need help on coolant methods - will only take a second to read

Ok so i need a way to cool down a machine, wires etc, that will get extremely hot (and i mean the metal gets red smokin' hot) very quickly.

rage fan coolers obviously wont work, and encasing it in liquid nitrogen wont, as some have suggested, as when the nitrogen evaporates, the gas expands and the casing will burst (which is irrelevant since it would only last a short time).

Anyone more experienced in coolant methods know some other way that would work?

or do you just know a website where i can find info?

Thanks!

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Shadow88]

I guess it depends on the size of area you need to cool, what materials, etc first.

How does your wiring even last long enough if you get red hot metal?

I would guess that you will need a system that circulates throughout the body itself. Simple fans will not cut it when you get down to it.

They make some decent liquid cooling systems for PC's, but my guess is that for your application this will not do at all.

It would be something to look into them though, maybe up the scale of it etc.

Use thicker wires and components rated for that current/voltage, that would be the easy way. Or make the case out of copper tubing and add cooling fins, then pump light oil though it (with a rubber expansion chamber).

Peltier effect cooling e.g. thermoelectric or liquid Nitrogen. You can just use an open dewar and keep topping it up (not too practical...) or plumb in a system to a central feed - telescope sensors are cooled this way, but there is an ongoing cost to this....

Fins/heatsinks, other liquid cooling methods (water, oil) or some old refrigerator parts....

What sort of heat max and delta T are you looking for..??

I'm no engineer but I think we need to know (as Dulcimer also asked) size of the machine, type of machine, materials involved, temperatures which are safe for the machinery and what temperatures are required for optimum performance, etc. Oh, and price you're "willing to spend" ... Oh, and must it be an existing "machine" to do the cooling or will you be building it yourself?

Gas is the most effective, and there is no need to use nitrogen gas (although there are a couple of reasons why someone would want to use it). Ammonia is popular for cooling used with hydrogen. The point is just that the gas has to keep moving (in one form of the other). Looking at your basic fridge would give you some idea about this. (Or are you looking for something more high-tech? I'm not saying use your fridge as cooler for the machine - but the science of heating & cooling gas as with fridges - and air cons - are the most popular...) Or maybe I'm way off on this one...

Edit: I made the post the same time as UofCinLA, saying more or less the same thing, although his post makes more sense, seeing that he uses correct termanology, etc...

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Gemwolf]

Here is something to think about. Why are the wires getting so hot? what is the source of the heat?

Here is why i ask.

Lets say your car is overheating. there are several things you can do. 1) run only water due to water being a beter heat transfer aganet. 2) slow down or speed up the water pump to allow proper saturation of the heat into the heat exchange medium 3) add more pressure as every 1lb of pressure add 3 degrees to teh boiling point 4) more airflow (drive faster) 5) retard the timing as this causes cylinder pressures to rise which also causes temperature to rise 6) add more fuel as this will slow the combustion process lowing the cylinder pressures (although it is often thought a rich condition actually causes cooling since the extra fuel is cool).

now i know this does not directly relate to your post, but see all that that can be done instead of just adding a bigger radiator. sometimes you don't want to just band aid the problem.

now if you problem involves too much current for the wires to handle or too much resistance, you may want to explore other options. also is there any insulation on these wires, and why ( may be easier to encase the wires in a liquid with a good heat exchanger). what material are the wires made from.these are the kinds of question we need answered in order to offer educated solutions.

hope that helps.
Joe

An Aqua system made for computers, radiator type. You need some fireproof foam.

If you adjust the throttle on the machine I suppose this will allow it to not heat up as quickly.

Why does this machine heat up so quickly? Is this machine a combustion engine, vacuum, etc?

Without eniviron specs this is a difficult nut to split... But I do understand the the nature of invention and "loose-lips"... 'sounds like you may require a closed loop non-gaseous system with a high specific heat capacity to "pull" out the BTU's. The current state of the art efficient mediums are dense liquid metals and plastics using phase-shift conduction through multiple systemic layering ending in radiance to the larger environment. Hendricks Motorsports experimented with plastic-medum cooling in the '80's on the Vette project - worked pretty good providing the pre-heat-to-flow cycle was observed... Gigabyte currently offers liquid metal cooled video cards. My Russian welder uses Hg (liquid at room temp) in a closed-loop for evenly cooling the capacitor stacks. Many high-specificity mediums will require a pre-heat-to-flow cycle. Without giving away what you are working on a little more environmental data would be helpful... best of luck... hgs0

[edit on 26-9-2005 by highgroundsys0p]

I'll be glad to help any way I can. Please supply the following:

high temperature you'll see
temperature you want to try to maintain
material of whatever you're trying to cool
area of whatever you're trying to cool
liquids present (if any)
volumes of liquids present

Sorry y'all are right i should have been more specific, Although i must be careful in what i say about the design.

