Scratch Build – In Progress ProtoHype - (paused)

Good to see you back, and good stuff to look at again.

I don't know much about milling, but I'm surprised with the amount you seem to be
taking off with one pass. Could you tell me how much is being removed and does this depend
on the machine? It seems to be a big mill.

 

glad to see more of this!

 

Good cad drawings, good fab work, nice planning. You have a new sub.

 

Thanks, and btw.. congrats on the MOTY. You got my vote

Yeah I agree that there seem to bee alot of material removed in one pass and it kind of was, but I think it looks more on the photos than it was in reality. It was around 3-4mm and I was kind of testing the limits of my mill. I think the limit was around there somewhere. I'm not an expert in milling either but It's all a matter of cutting depth, speed and feed and you can kind of feel if somethings wrong and it feelt kind of good at this stage. I've heard that you should not exed a depth half of the diameter of the cutter but I think that all depends on the mill and material your cutting. However that would have been 8mm in this case since it's a 16 mm cutter and that would have been way to much for my mill I think. Normaly I prefer to be on the safe side and therefore take smaller cutts atleast with this mill.

thx guys

 

Really nice

I'm looking forward for some images when you get to assemble the case

 

Thanks. I'm looking forward to that too because at the moment the case is in another town so I'll have to settle for the internal parts.

 

So... my work with the HD blocks continues
I discovered that the two alupieces I've previously cut were not totaly flat. They had a slight curve on them and therefore needed some treatment. The curve was from the manufacturing process so if you plan on buying anything like this, it's a good thing not to buy the exact dimension since this seems to be quite common. I used the 4-jaw chuck, on the lathe wich alows me to attach non cirkular workpieces.



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Have to make shure to keep those fingers out of the way.


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Here you can se the curve of the pieces. The center part is beeing romeved first while the edges are left untouched and this is because the curve.


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After some passes the piece is nice and flat. Flipped it over an did the same on the other side.


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To bad they will probably not stay this shiny during the rest of the working. Well...will probably have to redo the surface once finished.

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Here I'm starting to drill the channels in one of the blocks. They will be threaded with M8 threads later and therefore I used a 7mm drill. 6,8 is the optimal drill for this thread but I didn't have that one so this will have to do. The depth of the holes are 60mm.

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Flipped the pieces over and started to drill the holes for the HD mounting. I used a 4mm drill to drill all the way through.


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For those of you thinking of doing somethings similar, the long distance between the holes are 101,6 mm which is standard for 3,5" HDD.


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Here I use a 8,5 mm drill to make room for the head of the HD mounting screws. These holes are not drilled all the way through.


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Time to start threading with the M8 tap. The alu piece with a hole in it is the guid tool I made to make shure the thread starts taping at a 90degree angle.


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Also did some edge chamfering of the holes to give it a nicer look. Here you can se that the large hole is not all the way through since it leaves 2mm in the bottom to make the screws pop out enough on the mounting side.


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There is still the largest intake hole, some mounting holes and surface treating left to do but you get the idea.

 

such good quality! amazing work, simply amazing.
I've not seen a lathe doing that before, that was really impressive.
cant wait to see more parts!

 

One very fine waterblock! This project has got a lot of potential. Keep it up!

 

First off this MOD is so incredible and I really love the design. Your workmanship and attention to detail is outstanding. This MOD is definitely a labor of love.

 

I got a semi on.

 

Thanks.. Yeah they can do quite a lot, and I know far from all of it.

Thanks.

Thanks to you too, im glad you like it. There is so many hours of work left on this build so I hope for shure that lovepotion doesn't dry up.

...I take that as a compliment.

 

For the blocks' sealing, I suggest you DON'T use a rubber gasket. That's difficult to cut and they stretch and compress all over the place and are generally difficult to get sealed properly, especially with something as insubstantial as a sheet of plexi bolted on top of them. I would personally groove the aluminium and the plexi and put an O-ring in; it looks like your milling skills are more than up to the task and the O-ring should be more than up to the water.

Alternatively, and much easier, you could just use transparent silicone sealant, and screw the covers down and let it dry.

 

Dam! I forgot to mention how sexy those blocks look. Awesome!

 

I'd suggest using o-rings as well. The grooves are easy to design and manufacture, the whole thing is easy to assemble and spare parts are everywhere.
If you decide to make a rectangular o-ring groove just make it deep enough so that the o-ring stays easily in place. Otherwise it is a pain! (What were you thinking Swiftech?!)

 

+1 to o-rings.

 

i wouldn't even bother with O-rings, my personal choice

Your lathe skills should be good enough for this, machine a length of aluminium bar with a matching thread, however the base of the thread, i.e the minimum diameter over size it by 0.1-0.25mm.

That will cause it to run tight in the opposite thread in the block, its simular to how a tapper NPT fitting works. No seals or crap required.

Leave an amount of material above the block face, and machine it off, leaving a virtually invisible fitting.

same done to convert a mini A-series engine with a BMW bike cylinder head, the push rod holes have been tapped and filled with the above method, and this seals against oil pressure.



4.37min is where it show what i am on about



Far cleaner method!

 

Thanks a lot for that info. I've never worked with O-rings or rubber gaskets before and therefore I thought rubber gaskets were safer since. I will for shure try to use O-rings in the future. However at this moment I'm not shure I'will be able to use O-rings on the next block without changing the whole idea because I only got a space of around 2mm to machine the grove for the O-ring. So I'll give the rubber gasket a try and if it doesn't work, I'll try your idea with the silicone sealant. If that doesn't work either....well I'll have to ditch the plexi and weld it shut..

Thanks

Thanks for the info about rectangular grove. Will keep that in mind.

Nice, always thought that method was a bit difficult, but that looks fairly simple. Thanks alot. I will for shure give it a try, might need it on some of the other watercooling parts. I won't be needing to do that on the block shown above though. Those threaded holes are for 6 hose fittings and the water are supposed to be lead on to other components for cooling.
Gaa...great. You just made me wanna buy a Mini.
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Anyone knows anything about aluminium hose fittings? God or bad? I can see a reason for why they are not common because the possibility of them deforming when tightening to much, but apart from that I don't see anyting to bad..

 

Using different metals in a waterloop is generally a bad idea. Anodizing the alu and using water additives will lessen the corrosion but you've been warned.

 

Thanks.. but since all other parts of the waterloop will probably be made out of aluminium I don't see any reason to worry about corosion. However if I decide to use copper, e.g. in the CPU waterblock as I'm thinking of, I will for shure keep in mind to use some water additives.