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Radical CPU waterblock [Update] - Hey guys, I'm back! Window Fixed! 6/22/05

Discussion in 'Project Logs' started by Lemur 6, 24 Apr 2005.

  1. Lemur 6

    Lemur 6 What's a Dremel?

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    The concept:

    Most waterblocks used today on CPUs divert the water in sharp angles, most of them at 180 degrees (into and out of the mobo), or more (spiral/maze designs). This results in high pressure drop between the block due to change in water momentum.

    If the flow of the water is kept linear without using 90 degree bends, the flow restriction is reduced. This has many benefits; you can use a less powerful pump, it increases flow rate throughout the system assuming the block is the most restrictive point in the loop, puts less strain on the pump which results in a more quiet operation, and in my particular design, allows for the use of a largish chunk of copper for larger surface areas.

    K, enough babble, onto the pics:

    [​IMG]
    See? water goes in one side, and out the other side, no sharp 90 degree bends anywhere in sight

    [​IMG]
    Exploded view. Notice impingement jet array set before the fins.

    [​IMG]
    Detail of the fins. They're pretty tall, close to an inch tall. The fin design was "stolen" from the Danger Den TDX waterblock.

    Materials:

    The base will be made from O.F.H.C. (oxygen free high conductivity) copper, or more commonly referred to as Copper 110 series. The window and impingement jet block will be made of polycarbonate or lexan (whatever I can find in my scrap heap pretty much).

    The exterior "jacket" I have a few choices. I can use aluminum (strong, easy to machine, readily available, nice heat conduction for whatever it's worth), but it has galvanic corosion problems when put together with copper, but I think water additive should fix that problem (hey and who says I have to use water?).

    The other option is to use Delrin (Acetal). The nice thing about Delrin is that it machines absolutely beautifully. You can machine it fast, it's strong, doesn't melt like other plastics, chips perfectly every time, and the only other material that holds threads as well is brass.

    Another option is to use brass, but it's soft (hard to machine without leaving vise marks) and heavy as frick (about as heavy as copper, hell it is copper).

    Stainless steel? Heavy, hard to machine (friggin hard to machine, think smoking bits of steel flying everywhere everytime the mill bit hits the material), and you're forever forbidden from taking MR scans because you might have steel bits in your eyes that'll fly through your brain when that magnet turns on (hey you never know when you'll need an MR). So forget that.

    I tried machining the jacket out of aluminum already and I was 75% done, however, I broke a tap drill in one of the holes so I'll have to start over :waah:. I might bite the bullet and just start over with Delrin instead of alu for the initial prototype (it's just that Delrin is fricken expensive and finding a good sized scrap piece is hard to do).

    Now I do need to know a couple things. I need a good drawing showing the placement of the holes relative to the CPU on a Athlon XP and Athlon 64 motherboard. If anyone can provide me with one, or point me to where I can find one, that would be very helpful (I can start designing the hold down plate I plan to use with this block).

    Oh yeah, and if you're wondering how I'm going to cut those fins , I've got a couple tricks up my sleeve that will allow me to cut them to +/- 0.002" accuracy (the space between each fin is 1/8", mill bits follow a rule, they should be no longer than three times the diameter, i.e. the longest 1/8" mill bit I'm going to find is 3/8", unless I get a carbide bit, but at 1" long, no matter what material it's made of, it's gonna flex and tolerances will be off). More on this when I actually get to it...

    Tell me what you think. I generally don't have a whooole lot of time to do this kinda stuff so things might be slow for a bit (so expect updates once a week rather than every other day type of deal), but I'll start cutting again next week and gets some real flesh pics up then.

    -Lemur 6
     
    Last edited: 23 Jun 2005
  2. GigantoR

    GigantoR What's a Dremel?

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    Its a great idea, but have you checked your mobo to make sure you have room for those barbs sticking out like that? I would guess that is the reason nobody has done something like this before.
     
  3. BBurger

    BBurger What's a Dremel?

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    I know zip-all about watercooling - never done it, don't think I actually know anyone in town who has! - but the one problem I can see with having the intake & outlet ports (barbs?) positioned like you've got them is fitting the block onto the motherboard w/ the tubing needed...

