How Copper Heatpipes Are Made | China Factory Tour (Cooler Master)
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- We show how CPU cooler and GPU cooler copper heatpipes are made by Cooler Master in HuiZhou, China. These automated factories near Shenzhen make the heatpipes.
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Copper heatpipes contain liquid inside to accelerate heat dissipation by using the phase change to shed energy quickly. This video shows cross-sections of sintered copper heatpipes and talks about how much liquid (and what kind of liquid) is inside of a copper heatpipe. We also show the start-to-finish process of manufacturing heatpipes, which is part of the long process to make a CPU or GPU heatsink.
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Looks like it might be TIG welding, not soldering. We were told "soldering," but it was very likely a translation issue between English/Chinese.
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Gamers Nexus - Your "how it's made" factory videos are my favorite videos. Moar plz. And, thank you, Steve and GN crew.
Look its jesus
I use a cooler master AIO 😀
Its really in the name ... 😄
I don't understand how they can create a vacuum and not have the water change state to a gas, as water in a vacuum boils at room temperature.
@@ChimpyChamp They drop the pressure to a point before water will boil, so when heat is applied to the heatpipe it evaporates rapidly due to the high vapour pressure.
This video series is great. More factory/production tours. Try to see if Noctua will show you how they make air coolers that compete with water coolers.
I'd love to see that, as well!
Same here ;)
Agreed!
Noctua is far less efficient. Silence has its trade offs.
China is literally king in manufracturing ..
Wasn't expecting it to just dump a load of copper powder all over everything.
Welcome to China, it's a wildly different manufacturing world.
@@otm646 I'm hearing the movie trailer guy saying: "In a world... Where OSHA doesn't exist... And health code is an afterthought..."
@@hotaru25189 Well Steve did state that the excess powder is collected in a bin below, and is presumably put back into the top. I can guarantee they're not just throwing it out.
@@hotaru25189 The powder is collected and re-used, as stated in the video.
@@GamersNexus Video?
Closer and closer to the thermal paste video!
I love thermal paste. Can't get enough of it.
@@StefanEtienneTheVerrgeRep .... Do you use it as lube too and if so give us a Review on it
I have my tissue ready for that video.
If it aint my fav organic boi Benzene
@@timserious7678 it has many uses!
4:50 "Copper can't be salvaged" Cody'sLab: hold my beer
It struck me a little bit that comment, envisioning failed heat pipes dumped in the landfill. Hopefully, it just meant, that it can't be salvaged at Cooler Master's factory, but it can be treated as scrap copper and recycled with furnace.
@@Murphistic Copper is expensive, someone probably buys the scrap from them. I hope, at least, seeing a resource get thrown out is painful to me
@@Murphistic I can pretty much promise that. There isn't anything that would be added that a recycling mill couldn't account for or add to specific alloys.
It absolutely can be salvaged. Copper.is so expensive to mine there is absolutely a procees to remove the impurities
The copper is recyclable. It won't be used to make pure copper, most likely, but it will most default be recycled. Copper is used in hundreds of different alloys, and there's always space for it. I think something got lost in translation, like them calling the tig welding, "soldering."
Neat that they let you actually try to bend some heat pipes.
Key word: Try.
@Gamers Nexus Could you do a video about custom/do it yourself coolers and heat pipe bending? There’s very little information in the area and you have all the connections...
@@GamersNexus I smirked a little when you said 'world's slowest assembly line'.
@@RyanAmparo-tl oh I LOL'd over that
I had no idea it was just distiller water. I figured it was some other chemical. Interesting.
Great video guys as always, thanks for the time and care you put into all your work.
Pure water won't react with copper, and it carries a lot of energy when it evaporates. Im curious how they make the flat pipes without blocking off the center opening.
@@davidgunther8428 they use mesh for the flat ones maybe?. and it's possible to leave short round end to let the water filled in
there are heatpipes/vapour chambers filled with other liquids that work in different temperature ranges. Its just that water is most optimal for this application.
Depending on how much air you evacuate, you can adjust the boiling point of the water.
No need for fancy Novec that boils at 40° under 1atm.
@@davidgunther8428 Carefully is how they do it, in testing was just a guy standing on them.
You guys have the coolest jobs around, you know that?
They are the masters.
The copper is recyclable. It won't be used to make pure copper, most likely, but it will most default be recycled. Copper is used in hundreds of different alloys, and there's always space for it. I think something got lost in translation, like them calling the tig welding, "soldering."
Andrew Delashaw Exactly.
Any mineral which we find in the ground will have impurities in it and has to be refined in order to be usable. With that said, the process is not as simple as it is with steel where the slag can just be scrapped off the surface of the melted steel. In the case of copper, the process that requires a lot of electrical current and sulphuric acid. The copper is disolved by the acid and is then deposited on cathodes. This process is essentially the same as the one which is used to refine copper from raw ore.
