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Cooling down the progress

A project log for Skantdeck

Unfinished sick68 keyboard feature creeps into designing and ordering parts for a cyberdeck build.

ihallyiHally 10/28/2022 at 11:430 Comments

The weather has lately been swinging in between unrelenting rain and insane heat, completely destroying my schedule and throwing a wrench in my progress.

Also likely to destroy all the components in the project, I've begun integrating watercooling into the deck. The components were purchased 5 years ago with the aim to push the limits of a variable power supply DSP5020. Hoping to use it to charge an unfinished electric skateboard project.

Most definitely completely unnecessary but its going in regardless! I imagine the pump will only have to run sporadically as the water has a high specific heat. Hopefully this should cut down on power usage while still keeping the processor below, 80 deg, its throttle temp. 

I was quite surprised how hot the pi got during boot and software updates. I'll be glad for some low noise cooling.

Some haphazard splines later and the mounting points are joined to the copper water cooling block / heat exchanger.

room for everything
Bracket on pi; open enough to allow access to all connectors and airflow for components

The fit is very snug. The posts for the pi's mounting holes are slightly too short. The hope is that the pressure from the flex of the printed bracket will hold the cooling block firmly against the pi's SoC.

unmounted bracket
Bracket viewed from the underside along with the copper heat exchanger

Files for the bracket available on Thingiverse and Thangs.

Next to do is the pump and radiator mounting.

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