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Products
Hydro-TEC 
Hydro-Stream
Hydro-Spin |
Hydro-TEC
Installation Contents 1. Equipment Required 2. Picture of a fully assembled system 3. Electrical wiring/Switch relay 4. Selecting a suitable pump 5. Selecting a Radiator 6. Die temperature calculation 7. Fluid requirements 8. Reservoir 9. Installation Instructions Equipment required Using a Hydro-TEC to cool your CPU requires several extra components. The keys among these are:
There are many ways to incorporate these components into a PC. Some people prefer to have everything in a single case, others may locate the radiator externally - even outside of the room (a great option for silent computing). However you choose to do it, the basic components will be linked together in a similar manner to the computer overleaf Picture of a fully assembled system 
The system above uses the following components:
Electrical wiring/Switch relay It is preferable for the Hydro-TEC cooling system to switch on when the computer power is activated. The diagram below shows how a DPST relay can be hooked up to a standard 12V Molex connector so that it activates both 240VAC & 12VDC electrical components. 
The Hydro-TEC requires a minimum of a 250W, 24VDC power supply for the Peltier. Hydrocool recommends the Meanwell SP300-24 or SP320-24 units, available in Australia from: http://www.computronics.com.au/meanwell/ Selecting a suitable pump The pump needs to be selected to overcome the pressure drop in the Hydro-TEC & the associated radiator & piping system. Due to the very fine micro-channels in the Hydro-TEC, it will usually be the dominating pressure drop. In this case, a pump capable of more than 15kPa (2.17psi) at 2.0L/min should be selected. For example, the Eheim 1250 pump's performance curve is shown below. This information is often found on the side of the pump box. 
The flow characteristic curve of the Hydro-TEC can be found in the "performance graphs" section. After superimposing these characteristic curves (right), the operating point is the crossover point X. Thus, the Eheim 1250 pump will operate at ~2.4 L/min.
Selecting a Radiator 
The radiator cools the circulating fluid by blowing ambient air across an arrangement of fins & water pipes. With modern radiator designs, the airflow & the face area govern the overall effectiveness. The aim of a well-designed system is to maximise airflow & face area within space, noise and budget constraints.
If you assume the radiator will be dispersing 350W (250W electrical power + 75-125W CPU heat) of heat, this will help in calculating how close to ambient it will cool your water. At a particular air & waterflow, the radiator will have a specified thermal resistance in °C/W. This value is the temperature-rise of the inlet water above ambient when heated by one watt. The total rise in processor temperature will be the sum of the rise in temperature through the water-block & through the radiator. Die temperature calculation To calcalute your processor temperature, there is a simple equation below: Processor Temperature = (TRHydro-Stream + TRRadiator) x QCPU Where TR is thermal resistance. Some utilities can be found on the web to calculate CPU heat (QCPU), based on your processor & over clock. eg. www.benchtest.com/calc.html Fluid requirements The cooling fluid in a Hydro-TEC system provides a good conductive medium for heat. Once the heat is in the fluid, it can be transported to a large surface area radiator & dispersed efficiently into the air. Overwhelmingly, water is the best fluid to use. It has fantastic heat transfer properties, and is cheap and available. Hydrocool cooling fluid is now 100% chemical-free. Additives are often added to cooling system water to prevent corrosion. However, Hydrocool CPU coolers are now universally supplied with 100% pure silver basetrays which means they are inherently corrosion resistant & do not require dangerous chemicals. 
Hydro-TEC units are provided with a small dye additive. It is not necessary to use this particular dye, but some sort of colouring generally proves invaluable in detecting leaks that may result from poor equipment seals or inadequate hose-clamping.Under no circumstances are oxygen scavengers or other chemical additives to be used with the Hydro-TEC units. These chemicals potentially disable the anti-corrosion nature of the silver base-trays. Reservoir A reservoir is installed in the fluid circuit to allow the system to be filling with fluid. Additionally, the reservoir will trap air bubbles, provide reserve fluid & allow visual monitoring of fluid levels. It is recommended that the reservoir be fixed outside of the case to prevent damaging spills. It should also be visible, so that the level of fluid can be monitored. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Watch the video on the included CD before attempting installation.
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