    For ex, my Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe in my current 17" case... you've got the DDR sockets ~2" in front, PSU bottom ~1.5" above, mobo rear sockets ~1" to rear, and the northbridge heatsink less than an inch below the Socket A HS clamps.

    I could well be missing something, but I don't think you'd ever get a block w/ horizontal connectors onto this mobo. A bigger tower would move the PSU out of the way, but you'd still be blocked on the other three sides, I think. From what I've seen, this mobo is pretty typical... There must be ATX mobos out there that can fit horizontal connectors, though?
     
  4. Lemur 6

    Lemur 6 What's a Dremel?

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    Hmm... maybe the size is decieving. The block itself is 2.5" in diameter (but subject to change depending on how the prototype fits), and the barbs stick out 1/2" so 3.5" total. I got these initial measurements by looking at how an 80mm fan fits near the socket (I have an Alpha PAL sitting on my processor currently and yeah there's not a lot of space, but it's a big sink). 80mm is a little over 3 inches, but at a diagonal I have about 4 inches. So yes, there's space, but not whole lot.

    The block currently is on the big side too, so the final block might be much smaller than the prototype. The block currently is big enough that it more than covers the surfaces area of an A64 proc under the fins.

    Also, this isn't a really new design. Senfu has a waterblock sort of like it, but uses smooth fins, and Zalman has a GPU block for the new reserator that looks like this (though I don't know what it looks like internally).

    This block is intended to go into a full size tower case, so PSU placement shouldn't be a too much a problem. Also, the ASUS A8N-SLi looks pretty roomy around the socket (top and bottom wise), so shouldn't be too bad.

    I'll do a quick mock up sometime during the week with a PVC model to see how fitting goes in my current mobo.

    -Lemur 6
     
  5. Smilodon

    Smilodon The Antagonist

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    If space is a problem you could just fit in some of those 90 og 45 deg. tube bends... (mabye make some out of chopper that isn't so sharp?) shouldn't make much of a restriction.

    also, you might want to use double o-rings as gaskets. (reduce the risk of leaks..

    ther than that it looks great. (allthough i know nothing about WC)
     
  6. Morpheon

    Morpheon What's a Dremel?

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    FREAKING AWESOME...LOVE THE PORT HOLE TOP (Aquacomputer inspired no doubt!) But yeah the barbs, even if they did fit above any electical components on the mobo you would still have a hell of a time clamping tubes to it. So make some 45 degree barbs (NOT 90 PEOPLE THAT GOES AGAINST THE REASON FOR THE DESIGN!! :thumb: ) but yeah 45 would not do too much the rate of flow...if you make 2 I have cool $100US I give for it for sure!.
     
  7. Temo Vryce

    Temo Vryce What's a Dremel?

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    While I am willing to admit that you have "jet array" set before your fins, it is not set up for impingement. You talk about having no 90 degree angles in you block to avoid flow restrictions yet jet impingement requires the jet of water to strike a surface at right angle to produce it's affect. A quick search on your favorite search engine will show you this information. That being said the design looks good over all and I hope that it works for you.
     
  8. Lemur 6

    Lemur 6 What's a Dremel?

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    Oh, no, not that kind of jet impingment. Umm... how do I say... more like creating a vortex to increase turbulence? I guess it should be called more a nozzle array than a jet impingement array. I can of course just use a flow rate that's just insanely high and it'll be turbulent no matter what, but that requires a large pump.

    Barbs I'm not too worried about, if they're too long, I'll cut them, if I need custom barbs, I'll make them. Trying to find some elegant looking 1/2" compression fittings, but they're all hoooge. Might end up using a 3/8" instead, I think 1/4" might be too small for the block, or I'll need thinner fins which is hard to do.

    Haha, kinda funny that you say that. You'll never guess where I got my inspiration from. I got it from looking at a view port of a high pressure pipe in the lab I work at. Lets see... kinda looks like one of these:
    [​IMG]

    Now if I risk a few leaks here and there, I can set a nice blue LED inside the block and have that same exact effect. But that'll probably come at a much later date.

    All this talk about fitting problems and no one with actual numbers to back it up? There's got to be someone on this forum that knows the dimensions of the holes that are on the motherboard. That'll be the final determining factor of block size since I can't exceed those dimensions, or how am I going to screw the thing down?

