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I have been working on a Mineral oil submerge mining rig for the past couple weeks. I got it up and running so I thought I'd share.

http://youtu.be/EpNERMxvPTk

I'm going to fill it up enough to allow the mineral oil to flow over the cards. I also plan on adding a reservoir that the main pump sits in. Allowing the warm fluid from the top to spill over.

kind of cool imo :)

That is pretty cool..keep posting more stuff as you get it done.

 I did it partially for the cool factor.  8)  I did it mainly to keep mining cost low.

I'll make another video once a few changes are made.

Can you post a written how-to? this would be great for alot of people...especially now that the summer is coming in some parts of the world.

Yes, I was thinking about that since I started building it. Here are the parts.

The pump you can see in the video was my first guess.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002PDBRXE/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The second pump was almost enough. I combined the two and flow looked good.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0049XKMGQ/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I also bought a cheap bilge pump from china for testing.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00INSTAXO/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought the tubing to fit the second pump.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GUFW3W/ref=oh_details_o08_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I never knew you could find radiators for this cheap. until now.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DH81SW/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Bought two fans that should have fit on the same side. They didn't fit well enough. I switched the polarity on one of the motores to run in reverse. I'm sure it's not very efficient. The solution works for now though. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003U7UR3A/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Ordered 5 gal of mineral oil. I would love to use the 3m fluid, but it's out of the budget. This cheap stuff has worked fine so far. Makes a good laxative too. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HHLUE6/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This oil is a better solution.
http://store.steoil.com/mineral-oil-pc-kit/?sort=featured

Amazon Prime did this to me.

I already had a few parts lying around. I'm not sure the cost of theses parts or the availability.

I used shark bite tubing and fittings to plum the radiator. They fit snug in the main radiator inlet and outlet.

I used some 2 part marine epoxy to hold them in.
1/4" (3/8" OD) X 1/4" (3/8" OD) http://www.sharkbite.com/product/elbows/

The tubing

The adapter to the tubing. http://www.sharkbite.com/product/polybutelene-adapters/

Oh, that is really really nice, what is the vram temperature on your graphic card?

I was wondering if something like this would work when I built my miner.  Good to see someone is experimenting haha

This has been done in the past. Only issues are leakage, mold and mildew from the proteins in the oil and keeping the oil cool enough to be efficient.

Possible fire hazard, because it's an oil.

what kind of temperatures are you getting ?

Can you post cgminer screenshots , and whats are the GPU rpms and temps. Does running GPU in mineral oil affects the warranty ?

Is it true that putting your graphic card in mineral oil void the warranty? Anybody can confirm that please?

obviously if the card is still dripping oil when you rma the card, that's obvious the warranty will be voided...  ;D
However, cleaning the card with acetone should remove any trace of oil

LOL...That could remove some of the labeling and markings too...

The temps vary from 60c to 75c. This is still the original configuration though. The fans on the radiator are running at 50%. I haven't added the spill over tank for the pump. The radiator is also still in the sun in the afternoon.

The warranty is most likely voided after putting it in oil. I don't think they'd have any signs of after I cleaned off the card though. 

May-be you could replace the fans and radiator (which is, lets face it, the ugly part in the design)  by a system where cold water would circulate in the mineral oil tank. (what is the more expensive ? water or electricity ?)
Was wondering, why did you keep the active cooling on the cards ? Do it has any use ? (obviously this time this would void the warranty for sure...)

How would I cool the water? The fans on the cards help move the fluid around. The heat sink is a better conductor than oil.

temps are good but what are fan rpms and how much total did it cost you ?

82-122 RPM @ 70%

$300 est. Had some parts already.

This is impressive , I might try this solution of one of my rig because summer is untolerable for cards. Keep us updated with posts .

Check this out:

"Direct liquid immersion cooling for high power density microelectronics": http://www.electronics-cooling.com/1996/05/direct-liquid-immersion-cooling-for-high-power-density-microelectronics/


BY NO MEANS USE ACETONE to clean any circuit board. Acetone is a strong solvent which can remove paint and other passivation "stuff" on the circuit board. It will attack the plastic associated with any SMT component. I would try IPA first.

Safety:

From wikipedia: "At temperatures greater than acetone's flash point of −20 °C (−4 °F), air mixtures of between 2.5% and 12.8% acetone, by volume, may explode or cause a flash fire."

Tend to agree regarding the fact that acetone may attack a bit the circuit board.

However regarding the explosion, that's total bullshit (assuming a normal use)
You will be dead long before it explodes if there is an air mixture between 2.5% and 12.8% acetone  ::) (knowing that there is only 21% of oxygen in air)
(reading wikipedia is good, understanding what they say is better. )
Pure acetone is commonly used to clean equipment used in organic chemistry...  (as it is a solvent for many organic compound)

Have you seen any fan failures?. I wonder if keeping them in oil would keep them lubricated, as several fans of my 5830s need more oil every 2-3 months.

I'm very well aware of the use of acetone and it's safety issues.  Acetone is a useful solvent for many things, not just the insignificant world of organic chemistry. Left unsaid by you, is that the "professional" use of acetone is done in well ventilated labs with fire extinguishers and fume hoods with a minimum air flow.

Given the wide background of the readers in this forum, some/most at home, in a space with no outside ventilation, there is nothing wrong with being careful.

One of the many uses of acetone is to remove the plastic IC packaging, hence the circuit board warning.

This was intriguing.  Thank you for sharing.  I  considered copyingsomething like this because I figured I might could save money but I guess this is more about cutting down heat.  I live in Alaska and run the my rigs in My crawl space so I guess I'll just marvel at the awesome Ness of your contraption.  Maybe I'll do an oil rig as my next pc upgrade.  Hmmmm.  Got me thinking.  On Swype text sorry for errors

No fan failures. I would imagine the oil is lubricating them.


I would imagine you could use the hot and cold temps to generate some electricity from a peltier plate. I would imagine you can use all the heat from the mining setup to warm your house.