But ok here is the neccesary information.

• The device uses an coreless electromagnet. As you will probably know they get extremely hot.
  
  
• I do not know how hot it gets, i need to buy a digital thermometer, but very hot, very quickly.
  
  
• I'm not changing the wire thickness. I need it to be compact, and i can't with big thick wire.
  
  
• Area that needs to be cooled, roughly 2x (14" x 14").
  
  
• I am using 25+ gauge copper wire.
  
  
• No liquids are currently present
  

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Shadow88]

Since your device seems to be closely related to a transformer, may I suggest doing what they do. Try encasing it in oil. The transformers you see high on telephone poles are all insulated with oil. Many large transformers are also and even have cooling fins for a heatsink to convect the heat away. If compact design is necessary, you could simply run two lines in an out of the device and circulate it through a cooling tank with a heatsink.

Wow who'da thunk it eh? Thanks a lot i will check that out, im interested to find out how that works.

Thats what i love about this website. You can talk to people all over the world from all walks of life,with the collective general knowledge of a hotel full of university challenge winners! (sigh a dont think the americans here will get that one....)

Just outta curiousity, how does a laptop adapters keep cool? (the little black box between the plug socket and the laptop for those who didnt know)

Any other methods.

But, if the wire getting too hot is the problem, why not use a different material that is not effected by the heat?

Is the insulation on your wire burning?
Is the copper melting?

www.awcwire.com...
www.surplussales.com...

Just a thought....................

I figured I knew what it was shadow. I think in that case, a light oil, copper case with durable TEC coolers and an internal pump would be best. With what your doing, I'd be more worried about the batteries. Even with high current lithium ion batteries, it would only give you 200 cycles at 15-30minutes each charge. After 200 cycles, new Li-ions would be needed.

hehehe XL5 one thing at a time. *secretly *

Im really working from the bottom up, sorting out all the secondary problems, then working on sustained output. If thats not too cryptic. lol

If you know what im doing you may be interested that so far, larger wire used, for some reason has less effect (i assume since i can get physically more thin wire.)

Also the thing works just fine on a conductive surface, anyone could accomplish that. The problem i face is i need very high voltage/current to get it to even twitch on normal ground (im trying at the moment to isolate which variables affect the desired outcome)

Perhaps it is futile to think i can ever sustain the desired outcome on such a small scale........but alas! i carry on!

P.S: i created THIS thread so i could focus on any inspirations based solely around the cooling system, since i dont have any know-how in cooling systems.

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Shadow88]

Originally posted by Shadow88

I am using 25+ gauge copper wire.

Why so so small? You can reduce heat by using bigger wire, less resistance.

Thicker wires + limited space = less turns of wire = less effect

Its the amount of turns in the coil of wire, for this part of the device, that has a profound effect. (more turns of wire = stronger effect) Also the increased weight and size has a negative effect.

This is why i need higher gauge wire.

Sorry for the daft vagueness....oh and you must remember im on a limited budget, i cant just buy all different wires left, right and centre....

sigh.....tiz midnight in England.....dammit and ive gotta get up early! lol

[edit on 26-9-2005 by Shadow88]

Tesla used salt and later sulphur and lithium to pre-cool some devices that were heat sensitive... 'build a casement pack it with dessicated salt and freeze the mutha' - deep-soak... what is the op periodicity of this beastie? How long must the components stay below "x" temp? Fluid cooling in a high-gauss setup will quite likely give some instability in passively circulated fluid dynamics.
Many big-ass MRI's use He reliquification for cooling - mondo expensive - salt is cheap and has a high thermal capacity.
If the setup is for a proto-proof-of-concept device pehaps consider pre-cooling the whole she-bang before use to see if it does what is required and later when you have seed money and proven-concept well in hand fork out the bucks for a custom reusable device incorporating a specialized cooling shroud set for the coreless mags.
Coreless mags in arrays have nifty properties that can allow one to "hold" things (waves and matter) in both tension and compression with great stability. Whatever you're workin' on shadow - be careful - smokin' hot magnets and the matter at the mercy of their fields can be well - dangerous and unpredictable especially on ramp-up and ramp-down phases. Had any cool experiences with zippers, pocket change, credit cards and belt buckles? Or how about HDD's and CRT's and mag media. Yikes! Keep us posted eh? Best of luck - push the envelope - luv ta help ne way I can - hgs0.

[edit on 26-9-2005 by highgroundsys0p]

Ahhh I see, the best way to go then is still oil cooling but maybe not a copper shell due to the currents that would be induced. Using a higher voltage and lowering the amps will help alot.