Has anyone tried? I've searched around a bit and realized that nobody seems to have really discussed this.
There are thermal advantages and it could reduce thermal noise by keeping components cooler. But I think it's more of an interesting conversation piece to be honest.
This has been in practice for 10 or 20 years on the custom PC side. As far as I know nothing dissolves or adversely affected. They submerge everything. The motherboard, GPU, PSU, and memory. Except for disc hard drives. Mineral oil is non-conductive and non-flammable.
The drawbacks...
- Laws of thermodynamics still apply. The oil will heat up over time and there's a requirement to get rid of that heat.
- It's messy.
- Possibility of leaks.
- Weight... But I don't think most of us move an amp after setting it down.
There are thermal advantages and it could reduce thermal noise by keeping components cooler. But I think it's more of an interesting conversation piece to be honest.
This has been in practice for 10 or 20 years on the custom PC side. As far as I know nothing dissolves or adversely affected. They submerge everything. The motherboard, GPU, PSU, and memory. Except for disc hard drives. Mineral oil is non-conductive and non-flammable.
The drawbacks...
- Laws of thermodynamics still apply. The oil will heat up over time and there's a requirement to get rid of that heat.
- It's messy.
- Possibility of leaks.
- Weight... But I don't think most of us move an amp after setting it down.
If you are troubled with squeaky/noisy pots this might be a top notch idea.
I would not use mineral oil, I would use the rare snakeoil.
I would not use mineral oil, I would use the rare snakeoil.
I had an oil cooled PC for a couple of years - it worked well and I see no reason why it wouldn't work for an amplifier. I wouldn't do it again because it was a pain in the butt, but we're talking upgrades etc that you wouldn't need with an amp.
Some things to keep in mind:
Ensure that the insulation on the wiring is compatible with your chosen oil. Insulation can get hard or brittle and will eventually break off in pieces leaving exposed copper.
As you said, you'll really need a radiator if you intend to run your amp for any appreciable amount of time - the heat has to go somewhere. This means pumps and fans, which will add unwanted noise to your listening room. If you can stick the heat exchanger in another room then this isn't a problem. The size and effectiveness of the radiator will depend on what type of amp you're cooling. A high end GPU has a TDP of around 200W, and a speedy desktop CPU is around 160W.
You'll also need some means of getting the oil to move across hot surfaces. Convection still does its thing but it's not enough. I left the fans on the PC components that had them, which accomplished that task. Surprisingly, the fans lasted very well given the additional work they had to do.
Health concerns are unknown. At first I left the oil surface open and my room always smelled just a little funky. I do not know how good that was for my lungs, so I covered it up and it was no longer a problem.
It's messy... very messy, no matter how careful you are 😀. You'll end up with oil stains all over the place and an associated cleaning bill.
Edit: here is a pretty interesting paper on reliability in oil cooled data center hardware: (PDF) Effects of mineral oil immersion cooling on IT equipment reliability and reliability enhancements to data center operations
Some things to keep in mind:
Ensure that the insulation on the wiring is compatible with your chosen oil. Insulation can get hard or brittle and will eventually break off in pieces leaving exposed copper.
As you said, you'll really need a radiator if you intend to run your amp for any appreciable amount of time - the heat has to go somewhere. This means pumps and fans, which will add unwanted noise to your listening room. If you can stick the heat exchanger in another room then this isn't a problem. The size and effectiveness of the radiator will depend on what type of amp you're cooling. A high end GPU has a TDP of around 200W, and a speedy desktop CPU is around 160W.
You'll also need some means of getting the oil to move across hot surfaces. Convection still does its thing but it's not enough. I left the fans on the PC components that had them, which accomplished that task. Surprisingly, the fans lasted very well given the additional work they had to do.
Health concerns are unknown. At first I left the oil surface open and my room always smelled just a little funky. I do not know how good that was for my lungs, so I covered it up and it was no longer a problem.
It's messy... very messy, no matter how careful you are 😀. You'll end up with oil stains all over the place and an associated cleaning bill.
Edit: here is a pretty interesting paper on reliability in oil cooled data center hardware: (PDF) Effects of mineral oil immersion cooling on IT equipment reliability and reliability enhancements to data center operations
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I'd expect any enclosure to be completely sealed.
One nice thing is any fans for circulation inside the mineral oil are completely silent. They do seem to last forever too despite having to work harder.
You would likely need fans on a radiator though. My PC is water cooled and the radiator fans are completely silent... So I think you could work around any noise concerns.
Mineral oil is 5x more effective at heat transfer than air. So it could be interesting to take some measurements.
One nice thing is any fans for circulation inside the mineral oil are completely silent. They do seem to last forever too despite having to work harder.
You would likely need fans on a radiator though. My PC is water cooled and the radiator fans are completely silent... So I think you could work around any noise concerns.
Mineral oil is 5x more effective at heat transfer than air. So it could be interesting to take some measurements.
This has been tried, and works with varying degrees of success. One experimenter still encountered random shorts and burned components. I can only assume the water he used was not sufficiently pure.
This is well proven in undersea electronics applications.
Dielectric liquids for subsea high voltage equipment - IEEE Conference Publication