A Detailed Look
The SilverStone Nightjar 500W Fanless power supply enclosure is fabricated from aluminum and measures 160mm (6.3”) deep. Instead of using a traditional fan for cooling, the ST50NF incorporates a large, passively cooled heatsink on the top surface to dissipate waste heat. The deep-finned heatsink is machined from a solid piece of aluminum.
(Courtesy of SilverStone)
The Nightjar 500W fanless PSU includes a master On-Off switch and AC receptacle on the back panel along with two operating status LEDs (Power and Temperature). The PWR LED is normally yellow when power is applied and the PSU is in Stby; it turns green when the power supply is operating normally, and will turn red if a fault should occur. The TEMP LED is normally green but turns red if the external heatsink temperature exceeds 55°C. All four sides are covered with open honey-comb grills to allow for airflow in and out of the power supply for cooling.
The Nightjar 500W Fanless power supply uses all fixed cables, which are covered with braided plastic mesh sleeving.
(Courtesy of SilverStone)
Could you use this setup and
Could you use this setup and turn it into a watercooled unit by adding some heat pipes or something?
The answer to your question
The answer to your question is “Yes, probably?” but the question itself misses the point _entirely_.
IT IS A FANLESS POWER SUPPLY! It is designed to cool itself Without Additional Cooling!
“Requires forced airflow
“Requires forced airflow (case fans) to operate at max output”
I think you were trying to
I think you were trying to make the following point??:
Most power supplies do not have the beefy heat sinks this fanless model has. The application of water blocks etc. would normally be a complete pain, but here we have big, flat chunks of metal to play with, making it bunches of easier.
Yes, you “could” but why even
Yes, you "could" but why even go that route… If you don’t need fanless then just get a good PSU with a quiet fan.
To watercool the ST50NF, you could cut sections of copper tubing and press them into the PSU’s large finned heatsink. Connect the tubes in parallel and add them into your PC’s watercooling loop. Or take a couple old CPU/GPU waterblocks and bolt onto the PSU’s heatsink (after drilling and tapping).
Awful value. You can get
Awful value. You can get Seasonic X-460 or Kingwin Stryker/SuperFlower Golden Silent 500W, both of which are:
-modular
-more efficient
-have better ripple suppresion than this unit.