Scratch Build Temporary name: Bloo Balls --6-29-'11 Bloo 2.0 refit COMPLETED page 47

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OK. There was one little thing I did last week that ended up being nothing. I wanted to upgrade the video card. I found a 512 AGP for $60, then an open box special for $44...and it had a $15 rebate. You know my name. I couldn't resist, and took the open box gamble. The reviews said the card got HOT, so I decided to make a waterblock for it BEFORE it showed up. -Thats right, double the stakes.

-First, I can say you can cut 3/4" cast plexi with a scroll saw, if you keep the blade oiled up.

-That wasn't nearly thick enough for my tastes, so I added a 1/4" laver of UVred.

-Of course, I screwed up and snapped a screw off in the block. I fixed this by drilling the holes all the way through. I drilled the screw out from the other side. You would think I would learn my lesson...

-Several people have asked me how I mill. I use the drill press mortising technique for deep channel cuts. It's a drill press, so drilling rows of holes is easeir on it. First, I drill a row of holes, like the row that runs in-line with the inlet holes. Then I drill out the rest by moving in small increments and cutting a hole. Then I finish off the bottom by keeping the bit down, and moving it along the channel. (If this doesn't make any sense it's beacuse I'm really sleepy and I'm updating ALL my logs.)

-Pi. I was tempted to leave it like that. I made this block so it would have lots of contact with the copper, and little restriction.

-All milled out.

-This is why I was gunning for this particular card, esides the cheap.) I have very little clearance on this board with the plumbing. This card fit. Too bad it wasn't compatable. I'm out $21 in shipping and restocking fees. I realized a company could make quite a bit of money on the same defective item if they charged a restock fee everytime it was returned.


So I almost did something, but I didn't...What?

Thanks again to DangerDen for there support.

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Thanks.
@ Farmboy UK - Yes, I'm not going to try milling copper again anytime soon. Especially now that I have no use for this block.

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Briggs & Stratton 5 hp lawnmower engine. Any lawnmower engine would work. The hard part is getting the carbon off the head and the exaust port. I did a lot of sandblasting.

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Originally Posted by CobraMods

. imagine what ya could do if you had unlimited fundage.

Thanks! I have done that. I imagine we all do.
How's this: A one-piece case frame made with 1/4" layers cut with a 5-axis cnc laser cutter and then glued together. Curved surfaces, ducting, cable compartments, mobo tray, and drive bays all in one big polished part.

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Chinese high speed steel 2 & 4 flute general purpose bits from use-enco.com. (-as cheap as possible.)
The 2 flute bits work well, but 4 flute bits make a better surface. I don't need to worry about the bits getting hot while cutting plexi, either.
I'd say that with my setup, it would be a good idea to go for 4+ flute bits for larger bits. The 2 flute 1/2" bits are a bit violent in a drill press.
-So I guess the answer is... I don't change out the bit for the last pass.

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-UV lighting is not your friend! I knew that dark spot on the block would come back to haunt me. I've been watching the spot crawl towards the lights for a few months now. It managed to eat through my silicone seal finally.

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It was hard to get a pic. Near the LED in the bottom right of the waterblock there's a nasty black spot in the seal area. It's just a matter of taking the block apart and re-sealing. I didn't lose any hardware.
Good to see you're back TG.

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Thanks guys. I can finally get off the Wblock deathwatch too. Gotta switch to Permatex now. It's not as pretty as clear sealant.
@Tribal - *Jedi hand gesture* You WILL make custom waterblocks... Just make one with a proper rubber gasket.
I can't find any new chipsets with as much surface as the P4 layout. The new chipsets would be a b*tch to work a maze into

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Hey! Thanks everyone! Now I can watch BSG destroy my chances for Mod of the Year. I wonder if I'll be 'not last' this time?
@Mvagusta - I soaked it for a week in varsol and carb cleaner. -it was still a pain.
I think Da Dego gets dibs on royalties. He had to do some serious editing to make what I wrote coherent. -royalties on the internet.

It's funny that the case was in a million bits when the article got posted...

Pulling the WB involved draining the loop, pulling the PSU(it needed cleaning up from the leak anyway,) and removing the radiator.

EEW! You can see the dark spots from leaving the barbs uncovered back when I switched motherboards. I should have cleaned and resealed it back then. The dark then creeped to the UV lights to the right, and caused the seal to fail. The air bubbles didn't help much either. You can see water got into the bottom mounting hole.

-Here's where I'm at now. I switched to Permatex Ultra Blue for the seal. I squished the seal down a little tighter than I wanted. Water can't pass as easily under the maze walls this time, so my chip temp is up 1 degree from normal. I'm still only topping out at 96 degreesF.

My failure was NOT brought to you by my kind sponsor. They know how to use gaskets properly.

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Thanks, It just looks clean again to me.
I put the side back on and I'm back to 95 degrees F. ? weird. At least I know it's seated right.

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Thanks.
@Tribal - What? I figured you were just busy.
@Teyber - Fortunately I can't even get the pump primed without the loop closed.
(OT)The new expansion bottle made bleeding a breeze. I could flush air out of the line by pumping the little bottle. It helped with topping off too. I could fill it with coolant, squeeze the water into the reservoir, then it would suck in the air at the top or the res.

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@John - PM'd

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@John - I thought you had the c7 in a case with another system. (?)
I'd go with whatever is...(wait for it)... cheapest. Although you could probably put an 80X1 over the power supply intake and run it fanless. A super tiny aquarium pump would make it nearly silent.
-Oh! just remembered... laptop powersupply for these... It would be nice if you could set it up so the escaping heat pulled air over the radiator. (I'm rambling with direct keyboard output from my brain right now...) I guess if you mounted an 80X2 on the back outside, it could run passive with little worries. (I'll have to experiment with it.) That would leave only the noise from the hardrive to deal with.
Can you tell I LOVE the idea of a dead silent system?

