Water cooling controller and BMS

[agniusm]

So i was going back and forth with forced air or water cooling for some time now. Started to mount fans on controller but then i thought it would be to easy and i always waned to water cool my PC. It shouldn't cost me more than buying a water pump and radiator of ebay. I have 50x5mm copper flat bar which i probably will use. I will have to solder three layers of it to get the right thickness. I will replace stock aluminium bar with my own copper with milled channels for turbulence and then all soldered into one block. I started today by milling off controllers wall where aluminium block was attached:
Here is before:

and after:

My uncle brought me lots off different tubes from the hospital, expired ones, so i hope it will do the job for me. Bought 4 plumbing bits (dont know how they are called )

I will do a single loop for controller and BMS. Hopefully it will be enough.
I would like to swap caps on the controller with low ESR ones. I have stumbled across people advising Rubikon ZL's but it looks like unobtanium. Any suggestions? by the way, the controller is Greentime 12 mosfet, 50amp. Would be good to get 65-70 amps out of it.

 

[agniusm]

Got some free copper:

Had to put three peaces for thickness:

First time using my new mill:

Watter block almost done for the controller:

This is how it should look more or less:

 

[sendler2112]

Very serious mod. Hope it works out for you.

 

[Doctorbass]

Yeah! great!

That's serious cooling! Great work!

If it's like mine that i made on 2009, your controller shold be unbalanced .. By weight as well :lol: ) and the right side seem to weight nothing! while the left side weight a ton !

Doc

 

[agniusm]

Yeah! great!

That's serious cooling! Great work!

If it's like mine that i made on 2009, your controller shold be unbalanced .. By weight as well :lol: ) and the right side seem to weight nothing! while the left side weight a ton !

Doc

What do you mean by unbalanced? Do you have a thread on your mod? Do you have data on amps temps before and after the mod?

 

[Doctorbass]

Yeah! great!

That's serious cooling! Great work!

If it's like mine that i made on 2009, your controller shold be unbalanced .. By weight as well :lol: ) and the right side seem to weight nothing! while the left side weight a ton !

Doc

What do you mean by unbalanced? Do you have a thread on your mod? Do you have data on amps temps before and after the mod?

I meant that that copper bar installed on one side of the controller is having alt of weight compare to the components on the ther side..

Every time I manitulated my 18 fets controller that I also installed a big copper bar inside was surprising me every time because it was a lot

unbalanced but the aluminum cover of the enclosure was hiding it so that was surprising during the manipulations.

I did not tested before and fater, I was sure that it make a big difference on the performanceand it did!.. no more blown controller, better heat sharing, more uniform rds of all fets etc


Doc

 

[itchynackers]

Subscribed.

This is pretty awesome. Are you going to put the finned heat sink back onto the side of the copper? Do you think this could be done with one bar of copper, and a single drill hole through the entire length? Are you going to use a radiator, or just let the tubing cool the fluid?

Thanks,
Adam

 

[dnmun]

nice work. even if you milled it out more and the threaded holes penetrated the water jacket, you could still seal the screw threads so the mosfets could be removed for replacement later. and for the outer side, which sticks out through the back side of the case, you could use a semi cylinder made from slicing a section of copper tubing lengthwise and using half to form the back side. since it is soldered to the back of your heat sink it should be easy to fabricate too.

in english, in the US commercial markets, they call the connections 'adapters' for tubing sizes, and they specify a nominal tubing size, using inches of course.

that is so cool, build it according to whatever material is presented for repurposing. this is gonna go up there with amberwolf's projects.

 

[agniusm]

Subscribed.

This is pretty awesome. Are you going to put the finned heat sink back onto the side of the copper? Do you think this could be done with one bar of copper, and a single drill hole through the entire length? Are you going to use a radiator, or just let the tubing cool the fluid?

Thanks,
Adam

i will not put any heatsinks. I will get something PC related probably dual 120mm fan radiator to go with bike design. I am not following any rules here, just common sense.

Dnmun, i didn't got that one about tubing.
The solder is covering the holes so there will be no problems with leaks i think.
Today i frocked it all up. I was trying to smooth out the surface with mill and milled through side wall. Will need to remake it all over but i am a fussy guy so no worries there
Working on few things so its going slowly. Finishing off my vacuum forming machine to make some nice A123 batteries, fitting workshop with welding benches etc.
Regrds yo

 

[agniusm]

Have done BMS water bock, mounted:

Started on the new controller water block:

 

[karma]

any updates

 

[shock]

Is it worth the extra weight and complexity to liquid cool something that is otherwise just fine when aircooled? Am I missing something or is this just for the "wow" factor?

Nice parts fabrication however.

 

[mrzed]

Absolutely it's worth it. This forum is just like your city was 100 years ago, and agniusm here is like a one of those early automobile engineers tweaking any part of the system to gain an advantage. Viva la revolucion!