    -Lemur 6
     
  9. BjD

    BjD What's a Dremel?

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    Try the AMD website. I was keen to make a block a couple of years ago and found a pdf on there with AMD's thermal specs, including the required location of mounting hardware.
     
  10. Etacovda

    Etacovda What's a Dremel?

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  11. leviathan18

    leviathan18 What's a Dremel?

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    if you make it taller, taller than the average capacitors and put the barbs at the top maybe you wont have any trouble but i think you will disrupt the flow...

    i love the design and the idea is great but i cant see a way to make it standar fit in any mobo i know in my a8n sli will fit but i dont know if is going to fit in any mobo...
     
  12. c.u.later

    c.u.later What's a Dremel?

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    slightly better than the procooling one i just found this:

    linky
     
  13. Lemur 6

    Lemur 6 What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for the link, I found what I needed. I was hunting for those spec sheets about a month ago but couldn't find them, but I found them now. A64 is 3.5" according to the spec sheet, which is just perfect. There's also 4 more holes from the looks of it on an A64 mobo (72 mm x 56 mm), I might and go use those instead.

    Oh sweet, it's got everything. But the dimensions are not very exact (though I don't know how exactly mobo manufacturers adhere to dimensions).

    -Lemur 6
     
  14. c.u.later

    c.u.later What's a Dremel?

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    they are exact apparently, just not drawn too well.
     
  15. Etacovda

    Etacovda What's a Dremel?

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    whoops, you're right, its 3.5" - was a while since i looked at that, sorry :)

    with the other four holes, be careful of motherboard flexing - I believe theres a backing plate on a64's(?) that is meant to stop this; remember, its about 80lb of pressure, or thereabouts, which is significantly more than the 25 on an AXP system.
     
    Last edited: 25 Apr 2005
  16. Lemur 6

    Lemur 6 What's a Dremel?

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    Radical CPU waterblock design - Jacket Fabrication begins 4/26/05

    Hey guys, small update

    Before we start cutting we need...
    [​IMG]
    Engineering drawings. Very important...

    [​IMG]
    Facing off a piece of stock to the correct height and flatness on a lathe

    [​IMG]
    Here we go, just what we need, a blank. Why's it so huge? Well... was the only thing I could find in the scrap heap, no worries, I'll turn it down later...

    [​IMG]
    Making some pilot holes on a Bridgeport with a turn table (CNC? what's that?).

    [​IMG]
    Drill out them holes and tap them!

    [​IMG]
    Lets start opening up that center hole

    [​IMG]
    Bigger...

    [​IMG]
    Even bigger...

    [​IMG]
    Some precision please...

    [​IMG]
    Done, one very precise hole.

    [​IMG]
    Machinist's secret weapon, a good fixture block. Comes in real handy for refinding your angles and edges if you happen to loose them some how.

    [​IMG]
    Making an O-ring groove is tricker than you think because...

    [​IMG]
    It needs to be smooth as hell for it to work properly, i.e. chatter marks, milling marks, scratches, etc, are not allowed.

    I forgot to take pictures of the mockup I made and tested. Seems a little tight, but I think I can make it fit on my mobo even with my chipset sink sitting right below the socket. I might use 3/8" hose rather than 1/2" so the hose doesn't rest on my chipset heatsink and melt a hole. The backplate on the A64 mobos actually comes in handy, I can use the already existing 6-32 threaded holes for mounting.

    Craziness continues later this week...

    -Lemur 6
     
  17. tm36usa

    tm36usa What's a Dremel?

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    All I can say is wow and about a billon of these :jawdrop:

    Thats sweet!!! Wish I had the tools/skill to make something like that. Top notch, cant wait till its done! You got a :thumb: from me!
     
  18. (spc)kuhnkejer

    (spc)kuhnkejer What's a Dremel?

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    nic work you need to turn the out side of that tube and if this works out you need to patent it because companys will be steeling it soon good luck with your set up
     
  19. RotoSequence

    RotoSequence Lazy Lurker

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  20. Machine

    Machine What's a Dremel?

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    i just love CNC work :rock: ...
     

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