I actually find it pretty surprising that they cannot just grind the failed pipes into poweder to use for sintering future heat pipes. I understand that the end result may not be pure enough to be recycled as pure copper but minor contaminants should be perfectly okay in the middle sintering because it only needs to be able to soak water.
How its made: copper heatpipes, tech jesus edition.
Now I’m hearing that music again
@@uss_04 I've been hearing it from the get-go.
I was thinking the entire time "They should really get Steve to do their narration. He's a natural for this"
*See title*
*insta like*
Thank you for this. You probably are the only YT channel that will ever tour a factory like this. This content is gold. Keep it up!
Hardware Canucks did the Gigabyte MB tour back in 2016 ua-cam.com/video/kwdQhv6WOfM/v-deo.html . Several older vids out there from way back from defunct sites or ones I never heard of too.
Pretty neat to see how they do the sintering process. The image showing the sintered, grooved, and weave methods was especially cool. I didn't know there were multiple methods.
Thats something I always wanted to know TBH.
I'm loving this How It's Made series
I watched this process on Brian's channel already, but I still watched this entire video. I'm the true hero the internet needs. You're welcome.
Thanks for all of these factory tours GN Team. It's both informative and satisfying to watch, especially considering the fact that there are several levels of abstraction between something like a heatpipe and the products that we would see as consumers that incorporate them. It's easy to forget that every little thing in a computer has a story.
I feel educated. Thank you so much, Steve.
It's nice that the coolermaster relationship seems to have improved enough they're doing tours for you :)
I like the random pieces of tape here and there holding machines together. Reminds me of someone i know.
The tape isn't holding any machines together. It is there to cushion the work, or add some friction to the flow.
Thank you. I'm sure a lot of us really enjoy theses unique manufacturing videos that you guys take the time to produce.
That's a lot more work and effort than I expected. Cool to see, thanks!
Very cool of CoolerMaster to have you guys there. They are without a doubt the best option for mid grade coolers.
I actually work at a business in NA that manufactures industrial sized heat pipes. This manufacturing process is SO much more stream lined than what we do.
Great content! After bumping, bashing, shaping and beating these around while making custom notebook heatsinks for the past couple of years it's great to finally see how these things are properly made in a factory.
This was super intriguing. I just sit and become completely immersed when you guys go to different facilities and show us behind the scenes. Please keep making these types of videos! I love seeing these companies with boots on ground perspective about how it's made. Excellent content guys, keep it up!
You're looking at how america was conquered
Good guy GN makes video that ends up just shy of 10 minutes and doesn't add fluff to push it over
Given that, how they got Buildzoid in the mix i'll never know! ;)
Another worthwhile watch. Thanks Mr. Burke 👍🏼
Steve, it's your in depth analysis of cool shit like this that persuaded me to pursue a degree in computer engineering.
I am in 2nd year atm, and I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for doing this channel. I appreciate the whole GN team very much.
Neat, I think I've bought their fan/cooler before. And nice to see such a thorough tour of the manufacturing process.
Im loving these factory tours tbh
Y'all have some great content! It's nice to see what other youtubers would think dull but I bet everyone loves this type of content. Thanks guys, Keep it shill!
This is the coolest factory tour I've seen yet.
Thanks for these 'how it's made' videos - very cool...
Didn't know there were 3 types of designs, I thought it was just, weave w/water, or nothing at all and some low boiling point fluid.
This content is great and it's awesome you guys are getting the opportunity to do this.
INSANELY INTERESTING!!! Thank you guys so much!
I dunno why but i absolutely love these videos.
My V8 GTS and LM got my FX-8350 to only start to thermal throttle at 4.96GHz (95*C)
Really cool to see it in the thumbnail and how it was made.
Love seeing content like this! Definitely something that you don’t see much anywhere else for PC enthusiasts. Keep it up!
Thanks to Cooler Master and Gamers Nexus great video
These tours are Epic and brilliant
Best episode of How its made i've ever seen.
This is incredibly cool! One of my favorite factory tours that you've done! :)
That was such a cool video!!! Thank you for making it!
Ok these factory tours are awesome.
This is the most interesting video series I've seen in a long time. GG Gamers Nexus!
Instantly looked at my GPU with massive heatpipes and noticed how they are bent. Wow, thanks for the video!
I love these series - How it's made!
Thank you, Gamers Nexus!
This China series has been fantastic. I was even wondering about this just the other day.
Never ever thought there were SO MANY steps and work on those shiny copper heat pipes. I'll appreciate them even more next time I lose myself staring at my gorgeous 1080ti... Dem Pipes 😈
This is amazing! :) Videos like this are always appreciated
Sounds like it was a refreshing tour.
