Opencooler

I am moving countries again. This is a final test assembly before I toss the bulky stuff and pack everything I own into a single suitcase. The test did not go as I was hoping, and there are still a lot of things to refine. 

The chinese splitters I was using I believe had a short, which causes some magic smoke with the controllers. I did get some useful results though, I'll do a quick summary below.

• While I thought at 50% power draw the TEC 12715's would be sufficient for cooling, I feel one side getting warm to the touch and the other is not noticeably chilling the water at all. I will have to do another test one at a time to make sure it was not the short causing this. Otherwise, I will switch back to the 12706's if the 12715's need considerably more power to effectively cool than I thought. The capacitors of the MD13s cytron boards was a bit hotter than I'd like. Increasing the power draw caused the splitter to melt and short I think.
• The nice pump I ordered has to be in a specific sideways orientation or gravity fed by the reservoir to work effectively. The 3D printed reservoir had a leak with the front plate. It needs to be a more solid material or printed as one solid piece to avoid leaks. I made another reservoir with a screw top printed as one piece, and it did not leak badly. Horizontal placement of components makes this complicated.
• I think it is not worth it to try and continue to iterate on the flat design. The tower is better physics-wise and will let me gravity feed the pump, which is far simpler user experience.
• It sucks to route the wires
• PSU above the water was important (I got shocked anyways)
• Screw top does leak a bit, the 3D print design needs to be better optimized so you don't have to screw it so tight to get a pressure seal. 
• The 3d printed connector on the back leaked way too much, it needs to be coated in epoxy. 
• While the black hose looks cool, you aren't able to see the flowing water for testing. This messed me up a bit. 
• I think the mounting bracket for the heatsinks will need to be redone to better isolate the copper heat block. Even though it looks so sexy, I think I will have to kill it.

• Switched from aluminum to copper because you shouldn't mix those I guess. The fittings are coated copper or brass.
• Some issues with the pump speed not changing as expected. Runs at 100% which is too loud. I need to figure out how to run it lower. Circulation speed was pretty good. 

So I think in conclusion, 8Sleep pod is pretty close to the optimal layout already. There's a reason they aren't laid horizontally. I think the V2 will be a cuboid. See you in a few months when I have (hopefully) a new workshop. I do not know where I am going yet, just that I am leaving in three weeks. Might be longer.

Design on the reservoir and pump placement continue. Brain not work

First foray into machining parts. I plan to use plastic for this reservoir, still exploring limitations on thickness, etc. Once dimensions are dialed in on the 3d printer I'll see how much it would cost. 

Attempting to find the ideal orientation for the tank and the pump. I've invested in a popular PC water cooling pump, the D5 for testing. It's around $80, but lasts significantly longer than the Chinese pumps. (Rated 5 years instead of ~2). It is also much easier to swap and source for the average person.