OMG, What a Monstrosity!

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1504&item=7507219
935&rd=1

I thought, "Why would they want to put so many on such a small space?"
Then I looked closer and saw the water cooling coils. It must've taken
several days for the assembler to wire that monstrosity up. I wonder
what it's from? At a conservative 20W each, that's over 3kW!




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[Michael A. Terrell]

"Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\"" wrote:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1504&item=7507219
935&rd=1

I thought, "Why would they want to put so many on such a small space?"
Then I looked closer and saw the water cooling coils. It must've taken
several days for the assembler to wire that monstrosity up. I wonder
what it's from? At a conservative 20W each, that's over 3kW!

It looks like either a voltage regulator or load bank. Just think of
the quasi-complimentry audio amp you could make with that! With 80
transistors in parallel for each half the output impedance would be
under .1 ohm.

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

"Tim Shoppa" <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:

Nah, the amount of heat sink area per transistor is way too low for
such an application.

The OP mentioned the liquid-cooling pipes visible in the second
photo...

 

[Chris Dugan]

I may be wrong but it looks quite like a transistor memory circuit from a
computer with water cooling, there are capacitors on each transistor and two
banks of 12 connections possibly for addressing the memory cells and a
further 8 connections down one side maybe for a data bus?

Chris

 

[nospam]

"Tim Shoppa" <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:

The OP mentioned the liquid-cooling pipes visible in
the second photo...

I thought that was a bussbar paralleled with a PC trace, although now
that you point it out to me it looks more like plumbing. (How the
transistors are heatsinked to the plumbing I cannot quite fathom).

The pipe zigzags between the transistor rows, probably brazed onto the
metal plate holding all the transistors. The pipe in the middle is the cool
water inlet feeding two zigzags with outlets on each side.

When you consider how long it takes 3kW to heat up a pint of water in a
kettle this heatsink would be good for several kW.

I used to work on IBM mainframes which took around 150kW of power (the
previous generation took nearer 400kW). They used a 400hz 3ph supply to
reduce transformer size. The transformer assemblies included a rectifier
pack and had similar pipe work for water cooling. The logic boards were
forced air cooled with water filled radiators between the card frames. Each
frame had a local regulator for the ECL logic supplies which was a water
cooled block with a bunch of TO3 transistors mounted on it. All the cooling
was chilled to a few degrees C.

When you commissioned one of these machines you used to get a jar full of
white powder to put in the water system, they said it was a corrosion
inhibitor but we always reckoned it was the ashes of deceased IBM
employees.

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Tim Shoppa" <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote in message
news:1113826385.493882.7720@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

At a conservative 20W each, that's over 3kW!

With no real heat-sinking it's more like a couple of watts each.

It looks like either a voltage regulator or load bank.

Nah, the amount of heat sink area per transistor is way too low for
such an application.

Some numbskull deleted the part of my post where I said that upon closer
inspection, I saw the water cooling tubes.

I think it's more likely that it's a medium-current (maybe 10-20A)
power selector/multiplexer for turning individual loads on and off.

There does seem to be some heavy bus wire snaking around all the
transistors. If it didn't snake around all the transistors, I'd guess
it to be some point of power cross-point switch.

Totally WAG.

Tim.

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Tim Shoppa" <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote in message
news:1113841374.285447.316510@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

The OP mentioned the liquid-cooling pipes visible in
the second photo...

I thought that was a bussbar paralleled with a PC trace, although now
that you point it out to me it looks more like plumbing. (How the
transistors are heatsinked to the plumbing I cannot quite fathom).

If you look closely you'll see the cooling tubing apparently brazed to
the heatsink. That's all that's needed.

Tim.

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"nospam" <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:gvq7619iivrbs53g5jpqd9hccd372e4amm@4ax.com...
[snip]

When you commissioned one of these machines you used to get a jar full
of
white powder to put in the water system, they said it was a corrosion
inhibitor but we always reckoned it was the ashes of deceased IBM
employees.

That strikes me as odd. Is it supposed to be a jab at IBM. or is it
supposed to be an extreme example of their employees' devotion?

 

[nospam]

"Watson A.Name - \"Watt Sun, the Dark Remover\"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com>
wrote:

"nospam" <nospam@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:gvq7619iivrbs53g5jpqd9hccd372e4amm@4ax.com...
[snip]

When you commissioned one of these machines you used to get a jar full
of
white powder to put in the water system, they said it was a corrosion
inhibitor but we always reckoned it was the ashes of deceased IBM
employees.

That strikes me as odd. Is it supposed to be a jab at IBM. or is it
supposed to be an extreme example of their employees' devotion?

If you had worked for IBM in the days when mainframes took 300kW you would
understand (in the UK anyway, I expect it was the same elsewhere). Most
regarded it as a job for life, we were just speculating it continued beyond
the grave.

 

[Tim Shoppa]

At a conservative 20W each, that's over 3kW!

With no real heat-sinking it's more like a couple of watts each.

It looks like either a voltage regulator or load bank.

Nah, the amount of heat sink area per transistor is way too low for
such an application.

I think it's more likely that it's a medium-current (maybe 10-20A)
power selector/multiplexer for turning individual loads on and off.

There does seem to be some heavy bus wire snaking around all the
transistors. If it didn't snake around all the transistors, I'd guess
it to be some point of power cross-point switch.

Tim.

 

[Tim Shoppa]

The OP mentioned the liquid-cooling pipes visible in
the second photo...

I thought that was a bussbar paralleled with a PC trace, although now
that you point it out to me it looks more like plumbing. (How the
transistors are heatsinked to the plumbing I cannot quite fathom).

Tim.