Use mead as coolant. The output would be mulled mead. Peter On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 3:33 PM, Lux, Jim (337C) <james.p....@jpl.nasa.gov>wrote:
> Using beer or ale as a coolant for a Beowulf is thus a spectacularly bad > idea, although one pleasant side effect of having a nice, cold server room > with a wee bit of extra room for a few fermentation vessels and a stack of > aging cases on one wall is the possibility of using it as a coolant for > Beowulf >>operators<<, who have heat loss and power provisioning problems > of their own. This efficient re-use of a carefully temperature controlled > environment that is otherwise too cold for normal humans to spend much time > in is one that I can heartily approve of. At some point I may mount a full > time wall unit that cools the in-garage "shed" of my house so that it can > serve as a double duty brewery and server room. We can only hope that, > properly stimulated, the art and science of beowulfery is lifted to new > heights by this confluence of benign apparatus. > > Following RGB's suggestions, here is what I have implemented in my garage.. > > Cooled air goes into storage area for wine at roughly 12C, passing > through to another box roughly at same temperature, but with controlled > humidity, for curing of sausages, thence exhausts into the general vicinity > of the server, fiber drop, network switches, and GPS disciplined time > reference. > > This was evolved from a former, less effective system using the small 4 > cubic foot "bar refrigerator" used to cool beer/ale/whathaveyou along with > a set of metal tubes bonded to the "freezer" compartment of the bar > refrigerator that carried coolant pumped around through tubing in the wine > cooling area. > > Why change from liquid cooling to air cooling? > > 1) pumping losses.. the coolant pump actually puts more heat into the > liquid than the fan puts into the air. > 2) corrosion.. even with anti-corrosion additives (chromates and such as > found in commercial antifreeze), the tubing on the freezer plate corroded > away. I tried both copper and aluminum in various forms, and they ALL fail > eventually. I do not like having antifreeze on the outside of the beer > bottles. > 3) design of liquid to liquid or liquid to air heat exchangers is a black > art with which I am not skilled. In fact, even using commercially > available exchangers (various and sundry heater cores and radiators), it is > VERY difficult to get predictable performance from the system. > 4) Too many failure points. For instance, if a critical amount of flow > doesn't flow through the freezer heat exchanger, the coolant freezes and > the pump then pumps against a blocked tube, adding heat to the system. > (obviously, this was a time when I did not have antifreeze mixed in). > 5) you still need a fan of some sort to transfer the cold from the chilled > coolant to the wine bottles. > > > I suppose one could go out and get a surplus lab chiller, etc. invest in > a few dozen feet of stainless steel tubing and fiittings, etc. > > When one can buy a perfectly good tiny air conditioner at the end of > summer for around $50, and cobble together some hose and cardboard with > duct tape, it's just a lot easier. The smallest A/C is around 6000-8000 > BTU/hr, which is an enormous amount of cooling for what is basically a > large, warm refrigerator. > _______________________________________________ > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf@beowulf.org sponsored by Penguin Computing > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit > http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf >
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