 

[itchynackers]

I believe there is a demand for these, particularly if they could be standardized somewhat to a certain controller *cough lyen18fet cough*. I would be in line to buy one.

 

[agniusm]

Is it worth the extra weight and complexity to liquid cool something that is otherwise just fine when aircooled? Am I missing something or is this just for the "wow" factor?

Nice parts fabrication however.

Probably not, but as i mentioned before i always waned to water cool my PC and never got around in doing it. I bought myself drilling mill and i had no experience milling so this was kind of familiarizing with the machine and perhaps will allow me 10 extra amps.

any updates

I have finished water blocks. BMS one is mounted and ready, perhaps will give a coat of lacquer. Controller water block is finished, just need to test for leaks, give a coat of lacquer and mount it to the case:

 

[agniusm]

Almost done, will paint side covers and thats it:

 

[Camel]

Hi agniusm

Very neat -

PC related probably dual 120mm fan radiator to go with bike design

- Got any numbers on the CFM/flowrate? - I did a couple of water block coolers on a bunch of AMD kit a while back - some of our gamer's went full out with processor, north-south bridge and GPU integrated coolers. Did some serious overclocking and some way out mods, one client even went so far to pipe the PC cooling tubing through his home AC unit. Bearing in mind this was PC kit.

That 120mm x 120mm sounds like a good size for a bike (similar to 4 x bricks of LIPO area wise). I think back on some of the "THERMALTAKE" kit.
Just check on pumped volume. I like to think watercooled intercooler.

The real reason for my question -

I bought myself drilling mill and i had no experience milling so this was kind of familiarizing with the machine and perhaps will allow me 10 extra amps.

- What MODEL? Can you convert to CNC?

Next range of questions - You milled copper - Nice - How did the equipment handle? What end mill bit did you use (size/face)? RPM of end mill bit?

What cross feed table did you use or was it part of the kit? Many thanks.

Damn! that is still very impressive work. Cheers

 

[agniusm]

That 120mm x 120mm sounds like a good size for a bike (similar to 4 x bricks of LIPO area wise). I think back on some of the "THERMALTAKE" kit.
Just check on pumped volume. I like to think watercooled intercooler.

Something like this:

The real reason for my question -

I bought myself drilling mill and i had no experience milling so this was kind of familiarizing with the machine and perhaps will allow me 10 extra amps.

- What MODEL? Can you convert to CNC?

I bought Bernardo BF30 Super. Bought it with CNC conversion in mind as it cost me only 300USD more than ordinary drilling machine. Optimum BF30 is identical but looks better quality. CNC conversion kit costs probably close to what the mill costed.

Next range of questions - You milled copper - Nice - How did the equipment handle? What end mill bit did you use (size/face)? RPM of end mill bit?

What cross feed table did you use or was it part of the kit? Many thanks.

Although it was my first attempt in milling, i think it went smooth. I used 6mm and 20mm end mill bits, 1200-1500RPM was smooth enough. For the final run 2000RPM just to make surface smoother.
The table came with the machine.

 

[steelmesh]

That is kikass ag....version 2 you may consider using a small endmill to create fins inside the water chamber, just ideas from PC cooling stuff I've seen. I've got a video card and cpu block on my PC water cooled. I took that a step further and added another cpu block in line connected to a 400w TEC (peltier cooler), with a separate water cooler to cool the TEC. All 12v powered.

 

[hjns]

subscribed - very interesting stuff !!!

 

[bowlofsalad]

I am curious, why would you water cool a BMS? I am very familiar with various options in cooling CPUs, I understand how much more conductive water is to air. When a water cooling setup is involved, their processor is being pushed very hard. Is the BMS being pushed beyond what is considered normal for it?
I don't own an electric bicycle setup, still in the learning phase. I am wondering if you have some sort of radical bms setup that precisely monitors voltage and thus, generates extreme heat or something. I am very interested in BMS setups right now, so whats up with the need for a water cooler?

 

[agniusm]

I am curious, why would you water cool a BMS? I am very familiar with various options in cooling CPUs, I understand how much more conductive water is to air. When a water cooling setup is involved, their processor is being pushed very hard. Is the BMS being pushed beyond what is considered normal for it?
I don't own an electric bicycle setup, still in the learning phase. I am wondering if you have some sort of radical bms setup that precisely monitors voltage and thus, generates extreme heat or something. I am very interested in BMS setups right now, so whats up with the need for a water cooler?

I have foundingpower BMS. If you would look it up on battery tech section you will find it there. The discharge on bms revision i have is happening through fets and is rated at 60A therefore water cooling of BMS output fets. As i mentioned before it is a trial out of curiosity mod rather than real world extra benefit gain.

 

[agniusm]

Today I have tried to connect my controller up and nothing. I think I get some kind error code on this greentime controller. Led is blinking in five intervals, five blinks then pause and so on.
Anyone?

 

[alex12342011]

Any progress?