have all the tools necessary (and fabrication experience). Ideally one would want a stand alone system (radiator, 1 water block per erupter, tubing, connections, pump, etc..), made in such a fashion it would suit most USB hubs. I was initially going to start off with aluminium (since I have blocks of it sitting around) then go to copper if it was a successful gain.

The real question is, would it be worth it, if so, being cooled to X degree would yield better performance.

Anyone else have some input on the idea? Trying to decide if it's worth attempting at all, what everyone's over all opinion is on the idea.

(I would have posted this else where, but since I've decided to lurk the forums for awhile and not post, I still have newbie status... so hi, I'm a newbie, not really...)

Topic: Water cooling on USB Erupters? - page 2. (Read 1190 times)