Very interesting! I would like to see how the heat pipes are then combined with fins to make complex cooler designs though. It's hard to work out how on earth they managed to do it at mass scale. The engineers who design and set up these machines must be very talented!
For CPU coolers they could use something similar to this video, the heatpipes are held to the same press that makes the heatsink sections ua-cam.com/video/BBB2rChWxmE/v-deo.html
Very high quality content lately. Keep it up
"world's slowest assembly line". Yup, first genuine laugh since that war broke out. Glad I watched this. I actually learned something! I'll be digging to see what else you got. Keep up the good work, Nexus!
what an amazing video. I've always wondered this. Great coverage on the whole process
Watching you two trying to bend the heat pipes reminded me of working at the BMW plant when we had visitors come in. Hour over every time lol 😂 but it was definitely entertaining and broke up the monotony of a normal work day.
Great that you make Factory Tours, they are very interesting 👍😊
Love these factory tour videos
I love this type of content. Great job!
Impressive stuff, and by that I mean this channel's high quality content. Actually beats most traditional broadcast media.
I'm pretty sure that's a tig welder tbh
Yeah that's definitely not soldering lol
Yeah looks like TIG.
Yep. It looks like a off the shelves welder that is just attached using a custom clamp. Which is excellent, and easy to replace with a new tip or holder.
I've TIG welded copper. Talk about drawing some current. The welder just hums when you're welding copper. Copper is pretty low resistance.
Yay~ free study tour!
No seriously, i love these factory tour videos.
Super cool. I love these factory videos. Great inside look into what goes into making the great products we use every day. I look forward to more!!!!!
loving these manufacturing videos!
Very productive trip Steve and team.
Well done!
These are fascinating, I hope you get more opportunities to do these kinds of factory tours.
this channel deserves more subs
@~4:00 they aren't soldering the heat pipes, they are spot-welding them using what looks like a TIG process.
Simple invention, but outstanding performance.
I love factory tours!
Damn, I kept on waiting to hear the 'How it's made' jingle... And there were no dodgy puns -_-
AWESOME was waiting for this one
Love this type of stuff. Thanks GN
that tour was very satisfactory .
By far your most interesting videos for me
Heatpipes are great; such a simple working mechanism, yet they can transfer heat many times up to hundreds of times faster than copper. Pretty neat
Thank you, Steve. Very Cool.
This is splendid. Thank you
I love these "How Its Made" videos. Keep it up!
This is very much like the process they use to make condenser and evaporator coils in your AC/heat pumps systems. Most manufacturers use the grooved tubes but have to be careful how the grooves are spaced or on the 90 and 180 degree bends the refrigerant will wear through the groove on the outer radius and cause a leak. When the industry went to these grooved tubes to raise efficiency with the advent of R-410a it was a real problem with evap coils springing leaks after just a few years rather than the designed 20+ year lifespan. I've always found these "passive" systems interesting because of how well they work for such a simple design with no compressor to circulate the refrigerant or change it's state back from a gas to a liquid
BTW the process used to reduce (or increase) the ends is called swaging .... It's also used in the AC/heat pump industry to couple two tubes saving cost of having to use a coupling and also reduces the chances of a leak by 50% because you only have to make one solder/weld instead of two with a coupling
We have been waiting 2 years for the air cooler round up bro!
Loving these informative videos!
Really like these manufacture videos.
Pretty cool, and the more we know the better.
loved this style video. thank you!
Great video, but as a welder, every time you said soldered it irked me lol. Those are welded. Thats literally a tig torch with a #7 cup on it. Uses argon as shielding gas and a sharpened piece of tungsten as an electrode
Using a tig torch doesn't exclusively make it a weld. Welding requires melting the base metals being joined as well as the filler material. Soldering uses an alloy with a lower melting temperature to join materials which is what is being done here. Welding copper would require over 1000C localized temperatures at the weld which wouldn't work very well considering the heat pipe is DESIGNED to spread that heat rapidly.
@@murffly I'm with Luke... Pretty sure it is welding as I didn't see any solder going in anywhere... And the ends definitely look welded. You can even see this in pictures from Cooler Master. And 1000c temperatures would be EASILY achieved with that setup, even with the heat pipes ability to spread heat quickly. It also doesn't need to be localized... Black Smiths weld all the time by heating the entire piece of material (not localized) and beating it with a hammer. Even still, while the heat pipe spreads heat quickly it isn't instantaneous and that sealing process only seems to apply heat for a quarter of a second. So... I don't know, but I'm pretty sure Luke is correct and solder vs welding was lost in the translation.
@@joeynovak07 You wouldn't be able to raise the temperature of one of those heat pipes to 1000C without pressure building inside and bursting the heat pipe. Not to mention copper starts to oxidize at 200C I seriously doubt it's welded. I've spoken with heat pipe manufacturers about fabrication and they refer to crimping then soldering the pipes to seal them. I would hope they know their own processes.
