Gadgetory

copper heat pipes have become prolific to a point of finding their way into even small form factor devices but are well known for prevalence within CPU and GPU coolers a copper heat pipe is one of the most efficient means of syncing and dissipating heat doing most of the work through internal phase change of liquid to gas as the fluid evaporates and condenses within the vacuum sealed copper tube today we're looking at cooler masters in-house copper heat pipe Factory in Hawai Joe China where more than 50,000 the copper heat pipes are made every single day before that this video is brought to you by the master op and Haifa man a chief or X ax planar magnetic head phones the h e 4x ax headphones focus on high quality audio listening experiences with comfortable foam cushions for the ear cups comfort is also ensured with a leather covered spring steel headband allowing flexibility and durability against bends these headphones are capable of delivering big sound for audio files while being positioned competitively in price learn more at the link in the description below cooler masters heat pipe manufacturing is about as close to the source as it gets first the company buys the copper from a supplier and gets it rolled into a tube the first machine that we saw in the line uses a set of two platforms to exchange heat pipes from one position to the next at this point they're really just copper tubes with holes at the end and that's it the center platform lifts and moves the to be heat pipes while the outer one holds them in place neither side of the heat pipe is sealed as it enters this machine but that changes as the pipes progressed through it once in place the machine moves a rotating bit inwards to shrink the heat pipe and create a closed end on one side while the other end of the machine pushes the pipe into the rotating bit an arm at the top pushes down lightly to hold them in place and then they're rotated out and dropped into a bit once the copper has been rolled into a tube and sized the heat pipe is brought to a machine that fills the pipe with centered copper powder there are multiple types of copper heat pipes but the most commonly known ones are sintered mesh or we've grooved or a composite of two approaches with the posit pops being the most expensive and the most thermally effective today we're following the manufacturing of sintered heat pipes which bake a copper powder to the inner walls of the heat pipe to expand surface area and guide capillary action this approach uses more copper than a mesh heat pipe and so is more expensive to manufacture than just mesh the machine containing the pipes hold about 48 at a time with multiple of these and use and dumps copper powder from a container above the machine then shakes the copper powder into place thus compacting it into the tube excess spill over lands in a bucket for reuse and so it can be sort of recycled if we were watching mesh manufacturing what we would see would be an insert by hand instead of using this machine step where a premade mesh can be stuck into the tube and then it moves on to the next step after the sintered powder finds its way into the heat pipe factory workers transport the powder packed copper heat pipes to an oven because the heat pipes are made of copper and therefore good conductors baking the heat pipes can prove challenging the oven has to bake each of the 50,000 heat pipes per day for eight hours running at 900 to 1,000 degrees Celsius the entire time the result of the baking process is sintered copper powder hardened against the inner wall of the heat pipe something for which we have footage to demonstrate if you try to scrape this off you'd really have to dig at it because it is hardened into the outer copper at this point after a full day of baking in the oven the heat pipes are moved to get soldered on one of the ends the soldering machine uses what amounts to an ammunition magazine except it's filled with heat pipes it hops the pipes through the process the machine can solder one pipe roughly every two seconds again with multiple machines in use and uses a set of two platforms to exchange heat pipes down the line the arms actuate and push pipes through the stack with an arm moving back into the magazine to fetch the next pipe with each successive solder once soldered the pipes are allowed to roll into a receiving bucket where they wait to be moved manually to the next step at this point there's a manual quality check to ensure the heat pipes look as they should using reference materials to check the desired result and if there are any bad heat pipes they unfortunately can't be recycled even though these are copper they're not pure copper the heat pipes have too many chemicals in them now that they've gone through some of these processes and are impure so they can't be reused about three percent of the heat pipe materials end up going to waste which against 50,000 per day ends up being a lot of copper that unfortunately can't be salvaged next is the injection of liquid into heat pipes Coolermaster made its own machines to handle this process using simple principles of gravity to hold the liquid in the tube while it's injected a syringe inserts a few droplets of distilled water into the copper heat pipe and it really is just a few drops if you were to turn the heat pipe over and attempt to empty it into your palm you wouldn't even feel the liquid come out if any does come out it's that small of an amount of liquid as space is still needed for the gases within the heat pipe the heat pipe is next laid down in a bin that's tilted slightly downward using gravity to ensure no loss of liquid while they wait to be transferred the tube is moved by hand to another machine this one responsible for vacuuming the air out and pinching the end of the heat pipe closed not all of the air is removed at this point so it goes to another machine to further this process the next machine heats the heat pipe up at the bottom it's loaded by a technician manually and heating it at the bottom forces the remaining air to go out of the top of the pipe via automation it then vacuums and pinches the tube a second time this time higher up and then it cuts that section of the heat pipe off all of the air is now removed from the heat pipe leaving only a few droplets of distilled water and the sintered powder that's been bonded to the inside finally the heat pipe can be soldered on the other end of the tube sealing it completely into one straight copper heat pipe this soldering machine the final step is the same as the earlier one we saw and the heat pipe is now done and must be bent or shaped for the product cooler master makes CPU and GPU cooler silicon manufacturers and board partners and cooler manufacturers so heat pipes of various types are in constant demand now that it's time to bend those heat pipes there are two ways to do it one is manually sometimes used for low volume designs with specific pens or if a machine is out of commission and the other is by the more efficient automation approach to get a feel for how manual bending works cooler masters and engineers gave us the hands-on experience alongside Brian from bps costumes and with our inexperience combined we formed the world's slowest assembly line the first step of the manual bending process is to face the crimped ends of the heat pipe toward the user then insert two heat pipes at a time and to the bending rig an insert is used to hold the pipes in place while the operator pulls a lever to effortlessly bend the tubes at the desired angle although it took us about 19 to 25 seconds to bend two heat pipes and passed them to Brian it takes a skilled factory worker about eight seconds to accomplish the same work coolermaster gave us one of our heat pipes to take home so you know as they probably wouldn't pass quality control and the result is a comprar heat pipe with a 180 degree Bend ready for use in a small tower cooler automation is more interesting and uses the same tools as the manual stations but it's obviously more efficient Coolermaster had three different types of heat pipe vending machines on display with the first accomplishing effectively the same task as both Brian and we accomplished except more competently by using a template to bend the pipes and a grooved wheel to guide them along as they get bent a second time a claw then grabs the pipes and moves them over a bucket where it dropped them for operator pick up one of the machines is capable of more unique shapes to bend pipes multiple times for specific fitments this machine uses an accordion arm to push the pipes into the bend template where the heat pipes are then bent and then moved to a bucket all that's left now is the final quality check heat pipes are selected to be dipped into a tank of hot water where operators expect to feel the heat pipe become hot very rapidly if the heat pipe doesn't reach high temperatures in a specified amount of time it may be defective and might need a secondary inspection this is also where Coolermaster had some of its flattened heat pipes on display although the company prefers round heat pipes and it's cooling products for improved performance flat pipes can fill important roles in GPUs and notebook coolers where space is at more of a premium that's it for this factory tour of a heat pipe factory at cooler masters headquarters in China we'll have more of these coming up so make sure you subscribe to catch those you should also check out bps Kustoms video on the cooler master factories we happen to align our trips for those and we'll link that below otherwise you can go to store documents access net to support us directly or you can go to patreon.com/scishow