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Thanks acey. I have a few rocks in my head.

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Thanks an Merry Christmas to you too.
Merry Christmas to everyone! Thanks again for putting me in the MOTY running!

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Bloo 2.0 Start

Yup. The P4 motherboard got a horrible case of leaking caps, so I'm doing a marathon rebuild.
Part of this was leaked in my current project, GwassGween. I finally broke down and bumped Bloo's thread to avoid making that project any more confusing. (It's already pretty bad.)

The plan:

-New hardware. Duh. -Although I'm keeping the floppy drive for now. I have no clue what to do with the hole.

-New waterblocks. The P4 maze brick has to be re-done.

-Bigger radiator. This also means a major overhaul to the top of the case.

-Improved tube routing. I'm fixing the copper tubes so I don't have to re-solder them every time I upgrade. I'm also moving them out of the way of the hardware.

-New reservoir. I'm not sure what I'm doing can be called an improvement, but bleeding/filling/cleaning should be better. It also will be moved out of the way of the hardware. The old one ate a lot of space and took forever to bleed.

-Removable back panel/motherboard tray. This was one of my biggest mistakes. I tried to shave a few dollars off the cost, and ended up with a real PITA to work with.

-Fixed wire routing. I hate cable wrap, and I finally found a solution that should look good.

-Custom pump top. The hoses will be routed out the top this time. I'm also moving the pump as close to the PSU as possible.


-First, I had to make a cut in the I/O plate to glue a motherboard tray to. Getting the back panel clamped down was tricky. I had to prop the panel up higher than the batman fins. I resorted to using electrical tape to hold it down.

-I cut out a motherboard tray and CNCd out some access holes. (CNC? -refer to the gwassgween thread...I bought some stuff.)

-Clamped in place for gluing...

-For the future re-wiring, I dyed reels of 18AWG and 22AWG speaker wire blue. The UV red stuff was a mistake. It screamed, 'look at my cable, baby!'

-I had to order some more plastic. This is another reason Delvie's rocks. One of the sheets is 1.25" longer than what I ordered. The other shops would have cut undersize and charged you for it.

-Here's the res parts. This mess will sit on top of the hardrive cage...somehow.

-This is the chop to fit a 140x2 radiator. I haven't figured out if it's enough yet. I hope it is -It's all I room for. Even this is colliding with the new reservoir.

-Wheee. I'm de-soldering the tubes for the third time. I'm hoping this will be the LAST time, though. I've moved all the plumbing behind the hardrive area.

-Here's the current state of the reservoir. -Pretty freaky, isn't it? I integrated the pressure regulator this time.

So...
Hardware-done No pics yet.
Radiator-done
Motherboard tray-done

...Oh and a little thanks for Bloo's sponsor.

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Thanks. Working on the plumbing and software today...

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-OK...Somewhere in this mess is a working system: MSI 870A-gs4 with a Athlon2x2@3 ghz, 4gigs of ddr3, and a 1.5tb drive~ish. GPU is a HD5770.
-With that out of the way, I need to get everything on water...

-This is the leak test on the new tubing. I use my garden sprayer for everything but spraying the garden.

-I'm in the process of beefing up my waterblock-FU. I picked up a few new tools for that. The current problem is I have to roll everything into the garage to cut metal, and it's like...90F in there.

-Here I have the old block and what will become the new block. I will not be using the maze brick for the new setup, but I need it's copper. If you dislike gore, do not scroll further down.
.
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-This would be another reason to leave a little gap between the copper and the plastic when using a gasket sealant. I could barely get a blade between the two to pry them apart. You will notice the copper has eroded away near the edges of the seal.

-Here's the future GPU block top. I screwed up designing it and made the inner wall to hold the O-ring too thin. -Hey! It looked huge on the computer. I had to make the little blue rings you see here.

-A successful 24hour leak test tells me I can go ahead with cutting the ports out.

I only hope the mounting holes are right. I guessed on them.

Thanks again to DangerDen for sponsoring this monstrosity.

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Thanks.
I had a long spare floppy cable stuffed in the bottom ...under the PSU. It had a habit of popping out to say 'hi' when you opened the side of the case. -Spent a lot of time re-adjusting my floppy cable.

@boy4 - I can't wait to see if the block fits the card!

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-A ported ATI block and oldschool gasket measuring here.

-AM3 block, part one. When I'm done, it should be just as massive as the P4 block.

-I got a Corsair psu. -Nice cable collection (octopus) here. Too bad I'm going to chop it all out.

-I voided the warranty... They put a black PCB on the power supply too? That's 3 out of 3 for this build.

-Ugg. Some ATX pins are easy, some are from hell. It took me an hour to get this one pin out. You can see I messed up the first pair of new wires while getting it out too. To get these pins free, I had to push with the pin remover tool with enough force to bend the plug. I doubt the tool will survive for the entire swap. It's pretty tattered after doing the 24 pin plug.

-Aw, Cr*p. I was on a roll that day. I slipped up in the dxf exports, and part of the cutting was wrong. I didn't notice until it was too late because I cut the crooked stuff first.
You can see the start of a new ddc top here too.

-This will be the 2nd half of the AM3 waterblock. I have the springs countersunk here. It should look pretty slick if I can find long enough screws.

Thanks again to DangerDen for helping this project out.