Oil Submerged PC questions.

[Terminashunator]

I am planning on parting out a laptop and make an oil cooled pc daily driver. I intend it to be A daily driver and I would like to plan for minimal maintenance. 
 

 

I would like it passively cooled but if I hit thermal soak issues I’ll need to externally mount a radiator for cooling the oil. What tubjng is best recommended, as I know mineral oil eats most rubber and plastic tubing. Will automotive fuel line work? Or do I need more exotic viton tubibg? For a pump, will a scavenged CLC pump be enough, or would something like a peristaltic pump or fish tank pump be more appropriate?

[narrdarr]

You shouldnt need all that. You can literally use an air pump like in a fish tank. The air and heat from the system moves the fuild around making the heat dissipate from the surface. You could also just run pc fan in the oil. 

[Demonic Donut]

Like @narrdarrsaid, you should be ok with passive cooling as long as you have enough oil surface area and the laptop isn't high powered.

 

Viton would be my first choice for tubing if you want something flexible. It's not crazy expensive and would be easier to work with vs stainless steel or copper lines. You could also use glass for water cooling, just make sure whatever fittings you have use O-Rings that are compatible with mineral oil.

[Terminashunator]

1 hour ago, narrdarr said:

You shouldnt need all that. You can literally use an air pump like in a fish tank. The air and heat from the system moves the fuild around making the heat dissipate from the surface. You could also just run pc fan in the oil. 

The laptop specs are moderately high, i7 8550u + GTX 1050, should it be able to run passively cooled (the oil, not the bare CPU)? I'm going to keep the stock heatsink, but replace the laptop fan with a higher performance blower from an iMac. 

 

36 minutes ago, Demonic Donut said:

Like @narrdarrsaid, you should be ok with passive cooling as long as you have enough oil surface area and the laptop isn't high powered.

 

Viton would be my first choice for tubing if you want something flexible. It's not crazy expensive and would be easier to work with vs stainless steel or copper lines. You could also use glass for water cooling, just make sure whatever fittings you have use O-Rings that are compatible with mineral oil.

I calculated the volume of the oil to about 3L, will that be enough for passively cooling the oil? I don't game much, it would be mostly desktop and multimedia use. I need to find a source for the tubing, I wouldn't need too much length as I wanted to use hard line metal tubing as much as I could, for aesthetics. 

[Demonic Donut]

Where are you located? In the US there are many suppliers. Grainger, while not being the cheapest, is a good supplier with many locations and a good selection of materials and tools. It would be a one stop shop. You could probably find a radiator that would work from them as well.

 

Surface area and circulation will effect heat disapation from the oil. I'm not going to even try to do the napkin math on that one. If people more well versed in that style of cooling say an aquarium pump is enough, I'd be inclined to believe them. Worst case, you can add the radiator after the fact.