Watercooling A tale of watercooling a Fractal Design Define XL R2 (finished!)

Found a place that seems to meet my needs Got the acrylic on the way.

 

..and the acrylic has arrived!. Here's the template The green sections will be black foam to create a reasonably airtight seal.

 

So it appears the dreaded monster called "real life" has stolen a lot of my time, so progress is a little slow at the moment.
Still, a little update is better than none

Before I got into the cutting of acrylic I decided to print some paper versions to test and amend.
MK1:

Good news: The screw holes match up perfectly
Bad news: Forgot about how those screw plugs protrude.

MK1.1:

Good news: Sorta fits
Bad news: Sorta doesn't
But it's only ~2mm off, so a few adjustments and it should be golden.

I also got a bit more money, which means I can buy more stuff
Here's what I spent it on (also showing the acrylic I got)


Getting there

 

Oooh! Alphacool block! I like the look of those!

 

They are nice blocks from what I can tell, very minimalist which fits the look of this project

 

So I've been doing a bit more work. Template MK1.3 was a great success so I went ahead with acrylic shroud V1. Don't yet have access to a proper lasercutter so hacksaw and dremel time

Here's a progress shot, which shows that I didn't make too bad a job with aligning the holes LOOK IT FITS

To clarify I put it like this to test alignment. So far so good c:
More later. Still waiting on pump from aquatuning

 

Unfortunately it seems the "real life" monster has attacked my free time again, so I'm going to be looking at plan B and C for getting this part of my project sorted. As much as I'd like to handcraft this peice it is consuming far more time than I anticipated for such a small section of it. If only I had more time

I'll update later when I have any news on what plan B/C entail
I just hope I've not been too "Topgear"* with this build :c

*Ambitious, but rubbish

 

A very useful thread, gives me ideas for the next build. Keep it going!

 

Just a quick note, the picture used in the layout is from the old FD XL Black Pearl, not the new R2 version of FD XL.
This is the layout of the new R2 that have the 2x140 already cut out in top:

 

I got the pump! Thank you Aquatuning
The default cables are a bit of a mess..


Well thats what MDPC is for

Much nicer. As a note I do deliberately keep some of the cable at the ends shown for my benifit.

Here's the pump in it's new home:


And the Home in it's...home...

Starting to take shape

My hand-cut foam gasket


Which fits rather nicely



And here's where I encountered a problem. See the plan is to use the two 140mm fans in the front... however the mounting frame ...just doesn't work with two 140mm fans.

Here's the radiator mounted ready for the front fans.. which won't fit properly
So My suggestion for Fractal Design is that this mounting frame needs the design altering to make it a bit easier to fit both the fans in accounting for the cables.

But I'm not giving up. Plan B:

Fortunately the previous mounting made it really easy to screw the fans in.

More to come as I have ran out of free time for now

 

Okay, Loop ready, time to temporarily decommission the main rig :O GASP.

Wish me luck

 

Main rig decommissioned and now salvaging what I can from the old case. Expect a for sale thread later

Next up is to wire up the PSU to the new case and leak test.
[update]
Leak test more than successful. Wow. Seriously, easiest ever watercooling I've set up. Pump is super quiet as in.. "is this on?" quiet. Easy to bleed too.
Pictures later

 

As said, some pictures of things so far.
Firstly needed to take everything out of the old case, this took a fair bit. Hoping to put what I learnt from the last project into this new build. Also learnt that as nice as the colossus was, Bitfenix did cut a lot of corners :/ I hope they do mature and improve though
Here's a pic of the old case as I take it apart:


And here's the loop assembled, undergoing a leak test:


And a pic of the res/pump in action. You can really hear how loud this pump is in this picture

Seriously, so quiet

And a pic of things as they stand so far:



That's it for now

 

Interested to see your load temps with the Monsta! rad - I'm thinking about adding one to my loop and sticking it inside a Nanoxia DS1. Very tidy looking build so far.

 

Good news everyone!
It's working. Very well infact Reconfigured the Aquaero for the new temps and it's so quiet.

CPU Temps btw, stock 3570k:
NO FANS:
idle 30 load 60
Fans at full tilt:
Idle 25 load 50

Will put some pictures up later

 

I'm thinking about moving my lot from the R4 into an XL R2. This might just have persuaded me...!

 

Let me know if you do as I've learnt a few useful things

 

I'm pretty sure it's going to happen, but not immediately (she'll kill me if I spend any more on computers in the near future)!

Cheers though - much appreciated!

 

It's finished, but here's how it ended:

A pic of me sorting out the wiring... Not my favourite part....


Almost done!


Moment of truth... one of the scariest parts. Will it make the beep of success or the worrying silence?


Fortunately, as we know, IT WORKS



Thanks everyone for the help, advice and suggestions. I hope the "journey" has been worth it Feel free to ask anything. Will be posting a mini "review" of the case after a bit of usage

 

Very nice sir, where are your hdd/ssd's?