@@murffly So... I don't want to argue this but I don't think your points are valid and I hate false information being propagated online... Here's why I still think it's being welded...
"You wouldn't be able to raise the temperature of one of those heat pipes to 1000C without pressure building inside and bursting the heat pipe. " - The tig torch is on for about .25 seconds. Even heat pipes don't spread heat that fast. Just watch Action Lab's video. And for the first sealing it isn't a heat pipe yet as it has no vapor in it is just a heavy copper pipe which means it has even more thermal mass and the heat from the torch will effect it even less.
The second it's only sealing a stub so less heat is needed AND it's under vacuum so there shouldn't be much pressure building (yes, some from the boiling water (which they've kept at the other end of the tube and probably won't migrate to that end of the tube yet, but idk), and to top it all off copper pipe can hold A LOT of pressure. Not infinite but even a soda bottle can hold 150psi pretty easily. I'm not going to do the calculations but even at 1000C 2 drops of water under vacuum probably aren't going to generate a lot of pressure in a container that large.
"Not to mention copper starts to oxidize at 200C I seriously doubt it's welded." That is what the shielding gas is for, it will prevent oxidation.
"I've spoken with heat pipe manufacturers about fabrication and they refer to crimping then soldering the pipes to seal them." - I can't really dispute this without calling you a liar but did you contact this specific manufacturer, since we are talking about their process not others. If so, who did you talk to and may I contact them to confirm this?
"I would hope they know their own processes." - The only man that really knows what is happening is the man on the assembly line who is actually doing it (or if his knowledge isn't high enough (many line operators probably don't know the difference between welding and soldering) the person that maintains the line). I've worked in manufacturing and usually the modus operandi is "This is the way we do it" (pulls lever). When I would write software to control machines I first went to the designer of the process and asked him how it was supposed to be done. He would tell me how it should be done, then I'd go to the person on the assembly line and ask them and they would tell me what they actually do. Then I would go back to the designer and tell them what was being done at which point he would go with me to verify this and we would ask the line worker why they were doing what they were doing and why they weren't doing it the way it was supposed to be done. At which point discussion would ensue and either the line worker would change what they were doing or more often it would be a combination of correction of the action and the designers understanding of the process. After this discussion I would usually have enough information to do what I needed to do. You frequently have to talk to 3 or 4 different people who all have differing opinions about what is supposed to be happening vs what is actually happening. Not all places are like this but from what I've seen few places are immune.
Arguments against soldering... Surfaces have to be cleaner for soldering than for welding and you usually have to apply flux (granted the shielding gas may negate this need, idk). If you use flux you usually want to rinse it off and I don't see that happening.
When the pipe is welded if you look closely the shape is being changed from a flat crimp to a roundish ball... This is welding soldering won't do that (unless it's also being trimmed to size which is possible but I don't see the waste dropping from the pipe.)
My opinion as someone who has both soldered and welded and has a fairly good grasp on physics is that these are welded. The only way to know for sure is to either buy one of the coolers that was being manufactured in this video at this time and see if it's soldered or welded or to go re-visit the factory and see.
Also - www.researchgate.net/publication/301722130_Heat_Pipe_Manufacturing no mention of soldering just welding.
Love the factory walkthroughs, so inspiring and interesting.
For the longest time tech sites never really explained heat pipes in detail, so this was interesting.
Those conveyance systems are called walking beams. They are great at moving items that need to stay oriented in a linear manner. We have made them as large as moving full size truck sunroofs.
Amazing content as always.
i like the factory tour videos.
awesome video, really enjoyed it!
these tour videos are great
I love these manufacturing videos.,
True quality content
Great video, this was very interesting to see :)
This was a great video. :D More of these please!
If anyone is wondering, at 4:30, the red characters say 氧化 or oxidised.
Thanks :)
You can buy these (yes sealed) on ebay, then bend them yourself into whatever shape you need. There's youtube vids of ppl making their own custom cooled PC cases with them.
They are surprisingly affordable. I wonder if they're the rejects from these factories.
Quite possibly
You could always buy loose heatpipes for custom builds from an industrial supplier, like when i looked around 2005 i found that Conrad Elektronik had them in stock and i could just order them for about 7-12€ a piece, depending on length and girth, and that's with Conrad's fat margin. I'd say at Aliexpress prices of around or above 2€ a piece, that sounds likely enough that most of it is legit product rather than reject junk.
I suspect others have mentioned this but the heatpipes appear to be welded, not soldered. The difference is soldering melts a relatively low-temperature filler material (usually an alloy of tin and zinc and some other stuff) and welding will melt the material (copper in this case) itself, with filler being optional and, in this case, not used.