Hi all ! Hope everyone is well.
Just want to share my latest project - a water cooled Raspberry PI.
Why ? Well, since I was a teenager (I'm from the 80s) that I wanted to have a Water cooled Desktop PC. I first saw one in 2004 at a Lan Party (- Remember those ? 
) of a friend of mine and I was in awe.
At that time I didn't have the resources to make one and let's be honest, there wasn't much offer like it is today and what was available, was way to expensive for me.
But now, times are different and, before I create a desktop version, why not put my Raspberry PI 4 (that's running Home Assistant and Ubiquiti Software for the Network management) with a water cooled setup ?
Here it is:
Components
My goal was to have the smaller setup I could do. This is already a bit overkill, but nonetheless, it was fun.
For a minimal water cooled setup - scaled for the RPi - we need:
- Reservoir for the cooling liquid (I ended up using a small plastic container that I had)
- Submersible pump (the standard setups for bigger PCs it's common for the pump to come with the reservoir all in one).
- Water cooling block
- Radiator
- Thermal Pad to sit between the water cooling block and the RPi
- Fan
- Hose (I'm using 10mm diameter outside and 8mm inside)
Setup
I've taken care to choose components that would fit and used 3v or 5v - enough to be powered by the Raspberry PI.
The Pump is 5v and small enough to fit inside the container. Because the pump nozzle is a bit smaller, I had to use a zip tie to firmly secure the hose.
The Fan is 60mm, enough to be paired with the Radiator - that's is also 60mm . This will cool the liquid as it passes through the radiator.
The water cooling block is 40x40mm . I had to file the sides a bit for it to sit between the DSI connectors of the camera and the display. I had care not to file to much or I could have a leak.
All (except the pump) the components connectors and 9mm/10mm for the hose to fit tight.
Before mounting the RPi, I've connected everything and start pumping to see if no leaks were present.
It's working for 12 hours now and has been all night and I've placed a piece of white paper between the setup and the table to see if it leaked... For now, I'm safe. !
I know it's a bit overkill for just running Home Assistant and Ubiquiti software, but I'll probably move that to another RPi and will have a bit of fun overclocking it just to see how far it will go !
Happy projects.
