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Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

dougmacdowell.com

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Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#81

Post by MrFots »

mikepurvis wrote: post #73
matheusmoreira wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt the extra piping and infrastructure is anywhere near worth it I wonder. Infrastructure investments tend to have absurd payoffs. For example, my solar energy equipment has been generating profit for years. In my country 5 kW electric showers are common every day items and they add up to a huge chunk of household energy consumption. Switching to a more efficient water heating system has been on my mind for ye…

I think it boils down to a) effectively storing heat for later use is extremely difficult to do well, and b) moving heat around properly means 400psi compressor tubes everywhere, and those are a lot more fragile and annoying to work with than regular plumbing, and you need a special gas licence to charge them up afterward. In contrast to the RV proposal, maybe a better option could be something like a boutique hotel,…

"I think it boils down to..."

Nailed it.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#82

Post by 0xCMP »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #70
markovs_gun wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problems I see are that we don't clean the insides of computer parts and we can drink water with way more calcium in it than is good for high temperature water heaters. Cooling water needs to be treated to not grow algae and bacteria in it, and a lot of times that renders it poisonous to drink. Conversely, drinking water has a lot of minerals still in it and those minerals will deposit and form scale on the…

I assume whatever fluids are used for heat transfer would circulate in completely separate circuits from the water used or consumed by humans.

That is how it works. There is the water which goes outside pumped through pipes on the floor of the pool like in-floor heating.

That is pumped so it cools down the water going through the computers.

It has gone through several revisions plus complications with wanting to heat up solar panels too.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#83

Post by bialpio »

ghm2180 wrote: post #30

A key with haptic feedback that when pressed runs the CPU/GPU and as water heats up the button lets you know. Calibrate feedback to temperature and ease off the button when the water is done.

Was a reference to https://xkcd.com/1172/ intentional here?

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#84

Post by appease7727 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #60
swiftcoder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe one wants a mini heat pump between the CPU and the coffee. 50º C is plenty for a heat pump to very efficiently push the temperature on the other side to 98º C or so

Can this concept be extended to the home in general? Why not pump heat out of computer components and into a general hot water tank for home use? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

Heat pump water heaters are a product you can (probably) buy today. They suck ambient heat from the air and stuff it into the water.

I really want to get one and pipe all the exhaust from my homelab to it.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#85

Post by nanomonkey »

GPUs and alcohol distillation always seemed like a match:

I used to manage a scientific supercluster, heavily laden with GPUs. We were constantly consuming about 60kW of power. These GPUs were happy to run at 85C, which from other interests I knew to be the temperature where alcohol distillation occurred. I always wanted to install a heat exchanger and distill fuel with all of the waste heat.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#86

Post by clickety_clack »

withinboredom wrote: post #61
matheusmoreira wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this concept be extended to the home in general? Why not pump heat out of computer components and into a general hot water tank for home use? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

Linus (tech talks) uses it to heat his pool.

This would be a really cool idea for municipal swimming pools or large residential developments. It blows my mind that people pay to heat up all these data centers and then pay again to get rid of the heat. Data centers could rent space by paying in kWh of heat.

I would set something like this up in my house if there was some kind of decentralized processing company I could register with.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#87

Post by jdietrich »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #60
swiftcoder wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe one wants a mini heat pump between the CPU and the coffee. 50º C is plenty for a heat pump to very efficiently push the temperature on the other side to 98º C or so

Can this concept be extended to the home in general? Why not pump heat out of computer components and into a general hot water tank for home use? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

There are a number of pilot projects currently in development to heat entire neighbourhoods using the waste heat from data centers.

Unless you've got a monster ML workstation under your desk or a crypto mining rig in your garage, that surplus heat isn't especially useful and isn't really worth harvesting. A typical desktop PC only dissipates a few tens of watts at idle or a few hundred watts under heavy gaming loads, versus many kilowatts for a typical domestic water heater.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-homes-to-be-...

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#88

Post by withinboredom »

lubsch wrote: post #79
withinboredom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His pipes have too much or not enough insulation then.

I don't know anything about the topic and this made me really curious. Why could too much insulation be a problem?

It then just acts like the ground does and just absorbs the heat instead.

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#89

Post by swiftcoder »

appease7727 wrote: post #84
matheusmoreira wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this concept be extended to the home in general? Why not pump heat out of computer components and into a general hot water tank for home use? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

Heat pump water heaters are a product you can (probably) buy today. They suck ambient heat from the air and stuff it into the water. I really want to get one and pipe all the exhaust from my homelab to it.

They are pretty common in Europe, because older houses here all had gas-powered furnaces, and with an air-to-water heat pump you can continue to use the existing tubing and radiators.

New house builds often include one to run domestic hot water and under-floor heating for bedrooms and such. The downside here is that you probably also need an air-to-air heat pump for cooling in summer, and now you have two expensive heat pumps, and a whole extra set of pipes running around...

Re: Coffeematic PC – A coffee maker computer that pumps hot coffee to the CPU

#90

Post by swiftcoder »

markovs_gun wrote: post #64
matheusmoreira wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can this concept be extended to the home in general? Why not pump heat out of computer components and into a general hot water tank for home use? I wonder if anyone's tried it.

The main problems I see are that we don't clean the insides of computer parts and we can drink water with way more calcium in it than is good for high temperature water heaters. Cooling water needs to be treated to not grow algae and bacteria in it, and a lot of times that renders it poisonous to drink. Conversely, drinking water has a lot of minerals still in it and those minerals will deposit and form scale on the…

There should not be any contact between your heat source and your drinking water, in pretty much any modern water-heating system. You heat a refrigerant, then run it and the water through opposite sides of a heat exchanger (most domestic hot water tanks have a coil-style heat exchanger inside).
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