Scratch Build – In Progress Project: Totally Twisted (with homemade radiator & reservoir)

Love the copper tubes.
Great stuff in your project

 

Pine wood

 

I really like the look of this, and your decision to make your own rad is really admirable.

One suggestion: stain the wood nice and dark.

 

holy **** that's pretty unique there, really cool, love the whole design of it, keep it up

 

A little off topic but do you know that people actually collect old CPUs? They go for like $10USD on eBay. I have seen some of the ceramic ones go for a lot more. That Box could probably finance this project.
John

 

UPDATE

UPDATE!
Only four months since the last update, mostly because I had litle time and because the parts didn't arrive. But now the hardware finally arrived!

AMD Phenom 9850
MSI K9A2 Platinum
MSI NX 8800GT
4GBCorsair XMS2 CM2X-6400C4DHX
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer
Coolermaster M620
Lite-on LH 20-A1S
LG L226WTQ
Logitech G9


And the watercooling:
Zalman fans
Zalman fancontroller
swiftech mcp655 pomp
swiftech Apogee GTX
etc.


The computer is working, but the cooling isn't installed, that'll change soon, very soon.




(with beautiful antique olivetti keyboard)

I will post updates as soon as possible.
@jhanlon303: thx I'll take a look on ebay

 

UPDATE

UPDATE
Finally I have vacation, and now I'm capable to start doing the real work.
First I bought a new keyboard (not that you care)


After that I started to solder the radiator:






One burned down house later:




The time had come to see if everything really worked, so I put everything together:



I put on the psu and... nothing. Aparently the psu has to be connected to the mobo, so I used an old psu which didn't need to be connected. I was very pleased because everything worked, the pump is whisperquiet and there are no leakages:


Something blue came out of the copper radiator, I don't have a picture and I don't know what it was, but now it's gone.

The next step is to see what temperature I can get out of it, that's probably for the next update.

 

Copper (II) salts. Most are blue. Happens when copper reacts with almost any acid.

 

Maybe a dumb question; but just to be sure: Can it cause damage if you put the HD vertically instead of horizontally?

 

Nope, that is no problem.

 

Wow, love the custom radiator! Im just not sure how well it will cool. Are you going to solder any Aluminum plates or something to them? Just some coppertube won't cool that good i think.

 

A couple of questions
1) Why are you using a Crossfire motherboard if you are using a Nvidia card? Wouldn't it make more sense to use a P35 or P45?
2) Why AMD? Intel is beating AMD in nearly all accounts...
3) The memory is not installed in Dual Channel Config...

Otherwise, the mod is looking great! I am impressed with the originality of it. Good luck!

 

UPDATE
I recently returned from vacation and started working again.
I began with the plan making a reservoir, because I needed one. I had everything worked out in my head, but making it was a lot more difficult than I thought...
Pictures say enough I think:
First attempt:











The shape wasn't exactly what I wanted, so I made a second design:

After soldering:







This one is better, but I still have to test it.

@Asulc
1)I wanted amd
2)personal taste
3)The memory is installed in Dual Channel Config

 

Not all Amd still beats Intel for energy efficient CPU.

 

Have to agree the Q6600 is a very energy efficient CPU ive found and it benchmarks far better then the amd phenoms

 

UPDATE
Maybe you recognize this?


It used to be the reservoir, but because I made a new better one, this one isn't needed anymore. But I don't like throwing it away so I needed to make a new purpose for it.
First calculating and drawning(sorry for the blur):


The old reservoir, now in pieces:


You get an impression on how its gonna be



Evolution




Tadaaaa



This will be hanging at the side of the case, soon everything will be clear...

 

UPDATE
The radiator (with central tube) and the reservoir are finally done, so I had to leaktest it.
I assembled the whole loop (accept the cpu, because there's still a lot of dirt in the tubes, and it would all get stuck in the cpu block). The pictures tell the story.













Thus it leaked.
Now I just have to solder and glue a bit, and the cooling part is done.

 

must be quite heavy with all that copper sorry to hear about the leaks

 

Leaks are dealt with. No leaks anymore!
I will weigh the copper before I insert it into the case, I estimate that there's arround 5 kg of copper used, but the pinewood is very light, so that will compensate it a little bit.
Big update coming up...

 

UPDATE!

UPDATE
This is the update that took me the most work. What is done:

-The case is totally varnished, the wood looks much nicer now.
-Watercooling installed and leaktested
- made a hold down plate for socket am2.
-Made a big window in the radiator
- fans installed.
-made a hole for the reservoir and installed it
I'm very close to the end of this project, but still a lot has to happen.
Here are the picures, not in a particular order (because i'm lazy)




















thx for all the nice comments!