elec tape + GPU heatsink = GPU LN2 pot?

[buildzoid]

So I had an idea. I'll try make an LN2 pot for as little as possible. I know some other guys have made pots from stock GPU heat sinks. However as far as I can tell all of these were made by attaching metal tubing and such to the heatsinks to contain the LN2. However I have no idea how to metal work and so I decided too just try seal up a refrence HD 4870 heatsink with some electrical tape. I then threw a couple hundred ml of LN2 in it. I didn't see any LN2 escaping and most of the tape held on just fine. It did however make a ton of cracking sounds as it cooled down. I'm hoping that that was just the tape shrinking and not the heatsink fins disconnecting from the copper base.

 

Here's what it looked like frozen:

 

 

 

It's a nightmare to pour into right now but I plan to funnel it more so I spill less LN2 if this monstrosity works.

 

 

Right now I'm waiting for it to defrost and dry. After that I will check the state of all the tape and if it seems OK I'll try run my HD 4870 on LN2.

[Mr.Scott]

Necessity is the mother of invention.

You know LN2 will freeze the liquid in the heatpipes right?

[buildzoid]

Necessity is the mother of invention.

You know LN2 will freeze the liquid in the heatpipes right?

 

Yep fully aware of that.

 

As for the after defrost results. Some of the tape broke but it looks OK for the most part so I proceeded with adding more tape and making a funnel. I try bench this garbage some time this week.

[buildzoid]

As Scot said, it will freeze any liquid if there is any, but not all pipes have liquid in them.

Best be careful, some pipes although rare, are filled with a gas of some sort.

It might work as a ln2 pot, but it might (unlikely) bust the pipes and kill the heatsink. But I don't think that's a big deal for anyone doing this.

 

 

It would also be nice if you could do a before and after of are the stock heatsink preformed.

 

Edit: back in the early days of water cooling folks would solder sheet copper on the sides of heat sinks to make their own water blocks. That might be worth a try.

 

yeah I don't care if the pipes survive or not. If this works then I'm going to keep using it until the tape comes off on it's own.

 

As for soldering. I did consider it but I couldn't find a convenient source for sheet copper and even if I didn't I'd still need some way to cut it up.

[buildzoid]

Hmm I'll try that if the tape fails. But so far it's looking like the tape will work. I don't plan to use this thing very much it's just a stop gap till I get a real GPU pot and partially because I wanted to test the limits of how cheap I can get this thing to be.