HI beautiful people

I'm knee deep now into moving all the cooling equipment to the basement and I'm wondering... Can you use the relay header on the AE5 to start an ATX PSU?

I have the fans, air in/air out etc. etc. temp probes and other stuff connected to an AE5 LT, and I'm using a standard ATX PSU to power it (and the pump via a 12v to 24v step-up converter). The AE5 LT is going to be linked via Aquabus to the AE5 XT that is in my computer.

What I was planning to do is just put a (permanent) switch somewhere accessible and start the PSU from there (by using the green wire) but starting it via the AE5 would be even more convenient. The moment I turn on the PC the AE5 XT sends the command to the AE5 LT to "close" the circuit on the relay and the PSU (which would have the green/GND wires connected to the relay) would start.

The manual is a bit... sketchy so to speak when it comes to what the relay can do...

Zitat von »LarryWill729«

Very Interesting experiment. If I understand your goal, the Radiator and fans/pumps are in the basement and the PC itself is upstairs, correct?

Correct... I sanitized the basement and then improved the acoustic insulation using the ultimate Shoggy sandwich: Layers of asphaltic membrane sandwiched between plasterboard sheets with narrow air chambers in between. Works a treat and is something you can do yourself for cheap as long as you have some basic DIY skills and some common sense. Now my ESXi server, Switches, UPS and other noisy stuff lives down there happily

Then it downed on me... why not move the external radiator, pumps etc etc down there too? temps in the basement never go below dew point and all the acoustic property woes just... go away so here I am, doing just that.

Zitat von »LarryWill729«

The AE5 LT slave to AE5 as master software is not yet ready, so you cannot (YET) do what you want through the Aquabus.

If something I've learned so far is to never ever base a build on a device or a feature that might be available in the future because that future might never come to pass, so thank you for that info... Shame on me I didn't do my homework properly. I assumed that 18 months after it was announced and several iterations of the software later it would be already up and running. Back to the drawing board in this particular side of the project.

I'll probably go back to plan A and use the two Poweradjust 2 devices I already own (which are now surplus to requirements because I've ditched the 2 x DDC3.25 pumps for this project and I'm going to use an Iwaki RD-30) to run the fans on the radiator, get air in/air out temp readings, run the "old school" flow meter etc. etc. and start the ATX PSU via permanent SP/ST switch.

The Poweradjust 2 devices running as "slaves" of the AE5 is a tried and tested method, I shall stick to that for the time being. Once the new range of flow meters and other funky devices are available and the "slave" functionality is implemented I might revisit the design

Zitat von »LarryWill729«

And frankly, I am not sure that the Aquero 5 will 'wake up' and operate the relay if it is in standby mode. If the ATX PSU is off, the AE5 would be getting standby power only. I just don't know if it will operate any control functions in that state. I do know that the data loggng function stops in standby so I suspect that it will just sit there until the ATX power comes on. *snip*

The idea was to remotely start the whole circus downstairs in a simple, reliable, unattended and elegant manner. If I have to complicate things with auxiliary power supplies and whatnot in a sense I'm already defeating the purpose. I'm not giving up on this but I'm shelving it at least until the basic building blocks (ie the "slave" software) are available.

Zitat von »LarryWill729«

Good Luck and let us know what you do to get it operating.

Thank you for the good wishes and for the advice

PS: Earlier in the project I looked into making an "old school" relay like the ones we used to use to start 220V pumps, but it is less than ideal. It was then and it still is.

Zitat von »chippie«

Man, if I was moving the rads to the basement, then I would grab a water chiller, no need for fans or probably even rads!

I thought on water chiller before but once you go below dew point things get... complicated.

Power consumption is high, many watercooling parts don't get along with low temperatures (especially if they combine metal and thermoplastics), everything needs to be insulated, and neither my CPU nor my GPU are amazing clockers... I sincerely doubt I could squeeze more than 5% out of a chiller setup for 24/7 use and I don't bench...

All in all a big investment and undertaking for very little return